I’d like to say that some interesting things happened at the PTQ last weekend, but not really. Not much of interest happened once we actually started playing Magic, though. Thus, I’d like to talk to you about a subject I’ve been kicking around for some time: reading your opponent’s tells.
Richard Feldman claims that if you’re not playing U/B Teachings in Time Spiral Block Constructed, you’re not playing to win. In fact, by his logic, Celso Zampere Jr made a bad decision in playing G/W at Grand Prix: Montreal… and he won the whole thing! With Teachings into Tendrils being a truly dirty play, is the U/B deck really the One True Deck for Block, from which all others must flee? Let Richard light the way…
Today, I would like to take a look at the cards that are being reprinted in Tenth Edition and what that means for casual Magic. Writing an article discussing the impact of an expansion set makes a lot of sense, because the cards are new. If I were a Standard writer, I’d probably care a lot about the set as well, because it would greatly impact my format and my decks.
Last week, Stephen took us through the GroAtog versus Fish matchup, sharing a number of intricate and interesting games and plays, This week, it’s the turn of Tendrils, Ichorid, and Flash. Each step into the Vintage ring to battle against the four-Gush behemoth… if you’re looking for in-depth play-by-play analysis of the resultant battles, Stephen does not disappoint!
Resident Genius Guillaume Wafo-Tapa knows a thing or two about the construction of Magical decks. His latest effort, the oft-ridiculed Wild Pair Slivers, recently rocked him up to 3rd place at Grand Prix: Montreal. Today, Benjamin Peebles-Mundy walks us through the tech, the tricks, and the plays behind Timmy’s Favorite Tribe, the perfect preparation for this weekend’s round of PTQ action.
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!
Enough people wanted a primer that I decided to go through with it. This won’t be your typical primer, though, because the list I played the first week of PTQs is obsolete, and I wouldn’t recommend it card-for-card to anyone. At the same time, I think it’d be extremely useful to work through the process of how I arrived at that list, what the individual cards in it are designed to do, and how you’re supposed to play those seventy-five cards in a variety of matchups.
Before Regionals, I was fooling around on MTGO, and Rivien Swanson dropped me a message asking if I would be interested in playing Two-Headed Giant Momir/Jhoira Basic. Since my release league wasn’t over, I did not have the Future Sight participation avatar Jhoira, but I did have Momir Vig. I had figured “Jhoira Basic” would naturally spring up, but teaming up with Momir for 2HG goodness? That sounded like too much fun!
The first Revised booster I ever opened had a Birds of Paradise. So did one of the first boosters I ever opened online. I have always loved that card, so I really wanted to see a real, live bird of paradise. San Diego Zoo has a lot of birds, including one line of cages with exotics of that genus. The eighth cage had BoPs, but they had rotated behind the foliage and I couldn’t see any. The ninth cages had a sign saying “Animals Temporarily Removed from this Exhibit.” The tenth cage, however, had Birds of Paradise set off against a lovely black wall.
Craig “The Professor” Jones turned up for battle at Grand Prix: Montreal armed with the latest in Paskins-infused Red technology. Sadly, as we all know, it wasn’t quite enough to bring home the bacon. Today’s From The Lab sees Prof look at Billy Moreno’s take on Red, the deck he admits he should’ve played. He also runs us through some ID and concession math, and shares some fun times had on the GP circuit…
After sunning it up in San Diego this past weekend, Nick Eisel returns to bring us a full Time Spiral / Planar Chaos / Future Sight draft walkthrough, from the 8-4 queue on Magic Online. The early picks in particular bear close examination, as Nick himself had doubts while selecting the cards. Was he right? Read on to find out!
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!
Now that we’ve had more time to digest the Grand Prix: Montreal results, seeing more of the decks that weren’t in the Top 16, we’re beginning to hear about a few of the PTQ results. This means we can start testing with more refined versions of the decks we’ve been playing, or seen on MTGO, and personal gauntlets. My group’s initial testing has slowly shown, just like many others, that a B/U base with splashes is pretty much the way to go in this format.
Today, we’re talking about rares, more significantly “bad rares.” And that discussion has two sides; the side of the corporate shills who have no higher or grander goal than saving you the undue burden of money, and the whining ninnies of the casual crowd who have no idea how the world works. Breaking it down, it runs something like this…
Tomorrow is The Ferrett’s birthday – and as per past Birthday specials, he feels the urge to do something strange, crazy, and unmistakably lazy with his column in order to celebrate! But what, if anything, can he do this year to top the “Unedited article” fiestas of birthdays past? Tune in to see all that, and a Sealed deck that turns out to be a theme deck!
