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I have the quick Chromatic Sphere, Leonin Squire, Leonin Squire start and am attacking early and often. He has removal, but it comes in the form of Devour in Shadow, so his life is still going down. By the time he gets Consume Spirit, I have a Trinket Mage and Aether Spellbomb, so his spells fizzle (and grab me more cogs). To add insult to injury, I have a Leonin Elder, which brings my life up to twenty-five. He Fireballs to try and clear the board, I save a Squire with the Spellbomb, drop a second Trinket Mage to join him and my opponent concedes.

That’s when current Player of the Year leader Nicolai Herzog perks up and asks,”Have I told you about the time I woke up next to a naked and handcuffed Eivind Nitter?” Here’s the rest of the tale as related to me by Nicolai through e-mail, as I may have been a bit too tipsy to get all the details right. (Yes, I may have thought Nicolai said,”Did I ever tell you about the time I woke up handcuffed to a naked Eivind Nitter?” Slightly different connotation there.)

Yesterday, I talked about my first experience at Fogo de Chao, the amazing Brazilian meat house located in Houston, Dallas, Atlanta, and Chicago. Today’s Fogo story takes place at Pro Tour Chicago, 2003 and revolves around the exploits of one Geordie Tait.

What’s the best place you’ve eaten while at a Magic event? What’s the worst?

You thought Friday was big? As MyFeetStink said in Thursday’s Forum thread,”The fun is in the journey, not in the destination.” Well strap yourselves in, kiddies, because we’re going on a bit of a roller-coaster featuring more game recaps and ch-ch-ch-changes!

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.