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Our favorite Type One curmudgeon hasn’t been heard from in weeks!

Rich Jacques (one of our regulars) got the Wall deck at my deck challenge. Rich got paired up against Erhnam and Burnem in the fourth round, and complained bitterly about losing to River Boa two of the games. “He has four Boas, and I have only four Swords! I have no other way to deal with them!” I picked up his sideboard to find he had sided out Stinging Barriers. “Uh Rich, these guys are pretty good against one toughness creatures. “Oh my God!” yelled Virginia State Champion Wes Moss, one of Rich’s friends. “That’s like the best card in your deck. Why’d you side it out?”

So last week I get an e-mail from an R&D member who happens to be the original creator of the Nuts and Bolts preconstructed deck discussing some possible additions to the deck…

What is your take on Darksteel Pendant in Limited?

This one will cover my favorite topics, Black draft. Black is my current favorite son. It is severely underdrafted and very deep once you get out of the first pack. This color has aggressive cards, control cards, and they all work well together.

I’ve been teasing to the main event for nearly a week now, but it’s finally time to talk about Steve and Keith’s big Power 9 tournament, held monthly at the Quality Inn in Metarie, Louisiana.

I probably should have done this long ago, but here is a list of all Standard-legal”cogs” (artifacts of zero or one casting cost) and some commentary from me on whether I think they have a shot at making the deck. The Forums are taking on a great community feel, and I know a lot of people are taking their own cog decks in many different directions. For that reason, I’ll make this list comprehensive by including cogs that I’m already using and have already abandoned. Consider it your own handy-dandy cog deckbuilding reference.

Why is it that every time I play Journey of Discovery, I draw a land for the next two turns?

Serendib Jim was named after, of course, Serendib Djinn from Arabian Nights. Much like the mythical Arabian merchant in these old stories, Jim was a wheeler and dealer. He wasn’t much for organizing tournaments or rules knowledge or playing the game, but he knew how to trade. Back in those days, nobody could trade cards as well as Jim. This is how he kept Magic in the store even after the tournaments there floundered – the profits he brought in from one lopsided trade after another made the owners of the business very happy indeed.

I can talk about mana for a long time, longer than anyone except Zvi Mowshowitz, probably. Luckily for me, I wrote down my general philosophy on land- and mana-balancing quite awhile ago. The article isn’t perfect – I wrote a revision about a year later for Sideboard that never got published – but it’s generally correct in describing my approach to land and mana. Anyway, you should read the article if you want to have any hope of following me today.

What’s this? A girl is the guest columnist for today’s Ask Ken? Is that even possible?