For people on the fence about Snapcaster Mage, Patrick Chapin wants to kill those doubts. Snapcaster Mage may be one of the three best creatures in Vintage and will be crazy-good in all other formats.
…if only it were deeper) with M12 (Titans, planeswalkers, Mana Leak, Day of Judgment, Ponder, Grim Lavamancer, Incinerate, Solemn Simulacrum…
…There aren't any cards we are worried about except Mana Leak and Cancel. Unsummon can protect us from every…
Adam Prosak breaks down his card choices and explains the game plan of the U/W Midrange deck that he played to a Top 8 finish last weekend at the SCG Standard Open in St. Louis.
…In reality, none of them are Mana Leak, and it’s tough to get the balance right. I played a…
Sam Black has been having great success drafting M12, both online and offline, and he wants to share his thoughts on the format. He presents his general pick orders, color strategies, and views on specific cards like Overrun.
…Mana Leak 8. Unsummon 9. Aven Fleetwing Black: Black is traditionally defined by common two-for-ones like Liliana’s…
…Blinding Beam | Instant | | Into the Roil | Instant | | Mana Tithe | Instant | | Mana Leak | Instant | | Prismatic Strands | Instant | | Miscalculation | Instant | | Raise the…
…On the sixth turn, he uses his last card in hand (Mana Leak) to counter Pandemonium, and that leaves me…
…I can also select Lookout’s Dispersal if I want a Mana Leak for a Pirate deck, and potentially pivot…
Wednesday, February 17th – Extended is proving to be a fresh hunting ground for innovative deck design. It seems there’s space for people with a plan, and the Hurterator deck, designed by Tobias Henke, certainly has that . Manuel Bucher throws the new deck through a collection of queues on Magic Online, recording the play-by-play results.
…After drawing Damping Matrix, the Procession gets countered as well, this time by Mana Leak. He plays Engineered Explosives for…
Piemaster wrote an article a few weeks back about how he believes a lot of the older walkthrough articles were pretty much null in terms of benefits that a player could glean from reading them. A lot of the time, this was simply because the draft required little skill to navigate, or stupid bombs were dropped into the player’s lap and he easily won. For this walkthrough, I decided that I wouldn’t be satisfied with a draft that could be classified in any of these ways and I would continue covering my drafts until I found a suitable entry for this article. Thirteen drafts later, here I am – and let me tell you how sick of Eighth Edition I am.
…Aven Fisher Pack 5<br> <br> *Deepwood Ghoul, Heartwood Dryad, Mana Leak, Ogre Taskmaster* I like the Ghoul because it…
…The singleton Deprive is a nod to the fact that I prefer hard counters to Mana Leak, but drawing double…
…Memory lapse on top of 4 counters and 2 mana leak, and a main deck mangara's blessing.. The second…
…At this point, version 4 had been out for about 7 months and was still experiencing crippling memory leak problems…
Brian DeMars stumbled upon a Planechase card that inspired him to build a deck around it: Shardless Agent. He recommends giving his Shardless BUG Control deck a try at the SCG Legacy Open in Kansas City.
…So right off the bat, we are playing blue without Counterspell or Mana Leak. My thought process for constructing this…
Ben’s back for Part 2 of his Totally Complete Planar Chaos Set Review! In today’s article, Ben discusses the strategy, artwork, flavor text, mechanics, design, and taste of Planar Chaos! In this week’s Ben’s Corner: Several new promo cards have been added to the site!
…It beats running Blue for Remand or Mana Leak. Mantle of Leadership<br> It’s make-a-Herd-Gnarr. This…
Tuesday, December 7th – Extended is barely a format anymore – in that almost no one plays it. Sam Stoddard has been running the Extended two-mans and wonders why. This format’s awesome!
…Half of the time I drew it, I’d rather have drawn a Mana Leak, and the other half I…
Coldsnap is Constructed legal, and the DCI isn’t changing their minds. Ditto with the Timeshifted Time Spiral cards. I will embrace these unsavory ideas, and see what I can do with purple cards. The following are some ideas that I riffed on while in “the library.” Will any of them bear fruit? Who knows? It depends on what you do with them.
