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In Part I, we recapped card advantage and summed up that drawing extra cards is like taking extra turns. However, this is put in context when you consider that an extra turn has other components aside from an extra card draw. In Part II, we went further and showed that you also maximize your mana in a particular turn by paying the lowest mana cost for a given effect. In 2003, however, I feel that even the concept”mana” as broadly discussed doesn’t cover everything about tempo; today, we’ll track tempo in the way that Rob Hahn did – attack phases.

Recently, several writers have been debating the best cards for multiplayer. Any best card list like that is going to be difficult, and will be missing a bunch of cards due to brain farts, but those lists do stimulate discussion. Now me, I’ve written mine already, but I want to weigh in on the debate, so I’ll take a different approach. I want to talk about the best mechanics and effects for multiplayer – with a few cards thrown in for good measure.

Zombie Bidding, it has been noted by pundits who are better-known than I, one of those pseudo-combo decks masquerading as a creature-oriented aggro-control deck – say that three times fast. The idea is to basically hold the fort until you can get the graveyard chock full o’ Zombies, Patriarch’s Bidding them back, clear the board – yes, that means you too, Akroma, Angel of Wrath – and then sweep over the next turn for the kill. Lather, rinse, repeat until opponent is dead.

Curious to see what the latest Magic novels are like? Daniel provides a Cliffs Notes summary for you, telling you the official backstory behind the Ice Age expansion!

“I hear you attended the recent Grand Prix in London, Mr Stevenson.” I know the next question before it’s asked.”How did you finish?”
My shoulders slump.”Badly.”
“We know you finished badly, Mr Stevenson. We want you to tell everyone about it.” I swallow hard. The voice becomes sharp, vindictive.”So write.”
“If I do this,” I ask,”will you let me go?”
There is laughter. Then a click. Then silence.

What can you do when everything in a particular set has been released already? 8th Edition, just like every base set before it, is a way to mess with Standard and release old cards for newer players to”catch up,” as it were. But that’s probably the best way to approach this set – to get acquainted old cards and obtain the ones you wanted to get so badly. Along with this reason, most of the commons and uncommons are pretty standard… So this article’s only going to go over the rares, and show you what sorts of cool casual decks you can build around ’em.

“Man,” said players who knew no better. “Paying $75 to attend Dragon*Con is a rip-off!” But let me tell you, my friends; the cheesecake visible there on all sides during the evening costume shows was enough to strike a man (or woman) pleasantly blind. Thus, we squeezed one eye shut and took pictures.

Warning: If you don’t like pictures of scantily-clad women and men, then stay away. The rest of you will no doubt see that as a strong incentive to click.

At Grand Prix: New Orleans, I thought it would be fun to run a bet with Jim, so on the plane I figured out the whole Over/Under on”Women in the room as of round three” thing. Originally, the bet was just between the two of us. Gamers tend to be gambling men, though, so I mentioned it to a few more friends and they hopped in on the bet as well. Next thing you know, I’m mentioning it to Ferrett and he’s suggesting that I start polling all the Pros to see what their answers are. What started as a simple wager between friends blossomed into a goofy little contest article (and four extra bucks for me). Well, now it’s tradition.

Lots of matches are decided by a single turn – or even a single play! Most of the time, we are too lazy to look back and see where we could have played differently to achieve a better result. Things that seem so irrelevant in the progression of a duel could actually be the most important aspect in determining its eventual winner. Casting the wrong creature on a given turn can lead to a loss in a game that was otherwise impossible to lose. So what happens if we start analyzing the plays as closely as possible?

One of your first steps out of scrubdom was the realization that Gray Ogre is mediocre even in Limited, Ironclaw Orcs is a placeholder in red decks when cheaper or better creatures aren’t in the format, and Jackal Pup is still red’s most important front-liner to date… Even though they all deal the same two damage. The simple explanation is that drawbacks don’t matter; the original Sligh decks with Ironclaw Orcs didn’t plan on blocking much, anyway. But this isn’t the complete picture – and to understand tempo, you must understand why the Pups are dangerous.

I did more playtesting and MODOing during this summer than in the previous two years combined. I really wanted to see if we could take the title, and felt that there was more than money on the line. This practice actually scared me a bit, since I had been mising nice prizes with little work for quite some time now. What would happen when I actually worked at it?

Thieves have always been the scum of the earth, but with online gaming they’ve really hit the jackpot – and a new low. Never before has it been possible for some toenail clipping of a human being to take away so much from another human being, with so little effort. Thousands of hours. Thousands of dollars. Thousands of precious little things taken and laundered, scattered across the internet and into the eager hands of unknowing buyers, never to be seen again. And if you want to avoid that fate, gentle reader, perhaps you best click on the link above.

As you may or may not have heard, we had a server crash over the weekend. Everything on that server has since been restored… except for the e-mail addresses… which still aren’t working, but should be later on today. In the meantime…