Thursday, March 19th – It occurred to me there are some parallels you can draw between Girl Scout Cookies and the Standard Metagame. For the most part it seems the top deck and cookie archetypes never change. Like Faerie decks, you always have Samoas, which people can’t quit because they’re so damn good.
Tuesday, March 17th – All this talk about Alara Reborn and its multicolor nature has Dave thinking about gold. It’s a word that has many meanings in Magic, and Dave hits them all while featuring some of Conflux’s inexpensive rares.
Friday, March 13th – This week’s article will be on Standard and how all of your favorite decks suck, much in the vein of Mike Flores article on the subject from years ago. This means the article will be basically half sarcastic and mocking and generally mean, even though a lot of it is tongue-in-cheek. So I expect maybe 30% of you to read this and not flame me about the tone
Friday, March 13th – In light of the snorefest metagame coming out of Kyoto I thought it would be a great time to talk about a deck utterly and completely off the radar. Then along comes Jacob Van Lunen’s Building on a Budget last Thursday featuring… an Esper Elixir deck! Of course, why not?
Friday, March 13th – Gabriel Nassif, the pundit’s pick for the third-best Magic player of all time, finally picked up an Individual Pro Tour victory at PT: Kyoto. Powered by an excellent Five-Color Control deck, a healthy dose of skill, and some insane top-deck shenanigans, Gabriel shares his story here today. Enjoy!
Wednesday, March 11th – Going into the Pro Tour, Red/Black Blightning Deck Wins was one of the hottest archetypes around. Conflux gave the strategy a booster shot, and players had high hopes. Sadly, the deck didn’t quite live up to expectations. Nevertheless, Marijn Lybaert believes the deck has a place in the current metagame. Today, he shares his Kyoto build and talks us through the design process, with sideboarding plans against the metagame’s high rollers.
Tuesday, March 10th – When it comes to Shards mechanics, Exalted has seen plenty of mainstream coverage as both a Limited powerhouse and a backbone for Standard decks – and now the new Exalted cards from Conflux make it a viable strategy for budget decks as well.
Tuesday, March 10th – Last week, Sam Black brought us the first part of his Pro Tour: Kyoto tournament report. With Faeries in the Standard portion, and a confident draft strategy, Sam managed to propel himself into the Top 32. Today’s conclusion takes us through the second day of competition…
Monday, March 9th – As one of the super-team including Patrick Chapin, Guillaume Wafo-Tapa, Manuel Bucher, and eventual winner Gabriel Nassif, Olivier Ruel managed a creditable 51st place at Pro Tour: Kyoto. Today’s Reflecting Ruel sees the French maestro examine the popular Five-Color Control archetype in depth, with a detailed sideboard plan, a card-by-card breakdown, and a post-PT decklist…
Friday, March 6th – In the forum thread to my column last week, a poster asked if I’d go into more details on the decisions I made when assembling my Ancient Ziggurat deck for the StarCityGames.com $5000 Standard Open. Given that another Ziggurat deck just made a huge splash in Kyoto, being pretty much the only new and innovative deck to come out of the tournament, I figured it would be worthwhile going over the choices I made.
Friday, March 6th – While I would be content to talk about playing Faeries in Extended till I am blue in the face, another near-miss at a Top 8 cannot hardly compare to the Pro Tour this past weekend in Kyoto…
Friday, March 6th – Manuel Bucher entered Pro Tour: Kyoto with high hopes. As part of the Chapin/Nassif super team, he felt his deck was tricked out to handle all comers. Sadly, illness and some bad decisions saw him missing Day 2… here is his analysis of his Standard choices, and a brief tournament report on his performance.
Friday, March 6th – Cedric Phillips, the popular yet largely unsuccessful Magic celebrity, finally broke through and pulled off a Sunday performance at Pro Tour: Kyoto. Powered by a thunderous Kithkin deck designed in conjunction with Charles Gindy, Ced rode his skill and his luck through a field of the world’s best players. This is his story…
Thursday, March 5th – Now that the Pro Tour is mixed-format discipline, specific format specialists such as Quentin Martin are opening their minds to the other side of the game (whatever it may be). Today, Quentin examines a few of the Standard decks that caught his eye from Kyoto. The first? Black/White Tokens…
Wednesday, March 4th – With Pro Tour: Kyoto firmly behind us, Sam Black recounts his sterling performance while piloting the Faerie menace. Today’s Black Magic sees Sam provide a rundown of the highs and lows from the first day of competition…
