Tag Archives: magic the gathering

Studies into Standard – Budget Decks

Posted on by
Reply

Greetings to everyone out there reading this, and welcome to another exciting episode of Studies into Standard. During the entirety of this article, it is my mission to give a few standard decklists that don’t break the bank. Now, (and I know this is obvious) I want to mention that these decks are not the best decks in standard, nor can they beat the popular decks in standard, and in fact might not even include the best cards that do the things you are trying to accomplish. My goal is to give you, the reader, a few decklists that you can take to your local FNM, participate, have fun, and maybe, maybe win with.

Continue reading →

My First Friday Night Magic Event

Posted on by
Reply

While I’ve attended prelaunch parties before for The Rise of the Eldrazi and the 2011 Core Set, I’d yet to go to a Friday Night Magic event.  Typically these happen on Friday nights (obviously) at game stores all across the country.  Because I’ve yet to find one in Dublin, I’ve been heading to Magic events over at Comic Town on Morse Road.  While I was a little freaked out to try my hand at a draft tournament, it wasn’t as bad as I thought.  It was a lot better considering I had Jon, Eric, Erin, and Nicole along for the ride. So how did I fare?  Read on…

Continue reading →

What to Bring to a Magic the Gathering Tournament

Posted on by
Reply

This is a guide for people who are entering their first tournament. I realize most of this information is well known to you grizzled, veteran plansewalkers out there, but it’s info I wish somebody would’ve told me before I started so I thought it might be helpful for anyone curious about what to bring. I’ve also provided links to some of these products on Amazon if you feel so inclined. Considering MTG has a lot to keep track of, your number one item should be…

Continue reading →

MTG 2011 Core Set Just Around the Corner

Posted on by
2

I’ve still been playing Magic: The Gathering fairly regularly with Jon and some of my other friends recently and almost forgot to do a post about this.  The newest Core Set, M11 will be officially launching on July 16th with prerelease events happening at game stores all over the country on July 10-11th.

If you manage to attend one of the prerelease events you get a free promo card of this big, beefy, bruiser right here.  6 mana for a 6/6 might seem high, but considering you can immediately return a card with converted mana cost 3 or less from your graveyard to the battlefield, I could see him feasibly making it into a nice green/white deck perhaps.

If you’re interested in trying out your skills in an officially sanctioned DCI tournament you can search for one in your area here.

The 2011 Core Set is shaping up to be just as awesome as 2010 and if you’ve never attended a launch or prerelease party you should definitely check it out.  In my experience most of the other players are very welcoming to newcomers and it’s a great way to learn new deck building strategy’s and enhance your game.

Thoughts on Rise of the Eldrazi

Posted on by
Reply

I’ve been playing the newest set of Magic: The Gathering for about a week now and I’ve gotta say I couldn’t be more happy with it.  Initially when I’d read early descriptions or seen spoilers on the official site, I was curious as to how all of these new mechanics would work. I mean, look at Emrakul down there.  How on earth could it be fair to play a creature like this in a standard game?  Well, it certainly helps that the development team openly admitted that Rise of the Eldrazi was designed to be played within its set, but even so ,what’s to stop one person from dominating the entirety of the game in a race to accumulating a 10 to 15 mana pool?

He also makes a delicious sorbet!

He also makes a delicious sorbet!

Thankfully, the kind of balance that has always kept Magic fun in the first place has been well preserved in this latest game changer.  For starters, it’s difficult to get these types of bad boys out, but it isn’t impossible.  Thanks to multiple 0/1 Edlrazi Spawn Creature generation cards, there are plenty of ways to accelerate your mana to get one of the heavy hitters out.  Of course, not all of them have protection from colored spells so as scary as they look, a well played pacifism or guard duty could greatly assist in defending yourself.

Continue reading →

How I Organize My Magic The Gathering Cards

Posted on by
5

If any of you have accumulated a massive collection of Magic: The Gathering cards, you know you can only fill so many shoe boxes before it becomes a pain to find that card you’re looking for while building your new white-black deck. This isn’t an end-all be-all guide for the best way to catalog your collection, but this is how I do it.

Continue reading →

And Carnage Shall Follow – Rise of the Eldrazi Launches Tomorrow

Posted on by
Reply

Just in case you forgot, the final set in the Zendikar block, Rise of the Eldrazi will be hitting stores tomorrow.  Having gone to the prerelease event last weekend, I’ve already got to play around with the new mechanics such as Totem Armor, Rebound, and the oh-so-powerful Eldrazi- colorless, nonartifact behemoths.  I can tell you know that the key to victory within the Rise of the Eldrazi set is Eldrazi spawn generation.  Well, if your plan for winning depends on getting out those massive game-enders like this bad mofo-

If your strategy doesn’t hinge on the Eldrazi themselves though, you can still probably find a more than workable strategy within the set considering it’s a whopping 228 cards.  So far it’s shaping up to be an awesome end to the Zendikar block with more than enough great cards to keep us playing until the 2011 Core Set comes out in July.

Mechanics from the Rise of the Eldrazi Expansion

Posted on by
Reply

While we’re only a few weeks away from the next MTG expansion, I figured I’d show some images I shamelessly stole from Wizards of the Coast to let everyone know what they’re in for in the latest expansion.

Those who have followed the Zendikar block so far have seen the range of events affecting the planes as we know it beginning with the Zendikar expansion where in a world of small civilizations of treasure hunters, massive hedrons have floated into the sky and geological upheaval has run rampant. After this first expansion was done we were treated to Worldwake with its ‘A world enraged.’ tagline that expanded upon these themes and brought with it loads of powerful new cards.  However, unlike the previous expansion there are no multi-colored cards, but only mono.

Continue reading →

A Victory For Garruk

Posted on by
Reply

As has become recent custom, Jon and I again found ourselves locked in glorious battle over the weekend, summoning creatures and enchantments to do our bidding as we ticked each others life away. Nicole was stuck working so we figured we’d geek out a bit and play a few one-on-one games. The first was the best though, as we were both playing mono-green decks with his focused on some terrifying beasts while I relied on the indomitable battle-wisdom of my pre-constructed Garruk duel deck (complete with pretty foil!). The problem was that thanks to a questionable draw he wasn’t quite as indomitable as I would’ve liked. Come to think of it, I didn’t even get to put Garruk into play which is a shame considering how useful he is when played properly.  But, even without him the battle waged on even though I was at a palpable disadvantage early on.

Continue reading →

You know how I do!

Posted on by
4

Because the boys have been getting involved with Magic a lot recently, this inevitably means I will be involved, at least a little bit, with this Magic trend. However, this doesn’t mean I can’t edit my game to be more ‘me’. The other day after a journey to the Guard Tower, Joshua brought me a vial full of pink, sparkly dice, which happen to match the pink deck box I already have. Now all I need to do is make is a red-white deck and find some pink counters. Everyone will be most threatened. ;)