Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been tagged as “Tom Anderson”
However you look at it, 2020 has been one hell of a ride. I’m glad that the Magic release schedule slowed down a little over this month — we needed time to reflect. No single facet of Magic illustrates the 2020 approach to Magic releases quite like promo cards. The number and range of alternate-art and alternate-frame printings exploded compared …
Toward the end of 2019 (so roughly 20 years ago by common reckoning), I published an article here counting down the new cards that had defined the year in Magic. It was a somewhat rare chance to highlight not only the cards and decks that won the most, but the way the year had changed the broader Magic community. I …
I’ve been writing quite a lot about Commander here of late. One reason why is that discussion tends to prompt more discussion; my initial articles led to a lot of interesting chats online and with friends in my Magic groups who wanted to know more, or share their own take on what I’d written. And after writing a couple of …
There’s a number of reliable hot-button issues among the Commander community, but judging by the metric of online discussion, the objective rating of deck power levels might be the biggest. The goal is not just to pin down a tier list of optimal decks for the competitive side of the format, known as cEDH. That would be too easy! In …
For all that we Magic players love to think analytically and break things down, there are still some hugely impactful blind spots in community discussion of the game. This week’s Magic Online Championships thrust one into the spotlight, as a controversial finish to Oliver Tiu vs. Michael Jacob led to fiery online debate about cheating, “angle-shooting” and the moral grey …
The impending release of Commander Legends feels like a big moment for Magic. It’s the clearest and most significant expression of WotC’s whole-hearted conversion to the cause of casual play. Commander and other casual formats have always been the underwater bulk of the Magic iceberg, but it took the rise of social media and content algorithms to really show it. …
It is likely that more words have been devoted to Commander deck-building than any other topic in Magic history. And not for no reason! Commander is the most popular way to play Magic, and a large portion of its audience plays only Commander — a testament to the depth of the format and the appeal of social, multiplayer gaming. That …
Good evening, my readers of the night! We draw near to the spookiest night of the year, and so naturally I found myself pondering the most eerie and haunted periods in Magic history for this week’s article. The myth and imagery of horror have been a huge part of Magic since its earliest days. The game was barely a year …
After each new banning shakes up Standard, there begins a cycle of hope. I rush to Arena and go to my maxed-out Decks screen, where jank brews untold await testing and tuning. “This time,” I say to myself. “This time W/B Auras and Mono-U Self-Mill and Vito Aggro will be good!” Then, I take them to the ladder and realize …
It seemed destined by fate that Emma Handy — who helped rally the Magic community around the “No TERFs on Gruul Turf!” slogan — would end up crashing the Top 8 of a Worlds-level tournament with a red-green aggro deck. “Gruul Adventures was honestly the sort of eleventh hour audible you always hear about — but this time it worked.” …
