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Going Infinite – Grand Prix: Philadelphia *15th Place*

Originally I was planning on skipping Grand Prix: Philly and instead spending time working on the Extended format for Grand Prix: Charlotte in December. This all changed when I realized I’d be qualified for Pro Tour: Honolulu on rating. “No Constructed Magic until February?” I thought to myself. Just then I came to the realization that Grand Prix: Philadelphia was technically not a Constructed tournament, but it affected Eternal ratings. Immediately I started making phone calls, checking class syllibi and by the end of the week, my flight was booked. Now then… What the hell is good in Legacy?

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Off the Beaten Path — The Other Decks at PT: LA and Elsewhere

Everyone knows the Top 8 decks from PT LA: Ruel’s Two Color Tog, SWK’s Heartbeat deck, Fujita’s Boros build, Moreno’s Madness Tog and so forth. I want to look beyond the Top 8 – and beyond PT LA – to see what other decks are being played. I’ll even throw in some metagame info from the recent GPs.

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SCG Daily – Styles Upon Styles Upon Styles

There’s an old boxing adage that says “Styles make fights,” but what about in Magic?

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High-Value Casual Cards

When you’re trading, you don’t want to get ripped off because you didn’t know that Phage the Untouchable still has a really high market value due to massive casual interest. This article will look at some old cards that have kept their value over time, and list some recent cards that have high values as well. These cards are especially important, because tournament-level players consistently undervalue them while casual players highly covet them.

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Go Figure – Pro Tour: LA *Top 8*

One week Ervin Tormos was just some PTQ kid Tim Aten introduced me to at a Grand Prix. Then, attending his first Pro Tour ever, he was suddenly a Top 8 contender. This is the unlikely story of how that came about, including the inside skinny on how Ervin sideboarded PT Jank against the field.

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Building a Legacy – GP: Philadelphia *Top 8*

I’m going to start this article the only way I can to keep it interesting – most of you have probably heard of me, not for what I’ve accomplished, but rather for what I’ve disrupted. At PTNO of 2003, team Your Move Games had an awesome Goblins deck that comboed off with a little-known enchantment from Mercadian Masques called Food Chain. It could kill on turn 2 and absolutely blindside whoever was expecting a more normal Goblins deck… if it wasn’t for the fact that everyone at the tournament already knew about it. That was because of me.

Hi, I’m Ben. Nice to meet you.

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SCG Daily – For the Greater Good of All Men

I’ve developed a fascination for Greater Good combo decks in the last couple of days, even going as far as to shell out beaucoup tickets on Magic Online to get the sucker built. I hope the mad cash I’ll rake in from this week’s stint on the Daily will more than compensate for that outlay…

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Beating Psychatog – B/G Aggro in Extended

Today I will try to introduce you the deck I played in at PT: LA and GP: Copenhagen, posting satisfying results both times (respectively 14th and 15th), while unfortunately missing the Top 8. I will try to explain the choices I made for the deck, why I played it, the matchups and what I would change. I’ll even go through the two events I played with the deck and give you a little analysis of the deck in action and explain why I think B/G Aggro is an excellent choice for the current Extended metagame.

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The Beautiful Struggle: A Dissenting View on U/G Combo

Some people even went so far as to say that Mind’s Desire is an “awful” card, and that Chris battled to the Top 8 on the back of pure playskill and experience with the deck. Having seen Chris play at States the week before the Pro Tour, I can vouch for the playskill part. However, after playing some games with the Ideas Unbound version, I began to agree with the anti-Desire people too.

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From Right Field: Boros! Boros! Boros!

Romeo embarks on his adventure to turn the Boros precon deck into a lean, mean, winning machine. Can a few minor card substitutions create a bona fide winning deck? The answer might just surprise you.

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SCG Daily – House Dimir: Aggro or Control?

So, I have to come up with five short articles that have to be between eight hundred and one thousand words in length. I can feel free to let the funk flow at any point too, but there has to be at least some Magic related content in each installment? Well then. Since I usually write about decks for Standard, it makes sense that I’d lead off The Daily with my latest pet deck. I played it at States and went 6-2, narrowly missing the cut.

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My Own Private PTQ

Flores puts a new Zoo variation through the flames of battle and discovers that it might just be a very solid contender for the PTQ and Worlds metagames.

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A Force of Nature

Last time I looked at Mono-Green Aggro, I suggested that it was an excellent metagame option against Tooth and Nail and MUC. I loved Molder Slug as if it was a barely-clothed, barely-legal slice of cheesecake and my name was Chris Romeo. Since Mirrodin rotated into oblivion, Mono-Green has lost the Slug, Viridian Zealot, Troll Ascetic, Fangren Firstborn, Fangren Pathcutter, and Elvish Pioneer. Of the deck’s ideological core, only Blanchwood Armor, Jukai Messenger, Okiba-Gang Shinobi, and Rushwood Dryad/Zodiac Monkey are still around. And yet Mostly-Green Aggro has gained so much!

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SCG Daily: The Other Rainbow Push Coalition

Magic’s favorite cartoon bartender wraps up another excellent week on the Daily with the rallying cry, “Bouncelands are people too!” or something similarly drunken and entertaining.

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Ben’s Corner on Hiatus for Two Weeks

I’m on vacation in California and so Ben’s Corner will be on hiatus for the next two weeks. Our new buyer (Josh) will be attending both of our Pro Tour Qualifiers this weekend (in Roanoke, Virginia this Saturday and in Charleston, West Virginia this Sunday) so come on down and sell your cards!

Josh will also be buying cards through our buylist while I am on the West Coast. Expect the same fast turnaround on approvals and payments from him as you would from me.

Have a happy Thanksgiving, and see you in two weeks!

– Ben Bleiweiss
– General Manager, StarCityGames.com

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