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Levelling Up – Farewell to TPF: Portuguese Nationals

Read Tiago Chan every Friday... at StarCityGames.com!
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’…

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Feature Article — These Pretzels Are Making Me Thirsty

Read Feature Articles every Monday and Thursday... at StarCityGames.com!
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…

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Deep Analysis — Graveyard Decks: Beat ‘Em or Join ‘Em

Read Richard Feldman every Thursday... at StarCityGames.com!
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?

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From Right Field – The Prince and the Pauper and the Peasant

Read Chris Romeo every Thursday... at StarCityGames.com!
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?

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The Beautiful Struggle – The Lorax

Read Mark Young every Thursday... at StarCityGames.com!
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.

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The Kitchen Table #199 — No Rares Allowed: 200 of the Best Casual Cards (#100 – #51)

Read Abe Sargent every Thursday... at StarCityGames.com!
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…

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So Many Insane Plays – Gush, Gush, Gush, Gush, Win

Read Stephen Menendian every Wednesday... at StarCityGames.com!
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?

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Peebles Primers — Thoughts on Constructed and Limited

Read Benjamin Peebles-Mundy every Wednesday... at StarCityGames.com!
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.

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You Lika The Juice? – Basic Deckbuilding on the Fly

Read Bennie Smith every week... at StarCityGames.com!
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…

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Chatter of the Squirrel – Ad Infinitum

Read Zac Hill every Wednesday... at StarCityGames.com!
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…

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Yawgmoth’s Whimsy #195 – MED Anyway

Read Peter Jahn... at StarCityGames.com!
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.

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Sullivan Library — The Fearsome Power of Wish/Loam

Read Adrian Sullivan every Tuesday... at StarCityGames.com!
Life From The Loam is a fantastic source of card advantage in any format. Burning Wish, or as Adrian calls it, “the Good Wish,” is also extremely powerful. Put them together, and sprinkle in some expert synergy and devastating removal, and we have one of the powerhouse Extended decks going into Pro Tour: Valencia. Today’s Sullivan Library takes a long look at the ways to play — and to beat — this behemoth…

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Limited Lessons — Drafting With Masters Edition

Click here for more info on Grand Prix Daytona Beach!
Masters Edition has been released, and MTGO folk everywhere are waiting for the lag to end in order to get their old-fashioned fix. MXX drafts MMM drafts, everyone praying they’ll open a foil Force of Will… it’s a retro maelstrom! Today’s Limited Lessons sees Nick walk us through some of the finer points of MMX draft, bringing us the lowdown on the format and the skills required to max out our Masters profits.

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Deconstructing Constructed – Graveyard Combo in Extended

Read Josh Silvestri every Tuesday... at StarCityGames.com!
It seems so odd to see Extended articles starting to flow out from the various authors here on StarCityGames.com and yet see no listings of Dredge combo. This strikes me as odd considering it basically dictates the fundamental turn of the format, and you’ll most likely get rolled by it game 1 even if you’ve prepared against it. So it seems like one of the more important strategies to consider if you want to seriously prep for Extended… Of course, then Chapin goes and writes a solid article on the threat and the basic ways to trump it. How obnoxious.

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Removed From Game – Making Sense Of The Summer

Read Rich Hagon every week... at StarCityGames.com!
As we head into the Fall season, Rich Hagon takes us right through the Summer, taking in such fabulous locations as France, Germany, Japan, Canada, Italy, Australia, and Birmingham. Sadly not covering Venezuelan Nationals, he nevertheless brings us up to date with all the comings and goings – and they’re mostly goings – in Pro Magic, plus a look at the Magic Invitational, Hall Of Fame, AND his exclusive Lorwyn Preview Card! [Editor’s Note — Richard may be lying about the preview card…]

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