Another season, another Pro Tour, another… country? Geneva, Switzerland!? That sounds like an amazing place to hold a Pro Tour. Europe, skiing, and I’ll bet no one is ever late for a round. Who wouldn’t want a free trip out there, and to compete no less.
I thought I’d take a week off from the heady, long, stuffy Casual Metagame series and the previous Battle Royale. Instead I’m just going to build a few decks featuring Time Spiral cards. It should be a much-improved atmosphere here as a result.
Time Spiral Limited events begin on Magic Online today. Nick brought us his take on the format in his Kobe report above: now it’s the turn of Kyle Sanchez. He shares his views on Time Spiral draft, alongside all five of his money-making decklists. Tech, tips, and tricks… plus some of the more decadent stories that chronicle the Pro Tour lifestyle. Kyle’s trip to Japan was certainly memorable, but maybe not for the reasons you’d expect.
Due to circumstances beyond our control, the Battle Royale articles scheduled for publication today have been delayed until Friday’s update. Be sure to check back tomorrow to read all about Jeroen’s latest challenger. I promise you, this round will see fireworks…
Jeroen, the current Battle Royale champion, takes a break from ruling the budget MTGO metagame in order to answer some reader-posed questions on a number of formats. Champs is officially over, so the tide turns towards Time Spiral Limited. With a pre-Kobe record of 11-1 in Time Spiral draft, Jeroen shares his drafting strategies in perfect time for the online release. He also shares his views on color complaints post-Ravnica, and has a few things to say on Standard too…
John tells the epic tale of his preparation and performance at his local Champs tournament. As usual, he worked hard… and as usual, his story is full of highs and lows, all chronicled in the expected acerbic Rizzo style. If you’ve not read Rizzo before, this is the perfect time to try. If you’re already a fan… enjoy!
Blisterguy returns with a photo-packed round-up of the MTGO metagame. With patches updating the game left and right, there have been a few problems this week… and blisterguy responds with his trademarked grace and humor.
Evan took a deck that succeeded at the StarCityGames.com $1500 tournament, and piloted it all the way to the Top 8 of his local Champs! Today he shares the video rundown of his deck-choice, and presents the video of his play from the tournament itself!
New Hall of Fame inductee Raphael Levy continues his excellent Magic Lifestyle series with a retrospective analysis of his subpar performance at GP: Athens. He presents his Sealed cardpool and draft decks (and choices), and peppers the narrative with sights, sounds and smells from behind the Pro Tour curtain. The qualifiers for Geneva are in full swing… can Raph help you take the Blue Envelope?
Stephen follows up his excellent Puzzle article from yesterday with an in-depth look at a recent tournament he attended… with winning results. He shares detailed play-by-play data from each game, and has the decklists from each opponent too! All this, plus his views on Split Second cards in Magic’s most broken format…
I’m going to take this week to look at a couple of silly decks that actually seem to do pretty well in testing, and one of the decks that we used in our gauntlet. It’s a deck that no one in our group took to States, which I think was a big mistake. Someone should have tried it, since it was whipping pretty much everything in testing…
In the context of Magic, you can’t just sit around and constantly complain about the same old thing. The rate of change in this game is such that any change that’s enacted now won’t see the light of day for two years, apparently. Invasion Block was a travesty for balanced design, one that heralded the end of Blue’s reign of terror, and its immediate follow-up was Odyssey Block.
Whoops.
There happens to be three major types of undead legal in Tribal Standard right now. I felt that the coincidence there was too great to pass up, and so I write this mere hours before October 31st to bring you what may well be the first Tribal Standard decks to discuss with Time Spiral enabled, and hopefully a bit of holiday spirit (pun intended, because I can).
Paul, along with various other Magic stalwarts in the NY area, audibled at the last minute before last weekend’s major tournament. Instead of the tried and tested U/G lists, they ran something a little more… angelic. While Paul himself did not scale the heights to the top tables, another familiar name did just that… read about his triumph – and get that all-important decklist – right here!
Normally, I would leap at the chance to play Time Spiral Sealed with a friend, especially if it cost me no money whatsoever. But this was no normal game of cards — this was a game with my boss, Pete Hoefling, owner and CEO of StarCityGames.com. And the winner would decide the fate of all mankind.
