After two long weeks of Future Sight Limited heartbreak, I’m back on the trail of the elusive Standard Metagame. Reports of the demise of Dragonstorm are greatly exaggerated… or are they? Plus, some new takes on the old Aggro favorites. And a Top 8 deck that… well, I saw a peanut stand, I saw a rubber band, I saw a needle that winked its eye… but I think I’ve seen about everything, now I’ve seen a turn 1 Fly(ing Men).
With Tarmogoyf fast becoming the Chosen One in the world of aggressive burn-backed beatdown, Craig “The Professor” Jones takes time off his exhaustive and analytical Block Constructed test schedule to bring us the skinny on the true face of modern Aggro — Big Gargs. In a world where two-mana 5/6s and one-mana 9/7s rule the battlefield, Prof brings us a map to safety. Intrigued? Then read on!
That’s right, folks… he’s back! 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 examined in the article, the forums, and beyond. Come join in the fun!
Picking the right deck for a tournament is essentially a matter of tactics, and as such can be analyzed carefully to determine what the most effective tactic might be, based upon a set of criteria. Let us leave any impenetrable analogies behind us, and pick up an easily-understood analogy that is quite fitting: military warfare.
Hello everybody, and welcome to another edition of the Magic Show. This week we’re going to talk about how I fared at Regionals, the list I brought, and how the metagame shaped up.
Mike Flores rocked up to Regionals with yet another powerful deck of his own design, this time admirably aided by a host of innovative others. As usual, he marched his way to the top tables, making Top 8 with relative ease. And, as usual, he punted at the final hurdle. Today’s Flores Friday sees Mike take us through the design and theory behind the deck, and gives us a blow-by-blow of the tournament itself.
Last week, in his Road to Regionals article, Patrick “The Innovator” Chapin brought us his exciting B/U/R Korlash deck, primed and ready for a Regionals showdown. This week, Patrick puts his money where his mouth is and takes us through the ups and downs of his local Regionals tournament, in which he placed first after the Swiss, and qualified for Nationals. Game breakdowns, key plays, and deck changes… it’s all here!
It must be nice to be Tiago Chan. He’s a Level 6 Mage, and one of the most fearsome spellslingers on the planet. And he’s writing excellent articles, week in and week out. But the real sickener is that, when he writes an in-depth article about his important match losses, he can count them on the fingers of one hand. Today, he looks over the matches he lost at four recent high-profile events. By examining those plays he believes may be suspect, he asks… Could Things Have Been Different?
Benjamin Peebles-Mundy rocked up to his Regionals tournament with a wholly unusual Dredge deck. Inspired by the strangest of Japanese tech, it offers a more robust engine and combo kill, plus the opportunity to radically alter your game plan should the need arise. In the weeks leading to Regionals, this deck never lost a match on Magic Online. Is this the true Dredge deck we’ve all been waiting for? Read on to find out!
That’s right, folks… he’s back! 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 examined in the article, the forums, and beyond. Come join in the fun!
I’ve been looking at Prismatic again lately, as right now, all the standard decks I want to play are brutally expensive or just lack room for all the stuff I want. I want to recycle Armageddons and race my Jotun Grunts with my Life From The Loams and my Cycling Lands and I need a win condition so we’ll splash Black for Teneb and now I need some more draw and… anyway. One thing that has happened is that I’ve read some more writers talking about Prismatic… and almost universally, they say something that summarizes as: You’ll need your Green slots for mana fixing. Seriously… where have these people been?
There are a lot of articles out there about the testing process, but I hope to cover somewhat different ground. I want to talk about how exactly you determine what cards to cut and add. A lot of people, it seems, do a lot of testing solely to figure out matchup percentages and determine what cards are good (or bad) at what point in time. When it comes to cutting or adding cards, though, I think most people aren’t nearly systematic enough.
In another installment of Dan’s development series of Legacy Threshold, Dan explores the inclusion of Tarmogoyf in the deck, supporting his analysis with many detailed practice games.
In last week’s article, I began the process of building a pair of 250 decks. In the first article we discussed how to start thinking about the deck you want to build. Last week we began building the deck by creating a skeleton. This week we are going to flesh out the skeleton.
In this, the last edition of Ask The Drama, Jeroen tackles a number of topics. He critiques decks, he walks us through a tricky Limited game scenario, he shares his Regionals musings, he spills the beans on Dredge, and he even shares his soda preferences! Thanks for the articles, Jeroen… let’s hope we see you in the Feature Article slot soon.
