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It doesn’t matter where I’m heading or how lost I get along the way. I’ll always end up back in Mirage. It’s not just that I like black people on my Magic cards (though, Lord knows, there aren’t many of them outside of Mirage). There’s also the wonderful setting, an environment far-flung from that of traditional fantasy. Sometimes, though, Mirage ignores its keynote mechanics, leaves the Phasing, chimera, and griffins behind. Sometimes, it plays good, old-fashioned, hardscrabble Magic.

For better or worse, I am now a part of Anthony Alongi’s infamous multiplayer group and it is my duty to host this week. My upbringing has taught me that a good hostess will always have an ample supply of food, drinks and booster packs. With a Sam’s Club right down the street, food and drinks are never an issue. A steady stream of inexpensive booster packs, on the other hand, is another matter entirely. I went upstairs to take stock of my Champions of Kamigawa booster packs only to find my ample supply had dwindled down to twelve. I tried to recall exactly where my once ample supply had disappeared to and it came to me: I think our group has been bit by the Emperor Draft bug.

When your eyes and my words last met in mutual, pixilated embrace on this very computer monitor, I was teasing you with promises of more the Dark. Well, I am not a politician, and my promises, far from being empty, are quite often brimming with expectation of fulfillment. You’ve already read about the wonders of the Dark’s White and Blue. Today, we’ll take aim at the other colors, jump right into it, and mix our metaphors right from the start by sizing up Red.

We’re not sure what JMU was going for with this report and you won’t be either, but his combination of tech, tournament report, and breakfast still makes for an interesting read regardless.

I’m not here to argue that dragons are the panacea to save an otherwise completely wretched deck; that’s simply not true. You can’t just play draw-go for the first five turns and win when you thump down your turn 6 Jugan. In an otherwise healthy deck, though, there are few better cards you could ask for than six-mana 5/5 fliers, and a Shock certainly isn’t one of those.

The final account of :B’s awesome finish at Grand Prix: Chicago.

The Dark. Of all the sets in Magic, I’m guessing that the least is known about the Dark. I mean, people may mock Homelands, but most players have heard of Autumn Willow and Baron Sengir. Fallen Empires may be as Old School as tube tops, but some idiots are still writing articles about Thrulls and Thallids. Not so with the Dark. Here’s a test: Name a character (he or she need not be a Legend with his or her own card) from the Dark other than Uncle Istvan.

Before writing this series, I decided to ask an expert for his advice on how to sail the often treacherous seas of the dilemmas. Ken’s advice to me was very simple, although difficult to follow: “Don’t take the controversial position. You will never live it down.” Great!

Hi! My name is Brian David-Marshall and I take Glacial Ray over Kokusho, the Evening Star.

Flanking, unlike Rampage, is conceptually and theoretically simple. In Mirage Block, there were 17 creatures with Flanking, 13 of which were Knights and two of which were Legendary Creatures that were Knights at heart. As Mike Flores has noted, the majority of flankers are three-mana 2/2s; they’re even more concentrated at a single casting cost than the common Bushido creatures in Champions of Kamigawa. A side effect of this is that it’s difficult to build a Flanking-centric deck without burdening yourself with more three-drops than are attributed to the landlord’s daughter. If, however, Flanking and Bushido creatures are seen together, things become interesting.

For one day and one day only, Teddy Card Game answers all the questions that he never got to during the normal run of the series (all 24 pages of them). If you’ve ever wondered about Kanoot’s thoughts on… well, just about anything, there’s probably an answer contained within – he even remembered the cheesecake. For those who’ve been clamoring for a little more Ask the Editor, this is your last chance to get in on the action before it disappears… FOREVER!

There is so much going on at StarCityGames.com that we just can’t spotlight it all on the front page! Whether you’re wanting to apply for our new full-time job position or just looking for special deals, this one’s for you!

Magic’s greatest crank makes a return today dissecting Magic Online etiquette, the difference between a bad draft and a Nick Eisel draft, and instructs you how to raise your Magic Online rating by an easy 20 points in one simple step. If you’ve never read a Jon Becker article before you are in for a treat, and if you have, how can you not click?