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Buuuurp! Goblin Charbelcher and the Evolution of Twelve-Land Decks

I played a twelve-land Affinity deck to a 9-1 record, winning two tournaments while dropping only one match in Swiss play to Goblins, which I later defeated in the finals. Also, the deck had enough raw power to take my eight-year-old son, Liam, into the finals of a Friday Night Magic event, even though he wasn’t playing it very well. In fact, in the finals against the more standard midrange Affinity deck of his opponent, he became disheartened when his opponent cast a Rush of Knowledge and then played out Myr Enforcers, Frogmites, and on the following turn, a Broodstar. His opponent’s Rush had allowed my son to play Future Sight in the interim, but his board position was almost non-existent besides mana and the Sight, so he conceded the game.

For fun I took his turn, cast eight spells and then Tendrils to win the game.

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Knowing When To Leave The Matrix: Stumbling Through A Mirrodin Draft

Is it possible to get passed a fourth pick Skeleton Shard, fourth and fifth pick Betrayals of the Flesh, plus a fifth pick Plated Slagwurm and not win?

If this draft teaches you anything, it should be that choosing the right path early in the draft is incredibly important if you plan on sticking to it. Oscar chose a less-than-optimal route during the draft and then refused to switch out of it despite being given numerous opportunities. If you do happen to make a bad judgment call early in the draft and realize it, you can still salvage it by switching out later when you’re given the opportunity.

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The StarCityGames.com State of the Union Address

Star City is the”scrub” site.
Star City is the issues site.
There are no good players at Star City.
There are no good writers at Star City.

Oh, how times have changed.

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Sullivan Library: Ban the Right Cards!

We all have a pretty good idea of what is going to happen. Most likely Wizards of the Coast will ban all of the”engine” cards. People will loudly cry for the format to change, and Wizards will come through, like they (mostly) should. They will attempt to get rid of the problem decks that currently exist in the format with these bannings: Goblin Charbelcher, Tinker, Goblin Recruiter, Hermit Druid, and it’s always possible they might throw Chrome Mox into the mix as well.

But in doing so, they’ll just be making a mistake. They’ll be trying to cure the symptoms, but miss the disease.

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Punishment: An Interview With Gabriel Nassif

I have interviewed my man Gabriel Nassif for your viewing pleasure. This man is not only on a hot streak, but he also invented the saying “That’s for sure, that’s for sure,” making him a bona-fide celebrity.

T: When did you start making Top 8s in the qualifiers?
G: Actually, the situation when I started getting better was pretty strange. My mom would not let me play, so I had to play the PTQs in secret. I played three in a row where I went undefeated and then conceded, since mom would not let me travel.

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Yawgmoth’s Whimsy #81: A Million Ways To Abuse Power Conduit

No, you cannot get infinite turns with Power Conduit and Time Vault. Although Time Vault’s Oracle-based errata says that it has counters, and it is technically true that Power Conduit can eat any form of counter, Power Conduit can only supply”charge” or +1/+1 counters. It cannot produce Time Counters. But it can put charge counters on Magistrate’s Scepter.

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Fun With Old Cards #13 The Wonders Of The Bazaar

When Bazaar of Wonders comes into play, it removes all graveyards from the game, and it counters any future spell having the same name as a card in play or in the graveyard. This has always been a pretty powerful card if you can break its symmetry, as it can single-handedly shut down up to three-quarters of the spells in many opponent’s decks and is particularly brutal against combo-style decks. With the invention of Flashback, Morph, and the Wish cycle from Judgement, I take it upon myself to inform you that this card is now officially”Bah-roken”!

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You CAN Play Type I #112: The Control Player’s Bible, Part XXXVI: Head to Head: Classic Suicide Black

Since the printing of Hymn to Tourach (and its eerie wolf-head art), Discard has been Black’s most prominent mechanic. The reactive Blue counterspells can be used in both control and aggro-control deck structures, and the same goes for proactive Black Discard. You have to distinguish Black aggro-control, for example, from more control-oriented strategies such as Pox and Nether Void. In the same way, you distinguish the feel of Tempest-Urza’s Saga-era Type II Suicide Black decks from what you called Type II Mono Black Control.

I’d like to begin my demonstration of Black-based aggro-control, however, with the original”old school” Suicide builds, the kind that was played against”The Deck” and mono Blue back when Fact or Fiction was still unrestricted. These decks featured the simple skeleton of beatdown, discard, and mana denial, and today’s more complicated blends are best understood with the classic foundations.

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Sullivan Library: Oops! I Win!

He’s back! One-time Dojo columnist and original rogue deckmaster Adrian Sullivan makes his triumphant return to StarCityGames.com and the Magic writing community. For those of you who’ve never read Adrian before, you can always count on him to provide honest opinions that often cut against the grain of conventional wisdom. In his inaugural column, Adrian tells you how he ended up with a rogue Red deck for Wisconsin States, discusses his play mistakes, and gives advice to those of you looking to take his deck for a spin.

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Mirrodin Draft Archetypes: R/B

Drafting R/B, as always, is a gamble. You can end up with some of the best decks possible in the format, with a good creature base and plenty of varied removal, or the cards might not be there and the pile in front of you contains multiple Necrogen Spellbombs and other filler. More commonly, an improperly-drafted R/B deck will end up with plenty of removal and no creatures – or, less frequently, plenty of bad creatures and little or no removal. Maintaining a balance between drafting removal first and making sure that you have enough threats can be very tricky.

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Does The Clock Really Kill On Turn 3? Why, Yes It Does!

Nice to meet you; I’m Yann Hamon. I have had recent successes on the Pro Tour circuit, playing at Grand Prix: London, Grand Prix: Lyon and Pro Tour: New Orleans, finishing second, first, and third, which is not too bad. Consequently, my composite rating is actually over 2150, and I’m ranked second in the world. Also, I was the second half of the Labarre concession controversy.

I’m going to tell you this story and other interesting ones (at least I hope so) in my report. The report may also contain useful information for your Extended PTQ season – at least until Wizards finally decides to ban some cards and change the format.

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Building Your First Five, Volume Eight: Streamlining An Average Deck

A short while ago, a gentleman posted his Five-Color deck online in the Five-Color Forums. This gentleman, who went by the screen name of Arbiter, posted his deck in the hopes that someone would give him suggestions, ideas, and comments…. But he didn’t have a lot of flashy rares to work with. And that was an interesting challenge: How do you make a solid Five-Color deck when you don’t have an unlimited card pool to work with?

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The Schizophrenic Archetype: U/w and W/u In Mirrodin Draft, And Why You Should Know The Difference

Drafting Mirrodin requires careful consideration to build the best deck. Though you should usually take the best card in your first pick in pack one, decisions get quite interesting from there. For example, there are two archetypes within the Blue and White color combination – both of them attempt to do the same thing, and yet they behave very differently. What are these two decks, and where do their strategies for the win diverge?

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The Aether Spellbomb Dilemma: Spellbomb!

Each week Ken and I discuss our pick orders with one another before we write these articles. For Blue, our lists diverged by a good deal. Once again, we only included on-color artifacts and Blue cards in the list, and the two biggest disagreements we had were Aether Spellbomb versus Regress and Annul versus Wizard Replica.

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The Aether Spellbomb Dilemma: Regress!

It would seem to many of you that I like a challenge. Almost without fail, my card valuations go against conventional wisdom. I assure you I do not take on these cards as a chore. I don’t do it because I lost the coin flip. I don’t do it to make a scene. I do it because I am of the firm belief that I am right. Usually, I am.

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