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Thursday, June 4th – Do you ever dream that you have woken up? I had one such dream at Worlds last year. It was Sunday morning, after three 12-hour work days (plus a few hours of drafts and EDH), and I was really beat. I dreamt I woke up, fumbled for my glasses, then staggered into the bathroom. I pulled aside the shower curtain, and… A judge leaped out, shouting “Battlewand Oak with Lignify, Runed Stalactite, and a +1/+1 counter on it – quick, what’s its power and toughness?”

Wednesday, June 3rd – When Riki Hayashi introduced me (and the rest of the Justice League) to all you fine StarCityGames.com readers, he mentioned that I am an asker of questions. Now, to be truthful, I ask lots of questions. I like poking and prodding at the assumptions we hold in the DCI as judges. Now that I have an audience, allow me to poke and prod at the assumptions that we – yes, we, even though I don’t think I’ve played FNM in a year – hold as players. So let me ask you this…

Wednesday, June 3rd – Way back in April of 2005, I wrote Entry Six for the Compendium of Alternate Formats. This was a newly updated version of the Chess Magic format that debuted way back in Duelist #4. The great thing about Chess Magic is that is simply is not like a lot of other formats, so it feels really different…

Wednesday, June 3rd – Grand Prix Seattle was this past weekend, and the winner was Yann Massicard playing Doran. Faeries was popular, and we have a ton of MTGCast hosts in the running, including Stan Bessey of Deck Builders placing 14th, Gavin in 73rd, and Conley 187th.

Tuesday, June 2nd – In the past seven days, The Starkington Post (Bill Stark’s daily Magic blog) has brought us extensive coverage from Grand Prix: Seattle, a look at some cool Magic tattoos, and more!

Tuesday, June 2nd – No time to waste, it’s the preview show for the biggest event of the year so far! While Pro Tour: Kyoto saw Standard action, this time around it’s Block Constructed, so only Shards of Alara, Conflux, and Alara Reborn are legal for play. As to the specifics of the format, they remain deliciously unclear…

Tuesday, June 2nd – Online, the Alara Reborn release events are allowing us to draft Shards / Conflux / Reborn, or triple Reborn. Since we have pros looking at the more normal formats, I decided to take a look at drafting pure gold. What works, what doesn’t, and what happens when you draft a whole lot of a small set (besides seeing visions of Reborn cards as you are falling asleep).

Monday, June 1st – I recently had the pleasure of volunteering to edit Patrick Chapin’s new book, and reading Next Level Magic really illuminated some of the fundamentals of the game for me. I’ve been mulling over about how some of those principles they affect multiplayer Magic, and how the Stages of Magic explain why some of my decks win and others languish in the “loss” pile.