After a month-long break in which he toured America, Jeroen is back with a bang! He picks up where he left off, answering reader’s questions and queries. Today’s article covers the art of the Limited manabase. How many lands? How many accelerants? When and where is it appropriate to splash? He also lifts the lid on the pro player mindset, revealing the depth of their involvement with Wizards and official decisions… Jeroen, it’s good to have you back!
For the North American Challenge, Ben turned his back on the Tron deck that sent him to Worlds… turning instead to the powerful Erayo Ninja deck that ravaged German Nationals. Mr Lundquist, heralded as “the future of American Magic,” took home all the marbles, swinging for two and drawing a card all the while. This interesting report chronicles the highs and lows from each match.
Rich moves from the mean streets of Ravnica to the icy tundra of Coldsnap! Today’s installment of Drafting With Rich sees the Canadian maestro share a full triple-Coldsnap draft, from pick one to pick forty-five, with brief commentary on strong cards and deck performance. For a more detailed analysis, come join the forums!
Blisterguy shuns the usual MTGO content, opting instead for more hilarity involving photography and card desecration. He tells the tale of his attempt to qualify for Pro Tour: Kobe with his signature hilarious style…
I hate beating a dead horse. I know that I lost the Battle Royale match to Talen a couple of weeks ago, and that’s fine. I got played, it happens. However, I thought that the deck I brought to table could be nurtured into a competitor in this Standard format, so I kept beating the proverbial dead horse. I should have given up. A lot of time could have been spent in a better way, like tuning the Solar Flare mirror match, or actually doing homework for a math class that I am sure to fail.
After two straight days of random creature deck-ness, you aren’t about to see me slow down. We might as well see this theme to fruition. For those who are new to the series, or forgetful, I randomly select a creature type from the Mistform Ultimus Watch on the Wizards website. Then, I build a deck around whatever creature type I select. Monday I had selected everybody’s favorite creature type — the carriage deck. Then on Tuesday, I build a deck of Volvers. What will I select today?
Billy Moreno has a mission – an article a week on all things Magical. Today’s first offering covers the last few months of his Magic life, including Pro Tour and Grand Prix stories. He also presents an innovative land-abusing beatdown deck, Summer Boom Boom. Third turn dragons, massive Vinelasher Kudzus, uncounterable card drawing… could this be the deck to break the metagame wide open?
Patrick “The Innovator” Chapin takes us through a sample day in his life, a day packed with conflict and deck testing. He shares his latest Standard decks – Quiet Jushi, B/U Haakon, and Pitch Necro ’06 – and thrashes them against a number of the top contenders in the modern metagame. With Coldsnap finally in the Standard mix, everyone is looking for the Next Big Thing… has Patrick found it?
Rich moves from the mean streets of Ravnica to the icy tundra of Coldsnap! Today’s installment of Drafting With Rich sees the Canadian maestro share a full triple-Coldsnap draft, from pick one to pick forty-five, with brief commentary on strong cards and deck performance. For a more detailed analysis, come join the forums!
Chris returns to his popular “Quick Hits” article format, chewing the fat on all things related to Magic: The Gathering. The Hall of Fame, tiebreakers, Battle Royale, Tenth Edition… Chris discusses it all!
As detailed in an article that I won’t link because it’ll depress you, I am now an editor for the Pro Tour coverage team. Although many people think that I got the position because I’m a filthy lucksack, it’s actually based entirely on my merits (i.e., Ted Knutson thinks I’m cool).
I really enjoyed my Carriage deck from yesterday, so I figured that I would continue the theme today. I will select a creature type at random, and then build a theme deck around it. What amazing creature type was selected? Volvers.
The Ferrett returns from Europe to discuss… death. Dying formats, dying comics, dying relatives, and endless, endless flights on planes. Which is not the standard method of writing “Welcome back” Magic articles, but hey! It has Ravnica cards, and talks about what it’s like to stay with Editor Craig Stevenson! What more do you want?
Last week, Stephen shared his preparation and deck choice for the “upcoming” Vintage Championship – Five-Color Pitch Long. Today’s article sees him share his views on the tournament. He discusses the current Vintage metagame, tells us where he thought things went right – and wrong – for him, and speculates on the future of Vintage Magic.
Richard talks us through his latest incarnation of the B/W Orzhova Maxima deck, with specific reference to his performance – and the performance of team-mates – at the U.S. Nationals (and Grinders). While the results weren’t exactly as planned, the development of the deck was perfect for their proposed metagame… sadly, their opponents didn’t get the memo. This frank and enlightening article highlights the strengths – and weaknesses – of high-level tournament playtesting.
