TagStandard

Down And Dirty – Scornful Options Unlimited

Read Kyle Sanchez every week... at StarCityGames.com!
Thursday, May 8th – It appears that the great and good of Star City Games are currently going crazy over Combo decks in Shadowmoor Standard. We’ve had Patrick Chapin’s take on the Seismic Swans deck… today, we have Kyle Sanchez walking us through a plethora of intriguing Enchanted Evening options. He takes the combo pieces and throws them in with literally every card under the sun. Will one of these builds prove strong enough to storm the Star City Games Mega-Magic Weekend? Read on to find out!

By

Deep Analysis – Power Red, Speed Red, and The Siege

Read Richard Feldman every Thursday... at StarCityGames.com!
Thursday, May 8th – In the never-ending quest for fresh Standard decks, Richard Feldman takes a leaf out of the Chapin Playbook today and tries some “innovative” builds of Red Deck Wins. He also revisits an old favorite, pumping in a fresh angle and some new cards… with surprising and exciting results.

By

You Lika The Juice? – When in Richmond

Read Bennie Smith every week... at StarCityGames.com!
Wednesday, May 7th – In case you’ve been under a rock for the past few weeks, you may not know that Star City Games is holding a blow-out weekend chock full of Magic starting this Friday, right here in my hometown of Richmond, Virginia. I’ve lived in Richmond all my life, and I thought it might be helpful to provide some tips for getting around for those of you who are not familiar with River City.

By

Peebles Primers – Brainstorming Standard

Read Benjamin Peebles-Mundy every week... at StarCityGames.com!
Wednesday, May 7th – The Star City Games Mega-Magic Weekend is nearly here, and Benjamin Peebles-Mundy is looking for another Top 8 performance. Today’s Peebles Primers sees BPM sharing his test group’s Standard brainstormed decks, including their latest take on the intriguing Green/White Big Mana archetype. Will these decks manage a breakout performance before the Pro Tour?

By

Feature Article – Ten Things You Need To Know About Pre-Hollywood Standard

Read Feature Articles every week... at StarCityGames.com!
Wednesday, May 7th – In his first article for StarCityGames.com, Constructed master and Grand Prix Top 8 stalwart Gerry Thompson, fresh from his cameo appearances in Patrick Chapin articles, brings us the lowdown on the Standard format going into Pro Tour: Hollywood. These ten invaluable tips are in perfect time for the Star City Games Mega-Magic Weekend! If you’re looking for an edge on the competition, look no further…

By

Deconstructing Constructed – Mono-Green: Now With Fewer Elves

Read Josh Silvestri every week... at StarCityGames.com!
Tuesday, May 6th – I’ve been spending most of my time lately trying to create an aggro deck that was close to mono-colored and didn’t get blown out by Pyroclasm/Firespout/Wrath of God. Of course, I could just say that’s Faeries… I’ve played the deck for the past six months. However, the idea of playing against decks with a large amount of good hate every round is daunting.

By

Innovations – All Your Decks Are Belong To Us: Combo In Standard

Read Patrick Chapin every week... at StarCityGames.com!
Monday, May 5th – Pro Tour: Hollywood is approaching, and people looking for a little meat in the current Standard environment. While most folk currently dine on Aggro faire, swinging for two again and again, there is more to the metagame than attacking. Today, Patrick Chapin explores two combo decks. Will these builds make a splash in Hollywood?

By

Magical Hack – Advancing Shadowmoor Standard

Read Sean McKeown every Friday... at StarCityGames.com!
Friday, May 2nd – With a lot of puttering around with Standard already under our belts, just blindly theorizing stuff and seeing what works, it’s time for some more deck designing to see what sticks. Our Red and Red-Black decks last week didn’t really do anything interesting, and we have seen quite a few aggressive strategies so far, so this week I wanted to try looking at a variety of strategies rather than ‘just’ aggro- or aggro-tempo decks.

By

Tribal Thriftiness #21 – I Fight For You, Little Warriors

Read Dave Meeson every week... at StarCityGames.com!
Thursday, May 1st – Whenever a new set hits the scenes, Dave likes to revisit his previous decks and see what new and great cards will fit into them. This week, he starts back with the Obsidian Battle-Axe-fueled Warriors deck.

By

Down And Dirty – New Shadowmoor Archetypes, and Moor Wizards

Read Kyle Sanchez every week... at StarCityGames.com!
Thursday, May 1st – With Pro Tour: Hollywood looming large on the tournament calendar, Kyle Sanchez kicks off his preparations with a look at a cavalcade of exciting Shadowmoor-powered Standard options. There’s the ubiquitous Red/Green, Mono-Black Control, the much-discussed Enchanted Evening Combo deck, and an update on his popular Wizards deck!

By

You Lika The Juice? – Cauldron (Persistence, Part 2)

Read Bennie Smith every week... at StarCityGames.com!
Wednesday, April 30th – Last week I wrote about the Persistence mechanic, touching on some ideas and concepts that I hope inspired some of you to give the Persistence cards a try. In the deckbuilding forums I’ve seen a lot of folks adopting my Juniper Order Ranger idea into Persistence engines.

By

Peebles Primers – Investigating Standard and Discarding Red Aggro

Read Benjamin Peebles-Mundy every week... at StarCityGames.com!
Wednesday, April 30th – Whenever new cards are added to the Constructed mix, the first port of call is often the Red Aggressive deck. With Shadowmoor packing a number of fantastic additions to the archetype, all should be good… right? Today, Benjamin Peebles-Mundy puts Red Aggro to the test, and explains why the deck may not be the strongest choice for your next Standard soiree. And of course, he offers an exciting alternative…

By

Deconstructing Constructed – Red Deck Wins, Maybe

Read Josh Silvestri every week... at StarCityGames.com!
Tuesday, April 29th – With the release of Shadowmoor, the Red deck has once again come to the forefront of many designers’ and players’ minds. Today, I’d like to go over some of the more debatable inclusions and possible design choices the deck will likely face in the future, all of which spring from player preference and metagame consideration.

By

There And Back Again – Revisiting Red Deck Wins

Read Bill Stark every Monday... at StarCityGames.com!
strong>Monday, April 28th – Last week we discussed a RDW list that received a lot of response both on the forums and via email. It was clear players wanted to discuss the deck further due either to confusion over the initial list or to comment on it both positively and negatively… so, here we go!

By

Innovations – Reader Mailbag (Includes Two Very Different Swan Decks)

Read Patrick Chapin every week... at StarCityGames.com!
Monday, April 28th – Today’s Innovations sees Patrick Chapin open up his hefty mailbag, packed to the brim with requests for help from the great and good of the StarCityGames.com readership. He brings us two takes on the Swan deck, his thoughts on the current Standard and Extended metagames, and the most important paragraph on improvement at Magic that you’ll ever read…

By