Zac, it appears, has achieved the impossible. He’s gone infinite on Magic Online playing 4-3-2-2 Ninth Edition drafts! If you’re looking for some Limited Magic but you’re tiring of Time Spiral, maybe Ninth Edition is the format for you. It’s certainly been good to Zac. The secret of his success? You’ll have to read the article to find out!
This article is just about art, flavor text, and color. Seriously. If you want to read about mechanics, or casual decks, or the like, this isn’t for you, sorry. If you want the rant… well, it’s coming. But for now, we must make do with what we have. At the time of this writing, Future Sight was fully spoilered yesterday. This means I’m writing three weeks in advance — and that means that Future Sight is probably purchase-and-play legal right now. So it’s only five more articles from here before I can play with the cards myself. What better time, I suppose, to spout off angrily about things that matter the least in the game to the tournament scene?
I’m not the biggest fan of “opinions articles.” I was not hired to talk about how Green got hosed, or how Mike Long does not even belong in the conversation for the Hall of Fame. Still, there are some issues out there that casual writers need to chime in about. Today I have several mini-rants in me. Instead of writing them up, and putting them at the front of each of my next several articles, I am going to just toss them all out here at once, and then we can move on. Everybody ready?
Countdown to Grand Prix: Columbus! Kevin Binswanger dispels some of the hype and myth about Flash, and tries to talk strategy and metagaming for Grand Prix: Columbus. Decklist? Discussion of policy for errata’ing and banning? It’s all inside.
With apologies to Mike Hron and Guillaume Wafo-Tapa, thus far it’s been Raphael Levy’s season. Multiple Grand Prix wins and a Pro Tour Top 8 see him sat on top of the pile in the ongoing Player of the Year race. So it’s safe to say that, going into Grand Prix: Stockholm, he had high hopes for a strong performance. Today’s Pro Perspective takes a look at the reasons the wheels fell off his wagon.
Jeroen returns to his virtual mailbag today, answering fan-posed questions from across the globe! The subjects for discussion today include Two-Headed Giant Limited, the Standard Metagame, how to sideboard against Dragonstorm, turn 1 plays in Limited, and how to slow your game in order to maximize your concentration. He’s running low on questions, folks. Be sure to send yours to [email protected]!
Protean Hulk. Flash. Those two cards strike fear into the heart of all Legacy fans planning the trip to Grand Prix: Columbus. However, all is not lost! In a refreshing departure from the recent barrage of Hulk Flash articles, Josh looks at the problem from the other side: if you’re not joining ‘em, how are you gonna beat em? Josh attempts to analyze the weaknesses in the Hulk Flash deck, and shows how it can — and WILL — be beaten.
Bennie brings us a potpourri of topics today, including the uselessness of Steamflogger boss, the etiquette behind Internet Messaging, and some Two-Headed Giant decks. He also shows us a draft deck that, quite frankly, made my eyes bleed… one that not even Craig Jones would play.
Rivien takes a new look at a fringe Extended strategy today, utilizing two cards that he claims are criminally underused. While the deck won’t make waves on the tournament scene, it’s certainly some food for thought. Sadly, today’s Magic Grab Bag sees Rivien hanging up his metaphorical boots, and moving on to new challenges. I’ll let the man himself reveal why in his final article… good luck, fella! Don’t be a stranger!
After a week’s holiday in sunny Berlin, Jamie is back with a bang! Today he shares the latest incarnation of Busted at Three, his G/B Standard deck. Regionals is coming, and Jamie has cast his die. He also takes a long look at the Green cards of Future Sight. For the thoughts and concerns of this Green Mage Extraordinaire, read on!
With Regionals on the horizon, Richard returns to his intriguing Walking Anthems Standard deck, testing the important matchups and tweaking the card numbers. Hit / Run, Temporal Isolation, Necrotic Sliver… are they good enough for the final 75? His attempts to break the metagame are proceeding apace… does this latest version have what it takes?
E-mails, forum posts, and private messages in my StarCityGames.com mailbox provide me with some of my best inspiration. For example, one person recently asked me, in so many words, “Why do you hate Block Constructed with only two sets?” Because the Block’s not done yet. Sure, the Pros get to play a tourney with the two-set Block, but us regular folks don’t. So why should I waste time on the decks? Especially when the third set becomes legal on May 20th, and I have about ten million Standard decks to work on?
Regionals is coming, so it’s time to knuckle down! Today’s Beautiful Struggle sees Mark in a reflective mood. In order to maximize our successes at the approaching National Qualifiers, we need to squeeze the most out of our prospective deck choices. By looking at some successful decks from tournaments past, Mark examines the strategies and thought-processes that propelled the winners to the final table…
The Ultimate Extended Tourney was a trial by fire of 32 of the top Extended decks of all time. It’s over, and we have a winner. That’s nice, but the winner in a format that never existed is not really relevant. Examining how and why decks did well in this format is relevant to anyone building decks for a new format, including Legacy for Grand Prix: Columbus, or Time Spiral Block Constructed for the PTQs.
What happens with me at every release tournament is that I face The Choice. Do I go with the good build, the one that I know will do well because it’s packed with the 90% of the same damn cards I’ve been running at every event for the past three months…. Or do I go with the new and potentially weaker build that is stuffed with 40% of the new and crazy?
