Some multiplayer groups don’t allow table talk between teammates. Communication in a team environment isn’t about taking away an advantage from the opponent – it’s about working together to make a solid team that can win based on better skills, not less mistakes. Would you rather watch two football teams continually fumble the ball…. or would you rather watch great teams make shoestring catches, stellar breaks, and diving tackles?
I have played Magic a long time. I’ve won a (small) collection of Top 8 pins from PTQs, and a lot of cards. I’ve judged at Worlds and PTs, and have been paid in cards. I’ve written over a hundred articles on Magic, and have been paid in cards. I have a really, really big collection. And I’ve been playing for a long time. I had never played online. This week I will take you through the highs and lows of my first Magic Online experience.
This week’s Casual Challenge is “The Three Most Annoying Cards In Magic” – and Kevin not only hates these cards, but the strategies that come with the cards. So what strategies invalidate your entire deck? Kevin told us, and he might win $20 for his complaint! How about you?
The thing that got me interested in 5C wasn’t the big decks; it was drawing all over cards and modifying them to the point of illegibility. It was taking some piece of art and tinkering around with it and then having opponents say, “Wow, that’s really cool!” I’ve learned many techniques on my own for gussying up cards to make them more aesthetically-pleasing, so read on as I share how to create blackout cards, smear art with acetone, and create foil versions of non-foil cards!
The Mauler has never been a conventional drafter, often making picks that cause other pros to shake their heads in bewilderment, but few people can argue with the results that he posts. Today, in one of the more insightful and yet highly controversial Limited articles we’ve published, Mauler gives his take on Betrayers Limited and suffice it to say that what Murray thinks about this format is may set our forums on fire with howls of disagreement.
This week Mike puts Sneak Attack to the test to see if it really is the sauciest goldfish deck in the environment. In addition, he also talks to some of the game’s best players to get their thoughts on the Extended format, the Limit of Skill, and playing threat decks vs. answer decks.
Today the Magic Jerk dips into his recent Pro Tour experience to illustrate just how good the Japanese really are, riffs on the skill factor in Sealed Deck vs. Draft, and delivers a few helpful suggestions to improve your Limited game. Tomohiro Kaji, this one’s for you!
Say there was this hot girl in your office that played Magic and you needed to build her a Standard deck that was cool, but still had a chance to win. What deck would you build for her and why? That’s the dilemma Romeo faces this week, but once you’ve finished the article, we’d like to know your deck choice for this particular scenario.
In this continuing deck primer on one of the oldest decks in Vintage, Steve takes a look at all of the components that make Multi-Colored Control successful, and includes a tournament report from a recent event where he put his updated build to the test and landed squarely in the finals.
After a recent bit of forum criticism, the editors of this site challenged Nathan to write again, since his previous works had all been quite solid. Nathan proved more than up for the challenge this week, writing about a stone-cold rogue deck for the end of the Extended season and including an impressive amount of goofy humor to boot. If you like Magic, you will probably like this article.
I love the Avengers. The super-hero team of Marvel’s Mightiest Heroes has been a favorite of mine for a long time, going back to my childhood in years past. I have virtually every Avengers comic printed, including most comics printed that include an Avenger in them. For this final entry in our deck-a-thon, I decided to figure out whether it was possible to build a Magic deck based around the Avengers theme, with unique cards for each character.
Despite a slow start, the 5-Color Casual Challenge provided some solid articles on the 250-card format by the end of the week. Brian Epstein’s excellent 5-Color: The Metagame As We Know It came close, but in the end amusing writing once again took the $20 prize. Jonah Sutton-Morse and Mr. Anderson’s Twenty Cards That Go With Contract was a solid article that discussed what did and didn’t work in the format… and it was both fun and easy to read. Thus, they take the prize!
So what’s next week’s Casual Challenge? Something that’s sure to generate a flurry of submissions:
The Three Most Annoying Cards Of All Time.
Now, the last “Top Five” challenge did phenomenally well in terms of generating submissions, but by the end of the week our readers’ eyes were glazing over from “Card: Description. Card: Description.” Thus, remember that the prize will most likely go to the person who provides the most interesting variant on the format. This doesn’t have to be just multiplayer; feel free to discuss the three most annoying cards in format X, or a look at cards that cause confusion for all the wrong reasons, or a historical overview of what cards were considered annoying, and why.
So give us your most hated cards, and the decks that go with them, and you might win $20! Send your article in to Mail us at https://sales.starcitygames.com/contactus/contactform.php?emailid=2 today!
5-Color is a format that is polarized into archetypes. There are pure control decks that destroy combo and live in fear of the Armageddons that aggro packs. There are wacky Dream Halls decks that seek to draw their entire decks on turn 4. There’s aggro, with nothing in the deck costing more than two mana outside of mana-denial cards like Ruination, Winter Orb, and the aforementioned Armageddon. This is a format that requires 250 cards – there must be more variation than that!
When Stephen Menendian writes an article, the Vintage world pays attention, but when he writes a deck primer, the whole of the Magic world often stops by to see what new tech exists. Today Steve updates Dr. Teeth for the new Vintage era. How many colors should you be playing? What should your Cunning Wish sideboard look like? Your opponents will be reading this article, can you afford not to?
After disappointing results from Pro Tour: Columbus, The Rock has been tearing up the PTQ scene and is one of the hottest decks around. In this article, Noah puts aggro Rock to the test and is not disappointed by the results. Why did he choose a deck that is underpowered, in spite of knowing that in the first place? Well, I’ll let the man explain for himself…
