I decided to share with you a little game that I play, which I call the First Pick, First Pack Game. Every time I open a pack that I have bought/won, before I add the cards to my collection, I study the pack as though I were in a draft and it was the first pack I opened for that set and I try to decide what my pick would be.
If you followed the PT Columbus coverage at the Tournament Center, you know that my favorite deck of the Pro Tour was Red Deck Wins. I watched Shuhei Nakamura win a series of improbable matchups on his way to a loss in the finals (to what should have been a good matchup). He played for the most part a very tight game, constricting the turns that his opponents had to answer his threats, bowling them over with a combination of aggressive attackers and finishing burn that would make Dave Price proud. Red Deck Wins is a straightforward deck that doesn’t get color-screwed, doesn’t fizzle, and has game against every single archetype. But which version is optimal?
Those with long memories will recall that this time last year, I revealed to you the Mirrodin uncommon print run on Magic Online. I got a bit wordy about it, and sort of made an article around it, but basically the whole thing was an excuse to get the print run out there. Well, after umpteen drafts and a fair amount of help from friends and randoms on Magic Online, I have managed to do the same thing for Champions of Kamigawa.
Chad has ideas on how you can spend your Christmas loot and briefly explains what it’s like to be a professional game designer.
Last week, I had a very upsetting experience. I sat down to read the daily articles on StarCityGames.com, and the first one that I read was just simply wrong. From reading the forums, it seems that quite a number of you folks had comments to make about the article I mean. Here’s my take on this issue, and as an incentive to read it, I’ll throw in a free guide at the end on to how to win at every tournament you enter.
What exactly do you tell people when they ask you what you do for a living? I think its pretty cool that you get paid to edit Starcity and fly around the world covering Magic events, but I would imagine its not easy to explain to non-Magic playing people. Also, what do your close friends and family think of your job? Do they approve of it, or do they think it’s just some “weird card thing?”
Romeo stops back by to take a look back at 2004, otherwise known as “the year I got married in a Red Sox jersey and the Sox won the World Series.” On a more related note, he also includes two new rogue decks he’s been fiddling with for the last few months and some advice for the DCI.
In my last article, I went over my mono-Blue build* for Standard and detailed some of the matchups and card choices. I also said that my Constructed rating at the time was 1888, and that I needed at least 12 points by December 15th, 2004 to earn two byes on rating for GP: Boston and GP: Seattle. On that point, I was wrong — I needed 18 points. Time to whip out the Standard decks and grind for a while, I guess…
In addition to giving a restrospective on the previous “official” champions we’ve had in the Magic writing world, Mike takes a look back at the legacy and the legend of the crazy old genius who inhabits the body of one Eric “Dinosaur” Taylor.
Yesterday Michael Clair published an article that sent a portion of the community up in arms about whether he was damaging the game. Today Kanoot takes a look back at some of the best articles ever written on cheating in Magic and makes a clear case why enforcing the rules as Clair advocated is actually important for the game. If you’ve ever cheated, been cheated, saw someone cheat, heard about a cheater, or (God forbid) felt that StarCityGames.com published an article advocating cheating, you must read this article.
You want Champions draft strategy? You got it! Random inside jokes and random anecdotes? Done! Breasts? Oh hell yeah!
I really liked Mr. Krouner’s ideas on dynamic pick orders, but I don’t think he took it far enough. Too often people just ignore the other half of the combination when doing pick orders. So here is my shot into dynamic archetype drafting bullseye. As a lot of people have said before, when drafting you have to look at the whole picture.
My last two articles talked a lot about plan-making: how one should plan in situations where the opponent could have hate cards for your affinity deck, and how one should plan on saving a lost game in the face of the opponent’s tricks. Both of these articles were well-received in the forums, which makes me happy. But, many of the plan-making concepts brought about some thoughtful disagreement from some readers. Since I haven’t yet put in the proper amount of testing to write about Extended, I thought I would take a few pages to write more about what kind of planning I was talking about.
Can we, your loyal readers, hear the tale of your greatest Magic-related drinking session and the antics that ensued?
In the past few days, it’s come to my attention that I am a bit more of a jerk than I intend to be. This week, it’s my loss and your gain, as I talk about how to be a jerk for fun and profit.
The Extended season is rapidly approaching and I thought I would take some time to look at the decks you’ll be seeing. There’s really no better place to begin than with the deck that won the whole show, Affinity. Can this deck be improved and is it really the best deck in the format?
