Thursday, April 17th – It’s nearly D-Day. Every time a new set starts to approach, my toes get all tingly with anticipation. Pre-Releases are great chances to get out, interact with new people, get your muddy hands on new cards, and have a good day of fun with a chance of profit. And that applies to everyone, not just the guys who spend fifty-three hours a week playtesting.
Thursday, April 17th – Hello folks, and welcome to the magnum opus of projects here at the Kitchen Table. For the last two weeks I have discussed one of my recent projects – the creation of a (hopefully) balanced Core Set. I think projects like this are a blast. Sure, there is a ton of work involved if you want to do a good job, but it is still a lot of fun.
Wednesday, April 16th – It seems that the current Standard metagame is caught in a rut. Faeries, Elves, Red Green Big Mana… as usual, we’re in the need of some fresh meat. Luis Scott-Vargas is here to help! He looks at some of the more exciting cards available from Shadowmoor, and considers how the major players may adapt come the new release.
Wednesday, April 16th – Shadowmoor is coming, and Standard decks across the globe are waiting for a huge injection of Cool New Toys. Today, Benjamin Peebles-Mundy takes a look at some of the previewed and spoiled cards thus far, and works them into a new take on Red Deck Wins. If you’re a fan of swinging for two, you can’t afford to miss this.
Wednesday, April 16th – Lately, control decks have been subscribing to a tried-and-true Flores theory of “only really control the game until I can tap out for a Dragon and then kill you.†This has proven extremely effective, as per the success of Osyp’s Honolulu Top 8 deck, Wafo-Tapa’s Guile deck, and others. The beauty of Faeries is that you can circumvent even that crucial one-turn window of threat deployment.
Wednesday, April 16th – Last week I talked about how I’m totally bored of current Standard, and I’m wanting to make decks for future Standard, the Standard of the upcoming $5K Mega-Magic Weekend tournament that Star City’s holding on May 10th right here in Richmond. To facilitate that, I began going over the cards officially spoiled as chronicled on the Shadowmoor minisite, and I appreciate all the great comments and feedback from you all in the forums.
Tuesday, April 15th – With Shadowmoor just around the corner, and the prerelease mere days away, Nick Eisel says farewell to the Lorwyn/Lorwyn/Morningtide draft experience. Today’s Limited Lessons takes us through an LLM draft online, using DraftCap and the now-defunct MTGO Version 2.5… Nick brings us each pack and pick, and walks us through the draft process step by step.
Tuesday, April 15th – With the re-emergence of a certain Black sorcery into the Standard arena, a far few players are hoping that hardy perennial Mono-Black Control will return to the metagame as a timely response to the tribal creature builds that plague Constructed. Today, Tom LaPille talks with Grand Prix: Vancouver Top 4 competitor Zack Hall, and together they flesh out the Mono-Black idea…
Tuesday, April 15th – For many of us the next big tournament will be a combination of City Champs and/or Regionals, and while it’s true that Shadowmoor’s imminent release will no doubt shake up Standard as we know it, today we’re going to look at a few of the top decks in Standard as they are right now, where they win, where they lose, and what they might benefit from in Shadowmoor. Buckle in…
Tuesday, April 15th – At the moment, things are a little weird for writing, Standard is waiting for the Shadowmoor release, and with Magic Online down, there’s nothing to talk about in the short term about any interesting designs. Meanwhile, in Vintage there’s the age-old debate about some card that should or shouldn’t be restricted. This time Flash is the card on which everyone has their sights.
Monday, April 14th – Shadowmoor is coming, and the world is readying itself for the New Cards. Over on
MagictheGathering.com, official previews have littered the sight for a number of days. Today, Mike looks at each of them and
examines how they might fit into Constructed. If you’re looking for those sleeper hits before they come alive, look no further!
Monday, April 14th – Last week’s excellent So Many Insane Plays saw Vintage master Stephen Menendian break down an exciting Tyrant Oath versus Flash matchup. Oath triumphed 2-0 that day, mainly on the back of excellent draws. Will the Tyrant’s luck hold out this week…?
Monday, April 14th – With only 13 fewer endings than ‘Return of the King,’ Rich Hagon’s trilogy on mental techniques designed to up your winning percentage comes to a conclusion with an in-depth look at Steve Sadin, and takes in techniques employed by Cheon, LSV, van Lunen, the Belgians and more that can give you the edge the next time you sit down to cardboard conflict.
Monday, April14th – Pernicious Deed. Damnation. Garruk Wildspeaker. Death Cloud. While writers argue about whether to run powerful cards or cards that synergize, Kevin Binswanger invites you to do both.
Monday, April 14th – A lot of people submitted cards that, thanks to careful tweaking, would almost be useful in certain circumstances. I couldn’t quite rule these out as crap rares because, well, it seemed like there might be some way to make a good deck out of them. So I’m now chaining one contest into another, and asking you to break the “terrible” cards that others have sent me!
