Limited

Forced Fruition Reforged: Road to GP Vegas

On May 30, 2015, we’ll all be gathered magically at the Las Vegas Convention Center to play Modern Masters 2015. Until then, I’ll be spending my weekends playing Magic at local Preliminary Pro Tour Qualifiers (PPTQs) and Grand Prix Trials (GPTs) to reach the critical mass of Planeswalker Points needed for a round-one GP bye. Over this time,…

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Casually Infinite – Manifest and Other Troubled Mechanics of Magic‘s Past

I’ve kept no secret about the fact that I’m not impressed with manifest as a mechanic. To me, it fits in with a number of previous unimpressive “feel bad” mechanics. As a featured new keyword in a set, it has a number of issues similar to other troubled mechanics such as tribute, cipher, and curses….

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Pauper Cube: Drafting Tips, Tricks, and Archetypes

Pauper? What does poverty have to do with Magic? If you’re new to Magic, you might not know what Pauper is. Those who know of Pauper are asking, “Why are you writing about Pauper? Isn’t that format dead?” Well, Wizards of the Coast (WOTC) no long supports MTGO Daily Events for Pauper (editor’s note: This…

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Casually Infinite – Preserving Khans for Future Play

One thing I really like to do is draft good sets. While most cubes provide a unique experience in which you get to play with a wide variety of powerful cards from various sets, there is something about a well-designed and playtested Limited environment that far outshines the enjoyment of having to decide between [card]Jace,…

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Casually Infinite – In KTK, Wedge Good Stuff is a Trap

I’m back from a long night of a midnight prerelease for Khans of Tarkir. My big pulls from the Sealed event were a foil [card]Meandering Towershell[/card] and an [card]Utter End[/card]. While not great, it could have been much worse. While hearing about what I opened probably isn’t why you’re here, understanding what I saw may…

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Three Ways to Draft With Two People

Welcome back, brewers. Today we are going to take a step back from Constructed, at least until the new set comes out, and take a look at Limited. Playing Limited Magic is as fun as it is rewarding. Building your deck is very challenging and playing against a wide variety of different cards offers up…

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Gen Con Drafting

Gen Con, where every game that doesn’t require electricity is located. I can now agree with the motto: Gen Con is “the best four days in gaming.”  With all the choices available, it was hard to choose which games were worth giving a shot. Since I’m terrible at decisions, I just played Magic: The Gathering…

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Getting LUCKy: Mulligans

If I had to guess why most games are won and lost in Magic,  the first stop on the blame train would be mulligans. A good number of players have a hard time knowing what is keepable and what would be better as a random six.  An even larger number of players don’t know when…

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Casually Infinite – Bad Pool

Sometimes you just don’t get a very good set of cards in your Sealed pool. Is it possible to salvage these events? How much of Sealed is luck versus skill? Today I go through the worst Sealed event I’ve played in years. It was a Magic 2014 Sealed daily event. Black [Deck title=Black Cards] 1 Altar’s…

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Forced Fruition Episode 3: Down the Drain

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=videoseries?list=PLs4gxqbLAAD7PPPlJC8S-6BJ3dFbse9yJ&w=640&h=360] Today’s Lesson The third installment of Forced Fruition takes us on a journey of discovery and trying to slow roll our way to victory. In this BNG-THS-THS draft, a theme of slowly draining our opponent quickly develops out of pack one. We employ some drafting strategy to fill out the rest of our…

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The Puzzle Box: #Value Sealed, a Two-Person Cube Format

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Puzzle Box! It’s the end of the month, and that means that we are going to review the Puzzle Box list and make sure it is within a couple dollars of our $200 mark. There are a few changes to be made but we’ll discuss those later. First,…

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Casually Infinite – Rare Drafting

If you’re not, you should be. Rare drafting is a vital strategy if you’re seeking to cut down on your Magic expenses or go infinite. It is a way to help boost the EV of a given draft and make sure you’ll have the money to enter the next draft you want to play in….

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Casually Infinite – Understanding EV, Part 2

In my last article, I discussed all the parts that play into estimated value (EV). This article is going to have lots of terms and math from the previous article, so if you haven’t read it yet, I’d recommend going back and doing that first. Picking a Queue The math behind picking a queue takes…

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