It Ain’t Easy Being Green
This is not the article about Mirrodin-Darksteel you think it is… or is it? Check inside to see what the master of Limited advice doles out this week!
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Toward Regionals 2004: The Will Decks
I am not the Wizard of Oz. I am simply a man, out from behind the curtain with some decks. I have a lot of cards and build a lot of decks. I’m going to tell you what I know and what I’m thinking about with regard to Regionals ‘04.
You CAN Play Type I #130: The Control Player’s Bible, Part V.1: Revisiting the Mirror Match
Today Oscar revisits the Keeper mirror match with legendary German deckbuilder Roland Bode.
Ask Ken, 04/21/2004
A friend of mine made the horrendous first pick overall of Spikeshot Goblin over the far better spell, Shrapnel Blast. I was wondering what your thoughts on the matter were, I mean, which card is better?
Translating Testing to Results
Success or failure in a Magic tournament is not decided over 1,000 games played in your living room before the tournament. Success or failure will depend on a very small number of games, and on one or two incidents during those games – choosing whether or not to mulligan, choosing which cards to sideboard in or out, deciding which creatures to attack with or which spell to cast on your fourth turn, little things like that. Your testing, therefore, needs to focus on preparing you to make those decisions.
You Will Pay a Lot for that Muffler!
The slow crawl towards Regionals continues, this week with my current favorite deck, and one that has been dismissed as terrible with the recent metagame shift. The deck of course is one-time powerhouse U/W Control. You know what? The critics are right. I’m here to tell you that while “traditional” U/W control has no real place in the metagame, there is an approach to U/W that will not only be competitive, but might just be the solution that I’ve been searching for to the puzzle that is the Regionals environment.
Ask Ken, 04/19/2004
…Now, the only way I’m winning this game is if I can get back Pentavus with the Sword, and his only flyer is white. So I say”attack”, he taps a random myr, then I use it for mana and put the Sword on my Arcbound Stinger. He screams”judge” so loud that Mark Zajdner almost has a heart attack, and the judge of course rules in my favor. Was this a baggy thing to do?
From Right Field: An Issues Issue – MTGO = Magic: The Gathering’s Offline
Here’s what I propose. During the week after Regionals, from Sunday, May 2nd, 2004, through Saturday, May 8th, 2004, spend no money on fake cards. Buy no tickets. Just play with whatcha got. And play. And play and play and play. If no one spends any money for an entire week, I think Wizards might get the idea that we’re serious. Businesses get the hint when you hit ’em where it hurts.
I Don’t Want No Dissension, Just Dynamic Tension
Today Adam tackles the common color wisdom of Mirrodin Block Limited in an attempt to debunk some popular myths. If you aren’t reading Adam’s work, you are missing out on one of the best new writers on the site!
Ask Ken, 04/16/2004
I noticed your plea for short Constructed questions, and I just wanted to ask you: If you had to update a Three Deuce decklist for Type 1.5, what would it look like?
Color Archetypes in Team Sealed
What do the Canadian National Champion, the winner of Grand Prix: Columbus, and everyone’s favorite crank Tim Aten have in common? They all lent a helping hand to try and give you a leg up on the competition for Grand Prix: DC and Team Sealed season!
Richie Goes Random
I’ve begun to feel that all I’m capable of writing about is Lynch Mob, but deep down inside, I know that’s not all true. It’s just that this deck has consumed my every thought, and I spend so much time testing it and working with ways to improve it, that it’s hard for me to get outside of that particular mindset. I know I have so many more things I would like to discuss, so I decided to try and file them all together into one column.
Testing the Weird Decks
So I was all set to exhaustively test one of the Weird decks on Tuesday. BDM and I were going to meet at Neutral Ground and have at it, but as usual, that didn’t work out. For one thing, whenever we meet at Neutral Ground, no matter the reason, people just end up drafting. To make matters worse, out of nowhere, Jonathan Magic, Brian Kibler, and EFro showed up to test for the GP this weekend. It was awesome, as I haven’t seen Jon in forever and was shocked to see him testing at all again. But that doesn’t mean that I didn’t get some Weird deck testing in myself!
I Wonder How Many Potatoes Twenty Thousand Dollars Could Buy?
When I get ready for a Limited format, I try and make it a point to know every trick that my opponent could possibly have. When your opponent attacks, you have to be able to figure out what cards they can have in their hand to beat your strategy. If you can play around their trick successfully then do so. If you can’t beat their trick, assume they don’t actually have the trick that beats you. You don’t gain anything by playing around a trick you can’t beat.