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Vintage Metagame Analysis: From Waterbury to Richmond

The renowned Waterbury TMD Open and Richmond double Power 9 tournaments are now a matter of record and, due to a family emergency and a missed flight, I was not in attendance for any of them. As such, I was forced to quietly sit in front of my laptop watching the results pour in, my hands tented as I accumulated statistics to further my evil plan to take over the Vintage world (cue evil laughter)… but then I decided to write a massive statistical analysis article that everyone can enjoy.

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D is for Dogpile

The incomparable BDM returns with the fourth in his alphabetical journey through Magic’s finer strategies. Today, instead of bringing play scenarios to the table, he warns us of the dangers in our card evaluation methods. When all is said and done, who’s to say that any card is good or bad?

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Keys to the Kingdom: Twenty Questions, Scour Power, and a New Deck for Team Standard!

Even though Mike has qualified for PT Charleston on ranking, his Team Standard testing and strategy continues unabated. So far, he’d brought us the apparent optimal builds for a number of powerful decks, and an innovative Green/White deck that abuses Chord of Calling. Today, he offers up fresh meat. Are you a fan of attacking? Do you enjoy the phrase “to the dome?” If so, Mike’s new offering is the deck for you…

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Magical Hack: Ghost Writer

Read Sean McKeown... every Friday at StarCityGames.com!

At the start of the Team Standard season the easy default decks were known, but the format has proceeded past its origin by a few miles, and the best decks from Honolulu have effectively been blown in the dust already. Necessity is the mother of all invention, and as information flows around and around, a strange variety of decks are proving themselves in a format that is destined to depart in but a month’s time…

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SCG Daily – Lessons from Losses: TGI5

It’s time for the last installment of my daily column, and I think that it went fairly well. I will miss writing it… As for now, I’m going to talk about a deck that is legal in the current Standard format. Some dashing young upstarts played it at Pro Tour Honolulu, but the history of it has been lost to the sands of time… until now.

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Food For Thought: Not Boros Deck Wins: Rethinking WW/R

I wanted to take White Weenie in a new direction. It ended up being an old and perhaps unfashionable one — WW/R. That said, I do not call my deck a Boros Deck Wins, because it operates with important differences. This week, I want to show you how I got WW/R to fit my playing style and work in a shifting metagame, while discussing some new and exciting tech on the way.

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Team Strategies and Playing Vore

Steve comes to StarCityGames with a fine submission covering Vore, Honolulu observations, and Team Constructed strategies. This article contains a wealth of excellent information, especially for those serious about Team Standard…

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Drafting With Dingler

At Grand Prix Cardiff, Martin took the crown by gobbling up all the unloved Green spells. Today, he shares with us the finer points of this strategy, with pick orders and strengths applicable to everyone attempting a DingleDraft. Do you love your 5/5 Wurms? If so, then this is the article for you…

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Considering Your Options with Grim Long

Grim Long is arguably the most skill-intensive deck in the current Vintage metagame. Thankfully, Stephen is here to put us through our Type 1 paces. Armed with a gaggle of sample hands and game scenarios, he shares his extensive technical knowledge and informs us of the correct plays. Wanna play Grim Long like a champion? The information is a mouseclick away…

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A Scrub Brushes Up, #2: Two Heads, One Tale (and Top Four)

Kelly continues his journey through scrubdom and improvement. Today, he brings us an excellent report on his adventures in the Land of the Two-Headed Giant… A fun, involving, and enlightening read.

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SCG Daily – Lessons from Losses: Four Skullclamp

Today, I don’t think one particular anecdote will cover the extent of this lesson, so I’m going to tell two. That and bad beat anecdotes tend to be rather short due to the nature of said beats. It’s hard for one to write an article’s worth of amusing anecdote when one is out of the tournament in 3 rounds.

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The Kitchen Table #127: Joey’s Ice Deck

Read Abe Sargent... every Thursday at StarCityGames.com!

Recently, Joe Johnson had an article published on this here site. Abe found the character that he describes as “Joey” to be quite interesting, especially Joey’s legendary Ice Deck. Today, Abe recreates the young boy’s super-deck. It has some 10/10s in it… and it’s the second-rarest deck in the world.

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Ask Jeroen #1

In our continuing efforts to bring you the very best Magic writing available, we are proud to present Jeroen Remie in the first of a weekly column series! Jeroen is looking for your questions, and plans to answer them all in the coming weeks. Today, he imparts some sage advice on Ravnica/Ravnica/Guildpact drafting, and lets us into the strange world of Bizarro ffeJ…

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Playing Zoo in the Team Qualifiers: A PTQ Report

It’s safe to say that Craig Prof Jones has had an excellent run of late. Who can forget the $16,000 Lightning Helix? However, his quest for glory in Team Constructed has thus-far been fruitless… His report today sees him journey to Ireland in search of the Blue Envelope. Does he succeed? Read on to find out…

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Magic Online Musings: This Week on MTGO #10

Read The Blisterguy... every Wednesday at StarCityGames.com!

Blisterguy dodges bullets in his quest for online statistics, and brings us the best and worst of the price changes in the MTGO marketplace. Invaluable stuff for fans of electrical cards.

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