When your buddy walks up to you after a round to check up on your result, do you think he’s interested in the bad beat story? As Josh Ravitz always says, “Not interested in the story, just tell me your record,” yet we share the story anyway. It’s useful for us to be able to disregard the bad plays we made and blame it all on random chance.
This week I felt like taking a break from writing about Ravnica to instead tackle the release of Mirage on Magic Online.
When you talk to someone about Ravnica booster drafts in general, they will very often mention how bad it is to be the Boros drafter. I’m saying the Boros drafter because in my experience about one in three drafts has only one person drafting that guild, and there are very rarely more than two. Here are a few hints on drafting this guild that should save you from having one of those oh-so-common miserable Boros draft decks I keep seeing.
This week in Ben’s Corner: What was hot at Grand Prix: Charlotte? Which great new rarities did we pick up at the event? What are the three Guildpact Mechanics? Which block of sets have had their prices slashed this week? Find the answers to these questions in this week’s edition of Ben’s Corner!
The Big Secret Of SCG is that its Editor-in-Chief stopped playing Magic almost eighteen months ago. I have retained enough knowledge from reading articles to know what the must-picks are in Draft, and I have some general idea of the trends in every Constructed format… But it’s time I got back on the horse. So let’s see what happens when I step back into the new, exciting world of Ravnica Sealed!
Due to travel to/from Grand Prix: Charlotte, Ben’s Corner will be appearing Tuesday this week. Tune in tomorrow to find out what was hot in North Carolina, and which rare cards StarCityGames.com picked up at the tournament!
Chris wraps up his quest for a winning Mono-Black Control deck in Standard.
Today, I’ll talk about an unorthodox method of turning a game around in your favor. Often referred to as Jedi Mind Tricks or bluffs, this is the kind of thing that separates the good plays from the masterful ones, and will always produce a good story. First, I’ll show you a situation from an old Standard format in which a bluff could be justified…
StarCityGames.com is delighted to welcome freshly-crowned Player of the Year Kenji Tsumura to the writing staff. Today Kenji gives you the Japanese perspective on the deck that stormed Worlds and walked away with a World Championship title for his teammate Katsuhiro Mori.
StarCityGames.com. The best writers. The best players. The best Magic.
Mike Flores has never been more on top of his game as a deck designer. For the last two years he has produced deck after deck that has turned in great results for Pros and PTQ players alike. In the tradition of Mike’s legendary “Building Broken Decks” series, today Master Flores delivers the first installment in a new series where he reveals to you the secrets of his success.
Yesterday, I told tale of my Second Grand Prix. I placed fourth, winning the allotted prize for my finish plus the cash bonanza that accompanies the title of Highest Placed Amateur. My Constructed ranking gained almost 300 points overnight and I was able to treat my friends in Team Leeds to a slap-up Chinese meal. But most importantly… I was qualified for the Pro Tour!
It’s rare that a submissionist comes along who writes well enough to make us promote them after only a couple of articles, but that’s exactly what happened last week with Kelly Digges. Check out the funniest new writer on the site as he tackles the truth and the lies behind Coldsnap.
From July through October, Stax did pretty well in Vintage. Not only was it the most predominant deck in Top 8s, it was by far the most successful. Although Stax was only a fifth of Top 8s, it comprised 40% of all tournament winning decks. Therefore, I decided it was time to dissect this archetype and see just what makes them tick.
When I left off two articles ago, I had thrown together an Extended deck predicated on disruption. Despite the fact it had little or no testing, I wanted to create a starting point. Sure enough, it was – but it’s far from an end point. Today I’ll take what we started with, test it, tweak it, and see if we can end up with something good and quite rogue.
