News

• Are you Watching Closely?—Trick Jarrett bids a fond farewell to Gathering Magic after landing his dream job at Wizards of the Coast.  The open position was posted here.
• Updates about the OP Changes—Aaron Forsythe’s recent tweets hint at what’s to come and who is behind the changes to organized play.
• Continued Community Reaction to OP Changes--Patrick Chapin, Chas Andres, Ari Lax, Sam Stoddard, Nassim Ketita, Brian Kibler, Jon Agely,  and Magic Lampoon were among who weighed in on the changes this week.

Standard and Block

• The Twenty-Three Percent Solution—Alexander Shearer plays “Who’s the Beatdown” as he pits Solar Flare against the rest of the meta.
• The Standard Mana of Standard—Conley Woods guides players through the mana of the new format now that the fetchlands have rotated.
• Running the Gauntlet—LSV is currently piloting UB for the sake of this popular series.  See how it matches up with GW Tokens.
• Mono-Blue Delver—Frank LePore gets aggressive with blue’s new one drop.

• Back to Back with Obliterator— ($SCG) Kyle Sanchez gets a little nostalgic over his new brew.

• Tezzeret Infects Las Vegas—Chris Ferber pilots the Tezzeret deck that’s been viable since rotation.
• Dissecting Fish (And Insectile Aberrations)—Todd Anderson is using his Illusions build to great effect and shares his primer here.
• Veiled Junk—Smitty’s newest brew makes good use of its three walkers and four copies of Mortarpod.

• Building Birthing Pod—Darwin Kastle’s four-color Pod deck manages to play many of the most powerful creatures in the format.
• What’s Hot in Block?—Can’t get enough of Innistrad’s tribes in draft?  Carrie Oliver previews the block metagame for you.

Limited

• Innistrad Limited—($SCG) Sam Black provides an overview of the format and his preferences.

• Drafting Esper in ISD—Caleb Durward has been having great success with this synergistic shard.
• Drafting Red/Black in Innistrad—Owen Turtenwald shares his pick orders for the archetype color pair that can play out aggressively or take the combo route.
• Thoughts on Innistrad Limited—Bernhard Zander has to take a broader look at each color since synergy plays such an important role in Innistrad.

Vintage, Legacy, and Modern

• The Legacy of Brainstorm—Marius van Zundert on the potential banning of Brainstorm and the state of Legacy.
• Five Vintage Stories Told Through Cards—Vintage is a format where truly astonishing things can happen.  Brian DeMars shares five of his favorites.

Casual and Variant Formats

• The Worst Thing you Can Still do to People—Sean McKeown uses a Maralen deck to illustrate how Ad Nauseam can warp the format.
• Delving into Pauper—Alex Ullman on the mono-blue Delver deck that runs a mere 14 lands.

• 3D Pauper Commander—Andrew Sitte promotes the Commander variant with his 3D alters and decklist contest. 
• Zombie Infestation—Red Site Wins announces the winner of the Mimeoplasm zombie Commander challenge. 
• Burning Punishment—Mike Cannon builds a causal deck around Burning Vengeance and another around Heretic’s Punishment. 
• Planeswalker Magic: The Intervention—Justin Parnell believes that the number of Planeswalker cards has reached a critical mass for Cube designers

• Artifact Horde—We all knew it wouldn’t be long before Abe Sargent tried his hand at Horde Magic.  Bring on the Myr! 

Finance

• Introduction to Language—($SCG) Jonathan Medina on the foreign foils that fetch the most on the open market.

•  Market Watch—Kelly Reid never takes his eyes off the ticker.  Ever.  Not even for a second.

Theory and Miscellany

• Magic Cards with Googly Eyes—This is the blog that launched a thousand tweets.  Loads of fun!
• Story Circle—PVD shares six memorable stories from his career in cardboard and the take-away lessons that have stuck with him.
• Altered Reality #4—The polls are now open for the Winter Wonderland challenge.  Is it too early to do a little holiday shopping for yourself…check out those artist websites!
• Systems and Magic Two: Cascades and Influence—Chingsung Chang advocates for a unified approach to each match.