Hello everybody, and welcome to a special guest host edition of The Magic Show. This week I’m on vacation at the beach with my family. Instead of leaving you high and dry, two avid fans of the show – Nick Miller and Reuben Dresler – are here to provide you with some viewing entertainment.
Grand Prix: Columbus is next week, and the format is Legacy. With all the talk of Hulk Flash, will the Legacy Community rise to the occasion and champion their format in a positive light? In this week’s edition of The Real Deal, Ben gives some tips about how to make the Grand Prix and the format appealing to non-Legacy regulars!
Plus, in Ben’s Corner: StarCityGames.com is bringing what to Grand Prix: Columbus?
Last week, Adrian brought us his personal Top 5 Constructed Future Sight cards for the colors White, Blue, and Black. Today, he rounds out the rundown with his Top 5s from White, Red, and the rest. Some of his choices will inspire heated discussion – there are some surprises on Adrian’s list, that’s for sure. He also brings us an interesting Standard deck that includes some of his stronger choices. Regionals is approaching fast: has Adrian created the Next Big Thing?
Tiago Chan, Level 6 mage and many pundit’s choice for Player of the Year at the start of the season, is having a rough time. He hasn’t quite recaptured his form of 2006 just yet, but it’d take a brave man to write him off completely. In today’s Levelling Up, he talks candidly about his performance and choices at Pro Tour: Yokohama. Grand Prix: Strasbourg is fast approaching, and there’s a Block Constructed PTQ season on the horizon. Can Tiago help you stay one step ahead of the competition?
Thanks to a punted PTQ, Benjamin Peebles-Mundy is playing Regionals this year. With less than a month to go until the big day, BPM is embarking on a journey to find and hone his Regionals powerhouse. Each week, from now until the tournament, he’ll be looking at possible contenders, and weighing up the pros and cons of each in regards to a likely nine-round tournament. First up is Dredge. Is it good enough to take the slot?
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!
