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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.

So after last week’s fake-out, Tater-Hatin’ Tim Aten is back this week to tell you why Japanese players are tough opponents, how nice guys finish (at least against him) and to fill you in on almost all of the happenings at the 2004 Magic World Championships. Hop on board, kids – it’s going to be a wild ride.

I think Ken’s Top Ten Mistakes aren’t really mistakes at all. He simply misjudged a few bombs, or was not paying attention to the same website he writes for. Let’s take a look at a few of his points and some of his Top Ten”mistakes”, along with some of my own recommendations before I tell you the things you really need to learn about MD5 Limited.

I was thinking about building a spelunking theme deck, and thinking about spelunking brought me to remembering my scouting days, which brought me to merit badges and “Voila!” I had an article idea. Sometimes it really is that easy. Let’s take a look at five decks inspired by Boy Scout Merit Badges. Each of these decks is designed to be halfway decent, and yet also gives plenty of room to the theme, and not competition.

I’m taking the day off to work on a super-secret project for StarCityGames.com, but I want your mail! Do you have any questions for me? Are there any stories that you’ve been burning to have me tell? Have you wanted to hear more about Bob, Anthony, Eric, Vinny "The Pimp" Falcone or any of the other cast of characters from the blog? Send your e-mails to [email protected] and the best of these e-mails will be compiled into an upcoming reader mailbag extravaganza!

The cunning solutions to Jeff’s puzzles, including the very tricky Thieve’s Auction play and a puzzle that will probably occur hundreds of times at the various State tournaments.

You’ve been on the Pro Tour for some time now and it seems like you are friends with a majority of the pros. I was just curious if you ever get intimidated when playing against someone?

Magic players don’t reflect enough. I constantly see players crying to high heaven that they were mana screwed right out of a game/match/tournament. Rarely do these players take a moment to re-examine the game and determine if they may have missed out on a road to victory. The second the first card of a new set appears on mtgnews.com, everyone looks forward to the new set. They don’t take time to learn lessons from the current set and see how they may be able to apply these lessons to future tournaments. Today I’m going to look back at what we learned from Mirrodin Limited and exmaine the lessons you should hang on to.