Last week’s Mock Block tournament proved to be a great success, and another is in the pipeline soon. Today, Josh takes us through some of the observations made when playing the format, and sets out a blueprint for success. If your Block deck of choice can’t tick the checkboxes here, it’s back to the drawing board!
Are today’s Extended decks as good as those of years past? To find out, 32 of the best of the best — including five decks from this past season — are fighting it out in a single elimination tournament. It’s a battle of monsters — and banned cards: Time Spiral, Memory Jar, Survival of the Fittest, Necropotence, Dark Ritual, Entomb, Tolarian Academy, Demonic Consultation and Replenish are all in play. Can Duress, Force of Will and Wasteland really beat PT: Tinker brokenness? Let’s find out.
It’s official — Wild Pair and Slivers are the Block Constructed Soup du Jour. The world and his mate, it seems, are on the lookout for the perfect way to pair these two strategies. We’ve heard from Nick Eisel, from Patrick Chapin, from Evan Erwin… Now it’s Mark Young’s turn. Still wondering how to get the most from this six-mana game-altering enchantment? Maybe Mark has the strategies for you!
Chris takes two copies of the Ritual of Rebirth preconstructed deck, and smashes them together in an attempt to fuse a competitive casual deck from the resultant debris. However, this time he’s up against it. Where oh where is the precious removal? Can a deck survive on creatures alone? Or did Chris cave and supply some creature-kill of his very own? Read on to find out!
This week I pay homage to the original puzzler, Mark Rosewater. His “Trade Away” puzzle from the Magic: The Puzzling book has always been one of my favorites. Hopefully you’ll enjoy this week’s brain-bender as much as I enjoyed the original.
Bennie faces off in this week’s Battle of the Bens with a few choice words for our own Mr Bleiweiss! He follows them up with a look at one of the new graveyard-acquainted cards from the approaching Future Sight, talks us through some Magic Online games, an jumps on the Wild Pair bandwagon with a few Time Spiral Block Constructed decks of his own…
Ferrett opens a very strong card pool in this week’s Sealed Deck exercise… But he has second doubts not about the cards themselves, but the way he sorts them. How should a Sealed Deck writer sort his card pool in order to show what he really thinks of each of the cards? He’s got some ideas, but he needs your help!
After last week’s parody of a particularly florid Flores, Sean drops the quill and returns to touch-typing. He shares an interesting Standard deck that utilizes four copies of the two Suspend Guys du Jour: Detritivore and Aeon Chronicler. With an IPA Qualifying Event locked firmly between his beady little Swayze eyes, he cocks and pulls and lets fly with both barrels!
Official Future Sight sneak previews have begun popping up, and the set looks completely insane! At least one card that’s been spoiled is guaranteed by Ben to be banned / restricted. Read today’s edition of The Real Deal to find out about Future Sight, new card frames, and much more!
Evan’s latest edition of the Magic Show tackles a number of interesting and evocative topics in video format. We have the age-old Online versus Real Life debate, a decklist for the entertaining Combo Slivers archetype, and a call put to a Magic player no longer with us. Pull up a chair, grab your popcorn, and bang on!
Countdown to Grand Prix Columbus! In this article, Chris Coppola takes a look at the Little Red Men. He analyzes the mechanics of Goblins, and discusses strategies for building and playing an optimal version.
One-seventy five! Hello folks, and welcome to the 175th anniversary of my happy column. If I had the gumption, I’d look up what the special word for 175th anniversary is. However, I’d rather write about Magic than spend five minutes researching a word I’ll never use again. Besides, I used “gumption” in a sentence… I don’t think it’ll get much better than that.
Rock deck owners never put the deck away. They don’t. We just quietly have it, tucked behind all the others, in its own little deck box. It’s almost always got special sleeves, too. Not too new, don’t want people thinking we’re sleeving it up for the next tournament. That’d be silly, because, you know, Rock’s No Good Right Now. But like your favorite dancing shoes, or that embarrassing shirt with the slogan, or that beanie your grandmother gave you and you just can’t bring yourself to get rid of, you keep it.
After a fubar with article content last week, Zac returns with a look at two interesting Time Spiral Block Constructed decks that are ready to rock the format! He brings us the lowdown on the Defining Cards of the Format, and helps prepare us for the Little Constructed Season That Could.
I love Block Constructed. I hope you do too. Let’s face it, Block is the Constructed format for the true connoisseur. You can keep your Vintage, your Legacy and Standard… Block is officially where it’s at! Today’s Online Outlook takes a look at the current Magic Online Block Constructed metagame… is Teferi conquering all, or does the Soltari Priest send everyone running for cover?
