I have played in a lot of PTQs, Grand Prix, and other big tourneys, and have my fair share of PTQ Top 8 pins. I’m a player. I’m also a judge, and have judged at Nationals, Grand Prix, Worlds and Pro Tours. Since I have a foot in both camps, I want to pass on some advice – judge to player. This is stuff that players should know, and judges wish they would know. This may not win you games and matches – but it may keep you from losing games and matches.
Gifts Ungiven is more dominant than Affinity. There, I’ve said it. Now if you want to know what the hell I’m talking about, you have to actually click on the article.
Saturday, September 24th
* Ravnica Prerelease Day One (Check out the Prerelease Card!)
* Ravnica Team Limited Tournament
* “Power Nine” Vintage Tournament Series
* Judge Certification
* Meet Artist Christopher Moeller
(artist of Umezawa’s Jitte and Twincast!)
Sunday, September 25th
* Ravnica Prerelease Day Two (Check out the Prerelease Card!)
* Ravnica Two-Headed Giant Tournament
* NEW! “Duel for Duals” Legacy Tournament – 100 dual lands up for grabs!
* Judge Certification
* Meet Artist Christopher Moeller!
(artist of Umezawa’s Jitte and Twincast!)
The Ravnica prerelease is tomorrow and you’re looking to get the best trades possible at the tournament. Ben breaks down the hottest cards from the new set using data culled straight from weeks of Ravnica singles presales! See which cards are in the most demand, which cards are being undervalued, and which cards you should be gunning for on Saturday. Make sure you don’t trade away your gold for dandelions – read this edition of Ben’s Corner right now!
A little over two weeks ago, Masashi battled the best players Japan had to offer and ended up on the Japanese National team. This is the story of how he got there, complete with insights on the current Standard format and his favorite archetype in CBS draft.
The last article in this series was what some guy named Randy Buehler deemed one of the greatest articles he had ever read. Can you really afford not to read volume 2?
blisterguy continues his fine tradition of doing everything short of force feeding you the spoiler in order to prepare readers for tomorrow’s prerelease. Recommended for good players and commoners alike.
If you’ve never been to a prerelease, here’s what it’s like: You have this big pile of cards in front of you. In half an hour, you have to make a deck out of them. Today I’m going to take the least experienced among you and try to instruct you how to take your “pile” and turn it into a deck that can win.
Welcome back. Today I’d like to go over what you should expect if you’re planning on playing Vintage in Richmond this weekend. My job today is pretty easy though, since anyone who’s been to Richmond before knows that the metagame is extremely predictable. What’s that? You don’t know what to expect? Well read on, then. Still need a decklist for the big event? I got your back on that one too.
Last week, my newly acquired playtest partner Jeff Cunningham, a.k.a. ffej, wrote what was described by Randy Buehler, Grand Wizard Vizier of Magic: the Gathering as – and I quote specifically here – what “could be the best column [he] ha[s] ever read[,]” (emphasis mine). High praise indeed from the lord and master of hocus-pocus and prestidigitation; too high, in fact, to escape notice. Now I must say that your narrator, too, enjoyed ffej’s Time Walk into the ancient days and it jarred me almost bodily into historic reverie. However, instead of telling untold stories as Jeff is doing, I shall highlight some of the greatest stories ever told for the eggs and chicks in the audience.
One of the most widely-read writers on Multiplayer returns to the field, condensing his overly-long series of articles back from the Pleistocene Era of Magic into several sweet, easily-readable theories. Today, The Ferrett takes on the core concepts of Aggro, Combo, and Control to show you why multiplayer is different from a single-player duel – and how these differences make him reject articles from friendly readers. Plus, a brief rant on the status of our non-Premium articles!
“Oh look,” you say, resignedly. “Another Legacy testing article. Yippee. Sigh. Why can’t anyone write about cool decks in that format?” Well do we have a treat for you. Today McKeown discusses skeletons for four different decks that are distinctly off the beaten path. Looking for a port of Fujita’s Sneak Attack deck? He’s got it. Want to play something as ridiculous and outrageous as Dragonstorm? He’s got it. If you like strange but potentially competitive decks in interesting new formats, then this is the article for you.
It’s interesting… on the surface 9th Edition Limited seems pretty simple. However, every time we run a new article on the format writers seem to disagree dramatically on color strength and pick orders. Which color does Pelcak feel is the best and what do his pick orders look like? Enquiring minds want to know…
I get a lot of questions from players who love their foils as to how best to maximize the pimpness ratings of their Magical cards. In order to make this a little more clearly apparent (and to write a slightly more whimsical than usual article) I’ve decided to take up the challenge as an article. Read on to discover maximum pimposity.
Grand Prix: Nottingham is coming soon, only three weeks after the prerelease, and it will rock. A single GP is of course nothing like a PTQ season. At least it’s nothing like the PTQ London season was around here. There is only one shot at glory and there are only three weeks to get to grips with a brand spanking new format that has nothing whatsoever in common with the brand spanking old and stale format. Three measly weeks to break a Limited format? That requires some atomic-powered speed demon! I intend to become that demon. All y’all can come along for the ride; but beware! The road may be a bit bumpy.
