Many years ago, back when I was probably Weak Among the Weak, let alone Strong Among the Weak or Weak Among the Strong, Matt Rauseo said you should always maindeck Annul in Urza’s Block Sealed. “Why?” I asked. “Because you need to beat the 4-0 decks.” Understanding this concept will not only change how you build your sealed decks, but it also can be instrumental in pushing you over the PTQ Top 8 hump.
The forums keep swearing this deck is good. The testing results from our writers seems to indicate otherwise. So which side if right and what does Mark Young add to this debate? The answers are only a click away and include additional discussion about Mono-Blue, Big Red, and Tooth and Nail.
Andy was going to write an article about Standard this week but while researching that he found his attention kept being drug back to the infectiously fun Singleton format on Magic Online. So the week wasn’t a complete loss, he decided to spread the addiction to the StarCityGames.com readership by describing the deck he built and give you some trading guidelines to help you out, should you find yourself bitten by the bug as he was.
John Matthew Upton takes over the helm of SCG Daily this week and ventures into a realm few people have gone before on this here site here: fan fiction.
Way back in Duelist #4, Chess Magic made its debut. The idea behind Chess Magic was simple – try to create a format specifically designed to recreate the feel of Chess. The goal of the format is not to exactly duplicate the Chess game, but simply to give a Magic game the feel of a good Chess game. It’s high time that we had an updated version of this really nifty variant, so I am updating the older rules and streamlining the process a bit.
Last week, I wrote about the Blue-Red Isochron Scepter deck that could be a monster of a problem if people lose their maindeck artifact hate. It did quite well, going 3-1 with the one match loss being a tough three-game loss against what I consider the best deck in the format, G/B Control. This week, I tackled Crystal Witness.
We asked you to build decks around the worst cards in Magic, and you guys came out in force! In the end, it came down to two strong contenders: Kenneth Nagle’s Winning With The Worst Card Of All Time, and Chris Millar’s Don’t Patronize Me. Both of these guys are among the most entertaining casual writers we have, so it had to come down to a bizarre tiebreaker – namely, that Kenneth was an awfully good sport about me changing the title of his article (which was originally “Winning With Aven Shrine”). Thus, Kenneth takes the $20 prize!
This week’s challenge?
Peasant Magic.
That’s right; we’re looking for articles written on the “five uncommons, no rares” format. We’ve had difficulty finding writers for this in the past, but we’re hoping that the incentive of a fresh $20 bill will bring writers out of the woodwork (even if Peasant Magic writers don’t need the money to buy rares). Write your article and send it in to Mail us at https://sales.starcitygames.com/contactus/contactform.php?emailid=2 today!
So what happens when you take an aging Englishman, the Sealed Revealed series, weeks of feedback from the StarCityGames.com forums and a PTQ? Is it possible that Craig Stevenson managed to get a solid Sealed Deck pool, build it correctly, make the Top 8, and qualify for Pro Tour: London on his first time out? Well, anything is possible, but you’ll have to read the article to find out what really happened.
For this final Daily, I’d like to give some coverage to the funnest format of all time. Pure enjoyment, thy name is Cube Draft.
As one becomes better at this game, one gains confidence in its many aspects. I like to think of how far my understanding has come, how theory that once would dizzy my mind with its talk of curves and timings now seems rudimentary. Where once I hoped to bring others into the discussion, to find a way to translate the works of Zvi and EDT into readable chunks, now I feel I am expected to impart my own understanding. Certainly to look at how far I’ve come you could assume that I had gained knowledge useful to the entire community, if I was but willing to share it. But aye, there’s the rub, how to talk about Fight Club with that pesky first rule floating around.
Ah, springtime, when young men’s fancies turn to the games of spring, wooing of young maidens, and, of course, Standard. And what a Standard! The death of Affinity has opened up the doors for numerous decks to claim the top spot. You’ve got the obvious culprits, like Tooth and Nail and B/G Cloud; decks that were good even before Affinity’s demise. And other decks that might be viable to fight these new Kings of the Metagame. Like this one.
There has been a lot of talk recently about White Weenie, but you haven’t lived until you’ve seen Flores tackle the little beast. Today Mike pits both a slow and a fast version of White Weenie up against the staple decks from Paris Regionals to see how they fare. Is Umezawa’s Jitte all it’s cracked up to be? Is an equipment toolbox supplemented by Steelshaper’s Gift the way to go? Is Hokori, Dust Drinker any good? The master knows…
In this article, Nick covers all of the best archetypes in Betrayers Limited, detailing the cards that make the decks tick and then pointing out some over and underrated cards in each archetype that you might not be playing right now.
The views and opinions expressed herein are not necessarily those of the editorial staff and management of this website. As such, StarCityGames.com would like to begin by apologizing to any judges offended by the following article. You guys are swell. Honest. Blame Noah.
At this point, U.S. Regionals is about two months away. It is not too early to start looking at the format, or to start playtesting. We do know something about the format, because the French Regionals are ongoing – but there is a lot more that we do not know. Regardless, it’s time to start exploring archetypes that will likely see play in June and figure out what’s winning.
