Mark Rosewater once talked about the three types of players in Wizards’s eyes: Johnny, Spike, and Timmy. They represent the hardcore win-at-all costs player, the win with combos player, and the win with big creatures player. I don’t like the terms Timmy, Johnny and Spike. To me, there are two types of Magic players in the end — those who play to win, and those who don’t.
Normally Michael contributes to the SCG community in the form of Magic art critiques. Unfortunately, since Wizards has not given him a flying bear with great art lately, there have been no critiques from him for a while. That does not mean he has abandoned Magic. In this article Michael switches gears on us and makes a case for the inherent strengths present in the mechanical game design of Magic.
Here at StarCityGames.com, we sometimes get SO many article submissions that we simply don’t have the manpower or time to properly process them all! Then there are times like this week, where the depth and quality of the submissions is so great that we even have to post some really solid articles in our forums so that these fine articles are still available to the community. Here are a few solid articles that should make for some nice weekend reading.
Eli takes a look at the history of Masticores, and attempts to figure out if there are any cards that share the same legacy as the mighty ‘Core in Champions of Kamigawa.
Forum member Norrytt shares his Prerelease experience, including his entire Team Sealed pool and how his team chose to build there decks.
Colin teams up with former Canadian Champ (and all-around good man) Josh Rider for Team Sealed at the prerelease to deliver some beats. This isn’t just your standard prerelease report though, as Colin gives good insight into what cards were good for his team last weekend, and points out which cards were more powerful than he expected. Good stuff.
William takes a casual look at everyone’s new favorite cycle of spirits.
Remember, these articles have been posted directly into our forums (and have not been edited). Please let us know what you think by sharing your feedback below each article.
What do Mike Flores and StarCityGames.com have in store for you in the weeks leading up to States? How can you get Mike to buy you a beer and introduce you to hot chicks? Is there anything on earth cuter than Flores’s baby? I’m not sure if he answers all these questions inside or not, but you don’t want to miss what we have planned for you and the site in the coming weeks!
Gifts Ungiven
Welcome to our power card of the set. Gifts Ungiven will be acted on quickly, of that I have no doubt. Who knows whether it will see restriction or banning. With Yawgmoth’s Will away, maybe its time for small mammals to play. Look for Gifts Ungiven to be highly sought after in Five Color circles if it is just restricted, as it looks to be an auto-include in virtually every deck.
Oscar is back from his break to tell you that there are never any good new cards printed for Type One, ever. Okay, that’s not true… in fact, recent sets have been unprecedented in delivering strong new cards for Vintage play. Does Champions have any new creatures that will make Vintage players jump for joy? You’ll have to check inside to find out.
Join the Mana Drain’s illustrious leader, as he steps forward and fills a gap in our current Vintage knowledge. Phil Stanton has been filling you in for months about the metagame at big tournaments, but what about more local tournies where you don’t get 100 players each week? If that describes what the type of tournament you play at, then you’ve come to the right place!
For a more modern example, equipment is generally poor because it’s a turn where you don’t do anything. A maxed-out Opaline Bracers on turn 4 may sound nice, but if your opponent is attacking for five and playing another guy, you didn’t really do anything. Sure, in the late game your guys are demi-gods, but getting there will be a serious feat. God help you if your next creature you play gets bounced or killed. You’ll be so far behind you’ll start the next game at fifteen life. Speaking of modern examples, let’s examine one of the most potent tempo cards available in Champions of Kamigawa for a moment and see where it can be applied.
In this article, I will the tell you what I believe are the best five commons in each color in Champions of Kamigawa. These are the cards that jumped out at me through looking at the spoiler, and impressed me through what I saw at the prerelease, enough to make me believe they will be the premier commons in each given color. If you’re going to draft the new set and don’t really know what cards you should be taking, start with these 25.
Ben opens up the reader mailbag, where he answers your pressing questions! Thrill along with Ben as he responds to the burning issues such as this one from Christopher Feliciano, who writes “You are a stupid *** fat bald **** who knows nothing about magic and needs to go kill himself and get it over with! Your articles on starcitygames are pointless and suck! – A better player than you.”
Join Tim today, as the man many Magic Pros have called”the best writer in the business”, completes his tale of victory and defeat at the 2004 Worlds. Also, be sure not to miss his new”Barnecdotes” section, in what might just be the funniest Tim Aten report ever!
This week I decided to do one last MD5 Walkthrough since the format will still be up and running on Magic Online for quite some time. This time I used a different approach to the draft though, since some people have been claiming that I’m “handpicking” drafts that are too powerful or something. For this draft, I decided that it’d be more of a “Live” draft, since I’m just sitting down on MTGO, covering the draft, and then writing about it.
First, I’ll make the obligatory comments on Draft and Limited. The set looks like it’s more aimed at these formats. It has a lot of creatures with combat related abilities, lots of combat tricks, and the new Legends rule* makes Legends a lot more playable. This is not too surprising – we came off a block built around combo and Constructed play (although the Affinity mechanic proved excessive), so a more Limited-focused block was predictable. This isn’t Masques block II, however: Masques was all about horrible creatures with big price tags. CoK has some amazing 5/5s for bargain prices. In fact, let’s take a look under the hood and see exactly what Champions offers, shall we?
As Ben Bleiweiss mentioned in his recent article on Champions of Kamigawa and Vintage, Oath of Druids has been granted a very fun new toy in Champions of Kamigawa – Forbidden Orchard. After reading Mr. Bleiweiss’s article, my testing group and I decided that it was no longer a good idea to keep our pet project underground. Thus, here in all its glory, is an Oath of Druids deck for Vintage, designed to destroy the opponent in one attack. The build I have provided is for budget players, but this deck is easily adaptable for powered users as well.
I don’t remember who said it, but someone claimed that a multiplayer group with varying levels of players will invariably find itself being held down by the poor players or being dominated by the good players. A rift will be created and the group will suffer. I’m here to put that theory to rest.
