Last week, Mike took a long look at some of the contenders in the current Extended metagame, highlighting their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. This week, he delivers more of the same: a cavalcade of Extended goodness, and the metagame laid bare. If you’re serious about cracking this format for the Pro Tour, or even for the PTQ season that looms large, this article is an invaluable stepping stone.
Debates have flared recently as to how to “properly” design a deck, with the bold statement that the number four is the “correct” number for most developed decklists. Simple in concept, this belief is grounded upon the perception that an ideal deck is one that is able to play the same sort of game over and over again with little variation, and the best way to get the same game over and over again is to use the same cards over and over again.
Chris takes a look at deckbuilding in the new format, and discusses some of the reasons for the changes taking place. He talks about the shift in power between Goblins and Threshold, and some of the consequences this has on design. Also included is a Landstill decklist!
Hello everybody, and welcome to another edition of the Magic Show. This week we’re going to dive headfirst into Lorwyn’s wonderful rumor season and then tackle the Top 10 Cap’n Tickles ideas chosen by yours truly. Now all that’s left is for you to pick a winner!
Tiago has some strong opinions on Portuguese Nationals. While other countries compete for thousands of dollars, the top prize in Portugal is a Fat Pack and a handful of boosters. Even so, there’s the little matter of national pride at stake… and everyone wants to win. Tiago takes us though his tournament preparations, bringing us match-by-match recaps from the tournament floor, in the last great hurrah for TPF and Standard before Lorwyn comes a’knockin’…
Today’s Feature Article sees John Friggin’ Rizzo is fine fettle. HE questions some of the more prosaic names appearing in the forthcoming Lorwyn expansion, he shares some last gasp Standard decks before the rotation, he wades into the 4/1 versus 3/2 card debate, and he shows us just why Tarmogoyf is the cod’s pods. All in his own firebrand signature style…
Richard continues his Pro Tour Preparation series with a look at, unsurprisingly, the Extended Graveyard decks. However, instead of bringing us fresh lists that utilize the power of the ‘yard, instead it’s the turn to showcase a few decks that attempt to bring down the dredge-based menace. Domain Zoo, Affinity, and a promising Wizards build, all built with the graveyard in mind. Will strategies such as these grace the final day of Pro Tour: Valencia?
I write about budget decks. I tell those without unlimited Magic funds to make sure that the first thing that they do when each new set comes out is to get four copies of each common and uncommon. Since we know the schedule of sets’ releases, we should be able to budget for that purchase by putting aside five or so bucks a week. Some players, though, don’t have any money for anything beyond that. Not even enough to get four Heartwood Storytellers or four Stalking Vengeances. Why do I ignore those folks?
If you read Magic strategy sites on the Internet, chances are you already know that Lorwyn is spreading several tribal themes across different colors: Giants are in White and Red, Merfolk are in Blue and White, Goblins are in Red and Black, and so on. As for Green, the list of tribes that they share obviously includes Elves, as well as Treefolk. … Treefolk? Warning: Contains Spoilers.
Hello my friends, and welcome to the third installment of the No Rares Allowed series. Next week is the final entry and the 200th article by yours truly (if you count weeklies; counting dailies, it’s a ton more). Today, I am in transit to London…
Vintage World Champion and 2007 Magic Invitational R&D Pick Stephen Menendian took his favorite GroAtog deck to the recent “StarCityGames Vintage Grand Prix,” his first tournament since taking the GenCon title. Today, he talks us through the tournament play-by-play, and crunches some of the numbers from the Top 8. Gush, it seems, is everywhere. Was unrestricting it a huge blunder?
It’s a quiet time for Magic. The Rumor Mills aren’t quite in full swing, and the Extended Pro Tour, while important, is largely irrelevant to the Magic populace. Today, Benjamin Peebles-Mundy takes advantage of the stillness to wax lyrical on both Constructed and Limited, sharing his thoughts on the formats as they stand. He also looks ahead to Lorwyn, and suggests we all take a look at the Token Deck in Standard.
Magic has remained fresh and fun for me because the number one appeal of the game is the constant infusion of new cards. This time of year is the very best because there is a large crop of cards leaving the Standard format. I tend to go on a deckbuilding frenzy, whipping out new decklists by the hour. It occurred to me that the method I go about sketching out initial decklists allows me to get a pretty good idea whether an idea has “juice” enough to warrant further exploration. So for those of you interested in the method, here’s how I do it…
I don’t think I’d cause too much of an uproar if I referred to Gabriel Nassif as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, Constructed players of all time. He was recently voted into the Invitational as a “Constructed Master” despite a lack of big finishes this year mostly on legacy alone, and I think that serves as a testament to his masterful reputation. If I was to find out what made a good deck, I thought, surely I could look to him…
Last week, I wrote about how Masters Edition was probably not cost effective. It was a long weekend, doing a lot of non-Magic stuff, so I ended up kicking back and playing in a couple MED events anyway. I’ll look at those a little, then talk about online Extended. Online Extended is not quite Bizarro World Extended, but it is not quite Paper Extended either.
