Tuesday, March 11th – Magic Online: a blessing and a curse. Testing and drafting on MTGO can be a fantastic experience when flowing smoothly… but throw a server crash in there, and we have tears and tantrums galore. Today’s Arcane Teachings sees Tom look at the strengths and weaknesses to online play from a self-improvement perspective, and argues that although the benefits are there, they maybe aren’t as tangible as it appears…
Tuesday, March 11th – Today I’ll be having a look at the fresh results from the Standard Grand Prix in Shizouka, hopefully giving us some insight into the Standard format a month before Pro Tour: Hollywood.
Tuesday, March 11th – Join Rich Hagon as he sifts through the Pro data from Kuala Lumpur. Who’s up, who’s down, who might be heading for Player of the Year Contention, and who might be heading for the exit… it’s all here.
Monday, March 10th – So I played Rock Band all weekend with some pals, staying up until five in the morning to live the high life by strumming a plastic ukelele. And now, bereft of sleep or good sense, I get possibly one of the most complex Sealed pools I’ve ever opened. What would you do with good cards scattered across the colors like this?
Monday, March 10th – Patrick Chapin, it seems, is in love with Counterbalance. Not content with shaping the Extended metagame with Next Level Blue, or watching Threshold take the little Blue enchantment and run to the hills, The Innovator is determined to see it played in every format available. Today, he squeezes the Coldsnap control staple into Vintage Flash, with surprising and promising results…
Monday, March 10th – Stephen has been working overtime this week… In today’s edition of So Many Insane Plays, the Vintage World Champion brings us the lowdown on every single playable deck in the format! From the top decks, to the Contenders, to the Marginal Players, to the Dark Horses, this article has it all. Brilliant stuff from the format’s finest…
Monday, March 10th – When Wizards of the Coast made the recent announcements about changes to their Organized Play programs, it seemed everyone and their mother had something (unkind) to say. A month later we’re still waiting for the gang in Renton to hit us with what they’ve cooked up for replacements. While those program re-designs are in more than capable hands, today we’re going to look at the OP programs of two card games which have sought to compete with Magic directly to find out if there’s anything Magic might benefit in learning from them.
Monday, March 10th – Christopher Coppola updates his standing banned list recommendations and discusses the reasons for the changes.
Friday, March 7th – This week, Mike turns away from the vagaries of the seemingly endless Extended season. Instead of thrashing out metagame data, he turns to deeper theory. He tackles the concept of “never settling,” a fine adjunct to his popular article How To Win A PTQ. After that, he moves into practical tips on how to improve one’s mental and mechanical game, offering sage advice on a number of interesting topics…
Friday, March 7th – Last weekend, Adrian Sullivan took his powerful Miser’s Rock deck to a PTQ win and an invite to Hollywood! While this article does contain details on his victory, it focuses instead on what Adrian describes as the true story of the PTQ: an innovative aggro deck named Spirit Stompy. Two players sleeved up the cards, and both made Top 8. Intrigued? Read on!
Friday, March 7th – Hello everybody, and welcome to another edition of the Magic Show. This week we speak to Magic players just like you in Nashville, TN to hear what they’re playing, what they feel about the new Extended rotation change, what should (or shouldn’t) be banned, the loss of States, and more. Let’s go!
Friday, March 7th – While we could very easily focus upon Extended coming up on a week or so until Grand Prix: Philadelphia, I fear the benefits of a further analysis of the field and brainstorming up decklists isn’t the hot-button topic of the week for tournament play. Rather than focus on the now of Extended… or worse yet, continue the stream of Goblin-centric articles… I find it very interesting to look into the changes to Extended set rotation and how they will affect us for the immediate future.
Thursday, March 6th – Both Dredge and Enduring Ideal have been under fire from hate since the beginning of this PTQ season. While Dredge is still largely under fire, it seems the Ideal hate has dimmed in comparison. Today’s Deep Analysis sees Richard Feldman examining options available to the Ideal pilot. He asks whether the metagame is right for the deck… is it the ideal time for Ideal?
Thursday, March 6th – In the current Extended metagame, there are a number of powerful strategies available to the discerning spellslinger. Perhaps the most powerful is Dredge, a turn 2 combo deck that has something like an 80% win percentage against the rest of the field… for game 1. Game 2 is trickier, as people bring their hate… but Kyle believes he’s fixed the problem…
Thursday, March 6th – Finishing out with the last of the Tribal Equipment, Dave gets all covert under the protective blanket of Cloak and Dagger.
