Well, he almost won the PTQ for Nice, and gives his tourney report for an outdated format… But hey, don’t you want Type 2 strategy now? Of course you do.
…It can clear the board (except for regenerated Lynxes, if necessary) and get the Enforcer to threshold at one time…
…it's hard to judge the value of linear cards until you have had some time to work with them…
Bennie unpacks the Devour for Power Commander deck with The Mimeoplasm at its helm. The goal is to keep the staples, keep the core of the deck, and replace the chaff with better cards! What do you think?
…UPDATING THE DECK Okay, so I’m going to walk through how I’d go about updating this deck with…
Oscar’s continuing review of Fifth Dawn for Type 1, this time including such platinum hits as Night’s Whisper, Serum Visions, and Bleiweissian mega-bomb All Suns’ Dawn.
…I only used the broken blue (Ancestral, Time Walk, and occasionally Mystical Tutor) and tested out Recoils. Another thing is…
Monday, June 8th – At Pro Tour: Honolulu, Patrick “The Innovator” Chapin helped design and perfect the powerful Five-Color Cascade deck that powered Zac Hill to the Top 8. Today, he shares some fun from Day 1 of the PT, and talks about the Block Constructed metagame in general.
…I walked up to a tour guide on a tour bus and asked him directions on how to walk to…
Alex has a new brew for a new metagame to share with you today. Check out his “GolGary” Pauper deck and let him know what you think!
…The short version is that for the first time in a long time Pauper has a dynamic metagame—no more…
…I dont even need to trash talk this time cuz i beat him down like a 2cent whore on crack…
…tutoring for Shattering Spree still means you get double Time Walk out of it with a fast clock already in…
…At the time, I didn't think we would ever make a set that had a larger scope. Well, I…
He’s been hinting at it for weeks, but today blisterguy finally comes clean. You want to know how the man makes his scratch online? The secret techniques as to why he hasn’t had to pay for packs in years? The blister-approved methodology on how to never actually pay for another draft again? It’s all here folks, so go to.
…I say slightly because I don’t spend *that* much time online. A man has to work, a man has…
Nick climbs aboard the Draft Express this week, taking us through our paces in a Time Spiral / Planar Chaos / Future Sight draft. Each pick is dissected in detail, and each success and failure is discussed at length. The three-set format is always a major jolt when we emigrate from the two-set game, and the addition of Future Sight throws some industrial-strength spanners in the works. If you’re looking to improve your 40-card game, then this is a fine place to start!
It’s been a while since we took a walk together, and Future Sight isn’t even online yet, so…
…Against many aggressive decks, this will often just be a Time Walk. Phyrexian Metamorph instantly turns into the best threat…
…As a result, I skipped several Pro Tours, I didn’t spend much time preparing, and, heck, I showed up…
Tuesday, January 20th – In the wake of Grand Prix: Los Angeles, Adrian Sullivan continues from last week and completes his analysis of Mono-Red in Extended. He brings us a classic Red Deck Wins / Sligh build, and talks us through the sideboarding plans when facing the stronger archetypes in the post-LA metagame. [Editor’s Note: The GP continues to impact the schedule. Today’s absent Premium Article will run later in the week!]
…You don’t have much time to kill them, so you have to make the most of it. Shusher, while…
You can admit it. You’ve designed a card or two. Thinking about combo engines, or ways to utilize cards, you’ve glanced at cards your opponents have, then idly speculated about cards that would interact. Magic is a game about the way things interact, so it’s natural that after some time playing, you find yourself exploring those interactions…
…Some players think about using it as a control element – as a Time Walk in a deck that can generate…
…Especially Spreading Seas, if you know the deck of your opponent, don't walk into one with a shaky hand…
Tenth Edition has been released. By unanimous consent, we drafted tenth instead of Time Spiral / Planar Chaos / Future Sight last week at FNM. We will also, apparently, be drafting Tenth during some of the Summer Magic events at the local store. It’s just in time. People seem to have figured out Time Spiral drafting, and the drafts are getting old.
