Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Strategy”
Toxic is an update to Infect in Phyrexia: All Will Be One, and works like a mixture of Infect and Poisonous. Toxic will always be written as “Toxic X,” and whenever a creature with it deals any amount of combat damage to a player, that player gets X poison counters. Pretty straightforward, but there are some notes to go over: …
Ingest is a creature based mechanic that states that whenever a creature with it deals combat damage to a player, that player exiles the top card of their library. And…nothing else. Before I give you some context on this, the few rules notes: So, this mechanic existed in Battle for Zendikar, a set which also had a bunch of Eldrazi …
Atraxa Superfriends is one of the most popular Commander decks for a reason: it’s really badass to assemble a team of Planeswalkers to do battle with. When choosing your squad, it’s important to choose based on synergies, ultimate abilities and win conditions. Kristen has her recommendations of what to include. Ah, Superfriends — it’s an archetype you either love or …
Devoid is a characteristic defining ability that can appear on any card type, and simply makes the card colorless regardless of its mana cost. And that’s entirely it. There’s a couple of notes, but they’re pretty quick; And that’s it. Devoid was not terribly popular, as it seemed like an odd choice to devote a full set mechanic slot to. …
The Commander format has one really fundamental problem: it’s explosive. And it’s only getting worse as time ticks on. I don’t just mean that the community discourse is liable to blow up at the slightest provocation (although, true). I mean that multiplayer Magic, especially with the card pool and ruleset present in this format, naturally trends toward explosive play patterns …
The weekend of Jan. 13 brought us the most competitive Modern tournaments than we’ve seen in a long time. SCG Con New Jersey had both $20,000 and $5,000 tournaments while the LMS Open Qualifier took place in Trieste and the NRG Champs closed things out. Naturally, each high level Modern tournament offers worthwhile results to parse through. Modern is in …
Awaken is an ability that appears on Instants and Sorceries, and gives an alternative casting cost for the spell. Whichever cost you pay, you get the normal effect of the spell. If you pay the Awaken cost, you then put a number of +1/+1 counters equal to the awaken number of that spell onto a land you control, and that …
Kristen lends a few thoughts on how to navigate a game of casual Commander based on what seat you’re in. I’ve been thinking, lately, about how useful data can be when reviewing games of Commander. A lot of theory and observations on the format skew toward subjectivity and anecdote, and as we all know, that’s not the most reliable type …
SCG Con New Jersey, the first large Modern tournament of the year, is taking place this weekend, and I’ll be in attendance. Naturally that means figuring out what deck I am going to play — a task I’ve been working on for a couple weeks. Those who know me can tell you I have a bad habit of waffling between …
Renown is a creature keyword that triggers when a creature with it deals combat damage to a player. When it does, if it isn’t already renowned, it gets a +1/+1 counter and becomes renowned. As renown only triggers if the creature isn’t renowned already, this is a one-time thing. That’s it for the mechanic specifically, but some creatures with renown …
