Careful Consideration - Eight Thoughts about Eight-Mans
After Pro Tour: Austin, I’ve reignited the fire for Magic and have been really enjoying doing Zendikar events online, primarily Draft. I floundered around a little bit by experimenting with variou
Who has time for opening paragraphs? Standard Primer GO!!
THAT ONE DECK
I spent most of my weekend playing Magic, reading about Magic, talking about Magic, becoming my local game day champion, and dreaming about Magic. During this time I found that
Rare Situations
Since the current PTQ format is Zendikar Limited, I am going to stick with that subject for one more week. By now you’re probably fairly familiar with the commons in the set. If you’re not, go back ...
For me I think it's important to understand why the best deck is the best deck and what could be done to possibly make it better, for the mirror or to cover its weaknesses. Very little has actually been written about the deck.
We can be sure to see a diverse Standard if for no other reason than the fact that people don't want to play Jund, but narrowing down the exact decks is a bit of a pain. How does a player go about building a proper sideboard?
After a brief introduction to the realities of drafting from the perspective of a dedicated Pauper player, gwyned summarizes his most recent Zendikar draft. Can this Pauper assemble a powerful enough decklist to sweep a Swiss queue?
Results from the latest week of Tribal Apocalypse including: the fallout from Zendikar, current thoughts on bannings, and 3 decklists for your pleasure.
Friday, November 6th - The rotation of decks continued through the Armada Games EDH League, this time with the original, Phelddagrif. The purple hippo deck originally started because of how bad the card is. It was a concession to the fact that I had a
This is a StarCityGames.com Premium Article. Click here to sign up.
Friday, November 6th - In the second part of this intriguing experiment, Cedric Phillips discusses his thoughts on the cardpool he shared yesterday. He gives us a few prospective builds,
This is a StarCityGames.com Premium Article. Click here to sign up.
Friday, November 6th - In the second part of the Discussing Zendikar Limited article series, Oli and Manu shift their focus to Red and Black. The colors of removal appear to be the stron
This is a StarCityGames.com Premium Article. Click here to sign up.
Friday, November 6th - Olivier Ruel reflects on a lackluster performance at Grand Prix: Kitakyushu, which has led him to some serious questions about his place in the game. Today, he the
Friday, November 6th - After Ascending Pyromaniacally for several weeks, our hero (me) finally felt like it might be time to put the deck that I talked about the other week on the shelf. While certainly powerful and capable of completely degenerate draw
Friday, November 6th - Hello everybody, and welcome to another edition of the Magic Show. This week we're going to bring you some of the most exciting footage from Austin you've yet to see, which is that of the new Magic Online UI redesign. There was man
Friday, November 6th - Today I thought I’d shake things up a bit. While I do have a recounting of my EDH game with a Halloween themed Baron Sengir deck at the end of the column, I wanted to start things off by examining two Zendikar sealed deck pools.
Bracing the Pillars
Magic is hands-down the most complex game that an individual can pick up when played at its highest level. The intricacies of a million rules that we have all come to take for granted, the unique Magic lingo we all speak fluently, the
Rishadan Pawnshop #16 – Why Baneslayer Flies So High
Riki has been suggesting I write an article about [card]Baneslayer Angel[/card] for a while. I always thought that it was in interesting card and definitely worth a mention, but not a whole article.
Magic the Gathering expansion sets always have a hook, something that separates them from every other set or at the very least their contemporary expansions. Some times this hook is merely a theme that runs throughout the block using unique mechanics an
In my opinion Esper has some of the best tools for card advantage in the format. Between Esper Charm and Baneslayer Angel, I thought that it could compete with Jund. This was the list I began with...
My topic of discussion today, the value of play testing, talks about the simple things you can learn, and the value of your time spent on improving and honing your ideas to push rogue decks into the limelight.
11/5/09 - "Maggot Carrier; good game." I smiled – proudly – to affirm my only win, as I pored half-briskly through my teacher's decks, to see each and miss no use. At once, I savored Magic – in fervent and perfect impatience. At once, I was defeated
This week's article starts out with my views on the whole 'what is casual' debate, moves onto my updated impressions of Zendikar, and then finishes off with a budget deck based around World Queller. Check it out!
