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Great Magic Writing of the Week, August 17

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A staggering amount of Magic content is published each day each day on a plethora of content sites, blogs, podcasts, and discussion forums. No matter how honest an effort you make, it's easy to fall behind and miss incredible articles because there just isn't enough time to read everything.

To that end, we've collected some of the best articles of the week covering a broad range of topics. If you're looking for articles, these are the ones you don't want to miss!


On Centaurs and Fish Crabs

This week Alex takes a look at the role of two more guilds with the hopes of improving your cubing experience. What are the roles of Selesnya and Simic in Cube? These color combinations have been defined by a number of different cards, interactions, and archetypes over the years, so you've got plenty of options. Join Alex as he takes a closer look.

GatheringMagic.com: Alex Ullman (@nerdtothecore)- The End of the Street: Selesnya and Simic

I’ve made it to the end of Ivy Lane: a five-month journey covering the main implementation of two-color pairs (better known as guilds) in my Cube. There have been two updates in that time, but the core concepts of the guilds remain unchanged. There’s an excellent chance they will remain the same for many years into the future.

The reason is that my Cube is made up exclusively of commons. While Magic design can adjust the dials on colors at higher rarities, commons tend to expose the purest possible essence of a given color. Mechanics might appear on the cards that appear more frequently, but these are hardly the most exciting or powerful executions of new devices in the toolbox. In turn, commons heavily tied to their settings tend to feel similar to cards from any other set. Take Siege Wurm as an example. The Magic 2015 Limited standout is a quintessential green card that operates along a well-worn axis: large creature with trample. Convoke can do some interesting things at higher rarities, but at common, it can only help execute the known.

Because of this, Pauper Cubes will also tend to follow these paths. Given a singleton restriction, it becomes challenging to build a mechanic-based deck in a Cube. Instead, colors—and color pairs—become historical executions of their inherent themes and tropes.

And that circles back to Selesnya and Simic. These two-color combinations are last by virtue of the alphabet, but they also presented issues as I revamped and crafted my Cube.


On Artist Alley

Artist Alley is a Magical place where you get to meet some of the creators of the most characteristic and recognizeable aspects of the games we all enjoy. There are certain guidelines, but spoken and unspoken, for behavior in that creative space. This week Mike runs down the rules for the Artist Alley at Gen Con, and gives you tips for making the most of your interactions with creators in this setting.

GatheringMagic.com: Mike Linnemann (@VorthosMike) - The Gen Con Art Show

As I sit in a coffee shop in Portland, OR, taking a break from the SVUHQ, the art area, and Marcel’s incredible cooking, and with my eyes bugging out over TSG’s Cube, I realized that Gen Con is also this week. I realize that Gen Con is also this week, and it's about time for another primer in my Vorthos art world. It would be wonderful if I found a good way to archive information relevant to Magic players on uncertainties they'd have with artists. Maybe that's part of good Magic writing: You repeat yourself every three years with new information. College textbooks might be onto something.

Gen Con, as a convention, is among the first that opened its arms to artists. The artist alley is one of the hallmarks of the show, chock-full with awards, a major artist acting as guest of honor, and part of the spectacle that is tens of thousands of geeks in one location. Artists do need to pay for their booth spaces, but with the massive amount of foot traffic being in the middle of an exhibit space provides, seeing a decent rate of return isn't terribly difficult. Maximizing your profits, though, is an entirely separate conversation. Today, we will discuss some quick bits of information that you can pull up on your phone in the Magic area before you stop into the artist alley.


On Mining Modern Data

One format. Dozens of archetypes. Hundreds of minor variations. One hundred and eighty-four decks. Adrian Sullivan got all of the decklists and all of the results from a local Modern PTQ. Which archetypes were the best at winning when it counted? Some results are expected, but some may surprise you. Arm yourself with information before your next big event.

StarCityGames.com: Adrian Sullivan (@AdrianLSullivan) - 184 Modern Decklists

As I was watching the PTQ, I started thinking about how few of these large PTQs might be left. I thought it would be nice to document this one, particularly given how interested people have seemed to have been in getting a little more in depth information. I asked Ben if he could help me out with the standings and decklists after the event. Voila! 184 decklists...


On Annihilation

Wrath of God is one of the most iconic cards in all of Magic's history; so much so that every other sweeper in recent memory has been called a Wrath. From the Vault: Annihilation was designed to run down some of the most iconic sweepers we've seen in the last twenty years. This week, Sam Stoddard takes a look at how the role and design of sweepers has changed over the course of time. What will happen to Wrath of God next? We'll find out soon enough.

DailyMTG.com: Sam Stoddard (@samstod) - Developing Annihilation

One of the keys to making Magic fun and interesting is making sure there are always different options on how to build decks. One of the problems with a card like Thoughtseize is that, while it can keep the biggest shenanigans from making things go awry, it also punishes decks that just want to play fair—and decks that rely on synergy even harder. Except for only having Loxodon Smiter in your hand, there just isn't much that you can do to interact with the card...

One of the problems with having a constant and unconditional four-mana Wrath of God variant in Standard is that it can generate a lot of control-vs.-aggro matchups that boil down to that one play on the fourth turn. The aggressive deck needs enough juice that it can win on turn five if the opponent doesn't have the sweeper, but not so much that the sweeper doesn't matter. It means that it is usually best to take the hits from aggro until you can destroy all creatures on turn four, then either use spot removal to clean up the rest or play a second sweeper when the aggro deck tries to recover. Historically, it has been very hard for most creature-based strategies to survive two early-game sweepers, and much of those decks' matchups against control really just came down to "Do they have it or don't they?" which isn't a very satisfying way to win or lose a game.


On Oath Brothers

William "Huey" Jensen. Reid Duke. Owen Turtenwald. The Peach Garden Oath. These may just be the three best players in the world right now; and they're all great friends and teammates. Brian David-Marshall interviews all three Oath brothers about what has changed over the last year for them to become such a dominant force on the professional Magic scene. Is this just the beginning of a Peach Garden dynasty? We may just find out at the Magic World Championship, as all three members are qualified.

DailyMTG.com: Brian David-Marshall (@top8games) - A Season of Swearing About Peaches

It's hard not to use incredulous expletives when talking about the past Pro Tour season put up by the three friends known as Peach Garden Oath. Trust me, I've had to restrain myself at countless stops along the way: from Reid Duke's stunning reversal of fortune at the World Championship and his first career Pro Tour Top 8, to Owen Turtenwald's emphatic and long-awaited back-to-back Grand Prix victories, to the Pro Tour Hall of Fame induction ceremony for William Jensen that was the preamble to a record-breaking Grand Prix season and a fifth career Pro Tour Top 8.

In the week leading up to Grand Prix Portland I did a podcast with Mike Flores for Top 8 Magic and basically gave Peach Garden Oath a bye into the finals of the GP. There was no doubt in my mind those three would be playing when the elimination rounds came around. Having watched these guys play Magic (and specifically having been taken to school on Team Limited by Jensen), I thought there had never been a safer pick of a GP winner in all my years following the game.


If you have suggestions for next week's recap you can mention us on Twitter, or share throughout the week in the comments below.


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