Search Content

For a more modern example, equipment is generally poor because it’s a turn where you don’t do anything. A maxed-out Opaline Bracers on turn 4 may sound nice, but if your opponent is attacking for five and playing another guy, you didn’t really do anything. Sure, in the late game your guys are demi-gods, but getting there will be a serious feat. God help you if your next creature you play gets bounced or killed. You’ll be so far behind you’ll start the next game at fifteen life. Speaking of modern examples, let’s examine one of the most potent tempo cards available in Champions of Kamigawa for a moment and see where it can be applied.

In this article, I will the tell you what I believe are the best five commons in each color in Champions of Kamigawa. These are the cards that jumped out at me through looking at the spoiler, and impressed me through what I saw at the prerelease, enough to make me believe they will be the premier commons in each given color. If you’re going to draft the new set and don’t really know what cards you should be taking, start with these 25.

Ben opens up the reader mailbag, where he answers your pressing questions! Thrill along with Ben as he responds to the burning issues such as this one from Christopher Feliciano, who writes “You are a stupid *** fat bald **** who knows nothing about magic and needs to go kill himself and get it over with! Your articles on starcitygames are pointless and suck! – A better player than you.”

Join Tim today, as the man many Magic Pros have called”the best writer in the business”, completes his tale of victory and defeat at the 2004 Worlds. Also, be sure not to miss his new”Barnecdotes” section, in what might just be the funniest Tim Aten report ever!

This week I decided to do one last MD5 Walkthrough since the format will still be up and running on Magic Online for quite some time. This time I used a different approach to the draft though, since some people have been claiming that I’m “handpicking” drafts that are too powerful or something. For this draft, I decided that it’d be more of a “Live” draft, since I’m just sitting down on MTGO, covering the draft, and then writing about it.

I don’t remember who said it, but someone claimed that a multiplayer group with varying levels of players will invariably find itself being held down by the poor players or being dominated by the good players. A rift will be created and the group will suffer. I’m here to put that theory to rest.

Despite the fact that I fully planned to hate Champions, the gameplay was surprisingly palatable. It had a unique feel – that happy feel of equipment ported from Mirrodin, the ridiculous bomb critters of Onslaught but without the generic morph-o-rama dope mana curve, and a reliance on weird burn and enchantments that was uniquely its own. There was no auto-save if you built a crappy mana base, as there had been in Mirrodin’s colorless approach and Onslaught’s 2/2 for three.
I had a bunch of very tense and close races – that feeling that good deckbuilding skills really mattered, which I haven’t had in any set since Invasion.

Ben has repeatedly taken Wizards of the Coast R&D to task for their failure to boost the power level of White, easily the worst color in Magic. White’s the worst color in Vintage, the worst color in Extended, the worst color in Onslaught Block, the worst color in Mirrodin Block, and arguably the worst color in Standard. How bad was White this past year? It was so bad that Ben devotes an entire column bemoaning the fate of his favorite color.

During the Extended season of winter and spring 1999, Jamie Wakefield made a rather interesting observation. The dominant decks of the time was of course High Tide, but there were other decks of comparatively brief lifespan that also won very quickly; all of which were capable of a fourth turn kill. The thing is, during this extremely fast and high-powered format, even the mono-Red beatdown decks were getting into the act. Jamie’s observation? The burn decks were playing like combo decks. They had fast kills too, but they had to draw a certain way in order to get them.

Now, my butlers tell me the prerelease is this weekend, so I’ll be gearing my card analyses with that goal in mind. Not only will I provide you feedback on all the preview cards from the last week, I will also be discussing the strengths of the various colors that the spoiler has shown this far, and I have devised a prerelease Choose Your Own Adventure story to help round out your weekend. If you are looking to get a leg up on your Champions prerelease experience, you’ve come to the right place.