Friday, October 24th – The Star City Games $5K Standard Open is this weekend in Richmond, and it is bound to be the most influential Standard tournament of them all when it comes to reshaping the States metagame. But what shapes its metagame?
Friday, October 24th – Christopher Coppola reports on his performance at the Source Tournament and discusses some major changes to the Goblin archetype.
Thursday, October 23rd – In lieu of giving out money as prizes, Wizards hands out Promotional Cards for any number of occasions. Attend the Shards of Alara Prerelease, get a foil Ajani Vengeant! Judge a high level event and Wizards will compensate you with shiny Yawgmoth’s Wills and Decree of Justices! Heck, just by playing in enough matches you get a textless foil Cryptic Command! If Wizards is picking all of the right cards, why are the values of these cards going all wrong? Find out in today’s Insider Trading!
Thursday, October 23rd – With the StarCityGames.com $5K Standard Open only days away, Richard Feldman brings us the results from an extensive testing session with Blue/White Merfolk. He throws it against some of the more popular strategies from the fledgling metagame, including Five-Color Control, Faeries, and Mono-Red.
Thursday, October 23rd – This past Saturday I got to play in another Elder Dragon Highlander game. This time we only had seven people muster out. Last time I didn’t get to play, and they tried something different – letting everyone choose an old Vanguard card from Arena seasons past to go with their general, and from what I hear things got a little degenerate due to the combo engines you could set up. This time around they decided to cull the “broken” Vanguard cards and hand out the rest to people at random…
Thursday, October 23rd – I just got back from Grand Prix: Kansas City, and am packing for Pro Tour: Berlin. Since I’m judging, and not playing, my prep work has a zero tech factor. I can’t tell you about the new Extended, or whether using Obelisks to power out fatties beats speed rush decks in Shards Sealed. The best I can do is pull back the curtain a touch on how the big shows operate.
Thursday, October 23rd – In Five Color, there has been a long and respected history of re-arting your cards. When you re-art your card, you are adding or deducting from the published art in one of many ways. You might be adding a new spin on the art, or you might be enhancing the color in a picture. What my playgroup began to do was to re-art by deduction instead of adding more.
Wednesday, October 22nd – Patrick Chapin had high hopes for Grand Prix: Kansas City… sadly, fickle fate decreed that he wouldn’t be rocking out the draft tables on Day 2. Nevertheless, fun times were had by all, if you ignore the hideous journey that began their adventure. Patrick regales us with humorous tales of Grand Prix excess…
Wednesday, October 22nd – With Shards of Alara Draft going live online this coming Friday, Nick Eisel brings us a breakdown of one of the fastest archetypes in the format: Aggro Black/Red. Drafting With Nick, and Drafting With Rich, returns this coming Monday, when Nick will be putting all this theory into practice!
Wednesday, October 22nd – Bucking tradition, I have actually been writing about Magical strategy the last few weeks, and because of that there are a few things I wanted to talk about that have been kicked, at least momentarily, to the curb. I’m about to embark on what amounts to 4 weeks of travel over six weeks, so this is one of the last times to like collect my thoughts and cover a broad variety of topics. I’ll end with a brief discussion of Extended, and as a minor bonus, some Standard “technology†that will hopefully improve your matchups across the board.
Wednesday, October 22nd – In a follow-up to last week’s number-crunching festival of stats, Rich ups the ante with another 53 Sealed Pools to analyse. But these don’t come from a PTQ. Oh no. Ruel, Ruel, Levy, Fortier, Mueller, Thaler, Joens, Lybaert, Gregoir, Meulders and 43 others make up the largest detailed Pro analysis of this Limited format.
Wednesday, October 22nd – We had two major tournaments this weekend, Grand Prix: Paris and Grand Prix: Kansas City. We give you a rundown of the winners and some general strategy for Shards of Alara sealed deck. Gavin talks a bit more about the rapidly approaching Pro Tour: Berlin and his preparation. We are exceptionally excited for the upcoming Jace vs Chandra Duel Decks with alternate art Counterspell, Fact or Fiction, Incinerate, Seal of Fire and of course, the two planeswalkers…
Tuesday, October 21st – Last week, Billy Moreno brought us an exciting anti-control Reveillark deck. Yesterday, Benjamin Peebles-Mundy shared the latest installment of his popular “My Lark†series. Today we complete the Reveillark Trifecta, as Gerry Thompson puts down the Vivid lands and picks up the 4/3 flying elementals…
Tuesday, October 21st – In the current Standard, the supposed top-dog is Five-Color Control. The optimal build is hardly unanimous, if such a thing even exists right now, and it causes at least four articles a week to be written about its awesome visage. From the limited reports coming in, it seems as if Reflecting Pool Control decks of all shapes and sizes have become the majority of the metagame.
Tuesday, October 21st – The addition of a fourth rarity was always going to impact the secondary market… or was it? Dave explores the financial side of the new mythic rares in Shards of Alara.
