Magic is my foremost gaming passion, and it has been an integral part of my life for over a decade. It isn’t the only game I’ve ever tried – I’ll admit that I’ve openly cheated on my one true love with other brazen hussies in the gaming world. Today are some stories about the other collectible card games that I’ve played over the last years of my life.
Chad gives the quick and dirty reasons for his Invitational ballot, and some of the people in his Top 5 might just surprise you.
Originally, I wanted to write something about reviewing Betrayers of Kamigawa and all the cards that are going to have an impact on the new format. I knew that my teammates Gadiel and Tim Aten were going to write something about the new set, along with Zvi and many others. Thus I needed to work on something else that was also important that involved Betrayers. What about the different archetypes in Champions block and how they are going to be affected with Betrayers now in? Are there going to be new archetypes? Which archetypes get better? Which ones get worse? All of these questions haven’t really been answered yet, and I’m here today to start doing exactly that.
If you’ve read any of Nick’s articles recently, you know that unlike most pros, he hates Black. Well Betrayers of Kamigawa is out now, but were there enough good commons and uncommons to change Nick’s mind, or is Black still so bad that even the totally sweet power of rat ninjas isn’t enough to sway his opinion?
Hey boys and girls! It’s time for this year’s Magic Invitational! This year, they let me, Ben Bleiweiss, get a vote in the Internet Writer’s Vote category. It’s my solemn duty to uphold the traditions of voting from years past, in which thousands of the great unwashed would vote in players from years past who had not actually played a game of Magic for a full year! Seriously though, this is no Chris Pikula memorial vote – this is a vote for the best and the brightest players and personalities in the game of Magic.
In the quarterfinals of Pro Tour: Nagoya, Terry Soh pulled off one of the more impressive and memorable plays in recent Pro Tour memory, using a stone cold bluff to get Frank Karsten to make a game-losing mistake. In a stunning look at the mental game behind the scenes of the highest levels of Magic, Terry dissects the game situation that led to that awesome play, and shows you both how to set up bluffing situations to exploit your opponents and how to protect yourself against them.
Ben lays it all down as he gives the reasons why he thinks Competitive American Magic is on life support – and what can be done to resusitate it. Read about what is killing the community, why it’s killing the community, and how YOU can be a part of the solution instead of part of the problem. Learn why Chad Ellis could well be the savior of the entire competitive American Magic community in today’s installment of Blog Fanatic!
I love Spirits. As soon as Betrayers was released, I modified my casual Five-Color Spirit deck, and have been playing with it heavily. What Spirits and Arcane spells are the best? The absolute essentials? I have ranked the top Spirit and Arcane spells, and given you some tips on how to use them.
Zvi examines why there are two different Extended formats being played right now, tells you what decks you should and should not be playing, and requests that all of you Rock players out there stop bringing sticks to gun fights. The Mad Scientist also addresses your forum feedback and a variety of community issues all in one fell articulate swoop.
Control Slaver is the hottest Vintage deck on the planet, but there’s a huge amount of debate about what the best configuration looks like. Should the deck run the Intuition/Accumulated Knowledge engine? Is it worthwhile to add Black to the deck? What’s the best deck configuration to help you win the mirror match? Does Meandeck really need to use training wheels to win? All of these questions and more are examined inside!
Nobody, but nobody does lists like The Bleiweiss, and when Ben heard that Wizards was doing “Artifact Week” he had to reprise his old role as the master list maker, except this time we’re publishing it here at StarCityGames.com!
It’s Extended season. An amazing number of decks are making PTQ T8s. Early results showed Twenty-two different archetypes have multiple T8 appearances. It’s a diverse field, and a diverse field rewards playing powerful decks that aren’t well known. Enchantress – the combo version – fits that definition. It won a PTQ last weekend and made T4 the week before, and Betrayers just became legal, meaning there may be some new tools available to help you abuse an already abusive combo deck.
Tim Aten is on the Writer’s ballot for the Magic Invitational and today he provides his Top 5 list of players to send to Southern California, where they can oggle Playboy bunnies and see the coolest new computer games at E3.
SWK: Hey, I think I broke the format.
Knut: Oh really? What are you playing?
SWK: Well, it’s 60 different cards, so it’s tough to tell you.
Knut: Oh no – you got hooked on Singleton, didn’t you?
SWK: Yeah. All I wanted to do was make a Mind’s Desire deck because I figured it would be funny to try a combo deck with a bunch of one-of’s – I never expected it to be any good.
Knut: Ship it…
Today’s Blog Fanatic contains three strange cases of the Bleiweiss kind. Each of these, while often unbelieveable, is completely true and it gives an indication of exactly why most members of the StarCityGames.com staff do not let Bleiweiss lead or give directions on a road trip.
