brews

Brewing With Shadows over Innistrad

Welcome back for Brewing With Shadows over Innistrad, and a new world order for Standard. With this latest set Standard is now a three block format that currently consists of Dragons of Tarkir, Magic Origins, Battle for Zendikar, Oath of the Gatewatch, and Shadows over Innistrad. This is a super exiting time, because screw [card]Siege…

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Mono Brew #2 – Ignoring Reality

It’s been a few months since the first edition of Mono Brew, which I ended with the promise that my next article would be a primer on my Modern pet deck, “Bringing Gifts” (five color [card]Gifts Ungiven[/card] with [card]Bring to Light[/card]). Much has changed in the world of Magic since then, as the release of Oath of the Gatewatch turned Modern season into “Eldrazi Winter”. I’m sure that most of…

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Jolrael and her Killer Lands

Land Destruction (it’s not what you think) People generally hate land destruction in EDH and I think that’s okay. Land destruction is not terribly fun for the affected and tends to make games last forever. So we’re a no go on land destruction – but what about land DESTRUCTION? As in, destroying people with your…

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Brewing With Battle for Zendikar

Welcome back for Brewing With Battle for Zendikar. First off let me apologize for the delay in this article, my computer died the day I was going to start and was down for a week. On the plus side it did give me some extra time to make even more decks. This time I brought…

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You Can Counter on Ephara

Some people hate fun. Whether they’re the dickhead boss that refuses employees nap time and Rock Band in the break room, or are simply an avid fan of TV’s Gotham, having a good time simply doesn’t appeal to some people. The same is often said for those who run a lot of counterspells in EDH….

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Privileged Perspective 13: Beginning to Look to the Future

Sometimes it is difficult to get the writing process started, and other times the words flow out as if someone else already did everything for me. There are weeks, like this one, where I have fragments of the piece I wish to assemble, but they are adrift of each other and devoid of interlocking context….

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Resurrection Perfection – An Abzan Reanimator Primer

Dredge. Reanimator. Storm. All of these decks are extremely powerful. All of them are current tier-one strategies in Legacy. All of them have one thing in common: they use their graveyards as a resource. So why wouldn’t you do the same thing in a less powerful format like Standard? [deck title=Abzan Whip, by Ken Crocker] [Creatures]…

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Immortal Constellation: A Historical Look At Standard Combo Decks

“Cast [card]Immortal Servitude[/card] for X = 3… get back my whole graveyard…triggers…kill you?” Standard is not a format renowned for combo decks. Most of the time, we see a rock-paper-scissors metagame filled with aggro-midrange-control matchups, as opposed to the aggro-combo-control matchups we read and hear about when beginning to learn “Magic theory.” However, this is…

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Izzet Good? An Argument for R/u Devotion

I have a confession to make. I have an unhealthy obsession with [card]Ral Zarek[/card]. I’ve heard it all: “He’s just bad.” “He doesn’t give you card advantage.” “Nice untap.”  Look, I get it. [card]Ral Zarek[/card] requires some help and his +1 ability is a bit underpowered. Using two loyalty to get a [card]Lightning Bolt[/card] is…

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It Ain’t Easy Being Green

It’s been a long, hard couple of months after making top eight in back-to-back tournaments with my Mono-Green Beast Wars deck that I discussed here. Since then, I’ve been to two more PTQs and GP Cincinatti, but was unable to recapture the success I previously had with the deck. However, some others had quite a bit…

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The Divine Aristocrats

While I still intend to battle with my trusty RUG Monsters deck for the foreseeable future, that has not put a halt to my desire for a good brew. With that in mind, let’s talk about a spicy number that I have been thinking about since the Journey into Nyx prerelease. [deck title=The Divine Aristocrats…

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Brewing with Born of the Gods, Part 2

Welcome back for part two of Brewing with Born of the Gods. You can read part one here. Once again, I can’t provide tuned lists or sideboards, as there’s no way I could test that much, but I can provide some suggestions to consider for each sideboard. I’ve updated a couple of the top-tier decks this…

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The Dark Holds a Variety of Depths

There is something slightly poetic about [card]Dark Depths[/card] dominating Legacy events while the Midwest is trapped in a seemingly never-ending “polar vortex.” Today I’d like to look at a pile of different [card]Dark Depths[/card]-powered combo decks that have been seeing success in Legacy recently. Maverick Depths The first time a Dark Depths deck posted successful…

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Brewing with Born of the Gods, Part 1

Welcome to my first brewing article for Brainstorm Brewery. For those who haven’t read my brewing articles in the past, I try provide a glimpse at what I feel is possible in Standard. Since I obviously can’t test all of these decks, though, I don’t build complete 75-card decks. Instead, I provide four cards to…

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