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Normally, for an event like a Pro Tour, more time is spent onsite than traveling thanks to a little invention called the”airplane.” This time, however, was different. I woke up Monday morning (three days before I was supposed to leave for Seattle) with a searing pain in my chest, and my parents took me to the hospital. I found out that I have a recurring case of a pneumo thorax, which is an air bubble in between my lung and ribcage. Yeah, it hurts…

Well, it looks like this most recent set of puzzles really gave some of you a run for your money. One of the important lessons to be learned from these puzzles is that the most obvious play is not always the correct play. Keep that in mind next time you have two Shrapnel Blasts in hand and an opponent at ten life.

How much card draw is enough? For sixty-card decks, how much should be card draw (assuming it’s available)? Is there a formula/general rule, or is the only real way to know extensive testing?

For the reporter that’s always on the go, it’s food that makes the world go round.

Our opponents continue to out-open us, grabbing Form of the Dragon and Forgotten Ancient in Scourge, but it hardly matters. All I want to talk to Tim about is this crazy gamble he called in Legions. Canopy Crawler was the best card in the pack. I’ve taken it over Timberwatch Elf more than once! Not taking it – giving the opponents a chance to hate it – was a clear mistake. Or was it?

Once again it’s time to turn some seemingly impossible board positions into sure wins. A couple of the puzzles this volume focus on a specific aspect of Magic that I know a lot of people (myself included) could use some practice with: knowing your outs. Much like in poker, it is critically important for the competitive Magic player to know exactly which cards in his deck can help him to achieve victory.

While I did receive quite a bit of criticism in Seattle for my pick articles, I received just as much praise. I think this proves that my often praised, often criticized style of not exactly ordering picks is correct. However, I do think that just randomly ordering them in groups can be misleading. In this article, I will try to more accurately organize them. The pick orders still won’t be exact, but they will be a lot closer than they have been in the past.

What’s your biggest Magic tournament accomplishment?

Before I make any other changes to the deck, I want to nudge it closer to cog-tacularity and further away from WW Equip. I fully admit that someone else doing this experiment would do the exact opposite, which is part of the fun.

This is very similar to the list Brian Kibler posted, the main difference being my decision to run Echoing Decay. The deck is pretty straightforward, its main goal being to set up a massive Death Cloud that wrecks your opponent, at the same time suspiciously always leaving you with two Swamps and a Guardian Idol. At least that’s what happened to Brian Fulop and me.

I have gotten to see Mike many times, and I can say without hesitation that he is one of the kindest, nicest, and most pleasant people in Magic. Note that I didn’t just limit this to the Pro Community (which at times can be cliquish and downright off-putting), but to all of Magic. He wears a smile, a pleasant demeanor and a cheery spirit as if they were clothing. Let me tell you a couple of stories about Mike.

So, I am reading and reviewing the Magic sites on a lazy Monday afternoon. I have completed my work for the day, finished an article for Scrye, set up a few meetings for Tuesday, judicially sanctioned one of my residents, interviewed a job candidate, and everything was looking rosy. Until it happened.

Today’s guest writer is the one, the only, the infamous… Mouth!

I’m still playing a deck pulled in two directions, but somehow it feels nicer to have put my own stamp on the thing having changed a few cards. Let’s see what happens…