Standard

Weekend Magic: 1/23-1/25

With a new Standard set and recent Modern and Legacy bannings  and unbannings, this weekend is sure to bring attention to several cards that were previously flying under the radar. We’ll also see old decks coming back again. Let’s take a look at Star City Games: DC to see what the outcome of it all was….

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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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Weekend Magic: 11/28-11/30

This weekend featured Grand Prix San Antonio and Star City Games Open Series: Atlanta. Along with a plateful of turkey, we got a nice heaping side of Magic to go along with it. Let’s see how delicious it was. Grand Prix San Antonio (TX, USA) Format: Standard Decklists San Antonio was taken down by Ryan…

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Privileged Perspective 7 – Extended

Hi! Note from the author- this article was originally meant to be published December 7th, but was pushed up a week by me to help spread awareness of the format. Next week’s article will be the one originally advertised for today about how to evaluate and maximize your methods of trading. Oh, and I archive…

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Weekend Magic: 11/21-11/23

This past weekend featured Star City Games: Richmond. Let’s take a look at what decks were featured in Standard, Modern, and Legacy. SCG Open Richmond – Standard (VA, USA) Decklists Finish Deck Finish Deck 1st Jeskai Combo 9th U/B Control 2nd Esper Control 10th Abzan Midrange 3rd Abzan Aggro 11th Temur Midrange 4th Jeskai Aggro…

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Weekend Magic: 11/07-11/09

Magic coverage this week includes highlights from Star City Games Columbus. As usual, the Open this week includes Standard and Legacy, with a side of Modern in the form of a Premier Invitational Qualifier. Let’s see what results came out of the weekend. SCG Open Columbus – Standard (OH, USA) Decklists Steve Rubin took down…

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Weekend Magic: 10/31-11/02

We’ve got some more Magic coverage for you from this weekend! Last weekend was Grand Prix Santiago and Star City Games: Oakland. Let’s see what happened. GP Santiago (Santiago, CHI) Decklists Two Abzan Midrange decks battled it out in the finals, and Eduardo dos Santos Vieira was the top dog in the end. The two…

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Weekend Magic: 10/24 – 10/26

We continue to dive deeper into the Standard metagame this week with three Standard tournaments. This weekend there was a Star City Games Open in Minneapolis, MN, in addition to Grand Prix Stockholm. We can’t discount the Legacy being played on Sunday at the Star City Open, so I will cover that as well. In…

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Weekend Magic: 10/17-10/20

As Khans of Tarkir continues to showcase itself across all of Standard, more results keep coming in that will solidify the decks we will continue to see over the next year. Last weekend Star City Games: Worcester (MA) and Grand Prix Los Angeles added more excitement to Standard by showcasing the power of new decks…

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Privileged Perspective 1: Genesis

Hi! My name is Ross. I typically prefer to keep these initial introductions pretty short, since you will hopefully learn more about me through my writing than a ham-fisted miniature biography. Perhaps you are familiar with some of my many award-winning tweets? Haha, you’re right, that WAS a good one! Take that, status quo! The…

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Post-Pro Tour Finance: Khans of Tarkir

As I’m sure all of you are aware, the pro tour was last weekend and with it came an bunch of unsustainable spikes.  What does that mean exactly?  I’m glad you asked! The Hype Many cards spiked over the PT weekend based on the amount of play and success they saw. Among them are [card]Pearl…

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Weekend Magic: 10/10-10/12 (Pro Tour KTK Edition)

Welcome back, guys! I have some very exciting things to share with you today thanks to Pro Tour Khans of Tarkir happening last weekend. Many Magic players believe that the Pro Tour solidifies the decks that we will be seeing until the end of January, so based on the results, cards that were previously undervalued spike…

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Brewing with Khans of Tarkir

Welcome back! Today we’re brewing with Khans of Tarkir. For those of you who don’t know, this article is a little later than usual—because I’m prepping for Pro Tour Khans of Tarkir in Honolulu. As I’m finishing up this article, it’s Sunday October 5th, the day after States and the day before I leave for…

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Let’s Play Standard – Jeskai Tempo Breakdown

Welcome back, brewers. Today we are going to be talking about Standard. Were you as sick of the last Standard format as I was? See ya later, [card]Lifebane Zombie[/card]. Thanks for making life miserable for us GW mages. Anyway, I was an avid GW player in the old format. I loved the beef of my…

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Weekend Magic: 9/26-9/28

Welcome back, guys! Khans of Tarkir has now had a chance to show what it can do in Constructed formats, and there are two Standard and Legacy tournaments to talk about today, both hosted by Star City Games. In New Jersey and Indiana, there was plenty of action, so let’s dive right in. SCG Standard…

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Weekend Magic: 9/12-9/15

Hey, everyone! This weekend, Star City Games hosted an Open Series in Atlanta and Channel Fireball hosted the Weekend #3 World Magic Cup Qualifier. Unfortunately, Channel Fireball isn’t as good at getting its results posted as Star City so results from the WMCQ haven’t made their way from the tournament floor to a deck database yet….

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Conjured Currency #29: Oops.

Good morning! It very well may not be morning at the time that you’re reading this, but I get tired of the generic “Welcome back!” every week, and I figure I have a 50/50 shot of being right if I assume that it’s the a.m. wherever you may be while reading this article. This time, we’ll…

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Weekend Magic: 8/29-8/31

Welcome back! No time for formalities—let’s get to the events: SCG Invitational Somerset, NJ (US) Decklists For those of you who don’t know how the SCG Invitational works (and who might be confused as to why a Standard and Legacy deck could both win the tournament), please refer to this link for the specific details…

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