For a while now, I’ve thought it to be fun and profitable to make predictions and look back on how right or wrong you are. Seeing as how I have this magnificent bully pulpit here at StarCityGames, I thought that this year I’d come out and share my predictions with you. As an added bonus, you get to see how well I did in a few predictions last year and an overall analysis of, well, what went down in 2005.
Depression is a fact of life for many players, and quite a few don’t even know they have it. Everyone from the top pros down to the most casual can be afflicted with this disease. It’s an unfortunate truth that people who have a propensity for this kind of recreation and/or lifestyle seem to also have an extra susceptibility to this illness. The hope is to raise awareness of the symptoms of the disease, and the strategies for beating it.
Wizards of the Coast has been making a push to make the Pro Tour more appealing to the average player. They’ve replaced monetary awards with travel vouchers, booked several Pro Tours in highly desirable travel locations (the Louvre, Prague, Hawaii), and began the Magic Hall of Fame. These innovations have been coupled with popular changes to the Pro Tour itself, but have these tactics worked to pull the non-Pro player into the world of the pro? Not as much as Wizards would have liked. Today, Ben unveils a modification to the Pro Tour designed to have huge appeal to Magic audiences around the world, not just the hyper-competitive PTQ players.
I keep having success drafting Blue/Black decks online. I guess milling is not sexy enough compared to hasty fliers, Saproling generators or graveyard recursion. Anyway, here’s a draft article for the masses, for those of you keeping your winter nights warm with the magic of Ravnica draft.
Chris is on Christmas vacation, but luckily little Billy Horowitz is here to tell you about his “Ewww, Groz” deck.
Some of you have been searching for the definitive answer to the question: Are there some rares that are more rare than other rares?
The answer is… no and yes.
Let me explain.
Looking for a cutting edge deck to play? In this article I canvass the Vintage tournament scene and present four decks that I think represent the best Vintage tech from the last month or so. Whether you are a Vintage newbie or an expert, you should take a peek.
One of the things about being a Christian Magic player is that the instructions are right in the Bible: You shall have no other gods besides Me. But it’s hard to remember that when the Mana Gods are crapping on your forehead.
A complete decklist for the rogue deck Flores played in the last Extended PTQ of the season? Check. Detailed discussion as to how the sideboard for that deck was built and why? Check. Detailed discussion on how you should build sideboards for all future decks you build yourself and the thought process behind it? Check indeed. If you play Constructed Magic, this article is practically guaranteed to make you better.
Ben put forth his predictions for ten trends and events in Magic for the year 2005. Now that we’ve reached the end of the year, how accurate was he? In today’s article, Ben breaks down where he was right, where he was wrong, and throws out a few predictions for 2006.
Extended season is now over and that means Ravnica Sealed season has arrived! Luckily Craig Stevenson is here for you, with a fresh card pool, Christmas carols, and more bad poetry than you can shake a stick at.
For my last column of the daily series, I didn’t have a subject yet as I hoped something would pop up to me while I was busy doing the others. It didn’t, so I settled for another Limited article, this time about the Golgari guild.
Ah, maligned Mirage Blue. No one likes you. Well, no one that writes likes you, apparently. What you have been reading about Mirage Limited recently seems either wrong or misguided and I, against my better judgment, am here to set you straight.
Tiago explores lessons he has learned about metagaming, drafting, and the Pro Tour lifestyle while travelling the world recently.