…It is not a pseudo- Time Walk, where the opponent is cursed to redraw a creature when they would rather…
…It's definitely worth watching - Josh and Jimmy produce fantastic gameplay videos and they are well worth your time. I…
…You'll likely have to wade through a Time Walk or a big Planeswalker. If they don't have the…
Monday, January 4th – With yesterday’s StarCityGames.com Legacy Open in Los Angeles fresh on our minds, Stephen Menendian takes a fresh look at the CounterTop archetype for Legacy play. Using his excellent Five-Step construction process, he rebuilds the deck for 2010, and runs it through a local tournament to a promising result…
…This time, I won’t walk through each of the steps, except to explain the results. However, I will say…
Renowned rogue brewer Adrian Sullivan has been in love with U/W Control in Standard since late last year, but he thinks their relationship might be over with M13. Find out if there is hope for this deck to be viable on the SCG Open Series.
…The Past as Prologue I’ve been working on Blue-White Control for a *long* time. Here is one older…
During a draft, an argument about a play broke out, and my roommate flat out told me I was terrible and had no right to question any plays. I told him that once he fixed the holes in his game, he could talk to me about mine. He quipped about how he didn’t have any holes in his game. This clearly isn’t true… but was I being that blind? Was my own need to act like I was perfect actually hindering my ability to get better?
…After losing time and time again at the Lorwyn prerelease, going around 4-9, I blamed the set and bad…
…t walk too close. Anchin is very protective, and he won't be gentle with you a second time.” They…
…So you could play Ancestral and DT, but then you couldn't play Black Lotus, Mana Drain, Time Walk, Yawgmoth…
Todd impressed a number of spectators (and himself) with the power of Illusions in Innistrad Standard. Read about the deck he used to Top 4 the Indianapolis Standard Open!
…After the sixth time or so, I just started asking people for decks, because I didn’t really know what…
Monday, September 22nd – When I’d get the cards I was previewing for Wizards, I’d have mixed reactions. Some of the cards, like Twilight Shepherd, I’d go, “Oh, wow! That’s amazing! I can’t wait!” Other cards, like Hamletback Goliath, I’d get and go, “Umm…. I’m gonna have to work on this one.” So I’m going to look at the cards that Wizards has spoiled thus far, and rank them based on how enthusiastic I’d be if I’d been assigned to preview them.
…I’d spend a lot of time looking for cards that would make this good, because the unfortunate bit about…
…Mana Leak is actually ineffective at countering Primeval Titan, because the good players won't walk it into a Mana…
After disappointing results from Pro Tour: Columbus, The Rock has been tearing up the PTQ scene and is one of the hottest decks around. In this article, Noah puts aggro Rock to the test and is not disappointed by the results. Why did he choose a deck that is underpowered, in spite of knowing that in the first place? Well, I’ll let the man explain for himself…
…or a Diabolic Edict, maybe even just a straight Time Walk. These are not inconsequential effects. Sometimes a person wins…
As many writers seem to be pointing out right now, it’s difficult to find things to write about that really mean something. You can write about MBC, but it’s becoming a very well-known topic – and one that many people are sick of. You can write about Type II, but it’s going to be changing…
…Probably the only time I’ll be top of a PTQ – but I was there. Round 2: Phil Pettifer. Phil…
The usual slew of analyzing cards for the most ancient format – and some intriguing ideas that may change the slant of some classic T1 decks!
…I’m not sure why this was left out, but every time I play Diabolic Edict, I try to visualize…
…Since it takes one full turn to play a land, destroying it is essentially a land oriented Time Walk against…
Shaheen takes a step back from the competitive slugfest known as Standard and talks about his passion at this point on his Magic journey: Cube Draft!
…At first we chopped out Black Lotus, Ancestral Recall, and Time Walk and left the Moxen in. We later decided…
Thursday, January 27 – Gerry, GP Nashville Champion, is a master of finding the best decks in the middle of PTQ seasons, and he think it’s the right time to bring Wargate back – but in very new clothes.
