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.
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…
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.
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.
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…]
For many, Masters Edition is a chance to play with old cards that they can no longer afford. But for people like me, it’s a chance to go on about the tales of how I used to play that card back in my day, when I also wore an onion on my belt, as was the fashion at the time. So not only do I discuss the greatest Limited hits of Masters Edition, but I give you bizarre anecdotes of what it was like to play those cards back in the days before the Internet! Yes, you too can relive a past you never had!
Craig “The Professor” Jones was almost one of the Nearly Men at this year’s Magic Invitational. He nearly made it in via the Storyteller ballot. Then he nearly made it in via the Fan Favorite. To cap it all, he even nearly made it in as the R&D choice. After missing out three times, it seems that certain absentees have paved the way for his inclusion in the hallowed sixteen! Today, he shares a few Invitational card ideas… and asks for our help in honing the finished version.
Extended, the format on everyone’s mind at the moment, is plagued by a proverbial 800lb Gorilla in the room… at least, that’s the view of Patrick “The Innovator” Chapin. Dredge, he feels, is significantly warping the young metagame, to the point where the hate is generally not enough. Is the grave-born strategy that much of an issue, or can it be taken down with a little application? Decklists, matchup tips, game walkthroughs, and more!
I don’t know why, but I’ve been building Extended decks. I guess I just want a new format with which to experiment. I’ve been playing freaking Slivers at my past couple of FNMs, and while fun, I really want to play with some expensive cool-looking cards. As I said last week, I’ve been trying to graft the Counterbalance plus Sensei’s Divining Top combo on to a bunch of decks, so here are two more of my semi-successful attempts.
With the Pro Tour looming large, it seems that all the cool kids are playing Extended. Today, Mike turns his eye to the format as a whole, and dissects the major archetypes that will be making a splash in Valencia. Each deck is laid bare, with both strengths and weaknesses writ large for all to see.
