Today’s edition of this amazing series only requires three measly letters to make certain that every member of the Magic community will immediately sit up and take notice.
P.
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R.
Teddy Card Game’s challenge to many writers on this here fine website was to participate in the Championship Deck Challenge, some of which are easy hurdles (“Talk about Black/Green decks for Standard!”) and others of which are something more difficult. Or at least less popular, as it would seem. My mission, as I have chosen it for myself, is to take a hard look at some of the unloved archetypes that are inevitably going to have some kind of footprint on the format, be they the stomping boot of progress or the mangled road-kill of first-iteration stinkers. This week, I’ll be talking about Mono-Green, or “the color that R&D forgot.
Not so long back, I wrote a series of articles called “Sealed Revealed.” The aim then, as it is now, was to take some “Sealed,” and, well… “Reveal” it. At the time of writing, I am sat by the pool in a Floridian villa, enjoying a two-week vacation. It is the day after the Ravnica Prerelease. Yesterday, I entered a 100+ player “Mega Flight,” as my first (and so far only) foray onto the playing fields of the Shiny New Set. I have my prerelease card pool on the table by the laptop, and I’m up for a little deck-building discussion.
Years ago, you could get a free game win by catching your opponent on a rules error. That has changed. Today, both players are responsible for ensuring that mandatory actions take place, etc., and both players can get cautions and/or warnings if the game state gets screwed up. Judges are clamping down on “rules cheese.”
StarCityGames.com is proud to have one of the hottest deckbuilders around and best Magic writers in history give you the lowdown on every card in Ravnica. Flores’s task today is to discover whether there are any goodies in Red besides Char and Hunted Dragon, and just how far you will have to sink in order to find playable one and two-drops for your aggro decks.
First of all, I want to stress that Wizards wants people to play with foils. They like seeing foils. They do not want judges to discourage foils. In fact, the Wizards folks make that point fairly emphatically. You can play with foils. You just have to be careful when you do it so you don’t wind up with penalties for having a marked deck.
Welcome to StarCityGames.com’s 2005 Championship Deck Challenge, where each week some of the best writers we have square off against each other in a battle to deliver the best deck for States. Each deck must adhere to the theme for the week, and on Friday Supreme Arbiter Flores will choose a victor. This week’s theme: Build a Mono-Colored Monstrosity. Mark Young’s swipe at this theme involves one of the more common things you’ll see at States this year – attacking for two.
StarCityGames.com is proud to have one of the hottest deckbuilders around and best Magic writers in history give you the lowdown on every card in Ravnica. Today michaelj tackles the awesome power of Black, where some very saucy dishes are just waiting to be broken.
Welcome to StarCityGames.com’s 2005 Championship Deck Challenge, where each some of the best writers we have (including Chad Ellis, who returns from hiatus today) square off against each other in a battle to deliver the best deck for States. Each deck must adhere to the theme for the week, and on Friday Supreme Arbiter Flores will choose a victor. This week’s theme: Build a Mono-Colored Monstrosity.
While most of the Magical world was off enjoying their Ravnica prerelease experience, Nick Eisel was at home battling Ken Krouner and others for digital glory.
Today I want to talk about sleeves. I want to tell you how to avoid penalties including game loses, match loses and even disqualifications, because you screwed up with your sleeves. Worn, folded or unusual sleeves all look different from other sleeves and, accidental or not, the result is marked cards. Marked cards are serious yang and should be treated appropriately.
There are a lot of highly playable cards in the set, so watch out. In fact, this may be one of the best sets for 5-Color since Odyssey block. In fact, let me show you fifty-five cards that might just change the face of 5 as we know it!
StarCityGames.com is proud to have one of the hottest deckbuilders around and best Magic writers in history give you the lowdown on every card in Ravnica. What goodies has Wizards left for us in the Blue cards? Flores hops in with both feet to find out whether or not there are treats lurking that lack guild stamps.
This is going to sound weird, especially coming from me since I’m typically pretty harsh on Timmy decks in my metagame predictions, but one of the hottest archetypes for the upcoming Standard season is almost certainly going to be enchantment-based.
Man, I am so glad that Mirrodin is going to rotate out of Standard in the coming weeks. Gone will be the days that anyone can tap three Urza lands and two Forests and beat you. So long Sword of Fire and Ice, I’ll see you again in Extended season! Goodbye Vedalken Shackles. Two fingers to you, Troll Ascetic! Now it’s time to focus on what decks are interesting for States. You might be surprised to find Hondens is near the top of my list.
