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Tips and Tricks with the Top of the Hop

The problem, of course, is that Sensei’s Divining Top
is in all of the best decks! It’s in the fake best
deck (Tooth and Nail), the second best deck
(Kuroda-style Red), and the actual best deck (UrzaTron
Blue). No matter how good the players designing these
decks, they all put the terrible Top in to make sure
they don’t tap their mana efficiently so as to gain to
much of an advantage over their fellows. As near as I
can tell, the difference between horrible Tooth and
Nail and the actually good and successful decks is the
ability to get rid of the useless Sensei’s Divining
Top so that you no longer have to look at it.

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To Live Forever or Die Trying

I’ll cut to the chase; although some of you were miffed with my last draft article – which is allowed – I decided to continue on this path. While others with more impressive resumes engaged in the debate of what’s hot and what’s not in the CBS format, I felt that I could still serve a more mundane purpose on the ground, showing what pans out in practice rather than arguing theory.

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SCG Daily: My London, Part Three

Shortly after landing this job, I began my reign of terror as a writer, pushing the envelope to write a weekly strategy column while occasionally slinging mud, getting people to start to read the Neutral Ground website for columns, tournament reports, and other information as the newborn site grew into a popular website.

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Casual Competitive with Parfait (Well, Sort Of)

Today StarCityGames.com brings yet another new and deserving Featured Writer to the starving, huddled masses looking for tech and a good story. Nathan Xaxson straddles the line between hard-core gamer and theorist and guy who likes to sling spells while hanging with friends at the kitchen table. We think his articles will be appreciated by pretty much everyone and encourage you to try him on for size.

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White/Black Spirits in CBS Draft

Today StarCityGames.com welcomes yet another new writer to the family, this time in the form of former Dutch National champion Rogier Maaten. Rogier’s first article deconstructs the Black/White spirit deck in full Kamigawa Block Draft. Back in CCB, this was one of the best archetypes around, but can it still perform with a new set added to the mix? What do you have to do now in order to win with this deck, and what does the pick order for Saviors look like? Enquiring minds want to know!

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Specters, Elves, and Jesters: 9th Edition in Standard

How big of a change will hit us on August 20? Let’s start off looking at each color, covering their gains and losses. Then we’ll look at the biggest changes overall, see how some of the popular archetypes are affected, and maybe even come up with a meaningful answer.

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Designing for Vintage 3: Block Mechanics

In general, these days blocks tend to be focused on such different themes that they aren’t really very compatible with each other. Using Onslaught for an example, there were no Cycling cards and very few Goblins in Odyssey and Mirrodin, the two sets that were legal when Onslaught was and thus nearly every card in those decks came from either Onslaught block or from the basic set. In Type One however, blocks never rotate out. This gives deckbuilders the ability to plumb older sets for cards which can work along with a block mechanic. Some blocks have been more successful than others because of this effect.

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SCG Daily: My London, Part Two

When we left off yesterday, I was fifteen, stupid, and had just enough money to be a danger to myself. Money doesn’t make you smart though, so I stopped buying packs after my first trade-rape experience…

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Magic for the Right Reasons

Zvi says goodbye to StarCityGames.com with a list of how to make your Magic: the Gathering gaming experiences better than they have ever been before. Looking to become a dealer, a Pro Tour player, or something in between? Zvi shares his thoughts on each of these including his opinion as to what the most important element in any gamer’s life happens to be.

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Drafting the Best Deck in Kamigawa Block

Today StarCityGames.com welcomes World Champion Julien Nuijten to our growing family of world class writers. In his debut article, Julien exposes his new readers to the best archetype in full Kamigawa Block draft: Red/Green.

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From Right Field: Bad Day at Black Rock

As far as this week goes, as I promised I wanted to look at making budget versions of some of the decks that are clearly the king of the hill of Kamigawa Block Constructed, starting with Black Hand.

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SCG Daily: “My London, Part One”

To a lot of you, I’m probably an unknown quantity; I’m a writer who’s recently appeared “on the scene” here on StarCityGames.com on the Premium side, seemingly out of nowhere if you didn’t already know the story. For those of you who don’t know me or my personal back story, that seems like the place to start.

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StarCityGames.com is Hiring!

FAQ Added! StarCityGames.com is a leader in the trading card game industry and America’s largest Magic: the Gathering singles dealer. Due to our continued expansion, we are currently seeking two outstanding individuals to join our team.

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Boy, Is This Random

This week, Wakefield hooks his brain up to a random number generator and ends up producing some of his finest work yet.

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The Deck That Never Was

A little less than a month ago I built what I figured would be the Ultimate Deck ™ for U.S. Nationals. Sadly the French ruined my plan, but if things had gone differently this is the deck that I would haven given people to play at U.S. Nationals today.

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