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From Right Field: In Which Romeo Rips Off a Much Better Writer, Part I

One of (my idol) JMS’s shticks is to take a pre-con deck and modify it so that it’s competitive in the Casual Decks room of Magic Online. Since I want to be so much like Jay (published novelist, work from home, hyphenated last name), I’m going to try the same kind of thing for the next couple of weeks with one twist: I want this deck to be competitive in a tournament. That doesn’t mean that it has to win the thing. I just want it to win more than it loses.

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State of the Union: FNM Foils and Judge Foil Promos

Today the Bleiweiss has turned in an article so packed with “stuff” that it’s difficult to describe all of it in a concise blurb. Try this on for size: 9th Edition and Ravnica Speculations, the short and long-term past and future of FNM prizes, the cards that absolutely NEED to be made into Judge promos and how the judges got the shaft last time, the coolest proposed GenCon Vintage Championships prizes of all time, and so much more! This will be the water cooler article for your friends for the rest of the week, so you’re going to want to read it.

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Revised Thoughts on CCB Draft

Champions/Betrayers draft is fully mature now and Nick has reevaluated some of the cards he has written about previously, particularly from Champions. What cards does he feel are over and underrated at the draft tables? The details are inside.

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Revisiting Oath

We hate to toot our own horn around here, but the day before the Chicago Power 9, we published an article about the very deck that won the tournament the next day. Today Stephen Menendian talks about variations of Vintage Oath of Druids decks, including the deck he designed that finished second at that very same Chicago Power 9, this time in the hands of Brian Demars.

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The Monoblue Manifesto For Legacy, Part One: Decklist, Card Choices, And Philosophy

During Legacy’s birth, you could be guaranteed that you’d face combo decks, Sligh, and combo/control ports from Extended like Aluren, as well as control decks, like Landstill or Fish. With those constraints in mind, Monoblue was probably the one of the best two or three decks in the format. While it’s no longer the best deck, BBS is a strong choice – and it builds the foundation for playing control in Legacy.

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Weak Among the Strong: Archetypes and the Best Card, Part 1

My last article took care of getting you to the Top 8, so now it’s time to win the draft once you get there. This week we’ll look at the nature of draft archetypes in the abstract (with specific examples, naturally) and how to think about the interaction between draft archetypes and card valuation.

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Setting the Stage for the New Standard: Iron Giant

Last week I tackled White Weenie. While that deck is out there in the metagame, no one would contend that it’s a major force in the new Standard metagame. Now it’s time to tackle something bigger.

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Sealed Luck #3

This weekend, Martin attended three PTQs and won all of them utilizing the power of Takeno’s Cavalry enchanted with Kumano’s Blessing. Okay, maybe that’s not quite true, but he did attend one and he may have had to play against Takeno’s Calvary in round 6 where the winner of the match would make the Top 8.

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Smallpox in the Midwest: My Star City P9 Chicago Report *1st*

I hadn’t planned on writing a report. I was worried that by doing so, I’d inadvertently make fun of the Midwest and devalue my win. Then I realized I played like an asshat all day and still won, so I don’t really feel like I earned it anyway. I’m still looking at this Black Lotus wondering why it’s here, because I don’t think I played optimally in any game all day…

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Some Snappy Title (with Entwine)

It’s the nine-mana elephant that’s lurking in the Standard room, but nobody has talked about it yet. That all changes today, where michaelj rams Tooth and Nail against the testing gauntlet so hard that it explodes into a shower of Red and Green spells. That’s right, we said Red AND Green. Why is it better to run two colors in your Tooth deck instead of just one? That is just one thing among many that Flores explains today.

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Welcome to Jitteland!

I will not be going to Philadelphia. “Because you’re rubbish”, my girlfriend cries, reading over my shoulder. That may well be true – possibly a deep insight into my future career. I myself prefer to think of it as an opportunity to spend more time focussing on my university work, but her diagnosis is probably closer to the truth.
That first sentence initially filled me with dismay and depression, I’d be missing another Pro Tour; but upon reflection maybe it was a blessing in disguise. I’d be missing Pro Tour: Jitte.

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Five Dollars, Five-Hundred Equations: A Rant and Reflection on the MSRP

Over the past few years, I’ve become increasingly frustrated by the cost of Magic boosters. I remember when the MSRP was only $2.69 – a very long time ago, to be sure, but now it’s climbed by an entire dollar. That’s a lot of money for a single booster, don’t you think? Thankfully, SCG thinks so, too. If it wasn’t for SCG, I don’t think I would still buy packs anymore. I’ve recently begun to see how the rise in the price of Magic has affected my local gaming community – and I’ve heard some cries on the forums lamenting similar stories about how their gaming stores are closing down, relocating, or are not planning on renewing their Magic inventory. I found this somewhat disheartening – so I talked with a few people that I knew and wanted to find out why this was happening.

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The King is Back. Long Live the King!

Jamie Wakefield is back and this time he’s back to stay. Right here at StarCityGames.com

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MTGO on the Cheap: Singleton

I love deck building, and I love playing Constructed duels. I find it much more rewarding than leagues and drafts, so I am trying out the various MTGO constructed formats. That said, I still have very few Constructed-worthy cards, and my online Type Two and Extended decks cannot compete with Vedalken Shackles in Standard, or Vial Affinity in Extended. However, I can build decks that are competitive in other formats, especially singleton.

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Green Thumb

In Limited, Green seems to be the odd man out. Red and Black have always offered drafters valuable removal, while White and Blue packed flyers, but Green tended to shuffle its feet and look morosely down on its collection of ground-pounders and mana acceleration. There are exceptions, as when Green suddenly found itself as the new top dog at killing off artifacts right in the middle of the artifact block, but more often it suffers from general anemia in the fields that drafters care about. Even though it was carrying its own weight in triple-Champions draft, it’s certainly fallen back into disfavor for the Champions-Champions-Betrayers environment.

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