States didn’t go so well for me this year; just your standard 2-2 drop filled with your standard play errors and your standard deckbuilding mistakes. Some interesting stuff did happen which caused me to re-assess my mental game, and I may write about that at a later point, but for now I bet you’d like to hear about someone doing well at States. Thank goodness for Sean Vandover.
This series of articles was written in response to a series of comments by various casual players who decried the existence of a casual metagame. Of course, as the creator of the Framework, I obviously disagree with that claim. These articles set out to demonstrate to casual players that there is an underlying taxonomy to Magic decks that can be studied and understood.
In Five-Color Magic, White gives you Balance, Swords to Plowshares, and Armageddon. Distinguished company, distinguished indeed. All of them, powerful in control, combo, aggro, or midgame — who doesn’t love watching a team of Mongoose, Werebear, and Terravore plump up as you blow up the world?
Blisterguy has cashed his sixth place Nationals finish into a trip to Paris for Worlds, and he’s on the lookout for Standard and Extended tech! Unfortunately, Magic Online can’t help him this week… still, there’s always the joy of the pineapple-inducing Price Guides to keep him busy.
This coming weekend sees the Grand Prix circuit stop in New Jersey, and Paul Jordan has been practicing hard for the event. Today’s article is packed with two things – Sealed deck advice, and interesting New Jersey facts. Did you know that using Scryb Ranger’s ability is a fine foil to Assassinate? Fair enough… but did you know that New Jersey is the diner capital of the world? All this, and more, inside!
Evan continues his excellent series of video articles with an examination of the various advantages that can be gained through a dedicated deck strategy. There’s card advantage, creature advantage, resource advantage… and if that’s not all, he shares a tricky Time Spiral Sealed pool for us all to play along at home.
Agnostically speaking, Blue is the most powerful color in Prismatic. Every deck runs a solid base of Blue cards, and more often than not, simply by dint of having effects like Compulsive Research and other card drawing, it represents a lot of the best effects in the format. Black and Red are both good colors, and hard to cut — but only because of how they interact with Blue.
Mr. Remie brings us the latest edition of his Ask Jeroen column, tackling tricky reader-posed questions on all things Magical. Today’s grab-bag of topics includes Jeroen’s thoughts on the post-Champs Standard metagame, an examination of an intriguing Black/Red Extended aggro deck, plus much more!
Tiago’s continued successes on the tournament Magic scene can be attributed to hard work, dedication, and talent. Today he tells the tale of his Top 16 performance at Grand Prix: Athens, and how his performance tied in to his preparation for the Big Show: Pro Tour: Kobe. He gives an overview of his drafting technique, and shares some of the funny moments experienced on the road…
Rich continues his Drafting series with the new cards from Time Spiral. He takes us through a draft each day, from pick one to pick forty-five, and adds his final decklist and preliminary thoughts on his build and his final performance. Rich also mans the forums, answering your more intricate questions regarding his choices.
Chris chronicles his highs, and especially his lows, from his time at this year’s Champs tournament. He also talks of an intersting change in the philosophy of his budget column…
While my record at Champs this year would indicate otherwise (2-3-3… yes, three draws!), I actually took away some positive vibes from the tournament. At first I was pissed – pissed at myself for not just buckling down and going with my first deck choice, and pissed at Wizards for making an environment that seemed overly stuffed with counter/Wrath decks.
Ben has decided to play along with the Great Designer Search from MagicTheGathering.com. *DISCLAIMER* If you are a Wizards of the Coast employee, Ben gives you full legal permission to use any of the ideas and cards contained in this article.
In my little jaunt of looking for mono-colored decks that thrive in Prismatic, the lure of the Almost All-Basic Manabase was powerful. I mean, really. But there’s also the lure of some nonbasics. As soon as I hit upon the lure of going with All-Basic… I found the siren call of the Coffers.
After a lengthy absence, the 2005 Player of the Year Kenji Tsumura returns to StarCityGames.com! Today he begins the epic tale of his storming performance at Pro Tour: Kobe, covering the first three drafts and sharing insights on the Time Spiral draft format. He also gives us some advice concerning sideboarding in Limited matches…
