The island was concentric with a central mountain. Surrounding the mountain was a forest with a swampy floor. The plains on the rim of the island swayed with yellow grass. The land was charged with all five colors of magic. On the summit of the mountain, four figures stood. Xanathar, Dark Lord of the Realm…
I was thinking about calling this column "The Arena Debacle, Pt. II" but I suspect that there’s probably a few more people out there playing Friday Night Magic than Arena; heck, there’s probably a lot of folks out there who haven’t even heard of Arena. But anybody who’s played Magic for a couple of years…
A few weeks ago, Pete and Omeed asked me if I had any objection to StarCityCCG.com officially adopting the column title "Casual Fridays". I told them they’d have to check with Dockers, and if there were no legal entanglements from them, we ought to be all set. I also checked in with the good folks…
Wow. I have to say I have been very pleased with the response to my last article. While a lot of it consisted of things like "Bennie, you’re an idiot– the foils you suggested are horrible," the main thing was that I struck a cord out there. People *do* care about the prize support for…
If I might blaspheme for just a moment: Dear God in heaven above, it seems for certain that it’s been far too long. Perhaps that’s only because of my disgust with recent limpid offerings. Never before has blame so unanimously outweighed praise for whatever ordering of words I’d seen fit to dump in front of…
You doh, subber id a wudderfuh tibe of the year. Boo skies, lazy (*snort*) avdanoods id the sudshide with a glass of cool Pibbs nubber wud (strawberry ad cucubber essential, of course). Unfortudately, I ab wud of those poor subs-of-bidges who suffers frob Hay Fever (*aaatchooo*) – so I have to spedd Bay, Jude, and…
You know, I recently realized that for all the complaining I do about the Urza’s Block, I’ve never taken the time to write about the positive aspects of the Block. Woah, now. Don’t get me wrong. As far as I’m concerned, the bad vastly outweighs the good, as far as Urza’s goes. I still shudder…
There is a method of catching serial killers known as“profiling,” and it’s devastatingly effective if used right. Basically, the theory goes like this: Guys who stalk and kill people routinely do it because they enjoy it. But every criminal kills for a different reason. If you can find out what part of the killing they…
A few weeks ago, Pete and Omeed asked me if I had any objection to StarCityCCG.com officially adopting the column title "Casual Fridays". I told them they’d have to check with Dockers, and if there were no legal entanglements from them, we ought to be all set. I also checked in with the good folks…
I think you’ll all agree that I’m a pretty efficient fellow (and, even if you wouldn’t, there’s nothing you can do about it, because I’M writing this article). That statement is proven by the title you so generously clicked upon; you see, I’m actually talking about two things in this article: the NEW StarCityCCG.com and…
Necro, Prosbloom, Turbostasis, Turbobalance, Fruity Pebbles, Cocoa Pebbles, , , , Academy, , , , Oath, Wheaties, Trix and all have one thing in common. Yes. They’re all good decks. Something else. Yes. They’re comboriffic. Something else. Yes. They’ve all played heavily into their respective metagames. Something else. Do you know what it is? They…
I had hoped to have an article on what I thought was a really good deck I was working on. Really, really good. In what free time I’d managed to hoard lately, I’d thought I’d tuned it to a fair degree of nastiness, in between bouts of fighting off The Asian Death Flu That Ate…
Those of you who remember last week’s column will be tremendously ironic, since the whole POINT of last week’s column was that nobody ever remembers what I wrote the week before. You guys are screwing up my curve. However, among my other various tirades, last week I posted a sneaky multiplayer deck— which went something…
The last few months have been hard for me. I’ve not enjoyed my job, lost my girlfriend of two years and now hate the flat where we shared the last year together. Consequently I’ve spent some time off work and generally not been a very happy bunny. On the good side, I continued to get…
Apologies to those of you who’ve wondered where I’ve been; it seems life has gotten in the way of fun as usual. I recently started a new job and while I’m loving it, it has been keeping me insanely busy. Way too busy to play Magic. It’s also been mentally draining, which has interfered with…
