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On the Clock, Part 2 : How to Play Faster

The faster you can play, the more matches you will win. Of course, you have to counterbalance that with the fact that playing too quickly will cause you to make bad decisions, costing you more than you gain by playing fast. There are a lot of good reasons to play fast, some of which are not well known, but none of them will save you if you’re making a lot of mistakes. The good news is that speed can be learned, both in general and for a particular deck or format. I consciously developed my ability to play at a hyper-fast pace and rather than weaken my play it made it better. First, I’m going to offer some motivation.

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Down that Road Madness Lies — First Picks that Lead Your Draft Astray

For people like me, who would have a gambling problem if they ever actually gambled and who are true Johnnies at heart, self-control isn’t easy to come by. The Danger of Cool Things isn’t limited to play situations in Constructed, but can already occur during the draft or deck construction portions of a Limited tournament. It is very useful to be aware of potential traps and this awareness is what I hope to contribute to with this article.

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Type 4: A Way To Enjoy Magic Again Part I

Have you ever found yourself getting bored with Magic? I know I do on a nearly regular basis. I used to be able to renew my interest by building Revenge of 1997, my wacky five color, Vintage-legal, control deck which is a blast to play, but that eventually stopped doing the trick. Revenge was only a temporary solution. It was a fun deck that only had serious opponents. I needed something new. I needed something extreme. I knew that White Castle was going to be too hard to find, so I went for something four times as extreme as Vintage: Type 4

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SCG Daily – I Cast Love / Hate Targeting Vintage

Hi and welcome to the Daily with Josh Silvestri. It’s great to see you all here today. For Monday, I’d like to speak on one of my favorite Constructed formats, Vintage. For those of you who are curious about the oldest of formats, there is a lot to both love and hate about it. I’d like to devote today to briefly covering the ups and the downs of this place where “broken things happen.”

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4-Color Control for U.S. Nats

Ruud has struggled through four countries and approximately one billion rewrites to bring you the story of his favorite deck in Standard that deserves one more spin around the block before 9th Edition evokes drastic changes on the archetype.

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Ben’s Corner: What’s Hot? StarCityGames.com News!

Ben’s Corner returns after a long hiatus with the latest news from StarCityGames.com! Find out what’s been added to the site recently, which prices have been dropped on cards,
other news about Magic: The Gathering products we sell!

Also inside: Which cards are red hot right now? Which Kamigawa cards are our best sellers? What is the latest information about Ravnica: City of Guilds? All of this, and more, is just one click away!

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On the Clock – Time Management and Magic

Have you ever ended up with an unintentional draw or a loss when you felt like if only your opponent would have played faster, you would have had a chance to win? That’s the topic that Zvi tackles today, first tackling the legality of slow play, then giving you signs that will tell you whether your opponent is deliberately wasting time, and last providing advice for what you can do to prevent this. If you ever have played or plan to play tournament Magic, then this article is a must read.

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Blind Gifts, PTQ Phoenix *1st*

Adam Prosak is a name that strikes terror into the hearts of West Coast Magic and Vs players alike. And yet, as you’ll see in his triumphant return to StarCityGames.com, the owner of the “ihatepants” account on Magic Online is as much buffoon as master, even when he’s winning PTQs.

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Outrage and Gratitude – Reflections on the Hall of Fame Nominations

One of the masters of Magic article writing reviews the Hall of Fame voting process and has some scathing words for those who did not vote for Jon Finkel. Additionally, Mr. Vienneau has some kind things to say about his greatest enemies in this reflection on the Hall, its voters, and what the entire thing means to him.

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SCG Daily – Designer’s Journal #4: The Importance of Art

Once we’d decided that Battleground was too good a product not to move forward, we knew that there were a lot of challenges facing us. Most of them had to do with the game itself. We needed to develop three launch armies that would play very differently from each other. We had to make sure that our point-cost system was balanced such that no unit was “too good” or “crappy”. We had to resolve dozens of issues that come up whenever you try to represent constant movement of individuals (albeit individuals in units) in a turn-based system in which the shape of a unit is fixed. One of the biggest challenges, however, had nothing to do with game play. We had to get the art right.

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An Evolving Nemesis: How Do You Beat the New Tooth and Nail?

U.S. Nationals is less than two weeks away. I’d like to write another tournament report and tell you that my deck beats the format. Unfortunately, Regionals didn’t go as planned, so instead I’m going to talk a little bit about the best deck in the format and theorize about how to beat it.

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Talking Vintage Tech with Randy Buehler

This would normally be a Premium article, but we have made this available to all readers of our site. Premium members should consider this a Premium article for the day that everyone else gets to read. Non-Premium members – consider this a sample of what you would see on the Premium side of the site nearly every day. And just to blow your minds, it includes statements like the following: “I’m actually growing to hate Mana Drain. It’s probably the worst card in the deck right now and I sideboard out 3 of them with some regularity.” What deck is Randy Buehler referencing and what other insights does the Director of R&D have for Magic players everywhere? The answer is only a click away.

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The Road To Los Angeles, Week 3: Tight Play and Surprises

Last week I made the semifinals of a PTQ in Cost Mesa, CA, playing a Heartbeat of Spring/Gifts Ungiven deck I worked on with Rob Owen. Being an absolute mastermind when it comes to deck titles, I dubbed this creation Rob.dec. After the results of GP: Minneapolis, I was still convinced the deck was strong enough to qualify with, so I brought it to another PTQ in Mesa, Arizona. What follows is the story of that tournament, the lessons we learned from it, and the latest iteration of the infamous Rob.dec.

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SCG Daily – Designer’s Journal #3: Lessons of the Past

Whether a game is great or not certainly matters – that’s obviously a big source of demand – but it is far from the only consideration in determining whether something is a great product.

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My Five Color Vision

This is what things would look like if Abe ran the Five Color world.

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