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Removed From Game — Choosing Your Deck

Read Rich Hagon every week... at StarCityGames.com!
With multiple high-level Constructed tournaments taking place around the globe featuring seats at the World Championships up for grabs, Rich Hagon gives us a guide to Choosing Your Deck. Drawing on the disciplines of psychology, politics and philosophy, but sadly not physiology or physiognomy, the man from mox is heading for Nationals with a clear idea of what you should play if you’re good, and an even better idea of what you should play if you’re not.

This article replaces The Online Outlook, which will be running tomorrow.

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Flores Friday – Delta Ex

Read Mike Flores every Friday... at StarCityGames.com!
Nationals is fast approaching, and the deadline for Tenth Edition’s Standard debut is actually today… so, what can we expect of the new metagame? Mike takes a timely look at all the major players pre-rotation, and places them in the Winners or Losers enclosure. Some decks gain, while some fall from grace. If you’re looking to form a picture of the evolving metagame before it officially arrives, this article is invaluable.

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Drafting With Rich – TPF #30

Draft With Rich Hoaen every day... at StarCityGames.com!
You all know the drill by now… Rich Hoaen, Canada’s finest and grumpiest draft export, takes us by the hand and drags us through the rollercoaster ride of an 8-4 TPF Draft on Magic Online. From pick 1 to pick 45, Rich shares them all, and his final deck and draft performance are analyzed in the article, the forums, and beyond. Come join in the fun!

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Magical Hack – X Marks The Bad Article Title

Read Sean McKeown every Friday... at StarCityGames.com!
Tenth Edition brings with it many interesting things, and one of the more noticeable things it brings is two years of “X Marks The…” jokes that are inevitably going to pop up in gaming articles until we finally see Eleventh Edition. Now that we’ve officially seen all of the cards and can work with an official card-list, I’ve decided it’s prudent to take but a single week away from the Block Constructed meddling in order to try and figure out what the summer Standard environment is going to look like.

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The Magic Show #53 — Kentucky Fried Open

Watch Evan Erwin every Friday... on StarCityGames.com!
Hello everybody and welcome to another edition of the Magic Show. This week we’re going to be taking a hard look at Standard and Time Spiral Block play. Both of them are front and center this weekend, as the BlueGrassMagic $3,300 Kentucky Open gives us the first major Tenth Edition Standard event with a PTQ following it the next day. Want to know the best kept secret in this new Standard? Let’s go!

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Unlocking Legacy – Plus Le Change…

Read Legacy articles every Friday... at StarCityGames.com!
Today, Doug digs through recent tournament results and explores several breakout decks that you’ll be seeing at your next Legacy event. Find out what cards are heating up on the tournament scene and which are just hype. Join in for discussion on everyone’s favorite 1G creature, hot card stock tips, and musings on the difficulties of metagaming for Legacy events!

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Levelling Up – U/B Control versus Poison Slivers

Read Tiago Chan every Friday... at StarCityGames.com!
After last week’s barnstorming matchup article pitching Blue/Black

Teachings versus Green/White Goyf, Tiago returns to the testing table and

throws the best deck in the format against the newest, and most poisonous

offering out there — Poison Slivers! This quick, brutal tribal deck was

created in response to the power of U/B Teachings… does it have the stones

to take down the big guns? Read on to find out!

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Sullivan Library – Overcoming the 4-1 Dogma in Numbers

Read Feature Articles every Monday and Thursday... at StarCityGames.com!
Perceived wisdom tells us that if a card is super-duper-good, it requires four slots in your deck. It also tells us that if you’re planning on the long game, a singleton copy of a game-breaker is also the way to go. Thus, if we have a deck packed with two- and three-of copies, aren’t we simply being wishy-washy, and diluting our chances at success? Adrian sets us on the right path, and also debunks the old chestnut that 60 cards is best…

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Deep Analysis — Teaching the New Kids on the Block

Read Richard Feldman every Thursday... at StarCityGames.com!
Richard rounds out his triple-whammy of Block Constructed U/B Teachings articles with a play-by-play rundown of the Poison Slivers and U/G Tempo matches. He brings us his current incarnation of the U/B Behemoth, and proves once more that the metagame should fear the Teachings decks like no other. With the Block PTQ season proceeding apace, it’s time to get with the cool kids and just Play. This. Deck.

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Drafting With Rich – TPF #29

Draft With Rich Hoaen every day... at StarCityGames.com!
You all know the drill by now… Rich Hoaen, Canada’s finest and grumpiest draft export, takes us by the hand and drags us through the rollercoaster ride of an 8-4 TPF Draft on Magic Online. From pick 1 to pick 45, Rich shares them all, and his final deck and draft performance are analyzed in the article, the forums, and beyond. Come join in the fun!

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From Right Field – No Countering for Taste

Read Chris Romeo every Thursday... at StarCityGames.com!
I got an interesting e-mail a couple of weeks ago. The writer wanted to know if we could come up with a U/R Time Spiral Block Constructed deck whose only rare was Aeon Chronicler. Also, even though Time Spiral Block has two of the best counterspells around right now (Cancel and Delay), we couldn’t use any countermagic…

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The Beautiful Struggle – Westside

Read Mark Young every Thursday... at StarCityGames.com!
Lots of people got excited about the four- and five-color strategy with the reprinting of Whispers of the Muse and Gaea’s Blessing in Time Spiral, but it didn’t quite work out; during our testing at the Time Spiral prerelease, Mike Flores was concerned about tapping low for a Whispers and having the opponent respond with Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir. However, Block Constructed has shown the way…

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The Kitchen Table #190 — More Stories From The Three Kingdoms

Read Abe Sargent every Thursday... at StarCityGames.com!
Today I want to reopen an old article and discuss some cards from Three Kingdoms. I will give you all new stories on the cards, and occasionally critique how well the card captured the story. I hope you will enjoy it, and hopefully it will give you a taste of the characters of Three Kingdoms.

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So Many Insane Plays – How to Build GroAtog to Win Vintage Tournaments

Read Stephen Menendian every Wednesday... at StarCityGames.com!
Stephen is a firm believer that, with the unrestriction of Gush, the GroAtog deck is the most powerful — and most versatile — deck in the current Vintage metagame. Today’s So Many Insane Plays sees the Vintage mastermind take us through an exciting five-step plan of GroAtog deck design, a plan that is designed to optimize your chances at winning any specific Vintage tournament. This is a wonderful article, and the five-step plan is fine advice for Vintage and non-Vintage players alike…

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Peebles Primers — Gruul for Tenth Edition Standard

Read Benjamin Peebles-Mundy every Wednesday... at StarCityGames.com!
With Nationals fast approaching, and Tenth Edition making a major impact on the Standard metagame, Benjamin Peebles-Mundy takes us through the probably changes that will be made to the powerhouse Gruul Aggro deck now that Kird Ape has hit the showers. With U.S. Grinders consisting of a largely aggro field, you’ll need to beat this deck if you’re aiming for success…

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