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Playtesting For Champs: The Aggro And Combo Decks

So States is this weekend. What the hell am I playing? I have Affinity.dec, MRC, Mind’s Desire, Goblins, WW, and I have the cards for Rising Tog. I sit and stare at the decks piled on by desk and I thank the Magic gods that I have tested all of them. The best deck (if massive amounts of hate aren’t aimed straight at its dome) is Affinity. Because it is so easy to hate out, I can’t play it. This bothers me, because it is just so damn good. In the end, I needed a deck. So I came up with a solution.

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Old Format, New Conflict: Old-School Versus New-School In Type One

Type One is becoming more and more in its dynamics like Type Two, and some Type One players don’t like it. What it really boils down to is that a good many players have invested in a format they thought was casual – and although they built good, competitive decks, tested them and tuned them, even went to GenCon to play it out, what they now have come to realize, is that Type One has finally arrived, and it wasn’t what they bargained for.

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You CAN Play Type I #108: The State Of The Metagame Address (Or, Is Oscar Tan His Own Worst Enemy?)

Again, what should we do? Innovate towards faster kills, meaning Turn 1? I think there’s a point where you know where the metagame is taking you, and you should take the wheel from the driver already. I mean, we now have a format where a 2/1 for one mana has long since been too weak. My point is that Type I is too fast, and that proposing to slow it down is not a move to make Type I less competitive; it’s a move to make Type I more realistic.

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The Road To States 2003: Affinity

Chris, local player and recent addition to my playtesting group the High Plains Drifters, says that affinity is the new madness – and he’s pretty much right on the ball. If you’ve played around with affinity-based decks, they’re much like the aggro-control U/G Madness decks – drop some early threats that are both undercosted and large, back them up with a pinch of countermagic, and win the game before it gets into a war of attrition.

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States Metagame: Goblins

Fresh off his second-place finish this weekend, Nate discusses what’s coming up for his favorite tournament – States! And even though the decklist is old Onslaught Block hat, what other decks are emerging that might threaten Goblins?

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The Mono-White Drive-By: Rapping Strategy, Take II

Yo, I’m Craig, and I’m a card-playing wizard,

Beating you up with my mono-white blizzard,

Throwing superior skill in your face,

Winning the gold in the Human Race,

Mono-white rapping like Vanilla Ice,

You wanna do well? Here’s my advice:

Swing with men and dish out defeat!

Play White Weenie, it’s the deck to beat!

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Interactive Magic

In my last article, I built three sample Sealed decks – and I promised that I would playtest and offer any insights gleaned. I received two rebuilds of the third deck I presented… And so I went back and played ten games each against a God deck to see which builds were optimal!

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Fifty Multiplayer Combos From Mirrodin

Welcome to my fiftieth article for StarCityGames! I have been a Featured Writer for this site for a little over a year now, and I thought that I’d do something special for this article. I was reading through Mark Rosewater’s article on how Mirrodin is supposed to be an open-ended set when my article idea hit me – one combo for every article published. Fifty Mirrodin combos, some with really old cards!

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Double Or Nothing: Taking Isochron Scepter Against The Gauntlet!

In order to keep the abusive”Chrome Mox, Scepter, imprint Boomerang” lock in the deck, we’re going to have to play Blue. I’m fairly sure that Blue won’t be good enough on it’s own as it has no mass removal, and can’t really deal with threats apart from bouncing them. Given the spells we can use, I’m going to outline three decks: U/W, U/R, and U/B. We’ll test each build against Goblins and Mono Black Control to see whether each can handle aggro and control….

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Burning Through Type One, Part 3: The Prison Matchup, And The Future Of Long.dec

Nick Eisel says:”Even if you don’t play Vintage, reading Stephen’s articles will arouse your brain and get you involved instead of the usual zombie-like state that is achieved after reading another mundane Magic article. The format he uses to get this information into that mode of thinking is superb and I’d personally like to compliment him.” And given that Nick’s such a fan, shouldn’t you take a look at the third installment of how to play a deck that’s so fast that games only go to turn 4 once in every twenty games?

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The Road To Boston, Part 3: Meeting Up With TOGIT And Mixing Drinks With CMU

The hum of the fan is heavy in my ears, but there’s nothing stirring besides the air. The other occupants of the house are at rest, and the manner in which they arrived at that state of calm varies from person to person. Nate Heiss is comatose out on the front porch, trying to shake off a brutal drinking game session that concluded with a double-upchuck as the grand finale. Josh Rider is laid out on the floor in Mike’s room with his eyes rolled back into his head. It would take nitroglycerin suppositories to move him from that spot. Jeremy Darling is now flat on his face on the small couch, a stark contrast to his robust activities for the last two hours – namely, sitting on the back porch trying not to succumb to alcohol poisoning. Poor guy. Two hours of good times, two hours of trying to coax your body to leave you a functioning liver. Liquor is a harsh mistress.

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Magic Art Matters: I’ve Got A Flying Bear In My Pool!

I opened my fair share of good cards from the set and was able to build a nice W/R artifact deck – but you have probably already guessed that it was the Leonin Skyhunter that really caught my eye. The last time I remember opening a prerelease flying bear was Gaea’s Skyfolk – another personal favorite of mine from Apocalypse. Nothing beats a 2/2 flier for two******, but maybe that’s just me. What makes the Leonin Skyhunter all the better is that it is the work of the artist Kev Walker. He has been creating fantastic Magic art for some time now, and I’ll have to admit, he’s my current favorite. With this card, he proves once again that he is at the top of his game.

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The Real Story Behind Mirrodin

It’s that time again! A new expansion, a new set of flavor texts… And a new look at how the flavor texts on the new Mirrodin cards relate to the official backstory! Listen carefully as Daniel tells you what these strange and wondrous quotes actually mean!

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The Three Lessons I Learned While Winning The PTQ

What I’m talking about are the intangibles of winning. These are the things that can turn a good player into a great player, or a mediocre pool of cards into a winning Sealed deck, even if it is for just the space of one tournament. They are things that you cannot judge from a player’s Limited Rating or the Pro Tour point total of their playtesting group. I have chosen the three that I have deemed the most central to my victory at the PTQ.

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The Top 15 Combos In Mirrodin Standard!

Mirrodin looks to alter the face of Standard more than any other incoming set. The set is chock full of artifacts. It is also chock-full of fun combos. Some of these combos are getting talk as serious Standard contenders; others are, at best, Tier Two, reserved only for casual and Limited environments. But what are the coolest fifteen?

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