Two PTQs, two near misses, four-thousand words of good beats. Wakefield is Magic’s everyman, always striving for the goal and yet rarely grasping it. Thankfully we still get his excellent reports, allowing good and bad alike to live vicariously through the adventures of the King of Fatties.
Today Dr. Mox answers e-mails regarding Magic’s Senior Citizens as well as trying to lend a helping hand to the U.S. National Champion.
Today we present to you blisterguy’s very special story of transformation, from beach bum and harmless sheep buggerer to Magic: The Gathering Worlds competitor. Won’t you join us?
Nats is one of those nice events for the pros, as we get to play real life MTG in our own countries only about twice a year. Due to this fact, I usually put quite a lot of effort in and this year was no exception. I felt that I would be well prepared enough for the Limited portion of the event because I did so much practice for PT: London, which was the same exact format. This left me with quite a lot of time to only have to concentrate on one thing: Constructed. Now anyone that knows me knows just how much I loathe a game involving sixty-card decks, but I was still prepared to give it a go and see if there was a deck that I liked the look of in the current format.
This article is largely written for players who have a decent grip on the basics on Magic strategy and/or are fairly accomplished players. I’m guessing even a lot of awful players with a sound grip on logic can make some use of a few of the guidelines listed below, but if you are a complete novice or a true master of the game, you may not find it very useful. You have been warned.
The one and only blisterguy gives you a tale so great, so brilliant, so riddled with sheep that it might just take three parts to tell, and at the end you will all feel it is worth it. Do not miss this report.
Dear Dr. Mox,
I’ve been playing Magic since the launch of 4th Edition. I’ve stuck with it through 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th without complaint (other than my twenty-four hour blackout and so-called “rampage” after the release of Prophecy, but I’ve made my peace with that). 9th Edition is now in the shops, and I think it’s the best thing in the whole world. If the cards were people, I would throw a big party and invite them all. Except Sengir Vampire, of course, because he’d only complain about the garlic dip.
Previously, I explored some of the potential avenues of development for the up and coming Legacy Grand Prix. This time, I’m going to take a look at a more entrenched deck: R/G Beats. This deck won’t be nearly as prevalent as Goblins was this weekend at the Legacy World Championships, but it has some pretty solid game against the field and is something you need to be aware of if you want to succeed in the format.
The way Adam Chambers drafts is not how everyone else drafts. Rumors of his goofy pick orders and fascination for fatties and Snidds have abounded for months, so the man known as “Baby Chamby” felt it was time to step forward and explain why he drafts the way he does, and how it might just work for you too.
More than a few cunning plays and alterations are devised whenever a new set rears its head. Here the author submits for your approval and digestion a few noteworthy strategies and approaches to foil them. These are all relatively new gameplay situations granted to us from Ninth Edition or Saviors of Kamigawa that may crop up and ruin your Standard netdeck. Be wary of “bad players” randomly busting out “bad” cards to ruin your day.
In the cut-throat arena of Kamigawa Block, what is the informed Weapon of Choice? Never fear! I have examined the metagame and mined all available data and will provide you everything you need to know to win at Block Constructed, regardless of race, creed, gender, or basic intelligence.
I qualified for U.S. Nationals this year from the Pro Players Club. I got my first taste of the Pro Tour a long time ago when Tim Bulger (Tbulge), Nate Siftar, and myself won a team PTQ for Pro Tour: Boston, but I’d never been to Nationals before. Let me just say that this year was an interesting experience that started out quite well.
It’s only a month now until Kamigawa Block draft fades away leaving Ravnica in its place, but the format will still be present on Magic Online for considerably longer than that. I figured today would be a perfect time to give you my final thoughts on playing or drawing in the format, and adjust some minor pick orders in the earlier sets to correspond with what Saviors has done to the format.
First turn, I played a Goblin Lackey. Second turn, Lackey came across to dump Kiki-Jiki on the table, and EOT of Brandon’s turn, I copied it. I untapped and sent in the Lackey and his clone, using one free Lackey trigger to dump a Goblin Matron on the table. The Matron digs up Mogg Fanatic from my deck and I play it for free using the clone’s trigger. I then played Intruder Alarm, cloned the Fanatic a million times, and sacrificed all of them aimed at Brandon’s dome. Ah, the sweet taste of surprise.
So I recently went looking for one last Kamigawa Block deck to cheapen up. Obviously, Gifts Ungiven wasn’t going to be it. Way too many rares. I’d already looked at cheap Black Hand. I’d built and played a G/R Aggro deck (“And the Horse You Rode in On”), a mono-Red Burn-centric deck, and several cheap White decks. I even worked on Hondens. I was out of ideas. I turned to the wonderful StartCityGames.com KBC PTQ deck database for decks that might use The Romeo Treatment.
