Good day all, and welcome to the column that explores all things casual: The Kitchen Table. I’m your host, Abe Sargent. Everybody has been talking about the fact that Wizards was seriously considering a new color for a set, and I have to tell you that I absolutely adore the idea. Do it! Now! But enough of this… let’s build some decks!
This is my baby Boros, which I like for several reasons. It’s largely based on Pat Sullivan’s California PTQ list, as well as some standard Tsuyoshi Fujita principles for building aggressive decks. It’s designed for a metagame where Tron, TEPS, Aggro-Loam, and Flow comprise about sixty percent of the field, with the ten or so other mainstream Tier 2 strategies rounding out the other forty.
This month sucks. It’s one thing to change to a new format, meaning I can produce stuff routinely and be assured it’ll be going up. I’m still absolutely honored to be up here on this day… I just wish I had more to talk about. Due to the timing of this change, I’ve been caught in limbo. Everyone wants to talk about the new set — with a good reason — but I can’t, because nobody wants to hear more than one article on a new set borne out of complete inexperience (cunningly disguised as a set review).
In an astonishing turn of events, as the lights go up on ProTour Geneva, Rich “moxradio” Hagon concludes his rundown of the ProPlayer field for 2007. Yasooka, Mori, Karsten, da Rosa and the rest put themselves on the line for the first time. And then he invites you to do the same.
Kevin Binswanger claims to have done the impossible; he built a
deck that has a favorable matchup against Goblins, Threshold and High Tide! Sounds too good to be true? Read the article and judge for yourself…
Tiago Chan, Level 6 Pro and some folks’ favorite for Player of the Year 2007, brings us his installment of the Impact series of Planar Chaos reviews… the Professional Opinion. He explains the pro approach to set evaluation, tells us about some of his favorite cards from the set, takes some overhyped cards down a peg or two, and lists the cards he believes will make a splash at Pro Tour: Geneva.
With everyone’s favorite grumpy Canadian winging his way towards Geneva (to let those PT hopefuls do some real Drafting With Rich), Jeroen “Ask The Drama” Remie has stepped manfully into the breach. For the rest of the week, Jeroen will bring us a draft each day, sharing each pick and ponderance along the way. For more protracted discussion on his card choices, come visit the forums!
For Jeroen’s stint in the Impact series, Mr Remie tackles some of the burning Planar Chaos issues that have been on your minds. His “Ask The Drama” column this week concentrates entirely on reader-posed Planar Chaos questions – he looks at the cards that are overrated, the cards that are undervalued, and the cards that will rock Geneva. He also shares his vision of Mono-Black Control for the coming Standard environment.
Last week, columnist and Hall of Famer Raphael Levy discussed the pick orders for all four Blue archetypes in Time Spiral / Planar Chaos draft. This week, Raph moves on to the Red offerings. Early indcations show that Red could be the strongest color for Limited play in the set, which means that correct evaluation of the commons in each archetype is of paramount importance. Wanna draft TTP like a pro? Raph has the answers for you…
The incorrigible blisterguy returns with his weekly round-up of Magical Electronica, including a rundown of the Standard and Extended Premier Event Top 8 results, and a few choice words on Dichotomancy and sugary snacks…
Currently, Extended is a very diverse place, which means for many of us the strategy is picking one of the top four or five decks, practicing, and trying to take the envelope home. Past some sideboard changes or a cute maindeck addition, these decks have the capability to beat the majority as long as you play well and get a little lucky at times. However, despite the diversity of the environment, a number of people are taking glass cannons to the PTQs.
Does Magic either want or need six colors? It’s not something I think is needed yet, but I think there will eventually be a point at which the inevitable shake-up that such a change would bring would be almost certain to do more good than harm. The game will want this sort of kick someday.
In the second part of our Impact series on Planar Chaos, Richard Feldman looks at the cards that’ll make waves in the format du jour – Extended. Sure, everyone is going ga-ga for Extirpate, and by now the world and his dog are sick to death of Damnation… but what other cards look likely to make waves in the diverse Extended metagame? Will your pet deck flourish under the Planar Chaos regime?
Jamie Wakefield brings us this week’s look into all things Green from the comfort of a foregin shore… Spain! He takes us through the developments he’s made to his evolving Beast Attack Mono-Green deck, and shares more stories from his ever-changing life. Soon, Jamie’s Madrid Adventure will become a permanent one, and we all wish him luck. In the meantime, can his Extended beatdown machine conquer the degenerate likes of TEPS and Scepter-Chant?
With everyone’s favorite grumpy Canadian winging his way towards Geneva (to let those PT hopefuls do some real Drafting With Rich), Jeroen “Ask The Drama” Remie has stepped manfully into the breach. For the rest of the week, Jeroen will bring us a draft each day, sharing each pick and ponderance along the way. For more protracted discussion on his card choices, come visit the forums!
