I’ve started playing out some of the matches for the Ultimate Extended Tourney. It’s taking longer than I had expected, mainly because we need more practice games to get comfortable with the decks. I’ve a lot to get through today, and not much time to do it… let’s go!
…By the time I was playing in PTQs and so forth, Time Spiral was banned and High Tide had rotated…
…Not yet anyways. (Trust me, when the time comes you'll hear plenty about it from me) The foundation of…
Tuesday, April 6th – This week, Doug kicks off the first half of a two-part look at Blue Lands, a recent variant of the 43 Lands archetype that’s been demonstrating excellent performance lately. In this article, see how different lands complement each other and learn whether Mindslavering an opponent is a playable strategy in Legacy. Get the lowdown on getting the most out of your tutors and how to craft an effective sideboard in this week’s Legacy’s Allure!
…Finally, you have time in the end-step to use any lands you have played. This is important when you…
…I'm having a hard time remembering anything specific about the matchup, as there was nothing from either of us…
Brad stumbled upon G/R Devotion again in a roundabout way, then realized he’d found the perfect deck for the Season Two Invitational. Read all about it here, and what you need to do to bring it to your next Standard event!
…This time around, I decided to try something a little different. I finally taught my girlfriend how to play Magic…
…By the time my next column goes up here, I’m sure it’ll be the usual strategic analysis. Maybe…
Normally, for an event like a Pro Tour, more time is spent onsite than traveling thanks to a little invention called the”airplane.” This time, however, was different. I woke up Monday morning (three days before I was supposed to leave for Seattle) with a searing pain in my chest, and my parents took me to the hospital. I found out that I have a recurring case of a pneumo thorax, which is an air bubble in between my lung and ribcage. Yeah, it hurts…
…We passed the time playing some more exciting Block Constructed in the lobby. We saw Kai and Marco walk out…
…My goal is to walk through exactly how each change came to be. 1. Designing for Limited (Mirage – October 1996…
When last you heard from me, I had just snagged my first Grand Prix Top 8 in Orlando with a sweet Humans deck, and I was gearing up for the StarCityGames.com Open in Washington D.C. This is the story of that tournament.
…Soon enough, the pairings for round one were posted, and it was time to battle! Round one was against a…
…Within the context of Standard, midrange is overwhelming likely to be the best place to be by the time a…
…And this time he won't even have to walk up to turn in the match result slip. Bennie Smith…
…He is a full-time student, currently pursuing a Bachelor’s in Mathematics as well as Women and Gender Studies…
…so it's time for my time-honored card-by-card story column, where I walk through the set and…
Probably the most interesting article I’ve read all year is Mike Flores’ article on Interactivity. WARNING! ALERT! WARNING! I’d like to talk about Interactivity and Vintage. That means boring Magic theory to those of you who couldn’t care less. For those that do care, let’s parse what Master Flores has had to say on the subject and see how that applies to Vintage as a whole.
…I untap, and play ridiculous spells like Intuition and double Accumulated Knowledge or Gifts Ungiven and Tinker or Time Walk…
…Last weekend marked my debut in the current season, in the first Dutch PTQ hosted within a 30 minute walk…
…Right now, though, Spell Pierce is approaching a nadir of playability, and I expect that it will be some time…
Necropotence created the Black Summer; this deck is a Necro-like deck, coming after the real Necro has gone away. Arena and Spiritmonger’ll do that, all right.
…Apocalypse is coming very shortly — by the time you read this, it’ll be even *more* shortly, and you…
If you’ve been reading sites like this for a while, you may have noticed that there are a lot of articles out there regarding the ever-elusive concept of “getting better at Magic.” Me? I’m here to promote good play the best way I know how: bad play – more specifically, pointing out opportunities for bad play. You may recall reading somewhere that, for each gamestate, there is only one correct play and everything else is a mistake. Well, I’m personally quite familiar with everything else. I have, at some point, bungled a game in pretty much any way you can imagine. It’s not that I’m a particularly bad player – I like to think I’m actually fairly decent – but if you play long enough and aren’t careful, it’s inevitable.
…The fact is that the opportunity to screw up or make the right call presents itself every time you play…
…Wizards has really outdone themselves with *Time Spiral*. I know that I've said it before, but I'll say…
Four-time Pro Tour Top 8 competitor Patrick Chapin talks about the Mana Drain Bant deck that he and the rest of Team SCG played in Block Constructed at Pro Tour Dragon’s Maze.
…As time went on, I got the impression we just wanted to play the most best cards barring some crazy…
…If a first-turn Birds doesn't meet a Lightning Bolt, it often just plays like Time Walk. And that…
In today’s Flores Friday, Mike takes a break from Extended testing to bring us an exciting deck primed for the fast-approaching Planar Chaos Standard. As the name suggests, the deck contains a pair of 6/6 three-color flying beatsticks. Drawing cards, killing guys, ramping mana, and destroying the world… and who doesn’t enjoy swinging with Dragons?
