After much cajoling, Dan Paskins (Red Mage Extraordinaire) returns to StarCityGames.com! Today he brings us some sound advice regarding Red spells… when to hold them back, and when to send them to the face. With solid analysis of Tomoharu Saito’s semi-final play at Pro Tour Charleston, he examines the plays and skills required in order to maximize our beatdown potential.
In the first of a daily feature, exclusively for our Premium subscribers, Rich Hoaen shares his drafting techniques. Utilizing the excellent DraftCap draft recording software (availiable for download here), Rich shares a draft a day, from first pick to forty-fifth, with decklist and final draft result. Rich also gives a brief overview of how the deck fared, and is available for detailed deconstruction in the forums. The best players, the best writers… at StarCityGames.com!
Fresh off the back of his defeat at the hands of Richard Feldman in the first round of the StarCityGames Battle Royale, Chris takes a budget look at a hardy perennial of Standard: Magnivore. Undercosted and hasty fat monsters for four mana are quite the value… does Chris’s deck have what it takes to compete aginst the Big Dogs?
Today, Mark’s daily list deals with comics. He presents his Top 5 Comic Books You Might Not Know About… do you agree with his evaluations?
It’s a mixture of topics this week as The Ferrett opens a deck, opines upon his daughter, apologizes for the two wretched articles that got published last week, and discusses what the 8-0 decks from Grand Prix: Toulouse mean when you go to build your deck!
Tony does his usual mix of tricks and poetry, by providing a Seussian lament about “The Prat With The Mat” before launching into an elaborate wordplay puzzle that asks you whether you can figure out the names of Magic cards, encoded cunningly in a Da Vinci-style fashion! And if you can, you might win some foil Ravnica rares!
On Friday, Mike shared his opinion on the mistakes made during his testing for Pro Tour Charleston. However, it wasn’t all bad news at the PT… his team, Two Headed Giant, finished strongly in 26h place. While some things went wrong in testing, some things definitely went right. Today he reveals the strengths of their testing, the secrets behind their fine finish, and analysis of the deck that gave him his personal best Constructed performance to date.
Steve, a member of Two Headed Giant, gave a creditable performance at Charleston but finished just outside the money. Finishing 9th in the Top 8 of life is always a bitter pill to swallow… Steve’s report examines the games played, and reveals the changes he’d make to the deck that almost took him all the way.
The Pro Tour Qualifiers for PT Kobe are upon us, and what better way to brush up our RGD Sealed skills than with a tale of success! Kyle Sanchez, half of the South Texas 2HG Champions (the other half being Billy Moreno), recently placed very highly at GP Toronto. When the dust settled, he banked more cash than the winner himself… read his entertaining report here!
You might recall my last turn on the Daily, in which I made lists of various Magic-related things that I thought would be interesting. The positive response to that Daily was above and beyond anything I could have expected; I’m not gonna lie, once I find a gimmick that works, I tend to go with it.
With Ravnica Limited finally becoming a little clearer, it’s time to dust off our walkthrough shoes and watch Nick go though the paces. In today’s informative article, Mr Eisel presents every twist and turn from a successful RGD Draft. He examines each pick in detail, discusses some of the trickier deckbuilding decisions, and shares the plays and pitfalls from the resultant games.
With Limited Champs mere hours away, Sean takes a conglomerate pool from the Day 1 undefeated section of Grand Prix Kuala Lumpur. By mixing and matching proven game-winning cards, he runs through a gauntlet of Limited archetypes in search of the perfect Sealed deck build. This fascinating experiment is sure to pay dividends to those partaking in this weekend’s competition…
With Standard Tribal Wars now up and running, JMS takes a look at the Kamigawa-centric Spirit tribe, with particular reference to the Blue and White monsters. The Spirit pool is huge – touching U/W is merely one avenue of attack – but Jay shares his decklist and runs through a bevy of matchups in this new and exciting casual format.
Mike’s team, the abovementioned Two-Headed Giant, posted a creditable 9-5 at the recent Pro Tour Charleston, earning them 26th place… when the money slots descended to 25th. In today’s Flores Friday, he examines the “misses,” or mistakes, that he and his testing crew fell foul of during their preparation for the event. The line between success and failure is thin – Mike’s frank appraisal of their format evaluations is one from which we all can learn.
Did you know that StarCityGames.com has fielded a company softball team this year? It’s true! Our sixteen-man squad has endured early hardships, but we have been improving with every game and now stand on the cusp of victory. What does this have to do with Auriok Champion? Read on to find out!
