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Grim Long and the Impact of Portal on Vintage

In the first months of 2004, we threw together some Grim Tutor variants of the deck in preparation for what we believed would be a forthcoming announcement. We did some preliminary testing and tuning and then we waited. And waited. And waited and waited and waited. Finally, the announcement came. Now that people are concerned about the deck, some even claiming (absurdly) that Grim Tutor needs restriction. This article is going to demystify Grim Tutor and introduce Grim Long by tying my experience with all three incarnations of the Long.dec archetype together to provide a solid foundation for your own testing.

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Sealed Luck #2

Two PTQs, two sealed decks, one saucy, one not. Oh, and one burning question: Is Ornate Kanizashi playable in the maindeck in Betrayers Sealed? Did Martin Dingler complete his 1200km trek with a spot on the Pro Tour like Craig Stevenson achieved last week? You’ll have to read it to find out.

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SCG Daily – The Battle for Kamigawa Chapter Three: The Bandit King of Tendo Pass

After he had buried Ishita next to his family, Hashi rested on a rectangular stone that had once been part of his home’s foundation. He contemplated the blisters that ridged both palms, cracked and stinging, then clenched his fists until blood ran from his fingers, letting it fall on the freshly turned earth.

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No-Ponza Red in Standard

StarCityGames.com would like to officially welcome Constructed powerhouse Keith McLaughlin to our family of writers. Keith’s topic du jour is Medium Red, a deck that hasn’t received a lot of press yet, but one that will be a powerful player in the Standard metagame for months to come.

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The Heart of Kamigawa: The Mana and the Legends

The last two weeks Zvi has peeled the Kamigawa Block onion, revealing the goods that lie within. This week he reviews the heart of the block, including playtesting results from one of Kamigawa Block’s most promising contenders.

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The College Dropout: Under-Staffed

The constructive feedback in my last article was surprisingly good and many of the changes the forums suggested to Green/Black Control have been incorporated into my latest version. Sadly, I’m not really here to discuss my favorite deck in the Standard format, but a new version of an old favorite that has stormed the Kentucky Magic scene: Proteus Staff Control.

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Five Days to Reach Five Conclusions: A Look at Stax in the New Standard

So the last time I wrote an article about porting a Vintage deck to Standard, I got quite a lot of positive feedback. With all of that, it inspired me to write this article on another potentially viable port: Stax. Don’t think it can work? You’ll be surprised at the lengths I go to in order to determine whether or not that’s true.

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The Online nOOb’s Ongoing Saga: A League(s) of My Own

Pete checks in with an update about what he’s learned since his initial forays online, includes some basic trading tips for Magic Online newbies, and gives his evaluation of the usefulness of MTGO Leagues.

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SCG Daily – The Battle for Kamigawa Chapter 2: The Destruction of Niigata

Niigata’s townspeople, terrified, clung together in shivering groups. Toshiro knelt weeping beside the body of his sister, his palms grinding against the smashed glass. Oblivious to the gathered mass of the townspeople, he suddenly jerked his hands from the ground, fresh cuts already oozing blood…

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Weak Among the Strong: Making Top 8 with your Sealed Deck

Many years ago, back when I was probably Weak Among the Weak, let alone Strong Among the Weak or Weak Among the Strong, Matt Rauseo said you should always maindeck Annul in Urza’s Block Sealed. “Why?” I asked. “Because you need to beat the 4-0 decks.” Understanding this concept will not only change how you build your sealed decks, but it also can be instrumental in pushing you over the PTQ Top 8 hump.

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The Beautiful Struggle: White Weenie Versus the World

The forums keep swearing this deck is good. The testing results from our writers seems to indicate otherwise. So which side if right and what does Mark Young add to this debate? The answers are only a click away and include additional discussion about Mono-Blue, Big Red, and Tooth and Nail.

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Double Duty: A Look at Singleton

Andy was going to write an article about Standard this week but while researching that he found his attention kept being drug back to the infectiously fun Singleton format on Magic Online. So the week wasn’t a complete loss, he decided to spread the addiction to the StarCityGames.com readership by describing the deck he built and give you some trading guidelines to help you out, should you find yourself bitten by the bug as he was.

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SCG Daily – Chapter 1: First Volley

John Matthew Upton takes over the helm of SCG Daily this week and ventures into a realm few people have gone before on this here site here: fan fiction.

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The Compendium of Alternate Formats, Entry Six: Chess Magic

Way back in Duelist #4, Chess Magic made its debut. The idea behind Chess Magic was simple – try to create a format specifically designed to recreate the feel of Chess. The goal of the format is not to exactly duplicate the Chess game, but simply to give a Magic game the feel of a good Chess game. It’s high time that we had an updated version of this really nifty variant, so I am updating the older rules and streamlining the process a bit.

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From Right Field: The Ups and Downs – But Mostly Downs – of Crystal Witness

Last week, I wrote about the Blue-Red Isochron Scepter deck that could be a monster of a problem if people lose their maindeck artifact hate. It did quite well, going 3-1 with the one match loss being a tough three-game loss against what I consider the best deck in the format, G/B Control. This week, I tackled Crystal Witness.

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