Thursday, February 26th – I’m sure you’re wondering what exactly close reading has to do with tournament level Magic. Close reading is an excellent way to analyze cards in a new archetype and why they are important, along with their strengths and weaknesses. This method is easiest to understand when you see it applied, so I’m going to jump in with an example…
Thursday, February 26th – My articles are all going to be dedicated to the penalty guidelines. There has been a lot of controversy surrounding penalties, and I think it’s important to bridge the gap between judges and players in understanding the why’s and what’s of the penalty guidelines. Hopefully, along the way I’ll be able to help some people avoid getting punished for doing things they didn’t even know were worthy of penalties.
Thursday, February 26th – MTGO had a rocky week last week, and Wizards offered Nix Tix 10th Edition drafts to make up for it. Could that get me to draft a core set? Yup. Then, after a weekend of thinking about the core set more, I saw Aaron Forsythe’s article on changes to core sets. That has a lot of implications – let’s look at some.
Wednesday, February 25th – The next stop on the Grand Prix trail sees the Magic populous descend on Chicago for a weekend of Hot Legacy Action. Manuel Bucher, currently living it large in Kyoto, brings us his White Stax deck, and talks about the four artifacts that he believes underpin the format. If you’re looking for a powerful deck for the coming GP, this is the article for you!
Wednesday, February 25th – Every Counterbalance strategy is basically just the same 24 core cards, along with a varying land count of 18-24 and some window dressing to make them seem like completely different decks. Shocking, I know… decks that are based around the same strong card are really the same despite five variations of it existing? Blasphemy!
Wednesday, February 25th – The eyes of the worlds are looking East to the approaching Pro Tour, with Standard and Alara-Conflux Limited on everyone’s mind. However, the Extended Pro Tour Qualifier season continues apace, and today’s Down And Dirty sees Kyle Sanchez bring us an exciting four-color Good Stuff deck that offers decent matchups against a number of the major players in the metagame.
Wednesday, February 25th – Hello everybody, and welcome to the first of three hour-long talks recorded on the Carnival Ecstasy a few weeks ago. Yes, even though most didn’t get the chance to go that doesn’t mean you can’t take in the discussions had while at sea. In this hour-long discussion, Hall of Famer Mike Turian talks about developing Conflux, his favorite cards, development stories, and where certain cards and mechanics come from. Enjoy!
Wednesday, February 25th – Today I will be talking about one of the core issues that affect casual deckbuilders, especially those on a budget: Mana. One of the things I intend to do, is walk you through mana over time, and thereby show you what lands are out there for your deckbuilding needs. Not every casual player was playing Magic way back when, so cards like Terminal Moraine or Rainbow Vale might have fallen through the cracks.
Wednesday, February 25th – Last week, I promised you some Standard deck-lists, and I have plenty of new ideas for you. Let’s jump into the Standard card pool and see what we can dig up. After that, I have a nice tip on how to build a manabase.
Wednesday, February 25th – On this week’s edition of MTGCast, there’s talk on the Pauper format, Magic Online, and much more!
Tuesday, February 24th – The Standard metagame pre-Conflux had a number of interesting strategies at its cutting edge. Red/White Reveillark Aggro, or “Boat Brew,” was a particularly strong contender. Adrian believes that, at the coming Pro Tour, Boat Brew will be the strongest and most successful archetype… do you agree with this assertion?
Tuesday, February 24th – Pro Tour: Kyoto is fast approaching, and our game’s top players are heading east. Today, Sam Black brings us his thoughts on Standard going into the tournament, breaking down the metagame with reference to recent tournaments, including the top decks from last weekend’s StarCityGames.com $5000 Standard Open!
Tuesday, February 24th – A lot of players talk in the forums about how decks by authors like Chapin, GerryT, and myself are light on ‘win conditions.’ Without a big tap-out fatty to end the game quickly, they worry they won’t be able to finish their matches on time. This sentiment isn’t entirely unreasonable, but there are so many ways to solve the problem of time limits without having to resort to making your deck worse. This article will outline a few of them.
Tuesday, February 24th – This week, Doug tackles the emergent Natural Order combo, using the antique Visions sorcery to Tinker Progenitus into play. How can Legacy players handle this new strategy when the common tools in Legacy can’t target the monster? What decks could pack this combination, and what should you watch out for? Get this, along with a pragmatic assessment of preparing for Progenitus at Grand Prix: Chicago, in this week’s article.
Tuesday, February 24th – Get your card marked – not your cards marked, because that would be cheating – for Pro Tour: Kyoto, as Rich brings you a ton of background on the names you’ll be hearing at the top tables all next week.
