Tuesday, May 25th – In a break from our advertized scheduling, Antoine Ruel avoids Standard to play a few Magic formats in which the spells are more powerful than the creatures: Legacy and Vintage! Antoine shares his decks, matches, and stories from the recent Bazaar of Moxen weekend in France, packed with broken turns and massive prizes!
Tuesday, May 25th – When you play Magic, you want to win. You can certainly hamstring your deck by playing bad cards or a 2000 card highlander deck or whatever. Still, the very playing of a game implies trying to win. It may not be the goal of playing – I’ve long talked about the goal of playing Magic is to socialize with others and spend times with your friends. You are playing a game, though, and that means you should at least put some effort into trying to win.
Monday, May 24th – Stephen Menendian has been to the future. Specifically, he’s flashed forward to the final Legacy match of Grand Prix: Columbus 2010! In an excellent and fun article, Stephen presents a play-by-play recap of the Legacy final, which promises thrills and spills galore! [Editor’s Note – Patrick Chapin’s article will be here later this week!]
Monday, May 24th – Quentin Martin has always been a fan of the Blue spells. In Rise of the Eldrazi Limited, he’s ecstatic; Blue appears to be the strongest color in the format! Today he takes us through his personal pick orders, and discusses a number of exciting Blue-based archetypes.
Monday, May 24th – Jamie Wakefield continues his quest for a playable Green Standard deck in time for his first foray into the current PTQ season. Today he experiments with a two-color build, decries the state of the metagame, before returning to his good old Mono Green roots. And along the way, he gets very drunk.
Monday, May 24th – Playtesting is overrated. How many Magic writers have penned down that phrase? None come to mind. But if you’ve ever spent time at a high level event, there’s a reason why you can see hundreds of pro levels worth of players running around to find a deck with less than 24 hours before a tournament – and how they can still do well at the event despite a last minute switch.
Monday, May 24th – This week, Doug brings an interesting, original and innovative deck running Upheaval alongside some very old and powerful cards. Find out how to exploit the Stronghold classic Horn of Greed and how a Zendikar uncommon is the key to this Blue-Green deck that aims to reset the board two or three times in a game. You’ll see how the engine works, get rules information regarding how to utilize parts of the deck effectively, and suggested avenues for developing the deck in the future. Don’t miss this chance to read about how to use Upheaval, one of the most powerful cards in Magic, in one of the game’s most popular formats!
Monday, May 24th – The five individuals I chose to talk Vintage with in this article are clearly five of the most revered Vintage card-slingers ever to answer this metaphorical ‘call of the wild’: Luis Scott Vargas, Paul Mastriano, Rich Shay, Stephen Menendian, and Tommy Kolowith.
Friday, May 21st – There have been a slew of new and intriguing decks that have recently come as a result of the various nationwide qualifiers from this past weekend. While I wouldn’t go so far as to say that any of them are new contenders, it’s always nice to see people sit down and come up with brand new decks as opposed to playing the same stale, old fare.
Friday, May 21st – Raphael Levy has not made money at his last three high-profile tournaments. Of course, you can’t keep a good Hall of Famer down, and Grand Prix: Lyon saw him back to winning ways with a solid Top 32 result. He shares his insight on the Rise of the Eldrazi Limited formats, both Sealed and Draft!
Friday, May 21st – Rise of the Eldrazi Draft is proving both incredibly popular and intensely skillful. Today’s edition of Reflecting Ruel sees Olivier serve up a selection of interesting tips and tricks that combine common cards and effects for cool and interactive results. And next week, Drafting with Oli returns!
Friday, May 21st – Can I really be that guy, the one who’s playing Jund? I recognize a desire to be different, to want someone to come look at my new Brew and laud me for my creativity, my creation. I want that. But I want to win more.
Friday, May 21st – If you’re like me, you’ve been drafting Rise of Eldrazi like there’s no tomorrow, or at least picking over the set for cards to give your Standard deck more umph! I’ve head judged a couple of Standard tournaments already and have seen some situations that are very likely to become staple judge calls for the summer.
Friday, May 21st – Hello everybody, and welcome to another edition of the Magic Show. This week we’re going to be talking about Grand Prix: Washington D.C. (that I’ll be attending, live and in person), and the decks I expect to be everywhere at the event. Let’s go!
Friday, May 21st – Inspired by his own article last week, Dave avoided the five-hundred-dollar decks and played a deck that cost under a hundred bucks at his Nationals Qualifier. How did he do? And is the deck viable going forward?
