Stephen looks at the issues and strategies coming up for the rest of 2005 – including a look at the overall metagame, the deck that requires the least skill to pilot (and why this matters), how to use Gifts Ungiven properly in Meandeck Gifts (it’s not what you’d think), and his take on Pithing Needle. All that, and a brief look at the potential pitfalls of the 2006 Vintage Season!
With the end of a truly relevant Standard season, it’s time to settle in and take a look at Champions of Kamigawa Block Constructed with both the Pro Tour: Philadelphia results and the addition of Saviors of Kamigawa to the mix. The decks that you’ll be playing will hopefully be based on the cards that help break the rules of the game…. and taking a look at all three sets for Constructed-quality cards of this nature will probably tell you about the decks that you’ll be playing.
I love spirits. I just love them. In my previous articles, I’ve outlined ideas for spirit decks and detailed various strategies — I’ve built a lot of spirit decks, too. With Saviors, we have our last influx of cards. What spirits and arcane spells are worth playing?
I’ve always been of the opinion that many otherwise solid drafters don’t take the necessary time to re-evaluate the older cards whenever a new set enters the format. Just because something was great in CCB doesn’t mean it’s still going to be amazing in CBS. Fortunately, I’m very interested in the subject and ready to help those of you that feel like slacking off.
Today, I’ll be going over the power of each uncommon and rare in the set, and possibly let you know about some hidden cards that people have not found to be good yet. Champions of Kamigawa was actually a fairly balanced set in terms of uncommons; it does have its Strengths of Cedars and Nagaos, but those are nowhere near to the power the Grab the Reins and Crystal Shard had in Mirrodin block. The best uncommon is Champions of Kamigawa is probably Honden of Infinite Rage, and there’s definitely something that tops that in Saviors of Kamigawa. Anyway, let’s look at the uncommons from Saviors…
Recently, Mike Flores used the term “velocity” to describe a certain type of deck behavior. In that article, however, he merely noted it as a conceptual notion, without offering any theoretical context or application. He attempted to demonstrate its presence, but in this author’s opinion and others, he did not accurately describe his observation in terms that have useful application. While what he describes is not deniable, his descriptions are ex post facto observations, and not a theory to be applied in a logistical matter to deck construction or play skill. This article will attempt to define velocity in terms that are more in line with other concrete Magic theories, and identify its application.
It’s the Daily, and this week I’m counting down the five most evil, twisted, and most of all hated decks in Magic history. The decks that made you seriously consider taking up a (comparatively) less painful hobby, like chewing your own arms off, or caber catching, or maybe polka. Today’s deck is second on the list; I’ll name it in a minute.
Before I do, you need to do one thing for me: Here’s an asterisk. Stare at it for 15 minutes.
07/6/05 We’re back from Origins and Regionals! How did we do over the past two weeks? Let’s just say that we have several hundred thousand cards to add to our inventory!
Over the coming weeks I’m going to feature cards being added to the system. Today’s feature? Nothing less than the Power Nine – 8 pieces of Alpha, 8 pieces of Beta, and 43 pieces of Unlimited power – for a total of 59 pieces of power added to our system overnight!
Click here for a complete list of these cards, plus several other high end cards (Mishra’s Workshop, Bazaar of Baghdad, etc) added to our system today!
-Ben Bleiweiss
General Manager, StarCityGames.com
Thursday
4:06 p.m. Get home from work.
4:07 p.m. Mare tells me to take her upstairs or “face her wrath.”
5:30 p.m. Get dressed. Try to wipe silly grin off face. Fail.
5:31 p.m. Tell wife I’m going to win Regionals now.
My favorite Magic format of all time was the briefly infamous Extended environment following Pro Tour: New Orleans (also known as Pro Tour: Tinker) last season. That format was crazy. Vastly undercosted artifacts and Tinkers were everywhere. Entire games were decided by turn 3 or 4. Kai Budde lost a game in the Pro Tour to a turn 1 combo kill. I loved that format, but that environment is not what I’m here to talk about today. No, today I’ve come to discuss an even more degenerate tournament: Pro Tour: Philadelphia. Say what, son?
Today, StarCityGames.com is rolling over. If you look at the URL above this blurb, the end of it reads “10000.html” – which, in nerd parlance, means that you are looking at our 10,000th article. That’s gotta be the largest article archive in all of Magic; people have written ten thousand articles on some aspect of this silly little card game we all love, sent it in, and had it published for people to read. Thus, as the Editor-In-Chief of StarCityGames.com, I figured I should probably celebrate this completely arbitrary anniversary with a look back at the milestones of this site we all love – including the two most influential writers on StarCityGames, the real explanation of why we went Premium, and StarCityGames.com’s worst humiliation.
It’s mid-week. We are halfway through a list of the worst, most reprehensible Magic decks of all time. These aren’t just the decks that had Wizards R&D folks crying, “What have we done?” and stepping in front of busses – these are the decks that had the bus drivers stomping on their brakes because “getting creamed by a bus was way too nice a death for people like that.”
Today Dave wraps up his Regionals qualifying story and relays information about one of the most controversial Regionals Top 8s ever. Feel free to chime in with your opinion about how things should have gone down in the forums.
This week’s daily series counts down the five most evil decks in Magic history. These are not necessarily the best decks ever, just the ones that made playing Magic the equivalent of having a root canal – and having one every other round all day. These are the decks people really, really hated.
Here’s a fact for the history buffs – the phrase “You lucky son of a b*tch!” only dates back to late June, 1998. That’s it – it was never heard before that date. The phrase was coined in that month, apparently in many places simultaneously. In all cases, though, the phrase was first uttered by a Magic player. A losing Magic player.