…I figured that with Mana Leak, Rune Snag, Spell Snare, Repeal, Vedalken Plotter, Annex, and Confiscate, there had to be…
…Mana Screw and Flood A common rookie mistake with mana bases is to react to one unfortunate game of drawing…
…Having access to Mana Leak as well as Condescend is also a very relevant factor here since it means the…
…Most buyback abilities ended up costing mana. In early design, we treated buyback like we would a cantrip, meaning the…
…On turn 2, Ruel casts a Duress, which Kenji responds to with a Mana Leak. Ruel has the opportunity to…
Adrian Sullivan, one of the game’s most inventive deckbuilders, takes us through his own personal Top 5 Future Sight cards for Constructed, color by color. Today’s article looks at the Top 5 Black, Blue, and Green cards, with the series rounding out next week. Some of the cards here are obvious calls, but others are much more surprising. Looking for those cards that may power out the Next Big Thing? Look no further!
…Mana Leak, Remand, and Memory Lapse have a lot of things that make them problematic for both kinds of decks…
…2 x Gut Shot 2 x Spellskite 2 x Mana Leak 2 x Spell Pierce 2 x Torpor Orb 1…
Mono-White Control, an old favorite of some back in the days of Onslaught (though why anyone shunned Goblins back then is beyond me), may now be more than viable in Planar Chaos Standard. Powered by Gauntlet of Power, does this classic “Turtle” archetype have the tools to get the job done in a world dominated by Dralnu du Louvre and Dragonstorm? Read on to find out!
…Your Thunder Totems function as acceleration, a way to produce an odd-numbered amount of mana, mana sinks, and occasionally…
Thursday, January 20th – Gerry Thompson made tenth in the SCG Standard Open in Kansas City with B/R Vampires and talks about its position in the metagame. Try it out at SCG Open: Indianapolis!
…Several of the cards in the deck are great early but terrible late, like Mana Leak or Inquisition of Kozilek…
Sam Black offers an overview of Ikoria Limited, including five key archetypes and the deck to draft when you don’t know what else to do!
…Where these mechanics should be at odds because your cards and mana can only be spent triggering Prickly Marmoset or…
…2 geddon 2 living death 2 mana leak 2 disenchant =8 spells =24 mana The idea was living death with…
If this were one of my typical articles, this whole discussion would simply have been an elaborate bridge into a Haakon, Stromgald Scourge/Ashes of the Fallen/Hounds deck. As it is, however, the bridge is lacking, and we’re left with something merely elaborate. But because I have said these things unto you, sorrow hath filled your heart.
…you’ll need to risk being countered by Remand, Mana Leak, and friends. An even match-up, turning to favorable…
What do you think matters more when you build your cube, nostalgia or power? Justin Parnell asks some well-known cubers their opinions on what is sure to be a controversial subject.
…Colossus despite BSC being “better,” as well as leave Mana Leak out entirely despite it being a very powerful (and…
…here goes nothing hope he doesn’t have a mana leak. My turn swamp tap ritual ritual choking sands the…
Wednesday, January 27th – The demise of Combo Elves as an Extended powerhouse has been greatly overstated, and the pointy-eared menace has been popping up in PTQ Top 8s with alarming regularity. Kyle takes us through his version of the deck, played by Billy Moreno to a PTQ finals position, and runs through all the fun you can have with a Cloudstone Curio…
…He had Wrath of God, Thirst for Knowledge, Shadow of Doubt, Ancestral Vision, Spell Snare, Mana Leak, Path to Exile…
Patrick Chapin, author of Next Level Deckbuilding , reveals his Top 5 black and red Theros cards and builds decks with all of them. Take a look for SCG Standard Open: Worcester!
…That said, its power level is quite high, and like Mana Leak or Lightning Bolt being in Standard, it will…
…Spells The counter spell package features the traditional four [Card] Mana Leak [/Card]s that everyone has come to know…
Tuesday, November 11th – Today’s Peebles Primers sees Benjamin Peebles-Mundy thrashing out the powerful Extended Combo Elves deck in the 8-man queues on Magic Online. He brings us extensive play-by-play action with matches against Tezzerator, Zoo, and the mirror match. For in-depth information on the format’s current hottest deck, look no further!
