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.
Thursday, March 6th – In my first High-Value Casual Cards article, written over two years ago, I outlined many high-value casual cards, and then I made predictions about the value of some of them. Today, two years later, I want to take a look at those predictions and see which came true, and with which I was wrong. Then, after being honest, you’ll have a gauge for my new predictions.
Wednesday, March 5th – A few weeks ago, Benjamin Peebles-Mundy powered into the Top 8 of the StarCityGames.com $5K Standard Open on the back of a Reveillark Combo deck. Today, BPM outlines his preparation before the event, including his deck selection process, deck-tweaking techniques, and advice for maintaining focus on the tournament floor…
Wednesday, March 5th – I got all the decklists from the StarCityGames.com $5K tournament two weeks ago. It’s taken some time, but I managed to read and classify them all. You have seen the Top 16 lists. Here’s a complete breakdown. I have total numbers, percent making the Top 16, etc. I also have a number of decklists that were just plain interesting. If you are planning on playing Standard in the next couple of months, there is sure to be something to think about.
Wednesday, March 5th – When last we left our hero – me – he was torn between varieties of mid-range G/B/x decks to play at the Richmond PTQ last Saturday. There was the strong allure of his homebrew Doran deck featuring the quick-kill potential of Tireless Tribe. There were also more stock versions floating around that presumably had more testing behind them and were more reliably “correct†in their build. Should he instead play one of those decks?
Wednesday, March 5th – Mark Rosewater just wrote an article explaining the process of “acquisition,†of expanding Magic’s player base and reaching out to people who have never heard of the game. We, the players, are essential to that process. This article will talk about some of the ways we can help out Wizards, and, by virtue of that, help ourselves.
Tuesday, March 4th – Morningtide has finally emerged into the light on Magic Online, and Lorwyn/Lorwyn/Morningtide drafts begin later this week. Today, Nick takes us through six of the more popular tribal archetypes and examines the tricks and traps each deck may spring. If you’re looking to maximize your online draft potential, look no further!
Tuesday, March 4th – In his first Premium article, Tom LaPille examines the nature of being “under the radar†in the current Extended metagame. With so many options, and a plethora of powerful decks, how can we leverage our deck choice into those vital wins? Can we capitalize on the size of the format in order to run through the rounds without facing hate? Maybe we can… and Tom shows us how. [Editor’s Note: Adrian Sullivan will now run later in the week… so stay tuned!]
Tuesday, March 4th – I ended up playing Goblins again for my local PTQ, to which even showing up was a bit of a hurdle since just two days before I was hacking my guts all over the room. Being sick, I had no time to go get new cards, even thought I wanted to switch decks to G/B/W Hateorade for the expected field of UG Tron, Goblins, and Red Deck Wins…
