Friday, February 6th – Extended is a world of high power and maximizing the bang for your buck; card synergy is important and we are reminded of the good old bad old days of Magic, where anything that cost you four or more mana had better win you the game right there if you want to even consider including it.
Thursday, February 5th – Welcome to Constructed Criticism! I’m Todd Anderson, and I’ll be your guide through these shark-filled waters as you prepare for upcoming PTQs, Grand Prix tournaments, Regionals, and hopefully Pro Tours. My goal is to inform, prepare, and excite people about whatever metagame is most popular at any given time. Currently, we are looking at Extended, since it is the format of choice for PTQs over the next two months or so.
Thursday, February 5th – Of the new Conflux cards, it seems that Knight of the Reliquary has the most obvious applications in the current Extended format. Today’s Deep Analysis sees Richard Feldman experiment with a Green/Black/White Reliquary Loam list, pitching it against the format’s forerunner: Faeries.
Thursday, February 5th – Taking home the blue envelope is tricky at the best of times, but the current Extended format makes the task almost impossible. With so many Tier 1 strategies in the mix, how can we properly evaluate the metagame? Gerry Thompson takes a look at the PTQ results thus far, and draws a bevy of conclusions as to where we should place our faith come the day of the tournament…
Wednesday, February 4th – At Grand Prix: Los Angeles, Faeries was one of the front-runners from the very start. By the knockout stage, three of the eight were Fae pilots battling it out for the top spot. Today, semi-finalist Mat Marr takes us through the highs and lows of his tournament, and brings us some pertinent lessons on how to play the flying menace as the PTQ season rolls on…
Tuesday, February 3rd – With Conflux hitting both the shelves and the tournament floor at the end of the week, Adrian Sullivan examines the PTQ metagame as it stands, and suggests a few pertinent directions the format may take when the new spells become legal. He also updates the Red Burn strategy with some fresh spices from the upcoming set…
Thursday, January 29th – Another day, another format… and another strong Black/White Midrange deck from Richard Feldman! Borrowing heavily from the successful Aggro Loam strategy, Richard tackles the current Extended format and mixes up a little Conflux into the brew…
Wednesday, January 28th – I actually got to play in an Extended PTQ last weekend. Not judging, not working – playing. Sweet. My record – not quite so sweet. I had the choice of the best deck in the format, the best deck I had played, and the deck I knew best. I played the latter – and I’ll talk about the deck, its evolution and how to win the impossible mirror.
Wednesday, January 28th – The top decks in Extended seem to change almost daily, and our strategies and sideboards need to alter to reflect the shifting metagame. Gerry Thompson, mindful of such movements, brings us fresh updates and sideboarding plans to three of the more popular strategies in the format: Fae, Loam, and Zoo.
Tuesday, January 27th – With the Extended PTQ season continuing apace, and with a seemingly limitless number of decks that bear consideration, Adrian Sullivan rocked up to a PTQ with his home-grown Red Deck Wins build that built on past successes. He strolled all the way to the final, and he believes he had the best deck in the room. Will this deck prove to be the Next Big Thing? Read on to find out!
Friday, January 23rd – With the rise of Faerie Wizards in the metagame, regardless of whose list you’re rocking it with (American or Japanese) it’s easy to note that it has been shaping the metagame around it. Faeries takes a bite out of Elves, stifling that deck choice near to irrelevance at the PTQs we’ve seen so far, and has a reasonable matchup against Zoo as well, so new innovations were necessary to escape the tricksy Wizard tribe and their previously-irrelevant lair at the Riptide Laboratory.
Friday, January 23rd – The Extended PTQ season continues apace, and everyone is hunting for the information to earn them a precious blue envelope. David Irvine investigates the lessons taught by the recent Grand Prix results, and what they mean for the key strategies in the metagame.
Friday, January 23rd – After a bout of intensive Extended testing with Patrick Chapin, Manuel Bucher decided on the funky Gifts Faeries deck for Grand Prix: Los Angeles. He posted an excellent 11th-place finish, and today he reveals his sideboarding plans alongside his blow-by-blow tournament report!
Thursday, January 22nd – I’m back from the Grand Prix and I had a pretty fun time, even though the actual Magic part of the main event was miserable. I had decided on G/B Loam Dredge, in which I had some input, but it was originally designed by Matt Nass. The deck was stone-cold terrible, but Death Cloud, Faeries, and non-TEPS combo are infinitely in your favor, which is about half of the popular decks I expected at the GP.
Thursday, January 22nd – To the casual observer, the Top 8 of Grand Prix: Los Angeles should have been overflowing with Blue Wizards, Elves, and Zoo… of course, while the Blue Wizards made their mark, both Affinity and U/R Storm rocked the final table. Today, Richard Feldman looks at the three archetypes, and proposes a direction for the ongoing PTQ metagame…
