When I say that you playtest to figure out how to play, it doesn’t simply mean that you’re preventing yourself from making mistakes. Playtesting also encompasses a broader element of figuring out what it is you’re trying to play for. I don’t mean the prizes or the packs or whatever; I mean what your deck is set up to do, and whether what it does is worth it.
I have to admit to finding it difficult to focus on anything other than Morningtide right now, so I thought it would be fun to go ahead and get some discussion going with what we know so far. Today, I’m going to talk about cards we know about for sure from the Wizards preview page…
It’s January, and as has happened every January for forty years, a young man’s thoughts turn to… football. Ah, the playoffs. To celebrate, Dave builds some team-based decks for the NFL’s equivalent of the Littlest Team That Could.
Today’s Sullivan Library visits the difficult task of honing one of the most underexamined elements of a deck: the mana. Adrian arms you with the tools you’ll need to bring your already sharp deck into the next level of readiness. Deckbuilders of all stripes have something to learn here. Do you know the three major constraints on mana development? Click here and find out!
With mere days until the Morningtide prerelease, Nick Eisel rounds out his Lorwyn-only Limited articles with an insightful piece on signaling. In triple Lorwyn drafts, there are a number of ways to signal intent to your neighbors, and Nick runs us through a bevy of examples from the Drafting With Tiago series. If you’re looking to improve your Limited game, this is the article for you!
Tiago Chan, Portugal’s Magic dynamo, takes us by the hand and leads us through the choppy waters of a triple-Lorwyn draft on Magic Online. He shares each and every pick, from one to forty-five, and supplies expert commentary on the draft and the games. For more detailed information, visit the forums!
Last week I talked about some of the decks that had been doing well online, and shared a few other tidbits on the Extended metagame. I also said I’d go over the PTQ deck results. Now we have all the information for the Week 1 PTQs in hand, we can go over some of the decklists and data. Although there was nothing mind-blowing (unless you count Flores Martyr deck) there was a nice platter of decks across the varying metagames.
Yeah, I know, it sounds disgusting doesn’t it? Still, that’s the word that Craig the Editor used earlier this week to describe the act of playtesting Extended with Mind’s Desire, a.k.a. The Extended Perfect Storm, a.k.a. TEPS. Join your only-slightly-above-average-at-Magic host, Rich Hagon, as he explores all the fun of the Storm in an E cup.
Magic Online has become a huge part of my Magic playing. It is currently in something of a transition – or crisis, if you believe the naysayers. I want to look at where MTGO is, where it is going, and what needs to be done.
On New Year’s Eve, I made a promise to myself: I would follow four very simple rules. Those rules have already raised my Magic play – and in ways I didn’t expect. Of course, when you get an insane deck to go along with it, featuring everyone’s favorite Nameless Inversion recursion engine, what else could you learn from a weasel?
If there’s one thing that aspiring Pro Tour Qualifier winners look for above all, it’s the latest in deck technology. While Paul cannot promise that today, he can bring us the next best thing: oodles and oodles of PTQ statistics. With unprecedented access to the data from the recent New York PTQ, Paul wrings every ounce of pertinent data from the information. Warning: This is not for the faint of heart…
Today’s Innovations sees Patrick Chapin investigate the latest exciting build from the brainpan of Mike Flores: Rith’s Charm Combo. Of course, being the Innovator does have its duties, so Patrick expands upon the work Mike has done thus far, conceding that Mike was right… and then showing him how to do it better.
Tiago Chan, Portugal’s Magic dynamo, takes us by the hand and leads us through the choppy waters of a triple-Lorwyn draft on Magic Online. He shares each and every pick, from one to forty-five, and supplies expert commentary on the draft and the games. For more detailed information, visit the forums!
Tom takes an introspective look at his experiences at the recent Extended double feature weekend at the Star City Game Center in Roanoke, and muses about how to give the universe no choice but to send you to Hollywood.
Christopher Coppola continues his discussion of UGB Threshold, talks about the threshold mirror, and gives some sideboarding plans for a few common matchups.
