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Commanding Opinion: Stitcher Geralf, Ghoulcaller Gisa, and the Innistrad Storyline

Before I begin, I should introduce myself. I’m David Rowell, formerly SolemnParty over at WinTargetGame, where I began the Commanding Opinion series a few years ago and never quite got to where I wanted to with it. A couple of months ago, the site finally closed down for good. While some of my old articles…

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Diary of a Former-but-Relapsing Competitive Player

A little-known fact about me: I am not much of a writer.  Growing up, everything came fairly easy to me in terms of school. A perfect storm of introversion and private schools during my elementary years made the remainder a bit of a cake walk once I moved to a rural public school. College taught…

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Privileged Perspective 11 – The Combine: Fate Reforged Edition

I like a lot of games, but very few are able to truly grab the full focus of my attention (a side-effect of attention deficit disor—*checks Twitter*). Magic, first and foremost, is one of those games: its pull on me is so powerful that it has singlehandedly pulled me away from other games like World…

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Conjured Currency #45: Pack to Square One

Have you ever heard of the phrase “Pack to Power”? For those who are new to the world of Magic finance, or just never came across the term, let me explain. Back in April of 2010, Jonathan Medina (known to some as one of the forefathers of the Magic finance lifestyle), began an article series…

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Weekend Magic: 1/9-1/11

Let’s take a look at another weekend of Magic action. This weekend featured two constructed events, Grand Prix: Omaha and Star City Games: Philadelphia. The Grand Prix was Modern so we will be able to add more Modern data to our analysis of the format before the new banned and restricted announcements are revealed. The…

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Cards to Keep an Eye on in Anticipation of a Banned List Update

With the banned and restricted list update looming in January, I’m surprised at the lack of discussion about it. Major changes could have a huge impact, especially on Modern. The last time that the Modern banned list changed was right before Pro Tour Valencia last February. Preceding the unbanning of [card]Bitterblossom[/card] and [card]Wild Nacatl[/card] and ban of…

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Hello from GP Omaha!

We’re at GP Omaha this week. After an exhausting day of Modern, Cameron and Curtis fell asleep, but then decided to record a podcast in the middle of a lucid dream. We give our takeaway from the event and discuss the ups and downs of the format. We also go over some new Fate Reforged spoilers,…

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Stoking The Flames

Feeding The Fire I just lost my win-and-in for top eight and I’m two hours away from home. This sucks. I played some of the best Magic I have played in a long time today and I desperately wanted this win more than any tournament before. I won games and matches off of bluffs, strategies,…

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Privileged Perspective 10 – My 100% Totally Legit Preview Card Spectacular

Welcome back! I hope your holidays were as relaxing and unproductive as mine were. Even though Christmas is typically Magic’s downtime, there was a lot going on with the beginning of spoiler season. Next week I’m going to talk more about what we are seeing out of Fate Reforged and how to contextualize it, but…

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Always and Never in Magic Finance

Today I want to talk about one of the great traps in Magic finance, or really any kind of investing. The trap is forgetting about, or just ignoring, this statement: past performance does not indicate future results. To take it to the extreme, it’s the trap of “always” and “never.” Let’s start with an example….

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Unified Theory of Commander: Threats Part 2 – Your Commander

Imagine for a moment that your commander is an actual living being someplace out in the Magic multiverse. He, she, or it wants something. Can you say what that something is? Does she want to grab a sword and slice someone open? Does he want to make it impossible for his enemies to cast a…

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Weekend Magic: 1/2-1/4 (with Discussion of Possibilities from Fate Reforged!)

Happy New Year! Welcome back to Weekend Magic coverage here at Brainstorm Brewery. Plenty of Magic action happened last weekend with Star City Games Columbus, Grand Prix Denver, and Grand Prix Manila. Let’s get right down to business and check out the results. Grand Prix Denver (CO, USA) Format – Standard Decklists Until Fate Reforged…

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Conjured Currency #44: The Common Rares

Welcome back, everyone! It’s been a while since I’ve actually written a finance article that revolved around buying and selling actual Magic cards. Last week I was on break for Christmas, but if you listen to the Brainstorm Brewery podcast like you should, then you’ll have heard my beautiful voice berating my personal sub-hosts Ryan…

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Weekend Magic: 12/19-12/21

The only event that happened last weekend was the Star City Games Players’ Championship, an event exclusively dedicated to sixteen incredible players that have done exceptionally well at Star City Games events across the country. There are sixteen Standard and sixteen Legacy decks that come out of the event, so lets see how well the…

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Privileged Perspective 9 – Magical Christmas Land

The calendar of a Magic player is pretty different from most other people’s, and this time of year is probably the single best example. While many people have been anxiously counting down the days until Santa Claus comes to town, December is typically the slowest part of Magic‘s entire year. There are fewer tournaments to…

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Conjured Currency #43: Lessons Learned in 2014

Welcome back, everyone. I just now realized that this is probably going to be the last article of mine that goes up on Brainstorm Brewery for the year of 2014. Next week I’ll be off for the holiday, and the Thursday after that will be the first day of the new year. To end 2014, I’m…

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Weekend Magic: 12/12-12/15

Last weekend was a big one. Star City Games provided plenty of action in Seattle, where the Invitational and an Open were held. Legacy at Star City Games is now classified under the Premier IQ umbrella, so we’ll review those results as well. Finally, this weekend also featured Grand Prix Milan, the Modern event that…

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Privileged Perspective 8b: Packs

This is the article that was supposed to go up last week, but due to assorted delays, didn’t. Sadly, the biggest loser in this case was the time-sensitive information I had touched on up front—the Walgreen’s booster sale that happens every year on the week after Black Friday. If you aren’t familiar, the premise is…

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Conjured Currency #42: Protecting Your Cards

Welcome back, everyone. Because I’m relentless in wanting every eligible person to sign up for this year’s Gamers Helping Gamers scholarship, I’m going to leave the link to the application right here. How do I find out more information about this scholarship, you may ask? Well, I’ll leave the link to last week’s article right…

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Dr. Brewlove: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Real Decks

By Logan White So this is what it’s like playing a real deck?  –Logan Transforming one’s mindset can be difficult. I love making my own decks, and I’ve always had that shared dream of deck brewers: to see your own creations make their way to the top—to post a solid result in a major tournament…

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Weekend Magic: 12/05-12/07

Cheers to another weekend! This past one featured the Magic World Championship and Magic World Cup, where both a team and single player were dubbed the World Champions! Also featured was Star City Games: Portland. Let’s check out the action. Magic World Cup (Nice, FR) Decklists The Magic World Cup was taken down by Denmark, who…

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Welcome to the Jungle: Sideboarding versus Combo Decks

Hello once again! I hope everyone in the US had a wonderful holiday, and for those of you from everywhere else in the world, I hope you had an amazing Thursday. I’m back this week with the final installment of my sideboarding series about my Zoo deck. If you all have any ideas of things…

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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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Conjured Currency #41: A Gamer Helping Gamers with Gamers Helping Gamers

Welcome back, everyone! I took a week off of writing about Magic finance for Thanksgiving, so I hope you enjoyed the throwback article that we posted, found here. Clicking on that article brought back some memories, and I realized it’s now been officially a year since I started writing for Brainstorm Brewery. I actually just went back and…

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The Hypnotic Specter That Saved My Life

By Christopher B. “It’s cancer in an advanced stage,” the doctor told me on a Friday afternoon in a hospital far away from home. “Be glad that we found it now—in a few weeks it might have been too late. On Monday morning, we will start with the chemotherapy. Please sign these papers…” BAM, that…

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