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You CAN Play Type I #121: Back to Basics, Part XI: Counting Shadow Prices, Unifying the Theories of Magic

Don’t worry, the formulas in this article aren’t serious, I’ve had it with fancy math. Last week, I snuck into the cafeteria for a bite, and the only other person there was a grad student from the neighboring college, studying calculus models for a Macroeconomics midterm. Missing my Bachelor’s in Economics days, I took the seat beside her, put on a big smile, and asked,”So, what’s your favorite equation?”

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Food For Thought: One Man’s Junk…

The Darksteel spoiler has what appears to be a “new” Tinker, Reshape, once again keeping with Wizards’ tradition of taking a broken card and “fixing” it into a virtually unplayable replacement. But if you want a Tinker replacement, what about the underrated and overlooked Trash for Treasure?

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From Right Field: Any Goblins Will Do

“So, you’re not playing Goblins right now just because they’re finally so good that people who wouldn’t normally even look at Goblins are playing them? You’re not being fair to yourself. You’ve always loved Goblins. It’s not like you’re jumping on the bandwagon. Heck, you were driving that bandwagon in the Summer of 2001 when you played that silly deck with Goblin Ringleader. Go on. Play Goblins. You know you want to.”

So, of course, I did…

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Oscar Tan’s Sordid Love Life… Revealed!

I was really going to title this article “This is Type 1. Playing Fair Sucks,” but I thought that this one was catchier. Anyway, this week, I’ll be going over one of everyone’s favorite buzzwords in Type 1,”collateral damage,” and give you the inside scoop on Oscar”Cinnamon Buns” Tan.

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Details of Card Advantage: Theorizing With Doobie

To start from the beginning, Card Advantage was an idea born out of the fact that Magic: the Gathering is at heart a resource battle, and that the initial resources are cards. Thus it was from here that it seemed easy to take the first step toward the foundation of the theory: whoever had the most resources (or then specifically the most cards), would or should win. With this general starting idea, we have something that is both simple and useful. However, as we later found out, this was not always completely correct in the way things were defined.

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18,000 Words: Why Do You Hate Me, Randy Buehler?

Randy Buehler hates me.

Why do you hate me, Randy Buehler? What have I ever done to you? I invite you to draft out of my big draft box at every event, and you shun me. All I did was write one little stinky Magic article that you disapproved of, and suddenly I’m treated like a leper in a mosh pit.

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Anything Geordie Can Do, I Can Do Better!

While I have quit playing Magic, I have not quit playing Fish. I own seventy-five Magic cards, not counting stuff I haven’t managed to sell off yet because they are junk rares left over from our Team Sealed experience, and drafting to practice for the Pro Tour. And if Geordie thinks he’s being cute and rogue for the end of the Extended season, well, I was in line first.

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The Snapping Thragg Experiment Revisited, Part 3

Yep, he broke the database… twice. But it’s worth it.

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The Snapping Thragg Experiment Revisited, Part 2

Draft Two analysis and side-by-side comparisons of the outcomes.

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The Snapping Thragg Experiment Revisited

The experiment works like this. I build the packs for an entire 8-man booster draft (twenty-four packs). I then build the same set of packs again, making two copies of the exact same draft. I have my CMU cohorts sit down and draft once, and then for the second run of the same draft, I move the packs back three seats so that different people are drafting different packs even though both of the drafts are identical. The object, of course, is to see how different people draft the same exact set of packs.

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The Magic University: On Magic Theory

Today, I’m going to explain why Magic Theory is important, what’s wrong with Magic Theory in general, and how to fix the problems. I’m going to set forward some rules and guidelines that should be followed when writing about theory. And… I’m going to introduce you to the hallowed digital halls of The Magic University.

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The StarCityGames.com $59.99 Booster Box Sale Continues!

StarCityGames.com recently acquired a small quantity of Chinese Torment and Chinese Invasion booster boxes, and we’ve put them on sale for the incredibibly low price of $59.99 each! This is the last weekend for this sale, so if you want to get your hands on some super cheap boxes, click here!

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Food for Thought: Suicide Black in Standard

Suicide Black has a basic premise: Play undercosted spells with drawbacks and disrupt your opponent, while you crush them with a stack of cardboard. The style of play is shoot first, ask questions later. It doesn’t matter that you are killing yourself in the process — because out of all twenty points of life that you and your opponent have, only the last one counts.

I have made Top 8 twice with this deck in fairly large unsanctioned tournies (eighty people). The first time, I thought I was just lucky. The second time, I figured that maybe this deck has something going for it.

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Discuss: The Long.Dec And Winding Road, Part 1b

In September I drove to Akron, Ohio and played in a Beta Mox tournament, which I won handily with Long. Then, November 2nd I flew to Kansas City, Missouri to play in a Power Blue tournament. First place was Ancestral Recall, Time Walk, and Timetwister, while Second place was a Mox Sapphire. I was going to wait to present this report after December 1st, if the DCI decided not to Restrict Lion’s Eye Diamond because I was going to do another article series updating the deck and going into more detail on how to play it.

That’s kind of moot now though, so you get two tournament reports instead and more thoughts on 2003 and Long.dec.

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The Madness of King Geordie

I’m here to give you deck for the end of season PTQ’s, if you’ll let me. It’s a good one. I’ve played it in two PTQs, I T8’d one, and went 4-2 drop in the other, after keeping a sketchy hand in Game 3 of Round 6. If I’d kept my thinking cap on and taken the mulligan that the hand in question so rightfully deserved, I would have been playing for T8 once again.

The deck is cheap and easy to build – you’ll have no problem getting it together. It has many good match-ups, tends to crush rogue strategies, and has a chance against any opposing monster simply because of the possibility of an”I win” draw.

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