…Turn 4: [opponent].<br> [opponent] plays Chrome Mox.<br> [opponent] plays triggered ability from Chrome Mox. (Removing Mana Leak)<br…
…up to four Path's main and changing three Mana Leak into two Unified Wills. I'm not going to…
They say love conquers all. That may or may not be true at the Commander table. Either way, Jess is feeling romantic enough to help out a lovely duo with their latest Commander deck problems!
…Also the mana is effective, but rather slow. The second deck is my second (Magic) love, but hasn’t been…
Friday, October 8th – I’d been working on a variety of decks, but another day of much gaming convinces me that Jace, the Mind Sculptor is where I want to be at the moment. (I know! What are the odds?!)
…Mana Leak is still the best counterspell in Standard, as it’s just so versatile and solid against everyone. I…
There’s only one question lingering through my mind:Is the Mox Jet round, or does it have a bulge in the center? You know you’ve been playing too much Magic when you spend hours debating the roundness of a Mox. I was called a heretic when I first told this at the Labyrinth – but now I have a number of believers at my side. Together we’re forming the Bulged Mox Jet Front (BMJF).
…Force of Will.* Turn 2 Su-Chi?<br> <br> *Mana Leak.*<br> <br> Oh well; Taiga, Mox and Survival of…
…Allied Strategies provided efficient card drawing, Evasive Action made Mana Leak look like Force Spike, and Planar Despair saw play…
Are you excited about M13 yet? Patrick Chapin goes over three M13 cards that he thinks will have an impact on Standard and talks about his experience traveling to Baltimore for the WMCQ last weekend.
…What are the other A+ homeruns in the set? Rancor Rancor gets the Lightning Bolt / Mana Leak award for M13…
Wednesday, February 23 – After failing to Day 2 Paris, it’s back to the grind for reiderrabbit, and he barely missed the mark in the first online PTQ with Mirrodin Besieged when he employed the power of Hero of Bladehold and Mirran Crusader…
…Then when he didn’t have a Mana Leak or a<br> Go for the Throat to answer my Hero…
Last article, I wrote about the cost of Magic, specifically Standard. In the forums, the debate developed two sidetracks; the “you just hate dual lands” and “play Vintage, it’s cheaper in the long run.” The first sidetrack is just stupid — read the fu- err, fine article, I don’t hate the duals. As for the second sidetrack, well, let’s do the math…
…Echoing Truth, 3 Mana Leak, Mindslaver, Platinum Angel, Seat of the Synod, The additional cost for this change is just…
…I think once Stronghold becomes legal, they could be replaced with Mana Leak. Other than that, I can see few…
…That cart cannot support the weight of the so-called ‘mana vault’ that is being loaded into it, and you…
Ari Lax won a PTQ this past weekend with Four-Color Pod. Read about his card choices and typical sideboard plans against the metagame because this deck could be a contender at the next SCG Standard Open.
…has a ton of removal, but Invisible Stalker and Mana Leak can usually handle that. If you find the deck…
…Allied Strategies provided efficient card drawing, Evasive Action made Mana Leak look like Force Spike, and Planar Despair saw play…
…maximum of three Mana Leaks and the mirror anticipates it anyway (so they board out Mana Leak). This card was…
…Helix Pinnacle gets busted when you have an infinite mana combo and need a way to spend all that mana…
Man oh man. Just a few months ago, Wizards of the Coast was doing a bang-up job with Promotional foil cards. The Judge foils were fantastic, players raved about Friday Night Magic foils, and players were being mailed Psychatogs left and right. In just a few months, the entire program took a dive off a steep cliff. What happened? Read today’s article to find out what’s wrong in the world of Promotional Foils.
…Last year, the textless card ended up being Reciprocate – a strictly inferior card when compared to Terror, Mana Leak, Oxidize…
…If I take mana burn the surely I tapped my<br> lands for mana before laying the land from my…
Legacy. Vintage. Modern. Extended. Standard. He’s not called The Innovator for nothing. He covers all of these formats, showing you what is possible as well as which cards will surely see play.
…possibly even with some counterspells (whether Bant Charm, Negate, Mana Leak, or Spell Snare) in the main. I am not…