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Sullivan, Nimble Mongoose, and Sullivan

He’s a former editor of The Dojo. He’s written for The Duelist, The Sideboard, and MagictheGathering.com. He’s widely considered one of the top 5 Magic writers ever, and now he’s here. StarCityGames.com proudly presents our newest Featured Writer, the one and only, Michael J. Flores.

How can I say this? Madness is… unkind. I haven’t played a Madness deck since Regionals 2001 when Brian Kibler handed me one, and even though Rabbit made Top 8 with it, I can’t conscience ever playing the Madness again. Every time I have this sort of deck, my opening hand is two lands, a Wonder, an Arrogant Wurm, two Circular Logics, and a Deep Analysis or some such. In the rare games that I get to draw a Wild Mongrel, it is invariably Smothered on turn 2, if not the victim of a Force Spike.

U/G Threshold, especially if no one is expecting it, is a much more forgiving version of the same concept (undercosted guys who fly).

2003 In Review: Pigs With Flight Plans

What’s that you say? Flores and Ferrett on the same day? Sacre Bleus! Can it possibly be true? Oh yes indeedy, our cup overfloweth! We’ve drug Ferrett back to add his usual spark and panache to a Magic: Year in Review article. The following is but the tiniest sample of the cheeky, sarcastic goodness that comprises today’s offering:

“After years of consistently proclaiming that TurboLand is the best deck in Extended no matter what the metagame was, Zvi Mowshowitz finally wins a Grand Prix with it. Snowball fights break out in Hell as pigs request flight plans from astonished air traffic controllers.”

Designing Cards For Vintage, Part 2: And Most Popular Cards In Type I Are…

Last time, I approached design for Vintage from the perspective of whole sets, trying to use general trends to show how a set could be aimed at Vintage without individual cards designed for Type 1, even if the sets that came out on top were overrepresented because of a couple of cards usable in a wide variety of decks. In the forum thread after the article, I got multiple requests to look at the individual card breakdown, so that’s my objective this time.

Understanding In A MODO Crash: The No, No…Walk With ME Song Part 3

I should have known this would happen. I can hear you all now:”Of course he wins; he opens bomb rares!” Just so you know, I don’t wait for the drafts where I open insane bombs and then start writing. Every draft (all three) I’ve set out to record has become an article, so I’m not giving you an incomplete picture. I don’t open a Pentavus every time, and sometimes I lose even when I have Pentavus. Enough about the integrity of the medium. There are still several”thinker” picks to come, some room for discussion, and some lessons to be learned. And if you’re angry that I opened Pentavus, wait ’til next pick!

Friends Don’t Let Friends Play Faceless Butcher in the Sideboard – A Self Help Seminar

We have a question from the young man in the front row. Oh, you think I’m wrong? Tell you what, kid. Did you bring your deck with you? Great. Come up here for minute. Let me see it. Is your sideboard in here? Good. Let’s see… Chrome Mox… no win condition in the main… Orim’s Chant in the board… Faceless Butcher in the board… kid, you have problems. Where did you find this thing?

A website, eh. I think someone sold you a bill of goods.

From Right Field: Any Goblins Will Do

“So, you’re not playing Goblins right now just because they’re finally so good that people who wouldn’t normally even look at Goblins are playing them? You’re not being fair to yourself. You’ve always loved Goblins. It’s not like you’re jumping on the bandwagon. Heck, you were driving that bandwagon in the Summer of 2001 when you played that silly deck with Goblin Ringleader. Go on. Play Goblins. You know you want to.”

So, of course, I did…

Food For Thought: One Man’s Junk…

The Darksteel spoiler has what appears to be a “new” Tinker, Reshape, once again keeping with Wizards’ tradition of taking a broken card and “fixing” it into a virtually unplayable replacement. But if you want a Tinker replacement, what about the underrated and overlooked Trash for Treasure?

You CAN Play Type I #121: Back to Basics, Part XI: Counting Shadow Prices, Unifying the Theories of Magic

Don’t worry, the formulas in this article aren’t serious, I’ve had it with fancy math. Last week, I snuck into the cafeteria for a bite, and the only other person there was a grad student from the neighboring college, studying calculus models for a Macroeconomics midterm. Missing my Bachelor’s in Economics days, I took the seat beside her, put on a big smile, and asked,”So, what’s your favorite equation?”

Yawgmoth’s Whimsy #87: Teaching Magic to New Players with OBSTRAT

Teaching the game is actually pretty easy. Just buy them a precon, or give them a deck made out of draft leavings with some land mixed in. Then pull out your best deck – for me, that’s my Keeper with the foreign foils, but an Illusionary Mask/Volrath’s Shapeshifter deck works just as well – and beat them to pieces a dozen times in a row. They’ll be really impressed with the game when they see how hopeless their position is, and how complex the interactions are, especially with the errata.

Remember to play fast – you want to really impress them with your skillz. Nothing makes people more interested than watching someone do something complex and repetitive while not understanding what is actually happening.

The StarCityGames.com Digest for the Week Ending 01/16/2004

Eisel gets his Thragg snapped off, Bleiweiss tries to imagine what it’s like to be White, and Geordie Tait officially goes mad, all in the latest edition of the StarCityGames.com Digest!

The StarCityGames.com $59.99 Booster Box Sale Continues!

StarCityGames.com recently acquired a small quantity of Chinese Torment and Chinese Invasion booster boxes, and we’ve put them on sale for the incredibibly low price of $59.99 each! This is the last weekend for this sale, so if you want to get your hands on some super cheap boxes, click here!

The Magic University: On Magic Theory

Today, I’m going to explain why Magic Theory is important, what’s wrong with Magic Theory in general, and how to fix the problems. I’m going to set forward some rules and guidelines that should be followed when writing about theory. And… I’m going to introduce you to the hallowed digital halls of The Magic University.

The Snapping Thragg Experiment Revisited

The experiment works like this. I build the packs for an entire 8-man booster draft (twenty-four packs). I then build the same set of packs again, making two copies of the exact same draft. I have my CMU cohorts sit down and draft once, and then for the second run of the same draft, I move the packs back three seats so that different people are drafting different packs even though both of the drafts are identical. The object, of course, is to see how different people draft the same exact set of packs.

The Snapping Thragg Experiment Revisited, Part 2

Draft Two analysis and side-by-side comparisons of the outcomes.

The Snapping Thragg Experiment Revisited, Part 3

Yep, he broke the database… twice. But it’s worth it.