…Any spell was damage, and two points is a Time Walk for a 6/6 clock. At the end of…
Trading is sales, and image is everything. Chas gives you some tips for how to be successful on and off the trading floor along with this week’s Magic finance trends.
…I don’t believe they spend any time monitoring my online persona, but they have every right to do so…
…I say unfortunately because this is more time-consuming than it needs to be – it requires a minimum of two…
…You should be salivating every time you see one, hoping to draw a Boomerang for a crippling tempo play, basically…
…those kinds of combo-y interactions (Dramatic Reversal, Silence, Time Walk). Rule 0 Violations Check In cEDH, stax and prison…
…I also want to give those who might decide to write a report for the first time some pointers on…
…Once upon a time, you watched TV on your television and listened to music on your stereo and surfed the…
Last Friday, Zvi Mowshowitz talked us through the decision processes that led him to his powerful Blue/Black Faeries deck for the Standard portion of Worlds 2007. Today we see the deck in action – five rounds against the best players the world has to offer. Zvi then moves on to tales of his preparations for triple Lorwyn draft… [Part 1 – Standard Preparation.]
…Today, I walk you through the five rounds of Standard play before moving onto some general thoughts on triple Lorwyn…
Michael talks about his recent adventures with Golgari in Standard and why you might want to consider playing the guild’s colors at #SCGOAK or #SCGCOL.
…Today I’m going to walk through the different options, talking through the differences in the decks and why I…
Tuesday, April 19 – Drawing on copious experience, Dan Barrett details the 7 types of misplay and 4 steps you can take to eliminating them from your game.
…DO YOUR HOMEWORK—Do you think Tiger Woods spends his time between majors working on his swing and putting, or…
…Unfortunately, had I known the deck better at the time I would have gone for an early Tradewind, and won…
…Why didn't you repeat any of them? Let's walk through them and I'll explain why each one…
How is the Vintage metagame shaping up since the release of Avacyn Restored? Brian DeMars takes a look at nine awesome and incredibly diverse decklists from last weekend’s Grudge Match V in New York.
…spells + Tendrils of Agony or Tinker, Time Walk, + Blightsteel Colossus. Both plans are efficiently and effectively fueled by Yawgmoth’s…
…In most sets, we spend a lot of time making sure less enfranchised players will find the set's themes…
Wednesday, September 17th – In part one of Ben’s two-part Extended rotation critique, Ben discussed the changes in value of cards from Invasion, Planeshift, and Apocalypse. In the second part of this series, see which cards will be affected in value from Odyssey, Torment, Judgment, and 7th Edition!
…Against any deck with a creature plan, Moment’s Peace worked as a double-use Time Walk at instant speed…
“How many roads,” it was once asked, “must a man walk down, before he is finally free?” The answer, my…
…x Vampiric Tutor 1 x Demonic Tutor 1 x Time Walk 1 x Imperial Seal 2 x Animate Dead 2…
…And a turn two Ice on a land ends up as a Time Walk a lot, especially if you go…
Ari Lax is hoping for a new, less broken era of Standard with Ixalan’s arrival! Get the Pro Tour champion’s insight into the new set’s emerging trends and what he hopes to see in the final week of previews!
For the first time since some time in the middle of *Battle for Zendikar* Standard when Rally the Ancestors became…
…I certainly understand this impulse; while play mistakes really bug me, mana screw is certainly no walk in the park…
…almost no choice but to walk into the first one most of the time. The other dilemma was under Rising…
…This was probably one of the best decisions I have made in a long time. The Prerelease was like waking…
…Nationals Once again a white weenie deck, this time featuring the “Ball Lightning” mechanic of Waylay and in the hands…
…Seriously, Matt's annual birthday bash has prevented me from waking up in time for State Championships two years in…
Wednesday, July 15th – Veteran Japan coverage writer and Sealed enthusiast Eli drops out of semi-retirement to tell a tale of 70 cards. Good old fashioned Sealed analysis just in time for M10’s release tournaments.
…I have a hard time writing when I’m not playing with a large pool of high caliber players. After…
Baral, Chief of Compliance was one of Magic’s nastiest, most complicated villains in years! JDB examines the self-hating mage’s story and what made him so compelling.
…It’s time to give Baral a closer look before his world is too far gone. The Self-Hating Mage…
…In the second example, perhaps now your opponent won’t cast Dead on your morph, giving you the time to…
Glenn Jones is prepping for the upcoming Pro Tour! Read about his process and his thinking. Use it to give yourself an advantage at #SCGKC this weekend!
…Instead, I’m going to walk you through some of the angles that I consider to be most important when…
…On the other hand, with great power comes great hate, and I didn't want to walk into a room…