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Great Magic Writing of the Week, June 2

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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!


Providence and Team Sealed

Next weekend is Grand Prix Providence, featuring team Return to Ravnica Block Sealed. Get ready for the Grand Prix with Hunter Slaton's introduction to team sealed. What does it take to be successful in this format? How should you divide up your guilds, bombs, and fixing? There's a lot of information to process, and Hunter provides a solid baseline for making good decisions. This article also showcases what makes team events special; win or lose, you're part of a group of friends who are out to have a good time.

HipstersoftheCoast.com: Hunter Slaton - Cracking the Team Sealed Code

Team sealed is no easy nut to crack. Over the past two weeks, my team—the Christian Hunters, featuring Matt—has been meeting up at Christian’s condo in Williamsburg on Wednesday nights and, after some awesome time playing with his too-cute daughter and his pup, cracking some packs of Dragon’s Maze, Gatecrash, and Return to Ravnica and building some pools.

It’s not my first rodeo, of course. Matt and Kadar “History’s Greatest Monster” Brock and I have already competed in the SCG team sealed Open, in New Jersey, and we did some practicing at Fat Cat in Manhattan before that event. But team sealed is just that: a team event, and every team is different. So it’s taken some getting used to, learning about how people work in groups, how best to communicate, and how to get the result (a winning deck and happy friends) that you desire.


On the End of the Maze

What will our guild champions find at the end of the Implicit Maze? That's the question Inkwell Looter sets out to answer with this Dragon's Maze-themed illustration. Inkwell Looter is an artist who produces all manner of Tokens, Emblems, and other goodies to enhance your Magic-playing experience. For more inky goodness you can check out his Blog.

GatheringMagic.com: Inkwell Looter (@inkwell_looter) - What's at the Maze's End?


On Exploration

Why do we play Magic? What is it about this game that brings together people from such disparate backgrounds and who are looking for such unique experiences? Natasha believes that Magic provides near limitless opportunities for creation and exploration; each new set brings new toys to play with and new interactions to try out. The sheer size of design space means that we get to explore the ideas we like in whatever manner we want to. So where is Magic going to take you next?

GatheringMagic.com: Natasha Lewis Harrington (@natasha_lh) - Create and Discover

Just this weekend, I was talking with my friend Brandon Isleib about our deck-building habits. Brandon had been telling me about how his Game Day went, and without thinking, I asked, “What deck were you playing?”

“Great question,” Brandon said. “What deck was I playing?”

As it turned out, Brandon’s deck didn’t really have a name. He is a rogue deck-builder, a classic Johnny. To him, there is no fun in playing something tried and true. He proudly listed all of the obscure cards that he had successfully run in Standard, and I have to admit I was impressed.

I’m the exact opposite in a way—instead of Constructed, I like to draft, but I tend to find a deck that works for me and then run it into the ground. During Zendikar, it was Birds carrying machetes. During Gatecrash/Gatecrash/Gatecrash, I became known at my local game store for my “Friday Night Simic” decks. By its very nature, the very act of drafting kept this from ever becoming stale—I was typically able to assemble a consistent skeleton of cards such as Crocanura and Pit Fight, but actually filling out the deck called for thinking on my feet and making sometimes counterintuitive choices.

Brandon and I are very different in our deck-building styles—his exploration is more sweeping, while mine is fine-grained. But what we have in common is a fondness for solving challenges in interesting ways. As he pointed out, “It’s about variety and discovery. Draft provides that; weird Standard provides that; multiplayer provides that.” Although it can be expressed in a variety of ways, as Brandon and I showed, the desire to create and explore seems to be a common human drive.


On Commander

Commander is a format that has exploded in popularity in recent years. The format has grown from its grass-roots into what may be the most popular way to play casual-multiplayer Magic. So where do you start if you've never played Commander? Why might you want to try this high-variance format dominated by swingy spells and crazy politics? Brandon Isleib and Erin Campbell share some of their awesome experiences and tips for new players to introduce them to this awesome casual format.

LegitMTG.com: Erin Campbell (@OriginalOestrus) and Brandon Isleib (@earthdyedred) - Starting the EDH Conversation

Every night at FNM, between the second and third rounds, someone will undoubtedly come around with a little spiral notebook and ask you one simple question.

“EDH?”

For the longest time, I would reply with “No.” I did take part in one or two after-hours EDH games with a borrowed deck, but I didn’t feel that I enjoyed it enough to devote resources towards building my own deck. It wasn’t until I was in Seattle playing with my good friends Mike and Tifa that I started to really understand why Commander was so popular and why I needed to start playing it a bit more.

Commander, like trading, is a way to get to know people. It’s a way to let down the guard you might throw up before an event and maintain afterward that keeps people from seeing the real you. It’s a time to let your hair down and not be consumed with winning or “The Ideal Play”. It gives you the chance to bond with others over your shared love of underplayed cards from the past — or cards you’ve never seen played at all.


On M14 Rules

Last week, Wizards announced that there would be changes to the rules with Magic 2014. In particular, the rules regarding sideboards and Legends or Planeswalkers of the same name will be changing. Caleb talks about the overarching implications of these rule changes, as well as which particular cards and interactions gain the most.

ChannelFireball.com: Caleb Durward (@Calebdmtg) - New Rules

The new legend rule states that, if you have a legend and play a second of the same name, you choose which to keep. This means that if you have one enchanted with a Pacifism, you can exchange it for the fresh copy. Also, both you and your opponent can have the same legend in play.

This places more emphasis on the die roll. If you and your opponent are playing the same legend, whoever jams it first will have a huge advantage. That player gets to untap with the busted creature while before they would’ve traded. Can you imagine playing a UW Delver mirror with the new rules? Landing a Geist of Saint Traft on three would just win.

I do think Wizards learned their mistake from Geist of Saint Traft, and to a lesser extent Thrun, the Last Troll, and they have been playing with these rules for over a year now. I look forward to seeing what they do with this new design space! No pressure, Wizards.


On Platinum and Planeswalking

Walking the Planes is an awesome video series on DailyMTG.com featuring Nathan Holt. This past week we get to Walk the Planes at Pro Tour Dragon's Maze, and take a look at what goes on behind the scenes of live Magic coverage with Brian David-Marshal, Marshall Sutcliffe, and Rich Hagon. Walking the Planes features some of the awesome aspects of the Magic community, along with sketch comedy elements, running gags, and appearances from fan-favorite players and members of Magic R&D. If you don't already, you'll want to keep an eye out for additional episodes of Walking the Planes over on DailyMTG.

DailyMTG.com: Nathan Holt (@WalkThePlanes) - Platinum


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

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