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Ninth Edition, Standard, And You

The Eighth- to Ninth-edition rotation will be upon us soon, with the new cards tournament legal on August 20th. That is the week after US Nationals – after that event, Standard will be played with a new base set. The sheer number of cards rotating is huge; 162 of the cards now in Eighth Edition won’t survive the rotation, if the spoilers floating around the net are to be believed. Basic lands aside, that means that half the set is leaving. What’s that going to do to Standard’s heavy hitters?

SCG Daily: Mana-Flooded In A Good Way

Sasaya has one tough flip trigger. I not only need seven cards in hand – which is a pretty impressive feat for any green deck – but those seven cards have to be lands? Even worse, the condition involves me revealing my hand to an opponent, so if I have a special-secret card I’m hoping to use once Sasaya flips, my opponent will know.

Ugh. You have got to be kidding me. And yet I must build a deck around her….

Put Your Money Where Your Sealed Is: A Closer Look At Magicshop

I was really in a Magicshop mood this past week, so I decided to head online to read what I could about Shop. I figured that somewhere out there, someone had to be doing Shop – maybe someone had written about it. My search found nothing. As such, it seems my duty to write more about Shop, the most electrifying Limited format around.

Darwin At Work: The Evolution Of Fish

Fish has catapulted back into popularity recently, with stronger versions patching the weaknesses of previous Fish decks. Today, we’re going to take a look at WTF and Meandeck Fish to see what sorts of metagames they thrive in, why it’s been so successful lately, and what can be done to stop it.

SCG Daily: Life’s Ups And Downs

I consider Rune-Tail’s flip trigger to be the easiest of the bunch to accomplish. Magic is stuffed full of tricky ways to gain lots of life. But if Rune-Tail is the easiest Ascendant to flip, then Rune-Tail’s Essence is the least dominating legendary enchantment.

Five Months to Tweak Five Ideas: Preparing For The Legacy Grand Prix

Steven Menendian was correct when he argued that some may incorrectly believe Legacy to be “Extended with dual lands and Force of Will.” That’s simply not true. True, it’s not uncommon for Extended decks to make viable ports to Legacy, but that means nothing. Legacy truly is very different than Extended, and there’s almost limitless potential in a largely unexplored format… so let’s start tossing around some ideas.

SCG Daily: A Worthy Sacrifice

There’s a lot going on with Kuon’s flip trigger, and all of it is pretty challenging from a deckbuilding perspective. The most obvious step in flipping Kuon is killing at least three creatures. That’s no easy feat – though black has some built-in answers with the likes of Barter in Blood, Hideous Laughter, Echoing Decay, Death Cloud, and Kagemaro, First to Suffer. Here’s the trick, though: I don’t want Kuon himself to die. So how do we break a creature-killer in what has to be a creature-heavy deck?

The Beautiful Struggle: Fun With Vintage

On Saturday night, I had a rough time at my local poker game. A newcomer had arrived, and he looked like easy pickings. He was drunk as a skunk, slurring his speech and absolutely reeking of alcohol. He literally did not even know the difference between the terms “check” and “call”….
Yet I simply could not beat the guy. Time and again he would call me down and show down a better hand. When I left the game, I was pretty angry – until I realized that karma must have been paying me back. After all, earlier that day I had played in my second Vintage tournament, and somehow managed a Top 4 finish out of thirty or so people.

SCG Daily: Inverting Dragons

As the person who named the Ascendants (yes, I’m proud of my creative writer gig), I’d like to point out that Homura is the first and currently only card with “Human” in its name. Unfortunately, Homura’s creature type matters even less than Erayo’s. No Monk lords exist, and there’s currently debate in R&D whether Humans will ever have a lord of some kind. But fortunately, Homura has another ability that’s a little more enticing…

The Many Flavors Of Fish In Legacy

Fish is one of the most popular decks in Vintage, and it’s equally popular in Legacy… and one of the reasons people love it is because it’s so darned customizable. You can build it out of almost any blue/x color combination, and it does well. But how do you need to change Fish to ensure its success in the creature-hostile Legacy format?

From Right Field: Like White On Rice

The incredible Mister Romeo discusses White Weenie decks in Kamigawa Block – including the all-fun decks “Tom Cruise” (cheap, white Samurai), “Ghost In The Machine” (featuring Spirits, in the material world), and, um, a white deck. That does something really cool, but it’s not much good, but when has that ever stopped Chris?

SCG Daily: Public Enemy Number One

It’s time to unveil the worst, most evil, most vicious and most unfair deck in Magic history. This time out, however, it is not a deck that dominated tournament Magic for season after season. This deck was too mean to last more than a few weeks….

SCG Daily #1: Four Spells In A Turn, Five Colors To Break It

I looooove card cycles. Love ’em. I also love deck brainstorming, pushing myself to think of ways to use a quirky card. Put these two things together, and you have a wonderful way for me to spend the next five days. Here’s how it’s going to work: I pick a card cycle from Saviors of Kamigawa that I think has potential for capital-F Fun. Then, each day this week I’ll focus on one card of the cycle and brainstorm Standard deck ideas. So, um, guess which cycle I started out with?

Last Call Before The Party Ends

I love spirits. I just love them. In my previous articles, I’ve outlined ideas for spirit decks and detailed various strategies — I’ve built a lot of spirit decks, too. With Saviors, we have our last influx of cards. What spirits and arcane spells are worth playing?

SCG Daily: Public Enemy Number Two

It’s the Daily, and this week I’m counting down the five most evil, twisted, and most of all hated decks in Magic history. The decks that made you seriously consider taking up a (comparatively) less painful hobby, like chewing your own arms off, or caber catching, or maybe polka. Today’s deck is second on the list; I’ll name it in a minute.

Before I do, you need to do one thing for me: Here’s an asterisk. Stare at it for 15 minutes.