With Wizards of the Coast’s wonderful travel policy for PTQ winners, this will be the first chance for many to check out the Land of the Rising Sun. In order to make your trip to Kobe that much more pleasant, I’ll tell you the do’s, don’ts, and doables, as I give you the lay of the land.
With both Standard Champs and the StarCityGames.com $1,500 Standard Open just around the corner, Pat “The Innovator” Chapin brings fresh eyes to the evolving metagame. He shares a mighty ten new decklists with us today… something for every mage-style under the sun! Looking for an edge over the local competition? Look no further!
Jeroen brings us the Time Spiral Limited rundown of the second-strongest color in the new set… Blue. He presents an exhaustive common pick-order, the hits and misses from the uncommon pool, a breakdown of the rares and Timeshifted offerings, and a sample successful decklist! Pro Tour: Kobe is this coming weekend… be prepared!
After a brief work-induced hiatus, John Friggin’ Rizzo returns with a thirty-four page bang! Strategy, deck tips, tournament reports, fresh Time Spiral ideas… all from the twisted mind of the creator of Friggorid himself. As usual, John pulls no punches – his articles are all prefaced with a “Buyer Beware.” Enjoy!
Chris returns to his popular “Quick Hits” article format. Today he talks about some of the more impressive cards from Time Spiral, points out a few articles you may have missed, and answers criticism regarding his comments on cheerleaders…
Being a Magic antediluvian has some advantages beyond gray hairs and worrying about Alzheimer’s. I’ve actually enthusiastically shuffled up some of these cards the first time around and can give you some ideas that you may find helpful. I won’t bother with the newer cards, since I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that Akroma and Call of the Herd are awesome. So, on with the Purple traipse through time…
R&D needs to sit down and ask themselves if they’re keeping the promise they gave us to scale Blue down to the levels of the more mortal colors… because I don’t think they’re doing it. Blue looks like it’s about to hit a Golden Age.
Here’s a confession for you: I am not good at drafting. It’s tough to admit that when “drafting” is the default mode of most serious Magic players, but I haven’t truly gotten a draft format under my belt since Invasion. But the Mana Gods understood my plight this weekend, and handed me a draft with picks that literally built my deck for me.
For the last two weeks, Teddy Card Game has spilled the Constructed beans on the posers and the powerhouses from Time Spiral. This week, we have Jeroen Remie sharing his thoughts on the Limited strength of Magic’s newest and most exciting set. Today we have the White cards… Jeroen brings us detailed common pick orders, the strong uncommon cards to look for, bomb rares and bum rares, the Timeshifted gamebreakers, and a sample winning decklist! The best writers, the best players… only at StarCityGames.com!
For his first article on StarCityGames.com, Naoki Shimizu delivered a detailed breakdown of the genesis of his metagame-shaping creation: Solar Flare. For his second article, he takes the deck and updates it for Time Spiral. The maverick deckbuilder sifts through the Time Spiral goodies and brings us four separate builds for us to tweak and test, perfect preparation for those attending Champs, or the StarCityGames.com $1,500 Standard Open on October 21st.
What exactly is a tempo deck? My own definition is more then likely a simple one, and it can be put up for debate. I feel that a tempo deck is any of many decks that use a creature beatdown strategy and back up those men with something else besides burn spells. It may be hand disruption, countermagic, or land denial.
I was intending on kicking off the Dailies with my Geezer’s Guide to Purple, but I felt the need to share something that recently came up amongst some of my Magic-playing friends. Each day we toss around a few emails debating various thoughts on Magic, deck ideas, and Magic news, as a nice distraction from the humdrum banality of the workday (and, you know, actual work). Recently, there was a flurry of emails that started innocently enough…
Mike has a voracious appetite for Standard Constructed playtesting. Today’s Flores Friday sees the Resident Genius bring us his Top 10 tips on how to thrive and survive in the coming Time Spiral Standard maelstrom. He shares two strong decklists – one U/G, and one more experimental – and waxes lyrical on some of the stronger threats and answers available in the fledgling format.
Josh is keen to avail himself of a free trip to Geneva, and has climbed off the Gravy Train in order to slum it on the PTQ circut with the rest of us. He failed last weekend, but has high hopes for the season as a whole. Last weekend’s cardpool is presented today, for us to dissect and discuss, alongside some Time Spiral Limited theory and a dose of tournament reporting. Attending Athens this weekend? Or planning to ace a PTQ? Then maybe Josh can help…
With Grand Prix: Sydney now behind us, Sean takes us through the make-up of the undefeated decks of Day 1. We know that the balmy days of Ravnica multicolored goodness are now behind us… can Sean guide our Limited hands in a winning direction?
