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Thursday, April 30th – Cascade will change everything. It is the next broken mechanic, the kind of keyword that only ever comes around once in a while and people later look back on and remark, “I wonder if printing that was really such a good idea…?” I have only played a handful of Block Constructed games with cascade, and even fewer in Standard, yet I already know this is a format-defining addition and one of the most powerful abilities to fall into our card arsenal in quite a while.

Wednesday, April 29th – Gavin and Tom are here this week to bring you all you need to know about Alara Reborn after the prerelease tournaments this weekend. Gavin gives us some great tips on Limited (hint, Borderposts are good!), Block Constructed, Standard and even Extended (Cascade is REALLY good).

Wednesday, April 29th – I am burnt out on Five-Color Control. I’ve been playing it for a very long while, to pretty solid success. I’d played the deck so much that I was showing up and running on autopilot. I wasn’t learning and I wasn’t getting better; I was just coasting to victory on the power of the deck, and my familiarity with it.

Wednesday, April 29th – The reason I hate the term ‘answer’ for cards like Plumeveil is threefold. One, it makes it seem like once you’ve answered a ‘question’ you’re somehow at parity, when in reality you’re pretty far ahead. Three, the term ‘answer’ makes it sound like every card in your deck is supposed to resolve a specific question, when in reality the whole value of cards like Counterspell or Plumeveil is their inherent versatility; that is, they don’t care what question you’re asking.

Tuesday, April 28th – In the past seven days, The Starkington Post (Bill Stark’s daily Magic blog) has brought us talk from the prerelease, more tech for Turbo Grind, a look at the Howling Mine versus Mono Red matchup, and much more!

Tuesday, April 28th – Contrary to popular belief, StarCityGames.com does not give me free cards. I wish! So instead, I prowl the latest cards, looking for bargains. And after set release, I share what I’ve actually purchased, so you can see what I think were the best and most affordable cards at the time the set was released. What did I order this time around, and why?

Monday, April 27th – Like most Magic players who were breathing last weekend, Rich went along to the festival of Prereleaseness. Having Deck Doctored and Gun-Slung his way to inordinate quantities of victories, Rich sets us a challenging pool, and gives some helpful advice to those of us who don’t have Shuuhei Nakamura on speed dial.

Friday, April 24th – Hello folks, and welcome back to the column that investigates various aspects of the casual world. Today I want to discuss the Divine Vs. Demonic decks after having played with them after I got the set from my order with StarCityGames. Luckily, I have a few staff who like the occasional game of Magic, so I was able to get some games in with the new decks, facing off against each other.

Friday, April 24th – Hello, everyone – I’m here to announce that Happy Bennie is back! I know over the last few columns my attitude may have been a bit of a downer given that the metagame was stinking and stagnant once you peeled back the veneer of so-called diversity. What a difference a week makes!

Friday, April 24th – Whenever Prerelease time rolls around, I like spend my column on the before taking a look at the ins and outs of that upcoming format, taking advantage of the fact that my weekly deadline is usually a day or two after the complete spoiler is compiled by mtgsalvation.com. As of the time of this writing it is Wednesday afternoon and we have 145 out of 145 cards spoiled, and while there is no guarantee that each and every card has the exact correct text it is still more than enough to work with in order to figure out how Shards of Alara-Alara Reborn Limited is going to feel.

Friday, April 24th – Hello everybody, and welcome to another edition of the Magic Show. This week we’re going to be delving into Alara Reborn spoilers, and what can I say? This looks to be the best set in years to play and purchase. Future Sight-level goodness all around, we’ll look into just how good Cascade really is, and my favorite cards from the set. Let’s go!