Progressing at writing is not unlike progressing at Magic. The more you work at it, the easier it gets to perform at a high base level and the more you can excel at something beyond the rudimentary skills of the game. Having been intimately involved with the recruitment and training of Magic writers for years now, I have come up with a silly tiered system that describes where most writers fall in the community hierarchy.
Today Ted spotlights two interesting decks from the early States results, talks about the mistakes he made when attempting to predict this year’s metagame, and then discusses why country music certainly isn’t America’s most popular musical export.
States has come and gone, but Extended PTQs started Sunday, so it’s time to shift focus to the newly-rotated format where almost broken things can happen. Today Sean takes a look at the Extended metagame and provides eight starter decklists for those of you looking to do battle in the next couple of weeks.
It’s not everyday that a sixty-card draft deck makes the Top 8 at a big tournament like States, but that’s what appeared to happen last Saturday in Richmond. Today Bennie explains what this crazy deck is, how it came together, and whether cards like Stinkweed Imp, Moldervine Cloak, and Greater Mossdog belong in future iterations.
Jon Becker only writes once or twice a year, but when he does it always ends up being one of the best articles you read all month or sometimes all year. This article is no different, as our favorite crank covers spiders vs. elves, a dearth of Jay Schneider articles, a superior Ravnica sealed deck, and soliciting for charity in his usual laugh-out-loud style.
Lately my draft results have been showing that the best two decks by far in Ravnica Limited are R/W and U/B. Since I’ve already said my peace about the U/B Mill deck, I figured it was time to discuss the fastest archetype in Ravnica Limited.
Before the tournament Saturday, Mark Young was debating between two decks, Critical Kudzu and something rather rogue and not completely tested. His foolish friends convinced him to run the rogue deck and it landed Mark smack dab in the middle of his first Virginia States Top 8. What deck did he play? Why Greater Good Combo, of course!
This is it. What I’ve been working towards these last three weeks and wouldn’t you know? I completely wasted all my testing because I failed to realize that the sealed deck format is completely and utterly different from what I thought it was. The reason for this is that all my impressions where gleaned from prerelease style events with three boosters and a tourney pack rather than just two boosters. Sure, I built and played around with some proper sealed decks, but not in a real tournament setting.
Just before London won the bid to host the 2012 Olympic games, French president Jacques Chirac was overheard commenting that the English have the worst cuisine in the world as he was leaving a press conference. This supposedly caused outrage among the English and was given partial credit for pushing London’s bid past that of Paris. After all, who wants to hold Olympics in a country once governed by some obnoxious toad who doesn’t like English cuisine?
If you ever want to make a Wizards employee squirm, speak the words “1998 Inquest Tournament Guide” in their presence. “Oh yeah,” they’ll say, looking furtively to one side. “That.” And then they’ll change the subject so quickly your head will spin. The Guide gets passed around sometimes from old-timers to newbies, an unfortunate relic of a time when Magic was only four years old and nobody knew what the heck they were doing.
I found my copy recently. I thought I’d share.
So, you want to know what it’s like to run the best Magic site around and do coverage for the Pro Tour? Today, Teddy Card Game takes you way behind the scenes and gives you his opinion of what it’s like to be him.
The foreigner name game, Tim’s weekly Top 5, and a complete guide to drafting Black/Green in Ravnica. The Limited master is back and is sure to leave his fans clamoring for more.
The first Ravnica card that I saw that just leapt out at me was Bloodbond March. In fact, I remember it well. I was walking down our hallway – we have this long thin hallway that leads from our foyer to our living room – when aaaaaiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeee there it was! I was so scared. But it was just teasing. Given the fact that the March is Green and Black and Green and Black have all of those Dredge cards, I figured it was golden.
This will be the best report written about GP: Nottingham. Yes, I do dare to say that. The article you are reading now just has all the good stuff: an epic competitor’s story, the stories of not one, but two DQs at the GP, photos of your Magic heros in compromising situations and even a movie clip of two PT mainstays getting into a fight. [Sorry, no movies. – Knut, not hosting The Battle of the Pro Tour Stars] Oh, and if you read between the lines, you might even pick up a little strategy as well… You get all this, and the tale of a PT purgatory member slugging it out, battling for that elusive Top 32.
Haven’t seen your favorite weekly series of reminisces lately? Master Cunningham explains why and when you can expect it to be back.
