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I’ve been inspired by the enthusiasm that Skirk Fire Marshal has encouraged in my fellow StarCity gamers. The new version of Goblink sports more benign-looking monsters, quality spells – and this time, a fighting chance. It’s still got the problem factors that plagued the original Goblink, but this is hopefully the start of Goblink’s revival.

I don’t have much to contribute on drafting strategy – so this is where the article should end, right? Actually, no; this is where it really begins. A lot of people head straight in, study the cards, make the best pick and start lovingly constructing their forty-card bundle of joy… And that’s really bad strategy, since there are several tricks you can use within Magic Online to shape your optimal drafting strategy.

Our preliminary all-over-the-map results led many on the team to feel the deck was just not consistent. Darwin, however, was continually posting good results and was going to run the Dragons. In discussions and playtesting with Darwin, I realized it wasn’t that the deck wasn’t consistent – it was that I (and others on my team) were playing it wrong in certain matchups. Wanna know how to play the biggest deck around?

From what I can see through the limited portal provided by Arcana, Magic art is thriving in spite of Wizards Art Department, not because of it. The style guides we’ve seen are of horrid quality – and these are the models that Wizards asks their artists to emulate! Furthermore, the Wizards Art Department is wasting time by providing poor specifications that require sudden (and potentially shoddy) redrawings, while genuine artistic errors go through. They seem to think that just so long as”stuff looks cool,” everything will be all right… And I disagree.

Just drafting every rare in sight is not a good plan because, ultimately, you’d like to balance the line between rare-drafting and drafting a good deck. After all, if you can procure some packs, then you can do more rare drafting. There are some specific rare drafting strategies, and there are five categories of rares. Identifying which rare belongs in which category is very important to your rare drafting success.

I envisioned the Control Player’s Bible as a detailed reference that beginners could look at without the sometimes-haughty intimidation they sometimes get in Type I websites. The problem is that as I covered the basic discussions and had to move on to more complicated details, I got feedback saying that some beginners who caught the Bible in the middle couldn’t keep up. Somewhere there, I got the idea of starting another sub-column strictly focused on beginners again.

For those following the recent discussion regarding Nick Eisel’s continuing to write for this site, The Ferrett issued a call to arms for more good writers on Onslaught drafting. So I decided, what the heck, why not give this a try? Beats waiting for Gary Wise to ever get his articles done. I am a good Limited player, though, rated as one of the better players in the state of Oregon, and I do draft plenty down at my local game store.

God wants Nate Heiss to stay in the game – and as such, He handed Nate the luckiest tournament ever. Read about Erratic Explosions misfiring when Nate was at two! See how his G/W deck beat a blue deck with Arcanis, Quicksilver Dragon, Future Sight, and Krosan Colossus! And how did he channel the legendary”Eubroken” Eugene Harvey?

In the end, this deck is a good choice for creature-heavy games, and it teaches you very quickly when to hold ’em and when to fold ’em, getting the most bang for your buck. Multiplayer isn’t always about being conservative, but it is about making the right friends. Be careful about how you wave My Big Black Weapon around.

GAMA is the Game Manufacturers Association, and once a year they hold a trade show to allow the manufacturers to show off their completely new games and tell the world what future plans they have for their older games. I guess I should tell you what we learned about the grandfather of all card games while I was there, even if some of it has slipped out already.

Jose Emmanuel Argao did a great deal of playtesting to prove that his U/W Mobilization deck was better than his detractors were saying it was, and the results seem to indicate that he was correct. However, his methodology still has some serious problems, so I’m going to point out the variables that can skew your results and ways to limit the effect they have on your testing, all in order to figure out the answers to the big question:”What is the best deck?”

Last week, I sat down in a multiplayer game with a handful of opponents. I smashed them. It wasn’t even close. I pulled out another deck – a deck that was a lot weaker – and smashed them again. Then I bashed them with a deck I had drafted the day before. Why? Because I had a better understanding of how mana worked than they did…. And yes, it is that important.