Tuesday, March 31st – With the all-gold Alara Reborn on the horizon, Dave can’t talk about anything but multicolored cards. Enclosed inside: enough gold decks to pay for a week’s worth of Cash4Gold commercials!
Tuesday, March 31st – At the StarCityGames.com $5000 Standard Open, an impressive 432 players came to battle it out for the top prize. Adrian Sullivan, armed with all 432 decklists, examines the statistics and trends behind those successful – and not so successful – archetypes…
Monday, March 30th – The format for Pro Tour: Austin Qualifiers is Standard. Can you believe it? For the first time in as long as I’ve been playing Magic, Wizards of the Coast has finally decided to make Standard the format of choice for players battling for a blue envelop. Seriously? Check. Awesome? Check again.
Monday, March 30th – At the StarCityGames.com $5000 Standard Open in Indianapolis a few days ago, Patrick Chapin cast aside his Five-Color Control deck for something a little more aggressive. He piloted this new deck to a commendable Top 16 finish. So, what on earth could have persuaded the Innovator to leave his Cryptic Commands at home? Read on to find out!
Thursday, March 26th – Legion Events ran a $3k event last Saturday. The format was mixed – an Alara Sealed event in the morning, and a Standard event after lunch. I got to head judge the Standard, which means I got the decklists when we were done. I have the Top 8 lists, the complete field breakdown, and some just plain interesting lists.
Tuesday, March 24th – Last weekend, Adrian entered a $3000 Magic tournament in Wisconsin. Today, he shares his thoughts on his Sealed pool before moving onto an in-depth analysis of the successful Standard decks. With the StarCityGames.com $5000 Standard Open this coming weekend, it pays to be prepared!
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…
