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From Right Field: Look Back in Anger

For me, 2003 was probably the best year of my life so far. In May, I met my future wife. If I don’t scare her off, I’ll be married to her in 2004. If nothing else happened in all of 2003, that alone would have made it the best year ever.

Of course, this isn’t a web site for romance. If you’ve looked at our pictures, you’ll know why. No, this site is about Magic: The Gathering. So, let’s take a look back at 2003, MTG style. First, I want to revisit some predictions I made in my New Year’s Day column on this very site.

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The StarCityGames.com Digest for the Week Ending 01/02/2004

Whipped out white weenies, battles of big brains, and alliterative editors (not really), all in the first StarCityGames.com digest of 2004!

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Cutting Through the Hype With a Butter Knife

Articles – many articles – are written every time a set comes out, but does anyone ever go back and call people up about their trading articles, hot picks, and so on? Hell if I remember – I don’t recall last week very well. I don’t think they do, though. Not often. Hot picks come out and then no one ever makes a comment about them months later, to see how they panned out. What I’m going to find out is,”Where are they now?”

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Number-Crunching Type 1 for 2003

In the wake of a very crowd-pleasing Banned and Restricted announcement on December 1st (DCI: Seriously, Type 1 players adored it) and much ado about the future of Vintage caused by the wrecking-ball of a combo deck, Burning Desire, I decided to look at the tournament data for late 2003 and break down the results. The one criteria for B&R changes that everyone openly accepts is tournament distortion/dominance, so really, the way to approach the community’s most controversial issue in the least controversial way is obvious.

If you want to know which decks and cards really dominated in Type I, you must read this article.

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Yawgmoth’s Whimsy #85: The Problems with Emperor

Recently, I have been playing a lot of Emperor during casual magic nights. Some of the games are great, but some are just a pain — because of a fundamental weakness of the Emperor format. Too many decks we play are exploiting that weakness. I’ll tell you how to build killer Emperor deck to do your own exploitation, but I’ll also talk about how to make the format more reasonable. I’ll also throw in some solid-but-still-fun Emperor decks for your playing enjoyment.

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All You Need Is Love – Why Hate Drafting Is Bad, mmmkay?

Booster draft is about sending good signals. If you start hate drafting in booster draft, you will wind up confusing the person next to you and they could take a card in your color. This can be rough for you as they will generally be passing to you in a future pack. Matters aren’t as clear in Booster Draft as they are in Rochester, so make sure you keep your head on. Things move faster, and there is more room for misinterpretation. One early hate-draft could dismantle your entire plan.

Unlike in Rochester, there is an exception here…

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About Ken Krouner: T8 Pro Tour: Barcelona. 63rd PTNY (Academy). 0-7 at some Japanese PT. Killed Randy Beuhler with his own creature in the first Multiplayer Invitational. Roughly ten money (T32 or T16) GP money finishes. Took a couple of years off to work in Germany — came back, won a prerelease and then found out it was actually a PTQ.

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Modified Swiss Explained

So what exactly is”modified-swiss” anyway?

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Magic the Gathering Premier Event Schedule!

A completely up-to-date schedule for all Magic the Gathering Premier Events hosted by Star City Events!

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Advertise on StarCityGames.com!

When companies such as Upper Deck Entertainment and PartyPoker.com want to reach the Magic: the Gathering community, they advertise on StarCityGames.com! What can StarCityGames.com do for you? More…

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Virtual Card Advantage Theory

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that it’s supposedly unacceptable to count card advantage, at its most base level, only when it actually occurs. The existing theories have no room for this idea, and when you put five permanents on the board according to the accepted card advantage theory, you’re five cards up, even if those five cards haven’t actually traded with opposing cards! The existing theory of card advantage is designed so that you can see your board advantage reflected in the numbers you get when you measure it. In other words, more permanents = more card advantage.

In a way, I can understand where the proponents of the system are coming from. Unfortunately, that isn’t enough to let me get behind the idea, which is patently ridiculous. Let’s go through some examples to show you what I mean.

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You CAN Play Type I #119: Back to Basics, Part IX – The Ten-Second Card Advantage Solution Part 1

Card Advantage is simpler and more visible than tempo, so the spectacular plays you associate with Type I are usually those that build incredible CA, from Stroke of Genius to Mind Twist. The most powerful card ever printed, Necropotence, is also the most powerful CA engine ever printed.

It’s really very simple. If Restriction 1 says you only draw one card a turn, or your regular draw, then one way to win is by drawing more cards. However, spectacular plays aren’t common. Normally, you have to choose between two average plays. Thus, you want a simple method to count CA, to help you decide… and that’s what I’m going to provide.

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You CAN Play Type I #119: Back to Basics, Part IX – The Ten-Second Card Advantage Solution Part 2

More Card Advantage Examples and Chasey Lain references. Honest.

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$10,000 Reward… Still Up For Grabs!

On Saturday, December 20th, someone broke into our Roanoke, Virginia warehouse and stole some cards from us.

That”someone” now has a $10,000 bounty on their head, which will remain in place until we find them.

Do you have information about this crime? Let us know, and you could end up $10,000 richer.

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Sullivan Library: Rebutting the Hullabaloo

What a mess. What a mess. First of all, as I’ve read the forum thread to Geordie Tait’s article, I’ve grown sadder and sadder.
GT has decided to write a card advantage article for new players. Fine. We start debating the finer points of it. Fine. People get heated. Even this is fine.

There are two not-fines. One from Oscar Tan. One from GT.

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The StarCityGames.com Digest for the Week Ending 12/26/2003

10 G’s for helping to catch thieves, Sullivan and Aten are qualifyin’, and Knut season greets with some Christmas beats all in the lastest edition of the StarCityGames.com Digest.

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