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Ideas Unbound – A Standard Blue/White Primer
Friday, May 14th – I actively enjoy the playtesting process. I view matchups as puzzles to be solved, and am happy to sit down for an afternoon and just iterate games, keeping exhaustive notes and wondering what could have caused games to go differently until I figure out optimal strategies and important tactical plays.
Positive EV – A Look at Legacy: Two Matchups Redux
Friday, May 14th – Legacy is a format with a fan-base that’s expanding fast. Today, Manuel Bucher plays two Legacy matchups against playtest partner Antoine Ruel, throwing Survival Bant against Reanimator and Zoo against ANT. We’ve heard Antoine’s side of the story… now Manu has his say!
At the Gathering – The Standard Case For…
Friday, May 14th – Today, we’re going to be looking at a couple of cards, and making a case for why these cards may be a good choice for your main deck and/or sideboard in Standard right now. Now, each of these cards may or may not be right for your deck, but hopefully, we’ll see a strong enough case for each.
Too Much Information – StarCityGames.com Legacy Open: Atlanta
Friday, May 14th – Legacy continues to be a diverse metagame with many viable decks. While Reanimator and Ad Nauseam made the finals, neither deck put up very good numbers on the day. The format continues to be a game of Rock €“ Paper €“ Scissors – Lizard €“ Spock with many match-ups where one deck has a sizeable advantage. With a busy June coming up, get the information and get ready!
The Magic Show #188 – Deckbuilder’s Toolkit Examined
Friday, May 14th – UPDATED with THREE NEW VIDEOS! – Hello everybody, and welcome to another edition of the Magic Show. This week we’re doing things a little differently – I’ve got two copies of the incredibly cool new product, the Deckbuilder’s Toolkit direct from Wizards, and I wanted to do something cool with them – like build decks! So that’s exactly what I’ve done.
Tribal Thriftiness #112 – That’s A Spicy Meatball
Friday, May 14th – Still looking for a deck option for National Qualifiers that won’t make you feel like you helped fund an oil spill cleanup? Dave offers a couple of options, including a new take on a spicy local concoction.
Insider Information – Blue/White Control For The Nationals Qualifier Metagame
Friday, May 14th – The Nationals Qualifiers are held this weekend, and Cedric Phillips is ready with his personal take on the hardy perennial Blue/White Control. Today, he shares his personal decklist, one that eschews such staples as Baneslayer Angel, and he presents a selection of matchup and sideboarding guides!
The Dragonmaster’s Lair – Rise of the Eldrazi Limited
Friday, May 14th – Rise of the Eldrazi has finally hit Magic Online, and drafting the format is proving to be insanely fun! Brian Kibler is a definite fan of this forty-card format, and today he shares his views on a selection of cards and strategies that he believes are either stronger or weaker than they seem…
The Pro Perspective – Sharpening Your Skills
Thursday, May 13th – Today’s edition of Pro Perspective sees Raphael Levy offer a selection of playtips for sharpening your skills. He suggests that while practice is important, imperfect practice merely reinforces imperfect play, and he presents a number of ideas to help us break from such a downward spiral.
Yawgmoth’s Whimsy #335 – Fifty Prereleases
Thursday, May 13th – Last weekend, I played in the online Rise of the Eldrazi Prerelease. Between rounds, I skritched the dogs, made lunch and otherwise killed time. I thought about past prereleases and release events. After some quick math, I realized that this was probably my fiftieth set release event. That’s a decent excuse to get nostalgic, so come with me while I wander through history.
One Step Ahead – Reanimating Monsters in Atlanta: An Open Weekend Report (Part 2)
Thursday, May 13th – Last week, Gerry Thompson regaled us with tales from the Standard portion of the StarCityGames.com Atlanta Open Weekend. Today, it’s the turn of the tournament story we’re all eager to hear: Gerry’s excellent Final finish in the Sunday Legacy event!
The Wescoe Connection – A Standard Polymorph Primer
Thursday, May 13th – While people are clamoring for Standard tech, and sleeving up UW Planeswalkers, Jund, and Mythic Conscription, it seems that the pre-Rise hype for Polymorph has died down. Today, Craig Wescoe rekindles the fire for this shape-shifting strategy… He presents a detailed Polymorph primer in time for Nationals Qualifiers this weekend!
Practical Legacy – Suicide’s Dilemma
Thursday, May 13th – The Suicide archetype has an impressive record of success in Legacy’s history. Earlier builds like Deadguy Ale (B/W), which were slower but much more disruptive, made an early splash. As the metagame and the card pool changed, so did the design of Suicide decks. There was a brief period where Red Death (B/R), a much more aggressive deck using cards like Phyrexian Negator and Lightning Bolt, performed very well.
Best of the West – Manabases in Action
Thursday, May 13th – In the last week hanging out with Zvi Mowshowitz, he said something that struck me: approximately, ‘I don’t build decks the way most people build them. First I look at the mana and what I can do with it, and then build everything else on top of that.’ This didn’t come as too much of a surprise to me since land selection is the first step of every deck design in my process, but I had been overlooking the fact that most people do not do this.