Search Content

From Right Field: The Absolutely-Positively-Guaranteed-to-Make-You-Somebody’s-Hero Deck

Imagine it. You sit down across from your opponent. You roll the die and win. You shake hands. You mulligan to six. Your opponent’s feeling good about that. And you win before he even gets a chance to draw the card on his first turn. In Standard. You’re a legend. Not a Legend. You’re awfully close, though. You’d be my hero, anyway. And a lot of other folks’, too. Today I’m going to give you your very own guide to becoming a hero.

By

Blog Fanatic: Deck Lists – The Silent Killer

Thousands of players each year receive game and match losses due to imporper deck registration. In today’s installment of Blog Fanatic, Ben looks at what can go wrong while registering your deck list, and what you can do to avoid losing to your own registration mistakes!

By

Functional Breakdown of Vintage Cards From Dec-Jan

Phil Stanton’s articles are almost impossible to explain in short blurbs, but they always include numbers, they are always about Vintage, and they always give you crucial information about some part of the Vintage metagame. This time Phil takes a look at the different compositions of card types in Vintage Top 8s, including how many land/mana sources each deck runs, the amount of countermagic and disruption seeing play, and how much potential most Vintage decks have to damage themselves. If I haven’t explained that this article is really really cool then I have failed, but don’t let that stop you from reading this article, as it should be an enormous boon to every Vintage deckbuilder that reads it.

By

Sealed Revealed from the Pros

Real Life intruded on Craig Stevenson’s Sealed Revealed run, but we found a ringer to stand in for him. Today Tim takes two of the card pools Craig posted last week and dissects them, explaining which builds he would consider, discarding the chaff and building the best decks from the tools at hand. The Betrayers of Kamigawa prerelease starts on Magic Online today, and Limited PTQs are just around the corner, so if you are looking for some help in figuring out how to build your deck, Tim Aten’s got your back.

By

Weak Among the Strong: Bluffing, Imperfect Information and the Myth of the Single Correct Play

What can you say about Chad Ellis’s fundamentals articles? That Chad Ellis is a respected Magic theorist capable of taking complex concepts and making them simple to understand. That Chad is respected by the best theorists and players in the game. That every time you read a Chad Ellis article, you will learn something and become a better player. If that’s not enough, check out the guest appearance from “The Donald” in this exceptional article.

By

Blog Fanatic: Me And Zvi And Netrunner Makes Three

Magic is my foremost gaming passion, and it has been an integral part of my life for over a decade. It isn’t the only game I’ve ever tried – I’ll admit that I’ve openly cheated on my one true love with other brazen hussies in the gaming world. Today are some stories about the other collectible card games that I’ve played over the last years of my life.

By

The View From the Northeast – My Invitational Ballot

Chad gives the quick and dirty reasons for his Invitational ballot, and some of the people in his Top 5 might just surprise you.

By

Archetype Changes in Betrayers Limited

Originally, I wanted to write something about reviewing Betrayers of Kamigawa and all the cards that are going to have an impact on the new format. I knew that my teammates Gadiel and Tim Aten were going to write something about the new set, along with Zvi and many others. Thus I needed to work on something else that was also important that involved Betrayers. What about the different archetypes in Champions block and how they are going to be affected with Betrayers now in? Are there going to be new archetypes? Which archetypes get better? Which ones get worse? All of these questions haven’t really been answered yet, and I’m here today to start doing exactly that.

By

Betrayers of Kamigawa Limited Review – Black

If you’ve read any of Nick’s articles recently, you know that unlike most pros, he hates Black. Well Betrayers of Kamigawa is out now, but were there enough good commons and uncommons to change Nick’s mind, or is Black still so bad that even the totally sweet power of rat ninjas isn’t enough to sway his opinion?

By

Votesyp Timoiso Reeverosa: My Invitational Vote

Hey boys and girls! It’s time for this year’s Magic Invitational! This year, they let me, Ben Bleiweiss, get a vote in the Internet Writer’s Vote category. It’s my solemn duty to uphold the traditions of voting from years past, in which thousands of the great unwashed would vote in players from years past who had not actually played a game of Magic for a full year! Seriously though, this is no Chris Pikula memorial vote – this is a vote for the best and the brightest players and personalities in the game of Magic.

By

The Anatomy of “The Bluff”

In the quarterfinals of Pro Tour: Nagoya, Terry Soh pulled off one of the more impressive and memorable plays in recent Pro Tour memory, using a stone cold bluff to get Frank Karsten to make a game-losing mistake. In a stunning look at the mental game behind the scenes of the highest levels of Magic, Terry dissects the game situation that led to that awesome play, and shows you both how to set up bluffing situations to exploit your opponents and how to protect yourself against them.

By

Blog Fanatic: Making Your Garden Grow – Lessons from Chad Ellis

Ben lays it all down as he gives the reasons why he thinks Competitive American Magic is on life support – and what can be done to resusitate it. Read about what is killing the community, why it’s killing the community, and how YOU can be a part of the solution instead of part of the problem. Learn why Chad Ellis could well be the savior of the entire competitive American Magic community in today’s installment of Blog Fanatic!

By

Tips On Building Your Spirit Deck

I love Spirits. As soon as Betrayers was released, I modified my casual Five-Color Spirit deck, and have been playing with it heavily. What Spirits and Arcane spells are the best? The absolute essentials? I have ranked the top Spirit and Arcane spells, and given you some tips on how to use them.

By

Extended: A Tale of Two Formats

Zvi examines why there are two different Extended formats being played right now, tells you what decks you should and should not be playing, and requests that all of you Rock players out there stop bringing sticks to gun fights. The Mad Scientist also addresses your forum feedback and a variety of community issues all in one fell articulate swoop.

By

A Closer Look At Slaver in Vintage

Control Slaver is the hottest Vintage deck on the planet, but there’s a huge amount of debate about what the best configuration looks like. Should the deck run the Intuition/Accumulated Knowledge engine? Is it worthwhile to add Black to the deck? What’s the best deck configuration to help you win the mirror match? Does Meandeck really need to use training wheels to win? All of these questions and more are examined inside!

By