Monday, May 5th – I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me anymore, seeing Magic twice in one day while half a world away from home. It’s like running into Brian Kowal at the Prague Castle and picking up an extra traveling companion while in the Czech Republic. Or playing cards on a train with German schoolkids out of the blue because Brandon Scheel was wearing his Pro Tour shirt and they happened to be shuffling their decks as we got on…
Monday, May 5th – Christopher Coppola analyzes the deck thinning properties of fetchlands and dispels some misconceptions about their effects.
Friday, May 2nd – The power of a deck’s sideboard is something that is often difficult to quantify. Sure, we may fill our fifteen with cards that should impact the match in Games 2 and 3, but sometimes our meddling does little but dilute our core strategy. Today’s Flores Friday draws on the current Basketball Playoffs to investigate just how we can work to our strengths…
Friday, May 2nd – Playtesting. Everyone does it. Thing is, the actual nuts and bolts behind the process is shrouded in mystery. We throw the decks against a gauntlet, hoping to gain knowledge through games and matches… but what do our results actually mean? And can our data be trusted? Adrian reveals all…
Friday, May 2nd – Next week is the StarCityGames $13,000 Tournament Weekend and you need to be prepared. It will be Shadowmoor legal and the new cards will be in hot demand. Today we’ll be discussing the new Wizards Play Network organized play program, a quick rundown of the Shadowmoor Hits and Misses, and a shiny new deck with a mondo combo so awesome it may just win tournaments. Let’s go!
Friday, May 2nd – With a lot of puttering around with Standard already under our belts, just blindly theorizing stuff and seeing what works, it’s time for some more deck designing to see what sticks. Our Red and Red-Black decks last week didn’t really do anything interesting, and we have seen quite a few aggressive strategies so far, so this week I wanted to try looking at a variety of strategies rather than ‘just’ aggro- or aggro-tempo decks.
Friday, May 2nd – I love Magic. I love building decks, and banging strange combos and theme decks against other players doing the same thing. I love doing that online, when I have a hour here and there. I just don’t love doing it on MTGO 3.0 at the moment.
Thursday, May 1st – Advice in Magic can come from the most unexpected of places. We all read articles, and we all listen to folk we perceive to be better than us… but how can we truly judge the quality and usefulness of such information? Richard Feldman is here to help us remove the cloud of woolly thinking and arm us with laser-guided clarity. Intrigued? Then read on!
Thursday, May 1st – With Pro Tour: Hollywood looming large on the tournament calendar, Kyle Sanchez kicks off his preparations with a look at a cavalcade of exciting Shadowmoor-powered Standard options. There’s the ubiquitous Red/Green, Mono-Black Control, the much-discussed Enchanted Evening Combo deck, and an update on his popular Wizards deck!
Thursday, May 1st – Whenever a new set hits the scenes, Dave likes to revisit his previous decks and see what new and great cards will fit into them. This week, he starts back with the Obsidian Battle-Axe-fueled Warriors deck.
Thursday, May 1st – Hello, and welcome to the final installment of Ye Olde Core Set. Today I’m serving the final meal, featuring a cavalcade of decks that we used to playtest the format.
Wednesday, April 30th – Shadowmoor is here, and the world has gone Hybrid Crazy! Of course, the descent into craziness isn’t so far for some… and for John Friggin’ Rizzo, it’s not even a spin around the block! Today, he shares his prerelease experience in his own unique and opinionated fashion. As usual with JFR… buyer beware!
Wednesday, April 30th – Whenever new cards are added to the Constructed mix, the first port of call is often the Red Aggressive deck. With Shadowmoor packing a number of fantastic additions to the archetype, all should be good… right? Today, Benjamin Peebles-Mundy puts Red Aggro to the test, and explains why the deck may not be the strongest choice for your next Standard soiree. And of course, he offers an exciting alternative…
Wednesday, April 30th – I’ve always hated “pick orders,†because they’re often very arbitrary and many cards relate to one another in a tier-system, anyway. How do you qualify how much better (or worse) Oblivion Ring is to Eyeblight’s Ending in a manner that outweighs the simple factor of color preference?
Wednesday, April 30th – Last week I wrote about the Persistence mechanic, touching on some ideas and concepts that I hope inspired some of you to give the Persistence cards a try. In the deckbuilding forums I’ve seen a lot of folks adopting my Juniper Order Ranger idea into Persistence engines.
