The Final Product that Carl played was the result of no less than six active members of the Paragons (with more adding occasional input) debating, testing, and arguing about various elements of Hulk. But how did we develop it, why was it a solid metagame call, and what is the importance of the Paragons?
I feel I am an expert in this field, as I have made all these types of errors several times. I’d like to think that all type of errors fall into these categories, as inspired by Donald Norman’s The Design of Everyday Things… So let me detail them and show you how to avoid them.
This weekend, we covered the Vintage Championships – and yeah, we made some boo-boos. So what if, for three hours, the name of the second-place finisher was spelled wrong? Does it really matter whether someone laid a Mishra’s Factory or a Mishra’s Workshop? And dare we talk about the match where, according to the names that we rapidly alternated between, four people were playing each other? Nah. Those weren’t really important. Not, at least, when compared to the mistakes that we found in the Tenth Anniversary of Magic Museum…
With all of the strategy articles written in tired and repetitive formats, how are we even sure we’re gaining anything by reading them anymore? I mean c’mon – you can read a million columns on pick orders, and if you still can’t grasp why something is better than something else or when you should stray from the pick order, then you’re nothing but a machine implementing data that may or may not be correct depending on the situation. You’re like the high school student, cramming for a Calculus final; you’ve memorized a bunch of numbers, but you still have absolutely no idea what they mean. So how can you learn the meaning behind the numbers?
I used to doubt myself, wondering why I hated playing blue-based control. Was it a flaw in my character? Did I just lack the patience and imagination, or the downright skill to play such a deep and complex color? Why did I despise what has become known as the now nearly defunct Draw-Go style of play?
But I now realize the truth: Blue was boring because it was too good, and the people who leaned on that style of Magic were lazy players.
If you’ve played Magic, you’ve seen Ed Beard’s artwork. He’s been around since Legends, illustrating famous cards like the Elder Dragon Legends, Plow Under, Avalanche Riders, 7th and 8th Edition’s Birds of Paradise, and everyone’s favorite toothy win condition, Psychatog. Ed shares his memories on the beginning of Magic (he thought it would flop), his favorite piece, his thoughts on having his artwork on a card that’s dominating three formats, and an artist’s take on Mirrodin’s new look and 8th Edition!
For those of you unaware of what this week’s title means,”in my wheelhouse” is yet another baseball term used to describe the location of pitches where batters typically hit them the hardest. Just after I turned in my last article, both Nick Eisel and Rob Dougherty released articles dealing directly with topics that I discussed – and needless to say, I was a bit dissatisfied with the product. So let me tell you the real to draft U/W in Onslaught Limited, and explain why Goblin Bidding is completely worthless in Onslaught Block.
Fresh off his trip to Nationals, Jim discusses the seven reasons why you’re not winning Grand Prixs and Maher is. This is, perhaps, one of the finest”Get better at Magic” articles written in the past year; if you’re willing to take a good, brutal look at why you’re losing, you might want to start here.
Iain asks Gary Wise, Eugene Harvey, Adrian Sullivan, David Rood, Mark Zajdner, and Osyp Lebedowicz what they think of the new Core Set!
Since I don’t plan on buying any cards with the new 8th Edition card face, I am going to have to get used to playing more obscure cards that I my have previously overlooked. And along those lines, a perfect example of what one might find when trying to dredge up an old and underutilized card is none other than the awesome Fledgling Osprey.
The idea of a glossary came to me when, in the course of outlines for articles I was working on, I would get bogged down in definitions. This made each piece much longer and more complicated than it needed to be. With the publication of this, I can simply refer the reader to this article when a definition is needed; however, I need your help to make sure that I have the correct definitions, and to remind me of any terms that I may have missed.
Today’s article is dedicated to those who responded to my last article,”The Art of Retaliation,” asking for a deck that I use in my group games to”punish” transgressors who have had the audacity to beat me. Me! Well, let me share the only deck in my collection that’s undefeated in a dozen games – and show you how to lay the smackdown with global annihilation!
You think you got tired of the phrase”ditch Wonder, in”?
You just wait. In a few months’ time, the words”end of turn, cycle this for a plains” will be gouged into your brain.”Sack Goblin Prospector, make Warchief, swing” will bring on the dry heaves. To me, Onslaught block has a”fixed” feel about it. It feels like we have the top decks fixed in place already. Everything else we create will be a footnote. The cries of”Wizards is making our decks for us” can still be heard; it’s hard to be innovative when the established,”obvious” decks are so brutal.
Never in a long-term metagame have so many combo decks competed. I suspect that only one or two will survive the culling that will inevitably ensue as combo players discover which deck is truly”best.” I think this is an inherently unstable mixture…. Or is it possible that there could be a balanced metagame with multiple combo decks vying for power and glory – thus bucking the trend of metagames of all times?
When I think of Magic’s customers, I think about players like you and me, who purchase this beloved cardboard crack made by Wizards of the Coast – and in terms of product, they’ve been knocking the ball out the park. But there’s more to the health of Magic than decisions made by R&D in designing and developing good sets; the way Wizards treats the distributors and game shops that sell Magic is important, too. And according to our game shop owner and some recent events I’ve been involved with, Wizards is the hands-down worst gaming company to deal with, period.
