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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.

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!

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!

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.

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.

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!

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.

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?

I set out to break two cards – Timesifter and Soul Foundry – with one deck. The deck worked, and worked well, mainly because of some synergistic effects. The deck could win by taking infinite turns, while removing the opponent’s libraries from the game. It could also control the board or smash face with a variety of creatures.