It’s my birthday! That’s right folks, I’m a year older, and a year crankier. In celebration of another chunk of my finite existence disappearing down the Great Cosmic Toilet, I’ve decided to spend today frolicking in the sunshine. Thus, my article today is a little short. Never fear… normal service will be resumed next week. And this week, there’s a PTQ cardpool to examine and evaluate. My PTQ deck was a disgrace… can you help me rebuild it?
Today’s Flores Friday sees Mike sharing his intimate playtesting procedures. However, instead of focusing on the minutiae the process, he deals in specific ways in which he gains insight into his deck, the metagame, and his own personal growth as a player. By breaking down the Top 8 ways in which he improves through testing, he shows us the ways in which we too can learn from playing our wonderful game…
Standard is Tiago’s favorite Constructed format. Of course, with so many formats to test, something had to fall behind, and Tiago went into Grand Prix: Krakow without a firm deck choice. He settled on a Green/Black build of his own design, which served him well. The deck seems powerful in the post-Krakow metagame, and Tiago takes us through the tournament highs and lows, and shares his updated list. Looking for a deck that packs a real punch? Then this is the article for you!
Hello everybody, and welcome to another edition of the Magic Show. This week we’re finally ridding ourselves of the Invitational, including my thoughts on the event along with Menendian’s, and an exclusive interview with Devin Low that occurred during Pro Tour Valencia. Let’s go!
Harnessing the forces of randomness to your benefit is at best a difficult task. When you could find yourself thrown anywhere on the map, as we often are in Sealed Deck, having a well-developed set of skills to find your way to where you want to be can serve you quite well. A good grasp of the guidelines of the format will take you farther than an innate, static ranking of card strengths. All too often you’ll hear a story about a player who opened Card X and chose to warp their card pool to fit it…
This week’s Ben and Chris double bill sees Chris sharing his exploits at the recent StarCityGames.com Vintage Weekend in Chicago, and Ben doing what Ben does best: making inflammatory comments about the nature of the Eternal community. Intrigued? Then read on!
Kavu Justice was a beatdown star in Time Spiral Block Constructed. Now we have the fresh meat that is Lorwyn to add to the mix, can we update the deck for a post-Krakow Standard metagame? Richard Feldman believes we can. He throws his deck against the best that the Grand Prix Top 8 had to offer, with surprising results…
Today’s Down And Dirty sees Kyle tackle ten points of Magic miscellany that have tickled he fancy this past week. He questions the validity of to amateur prizes in Grand Prix tournaments, brings us the truth about Kenji’s vicious powers of mental domination, and shares a Blue/Green deck that could make quite a splash in the new Standard metagame…
I’ve done it. You’ve done it. We’ve all done it. Yes, today’s Kitchen Table article takes a trip up from the Casual slot to the Strategy roster, as it touches on that most controversial of Limited strategies, the Rare Draft. Abe, a self-confessed Rare Drafter, takes us through the strategies behind his success, and shows us how we can win even if we’re giving up the first few picks each pack…
Talen Lee, never one to use one word where four thousand will do, escapes from his handler and returns to the keyboard long enough to try and come up with something interesting to say, touching on a handful of topics along the way. Oh, and there’s yet more talk about Evan Erwin. Oo, Drama.
[Editor’s Note – Chris Romeo is having a week off… he’ll be back next Thursday!]
If you’re like me, you’ve gone through various stages in your Magic career. You likely started out as a random scrub, impressed by the power of a Dragon Whelp but willing to trade it for some Jumps. Gradually you fine-tuned the rules and became more competitive, until either all the local players left or you were happy where you were. In time, you also likely discovered that you had an affinity for a particular color or play style. In my case, the style was the mid-range U/G deck. Over the years since Fallen Empires, I found I had built far too many of these decks, and all those Walls of Blossoms and Ertai, Wizard Adepts were starting to run together. So I set myself a simple-sounding project…
[Editor’s Note: Mark Young is ALSO having a week off… he too will be back next Thursday!]
Today’s So Many Insane Plays concentrates on two things. The first is a thorough breakdown of the Bring Your Own Standard format, played at this year’s Invitational. If Mark Rosewater has his way, this could be coming to a sanctioned tournament near you! Second, Stephen takes us through the rest of his Invitational experience, including the long awaited Vintage portion…
Another day, another tribal drafting guide for triple Lorwyn. While this particular race is popular in Standard, it seems that they’re falling from favor in Limited, at least according to the pros in the know. That said, you can’t deny then power of cards such as Imperious Perfect, Lys Alana Huntmaster, and Nath’s Elite. Benjamin Peebles-Mundy brings us the lowdown on the Green/Black Elves archetype, bringing out the pointy-eared freak in us all…
As of late I’ve notice myself slipping into a bad habit, and I don’t like it. It makes me uncomfortable. It’s a habit I see a lot of people doing from the early stages of a tournament up until the very final round, and for several years I successfully ridded its pernicious presence from my mind. Over the past couple of months, though, it’s crept back, whispering into my ear in the middle of a game, pulling at my concentration in between rounds, lurking. What is it?
Last weekend I went from the newest format to the oldest, and back again. Both went pretty well. The old stuff: I judged the StarCityGames.com Vintage event in Chicago. The new stuff: drafting Lorwyn online. I’ve got some comments, some observations and some anecdotes. Enjoy – I did.
