Standard is back in full swing with the upcoming round of Regional Championships centered on the format. With all eyes on preparing for high level Standard gameplay, the question on everyone’s mind has to be: am I going to have fun playing? Actually, yes. Standard is incredibly healthy right now. There are Combo, Tempo, Midrange and Aggro decks all doing …
Phyrexia: All Will Be One Updated Decks for Standard
Phyrexia: All Will Be One looms just around the corner, and with it will come a brand-new Standard environment, full of new and updated decks. This set looks to shake things up mightily, with lots of powerful cards and a Toxic new mechanic joining the fray. We’re going to check out what Standard might look like after Compleation in two …
Phyrexia: All Will Be One Standard Highlights
While the full extent of Elesh Norn’s plans have yet to be previewed, Phyrexia: All Will Be One looks primed to give Standard a huge shot in the arm (don’t ask what kind). As always when Phyrexia is involved, most of the new cards are pushing the absolute limits of game balance while also breaking new mechanical ground in various …
Skullbombs and the Evolution of Magic Design
In Phyrexia: All Will Be One, we have a cycle of one-mana artifacts with activated abilities that can draw you a card called Skullbombs. This builds on a similar cycle from Scars of Mirrodin called Spellbombs, which were themselves a sequel to the original Spellbombs from Mirrodin block. It’s not often we see cycles full reiterated this many times, but …
How to be Toxic, in a Good Way, in Phyrexia: All Will Be One
Up until now, the word “toxic” in Magic referred to behavior that made people not want to play with you anymore. With Phyrexia: All Will Be One, we now have the Toxic mechanic, meaning I can title this article “How to Be Toxic” and mean it without suddenly becoming a terrible person of one sort or another. But as we’ve …
Tips for Grinding Competitive Magic
The start of the new year just so happens to coincide with the start of the new Regional Championship Qualifier season, so I thought we could also start off 2023 with a new mindset. These are tips I’ve put together after my time spent grinding the competitive Magic circuit, and I hope you can use them to find success yourself. …
Regional Championship prep, Dec. 2022: Standard
Standard is back in the spotlight now that we are done with Regional Championship 1, almost making it feel like back in the day when the format was what the majority of competitive players cared about. To remind players of what the format is like and help them get ready for upcoming RCQs, we are going over three of the …
Phyrexia: All Will Be One, an Early Look
After the trip to Magic’s past that was The Brothers’ War, everyone’s favorite game returns to its present… and things are looking grim. Phyrexia: All Will Be One is the first Standard set of 2023, and we’ve just gotten a ton of information about it all at once. We’re here to help you parse everything that’s out there, all in …
This Day in Magic History: Dragonstorm World Championship (Nov 29-Dec 1, 2006)
Welcome to another edition of “This Day in Magic History!” Today, we’re going to look at Magic’s 2006 World Championship, which ran from Nov. 29 to Dec. 2 that year. In particular, we’re going to take a look at one of the wackiest tier one Magic decks of all time: Dragonstorm. Dragonstorm Before the 2006 World Championships In 2006, Dragonstorm …
The Brothers’ War: Three Types of Standard Decks
Standard has had a few weeks to percolate since we first touched on it after The Brothers’ War released. But Standard is a big, wide format right now, with many viable archetypes floating around. And since it’s still too early to gauge which decks will settle into the various tiers, I’m not even going to try quite yet. Instead, here …