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A Casual Look at Unhinged

Unhinged really ramped up the power level from Unglued. In some areas, that additional playability is a really good thing… But some cards are simply sick in terms of power. The problem that I have with this is that is goes against the grain of releasing a casual-only set. Admittedly, these cards aren’t designed to be played in tournaments and sanctioned events…. But despite that, the power level of some of these cards is amazingly high. Take Mox Lotus, for example. A card that makes infinite mana of any color on its own is enormously broken. Sure, that concept is funny for a few minutes, but what casual table really wants it running around?

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This Ain’t No Rock: Fine-Tuning B/G Control in Standard

No other archetype in Standard has the flexibility that B/G Control does. This is both a blessing and a curse: With so many options, finding the optimal configuration for the deck is challenging – but even more than usual, knowing your local metagame is critical. Once you know what you’re up against, it’s simply a matter of adding the proper tools to the deck. This also means that B/G Control is not particularly friendly to net-deckers. There is no universal build, and even the core of the deck leaves a tremendous number of open slots…

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The Long Road Down: From Pro Tour Playa To Golden Ass

Gary Wise gets Unhinged!By 10:30 in the morning of September 2nd, I was certain that I had written my last real article on Magic. It had been almost a year since my column work on Sideboard.com had ceased to be, I was far from in love with Wizards – and I’d just lost the first round of draft day at Worlds, prompting me to become the second of three-hundred-and five players to drop from the tournament. Forty-some Pro Tours and a few hundred articles later, I was done.

…But then came a shocking development.

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Ask The Editor, 11/23/2004: Stuck In A Hotel Room With Two Channels

From what I’ve heard here thus far, the majority of the Australian public has abysmal taste in music. It’s like they took the poppiest parts of the 80s and 90s and just keep recycling them over and over as “classics.” I’m guessing Milli Vanilli and New Kids on the Block were huge here. Tiffany clearly should have come down under to continue her musical career instead of showing her bits in Playboy, and Hillary Duff has already made this choice, which appears to be working out well for her thus far.

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Ask The Other Editor,11/22/2004

Long-time reader, first-time asker John Cochrane barrages me with eight questions on editing vs. webmastering, the locations of old writers, international politics, and whether I prefer chocolate or vanilla.

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Papal Bull: When Versatility Breeds Laziness

Cunning Wish. Mana Drain. Force of Will. The Fetchlands. Now, I’m not going to tell you that these cards are bad – they’re not – but I am going to say that you may be relying on these cards too much – or worse, not supporting them properly.

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Ask The Editor, 11/22/2004: The Flight From Hell

Greetings, and welcome to my travel diary! About a month ago when I was first given the opportunity to travel in Australia and Japan, I figured it would be interesting to chronicle my journeys for all to see. I’m a pretty keen observer of culture in the U.S. – why not extend that eye to my journeys as well? Thus, this series was born.

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Blog Fanatic: Restriction Time! The Article That Vintage Players Do Not Want You To See

The Doomsday deck recorded several first- and second-turn kills on the back of Doomsday, Ancestral Recall, and Beacon of Destruction… Or did it? You see, Stemnemdemianan and I had a conversation about the viability of the deck at the tournament. Steve claimed that the deck was nigh-unbeatable. I told him that if that was the case, then something needed to be done to keep the power level of the deck in check. I suggested that Dark Ritual needed to be restricted in Type One.

But that’s not all! I threw in Mishra’s Workshop for good measure.

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Your Life Is A Pile Of Chips, And You Bet With It Each Round: Racing Effectively For The Win

As an editor, you know that you should probably take a serious look at a writer when Mike Flores calls you up at home and says, “You have got to hire this guy. He’s great.” You may not have heard his name before, but Michael Clair is the New York State Champion, a Regionals Top 8 finisher, a PTQ and PCQ finalist, a man with a 1920 Limited rating… And he’s also our latest Featured Writer. Today, Michael discusses racing and combat math, showing how to utilize your life totals for maximum gain.

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Degree of Difficulty

Some years ago, there was a Sideboard Ask the Pros question that asked, “What is the most difficult deck to play?” In order to correctly answer that question, we must first describe certain elements of Magic skill. What does it mean for a deck to be “difficult to play”? What does it mean for a format to be skill-intensive or skill-testing? Is Type One, a blisteringly-fast format, one of the toughest… And what is the most difficult deck of all-time?

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Ask The Other Editor, 11/19/2004: Who Is The Best StarCityGames.com Writer As Far As The Editor-in-Chief Is Concerned?

Richard Vaughan asks:

“Of all the writers who have come and gone, who is your favorite, and who do you miss the most? (I will not be very surprised if both answers are Rizzo, but Meh!)”

Actually, it’s not Rizzo…. And I do have a personal favorite, which is not to slight the other many wonderful writers who have put their stamp on SCG. But do I dare to actually mention this man’s name in print?

Oh, heck, I just might.

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Crap Unwrapped, or: If I Could Turn Back Time….

The guy next to me handed me my deck as if it were a dead squirrel. “I’m sorry,” he said funereally.

“Why? What’s wrong with it?” I asked, alarmed.

“Oh, your deck isn’t bad,” he said, in tones that indicated that it clearly was. “It’s just all over the map. Good luck trying to build a deck with it.”

Having played enough Sealed games in the interim, I know now that I definitely misbuilt my deck at the Prerelease. But that’s because I’ve learned a few lessons about Kamigawa Sealed – some that I could not have possibly known at the time, and some that I should have learned from past seasons. What could I have done differently?

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A Look At The Remaining Chaff On The Restricted List

The DCI has done a great job of cleaning the detritus from the restricted list that had accumulated over the years. In the past two years, Berserk, Fork, Braingeyser, Hurkyl’s Recall, and many other cards were unrestricted, reflecting the fact that they are no longer the power cards they were eight years before. But the Restricted List has taken years to accumulate, and there is still stuff on the list that arguably shouldn’t be. In this article, I’m going to look at the six most questionable cards on the list and examine the pros and cons of unrestriction.

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That’s Two-Time State Champion To You – Arizona States, 1st Place For The Second Time

I won last year – but needless to say, I wanted to defend my prestigious title. Most of my testing occurred by playing formats other than Champions Standard. That last statement is a bit misleading, since Mirrodin Block and pre-Kamigawa Standard are pretty much the same format as the States. You play Affinity and try to win the mirror match, or you play a deck that does nothing but beat Affinity and go home when you play someone who didn’t get the memo.

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Ask The Other Editor, 11/18/2004

Sometimes, I think you should be able to say, “Screw the official rule – you know damn well what it’s supposed to do, so make it do that.” But you can’t do that in tourney play because there’s no room for ambiguity, and so I’m sure there are many good, flavorful cards that hit the circular file because they can’t word it properly. That’s just one of the reasons I like Unhinged.

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