Magic 2010 is now.

I haven’t been blogging much lately, and I am sorry for that. FNM practicing, college, working at CMOG, and constant deck building. I am currently working on 2 very cool Standard decks that have been tearing up the Fae, U/G Elf Warriors, Rouges, Naya Aggro and R/W Reviellark. Speaking of Standard, there has been an announcement on Wizards about the next core set.

Instead of seeing 11th, 12th and 13th edition coming out over the next 6 years, you will see Magic 2010, 2011, and 2012 come out over the next 3. All of which will have new cards in them, contain Mythic rares, and have intro packs for each color. Also, they aren’t reprinting any of the pain lands, Ravnica duals or the fetch lands, much to some super rumors and near bets that they would reprint the Ravnica duals, but they are doing brand new lands.

With new cards come Prereleases and Launch parties, and for Magic 2010, the Prerelease falls on my birthday, July 12th. You can imagine how excited I will be to be tearing into Magic history, as I turn 21.

Speaking of Prereleases, I placed 1st at the Conflux prerelease! It was sheer luck, I tell you what. How many times did I top-deck a Malfegor for the win, you ask? 3 times, and 2 of those times were in the final match against a kind fellow by the name of Corey. He vowed to never play Malfegor in a deck.

My pool was pretty nasty though: 2 Blightning, 2 Branching Bolt (one foil), Broodmate Dragon and Malfegor. More than a boy could ask for right there.

This past FNM we had a two-headed giant tournament, so I made two deck lists that centered around Realm Razer. One deck was running counters, card draw and normal Faerie trickery. The other had guns like Realm Razer, Figure of Destiny, Garruk, Ajani Vengeant, and Chameleon Colossus. I made sure we stripped down the early game of our opponents, with Spellstutter Sprites, Negates, Magma Sprays, and Path to Exiles. After Realm Razer sticks on the field, Jace is filling our hands, Bitterblossom is giving us immense field advantage, Ajani is pinning and throwing Lightning Helixes around, Birds of Paradise, Noble Hierarch, and Bloomtender are all giving us sources of mana. It was absurd. We lost once to an Elf Ball deck, but other than that, Realm Razer control was astounding. 

Star City Games is hosting 10, 5,000 dollar Standard tournaments around the nation this year, and the first one was this past weekend. An Esperlark deck grabbed 1st place while Faeries took second. 

I am planning on attending the $5,000 Standard Tournament they will be holding in Boston in June, as well as the tournament they will be holding in Philadelphia later in the year. My new years resolution was to go to more sanctioned Magic tournaments, so I am making the pilgrimages to the tables. All of the Star City Tournaments are timed in such a way that Pro Tour Qualifiers for Honolulu follow the next day.

This blog should get pretty interesting over this coming March. I have been working on some decks, and I have been teaching some interesting concepts concerning disruption, card advantage, field advantage, and mulliganing. Also, with a wider range of people around me seriously wanting to play Standard, I have a lot more time to play test different decks and cards in the metagame. It is funny how metagames vary everywhere you go, but I will try my best. 

To be honest, after playing against the number 1 player in my DCI district, and going 1-2 to his Boat-Brew deck, I feel like I have grown so much from when I first cut his deck to when I smiled in defeat to Siege-Gang commander. There is something so immensely mind wracking about knowing you are going against the best around, that your level of playing is pulled so far up, that you are almost surprised that you were ever as low as you once were. It becomes more and more like chess each time I play. You cannot make a play without first thinking far into the future. Once you grasp some techniques about predicting future plays from your opponents, the game is usually yours. 

So, I want to ask you, the reader what you want to know the most:

The list of cards in the deck.

Analysis of how the deck works.

Why certain cards over other cards.

How the match-ups went.

The opponent’s decklist.

My FNM draft pool.

My FNM matches.

Focus on the Standard format.

The Limited Format.

The Casual Format.

Philosophies on playing Magic better.

Just leave a comment, and let me know what you think of everything so far. I am really open to suggestions, and eager to get lots of reader wanted content into each article I have time to write. 

Bon Voyage,

Dillon