Instead of looking at one of his best Zendikar drafts to date, Godot walks through one that left him feeling he could have picked and played better. It's humbling to face up to your least-successful drafts, but there's a lot to learn from them.
Thursday, November 5th - The next leg of my journey to qualify for Pro Tour San Diego took me to Tampa. Or not. As I’m sure you’ve read in other reports by now, the GP actually occurred in a town called Palmetto, located a good 50 minutes from the Ta
This is a StarCityGames.com Premium Article. Click here to sign up.
Thursday, November 5th - In an experimental two-part article this week, Cedric Phillips asks for Sealed Deck help! Today, in this teaser trailer, Ced shares a Zendikar Sealed cardpool fr
This is a StarCityGames.com Premium Article. Click here to sign up.
Thursday, November 5th - In the concluding part of his entertaining and uplifting report, Brian Kibler recounts each story of Days 2 and 3 play. From his 0-3 draft, to that game in the q
Thursday, November 5th - Now that we’re immersed in Zendikar, I really like this set. It’s a lot of fun, without having to be the most technically minded player at times. Fun sets like this usually have me thinking about building new decks, and that
Thursday, November 5th - By the time you read this, I should be in Renton for the Magic Online Community Challenge Cup Tournament. Eight writers / community leaders going up against over a dozen WotC staff, lead by Hall of Famer Mike Turian. We will be p
RENTON, Wash. -- Wizards of the Coast has given The Magic Lampoon a sneak peek at one of the precons of Time Spiral block, Planner Chaos.
The first preconstructed deck, a monowhite 60-card deck, is called "Endless Chairing."
The folks at Wizards were ki
GP Tampa Report
I want to start with the tournament report since I think there are actual lessons regarding play, and then I will end with some general thoughts on the format. My Day 1 recaps are pretty brief, but that is mostly because I think the draft
In Development - Building the Enemy
We love deck lists.
We love them enough that Constructed PTs are much more popular from a coverage point of view than Limited PTs, such that we get to have mixed-format PTs now so that we can incorporate drafting whi
PT Austin In-Depth(s)
This report is tardy enough already, so as I did in Austin (minus the barbeque sauce), I'm just going to dive right into the meat. For reference, here's the list I played:
[deck]4 Dark Depths
1 Ghost Quarter
4 River of Tears
4
Most Battle Spirits players know that Green is the main headliner of core acceleration. However, the card I am previewing today may change that idea. Instead, we may see Yellow take a small step into the spotlight. The Blessed Sanctuary is the card tha
Bloodbraid Elf is dominating Standard, but I have a deck that wants to play against it every round. With all of the best decks being aggro decks (at the moment) you can build to beat them.
I have continued to work on 'Miss Puerto Rico' and made some drastic improvements. While the core of the deck is the same, part of its engine and removal have changed a little bit. Here is what I played at Game Day...
Wednesday, November 4th - Communication is a funny thing. We can say something exactly the same to two different people, and get two different responses. Both inside and outside of Magic, we get mixed message, strange reads, completely baffling personali
This is a StarCityGames.com Premium Article. Click here to sign up.
Wednesday, November 4th - Kyle Sanchez turns back the clock to bring us an Izzet pun straight from the days of Ravnica. He suggests a number of intriguing Standard decks in time for the
This is a StarCityGames.com Premium Article. Click here to sign up.
Wednesday, November 4th - Hall of Famer Olivier Ruel takes us through an 8-4 draft queue on Magic Online. He shares some comprehensive thoughts about both the picks and the games, and ta
This is a StarCityGames.com Premium Article. Click here to sign up.
Wednesday, November 4th - Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa, fresh off his excellent result at Pro Tour: Austin, had high hopes for Grand Prix: Tampa. Unfortunately, his consistent deck was out-p
Wednesday, November 4th - One of the best things about casual Magic are alternate formats to play. Although there are a lot of casual players out there who play official WoTC formats, there are also a large contingent of players who enjoy casual-only fo
Wednesday, November 4th - This week I’m going to switch gears back to Standard, a format that has been admittedly a little stale for me the past few weeks. The problem is that Jund has literally been the only deck people seem to want to play since Zend