…At least in game one, all you need against decks like Naya or Jund is a Time Walk or two…
States didn’t go so well for me this year; just your standard 2-2 drop filled with your standard play errors and your standard deckbuilding mistakes. Some interesting stuff did happen which caused me to re-assess my mental game, and I may write about that at a later point, but for now I bet you’d like to hear about someone doing well at States. Thank goodness for Sean Vandover.
…When I un-retired from Magic just in time for Maryland States 2002, my first-round opponent was a shaven…
Kyle spent this past weekend judging at the Texas Regionals tournament, and in this, his first in a weekly series over on the free side of the site, he brings us the lowdown on the Top 8 decklists. He also shares Cedric Phillips’s winning build of Solar Flare, and brings us a huge dose of the usual Sanchez mayhem!
…After fifteen minutes of pleasantries, her friend called and said she would be unable to join us, at which time…
Monday, August 31st – With Zendikar just around the corner, Patrick Chapin examines some of the stronger cards from the rumor mills and spoiler sites. He brings us some interesting Extended decks with the new set in mind, plus a host of other interesting ideas and opinions…
…contrived hack hoser against Time Vault and Time Walk. Your opponent is trying to manipulate Time? Levan shows up and…
…Cast High Tide to increase blue mana, then use Turnabout, Time Spiral, and Candelabra of Tawnos to untap your lands…
…the Bloodghast instead made for a sort of awkward time walk. At the end of the day, I didn’t…
…makes Forge of Heroes and similar effects a virtual Time Walk in this build and I love to toss them…
Encouragement about the format, Oscar Tan the Revolutionary, the differences between Vintage and Legacy, a Legacy metagame overview, and even a spec decklist to try and push the envelope of creativity. The latest njx piece has a little something for everybody.
…As a long time fan, I have great reverence for Tan. Not because I think he’s the end-all…
…There will be exactly one face-up plane at any given time (um... usually... but I'll get to that…
…By the time he gets two swamps I have a 3/3 dervish and an active lifeforce. If he had…
Today, I'm going to go into some depth on a term R&D has used for a long time…
It’s been almost a year in the making folks, but Joe Black is finally here. At long last, the man who many consider the funniest Magic writer around has joined StarCityGames.com! Readers will Thrill! at Osyp’s harrowing tale of how he became”The Beefmaster.” Audiences will Chill! (and eat a donut) as Osyp recounts all the tawdry details of Mike Turian’s Bachelor Party. Magic players will Laugh! all the way to the bank as Osyp debunks popular metagame myths and recounts etiquette faux pas in other countries. This is one Featured Writer debut that simply cannot be missed!
…I decided it was time for me to move on, as sad as it was, and try my articles on…
…There will be exactly one face-up plane at any given time (um... usually... but I'll get to that…
Standard hasn’t received the same level of focus as Mirrodin Block Constructed. You can draw some conclusions from the coverage at Kuala Lumpur and Nagoya, but here’s some more detailed notes and thoughts gleaned from the floor. I make few suggestions as to how to play or build the decks here, instead just analyzing what I learned from last weekend.
…Fujita had to worry about <br> <br> Skullclamp at the time, whereas Kishi didn’t. But that didn’t mean…
M12 is definitely an interesting draft format compared to previous core set Limited formats. Ari Lax teaches you what makes this format unique as well as giving you a top 10 list of uncommons.
…Every Doom Blade turns into a Time Walk - Lava Axe hybrid. Take a look at a very reasonable curve where…
I am going to spend most of this week discussing the rather well-known "Highlander" format. I consider this to be a terrific format for casual groups to try, since it solves about three problems at once for many players. But before I do, I want to make a kind but apologetic note about another popular…
…Chances are, at each point in the mana curve there are at least four that talk and walk about the…
Last time he told you which ten cards to cut from your cube; this time Cube buff Justin Parnell tells you which ten cards you should add to your cube. Will you agree or disagree with his choices?
…Even still, most of the time Growth has the same type of effect, effectively being a green Time Walk (or…
Ryan Overturf continues exploring MTG history with the Time Capsule Cube. With cards from Invasion to Saviors of Kamigawa, how does he make a fun and balanced Cube module?
…Last week, I introduced the first module of my Time Capsule Cube, which is a Twobert containing only cards from…