You know them by heart. Some of them have been plaguing you for almost a year. They pop up with an aggravating regularity to steal games from you that you should have won, or to turn happy-fun games into irritating crawls. But now that we’ve all had our fill of the format, what is the single most annoying card in Time Spiral Limited? Witness as the worst offenders are hauled up before the court!
It is impossible to play a control deck in Legacy without a concrete understanding of the metagame, and the role in which each deck fits within it. There is simply too much range of strategy to cover all bases at once, without knowing specifically what aspects of strategy you must contain in any given matchup. A player new to Legacy is unlikely to pick up a deck like Landstill and pilot it with success, because control in Legacy is extremely complex.
Hello everybody, and welcome to another edition of the Magic Show. This week’s show is a very special occasion—we’re dedicating the entire running time to Wizards of the Coast’s own Aaron Forsythe. Yes, the man, the myth, the legend himself, Aaron is King Crap of Turd Mountain in the Magic world, and it’s time he got his due.
For a short while, Life from the Loam and Seismic Assault are going to be legal in Standard together, and with access to the newly-printed Horizon Canopy you might not even notice that the deck is a lot less powerful than in Extended without cycling lands. If everyone’s less powerful than an Extended deck, after all, you can make do with your still-good analogue to the ridiculously potent Loam engine.
I expect to move shortly. If I get the word that I am moving, then I won’t have long to actually pack and move. As such, I am preparing now for the move. The grad school I applied to last week is overseas. I can’t take that many things with me if I go. I want to take Magic, sure, but the move itself demands that I cut off a lot of my possessions and that means winnowing my Magic collection to the bare essentials. How does one go about doing that?
Lots of people think Green/White is a poor beatdown deck, because it has no one-drops and runs only-slightly-relevant cards like Edge of Autumn. Lots of people point out that a beatdown deck will often win a big event, but a control deck proves to be the best choice for the PTQ field. Lots of people think they beat Green/White. Lots of people are wrong.
We’re at the bi-annual time when I look back at the cards that were in the Core (nee Base) set to which hardly anyone paid any attention, and with which you won’t be able to play in Standard once the new Core/Base set becomes Standard legal. In other words, the cards we missed in Ninth Edition that aren’t coming back in Tenth Edition (a.k.a. X).
As you read this, Magic Game Day will be just three days away. Magic Game Day is the equivalent of a prerelease for Tenth Edition, and a lot of stores will have special events. It’s more widespread than official prereleases — almost any store that runs FNM may well have Magic Game Day events. These stores will have special foils, etc — but the main reason to attend is because the cards look good.
By the time this goes up, I’m sure my fellow columnists (and likely those on) other sites will have weighed in on the significance of the Tenth (X) Edition rotation. Typically, these columns will talk about specific cards leaving the base set, specific cards being added, and how that will impact various metagames. As someone who spends far too much time musing on Magic, I’ve got my own opinions on this too, but I thought I’d approach it a little differently…
I’ve been really theory-intensive for the last several weeks, so I’m going to shift gears today and simply talk about decks. We’ve got two rogue lists to look at – both of which were designed by other people—and a concept I’ve been toying with that I bet some of y’all could make work if you put the time and effort into it.
This article’s designed for the aid of players with moderate experience and aims to help them do well and enjoy the release tournaments at Magic Game Day. (Or whenever Tenth happens to hit Magic Online.) If you’re an old hand and are bringing a less experienced friend to Magic Game Day, print this out and hand it to them. I know the article’s long, but it’s important for newer players to grasp the idea of evaluating cards.
There are two basic types of Reanimator deck shells that are proven to work in the Block Constructed format. The first is the basic aggro Reanimator shell, which involves Gathan Raiders and Looter Il-Kor backed by Bridge from Below, Body Double, and Dread Return. Akroma, Angel of Wrath and Bogardan Hellkite are the two main reanimation targets in just about every Reanimator build seen thus far.
In a change from our advertized schedule, I’m veering away from the Online world this week, into the murkier, flabbier, and more pungent world of the Real Life PTQ. Join me for this inspiring tale of control mirrors, 13/13 regenerators, and Terry.
Kyle continues his epic tale of Grand Prix: Montreal madness. This week he brings us a look at the tournament itself, and runs through his wins and losses in detail. He also brings us the latest build of his U/W Pickles deck, his weapon of choice for the upcoming PTQ season. And, as usual, there’s a sprinkling of the usual Sanchez insanity…
July 3rd was, as noted previously, The Ferrett’s birthday. And the universe gifted him with a whopping beauty of a card pool to make the day more special! What sort of sweet cards did he get? Tune in to find out!
