M10 Draft Simulator on Wizards.com (7/20/2009)
July 23, 2009
Practice your M10 drafting skills with the draft simulator on Wizards.com.
How would you have drafted the M10 packs?
Here’s what I picked along with the final deck.
M10 Draft Tournament Report for the M10 Launch Party
July 18, 2009
I just played in an M10 draft for the M10 Launch Party.
We had eight players and we did three rounds of swiss with a cut to the top two. Basically, it was single elimination unless people get draws. The two undefeated players after round two can just draw and be the top two players after the three rounds.
M10 Prerelease Tournament Report
July 16, 2009
A couple days ago, I played in an M10 Prerelease Tournament. Here is the card pool I opened.
How to Beat Bombs in Limited (Sealed or Draft)
July 14, 2009
Steve Sadin has written a great article on beating bombs in limited. I think his article is relevant because M10 seems to be a bomb driven format. I played seven rounds in an M10 Prerelease Sealed Tournament and many of my games were decided by bombs.
An Argument for Runeclaw Bear over Grizzly Bears
July 14, 2009
Runeclaw Bear vs Grizzly Bears?
Initially, I thought, “What’s the point?” with the functional reprints in M10 that just have different names.
You know, Essence Scatter vs Remove Soul, Blinding Mage vs Master Decoy, Divine Verdict vs Neck Snap, etc.
However, parakkum has a good point about changing the names to improve the fantasy theme environment. He writes:
Once I started buying packs, I was happy to get my own Sengir (Sengir Vampire), as well as Serra Angel and other badass creatures. But I was never happy to pull a Grizzly Bears.
Grizzly Bears? Really? It was just so normal and utterly non-fantastic. I mean, I know that’s what was up with my high-school-age mind, because I happily played Gray Ogre, which is the same creature for more mana.
But it was an ogre.
I even like bears as animals. But Grizzly Bears just wrenched me from “fantastic mage duel” into “Mutual of Omaha.”
In contrast, I know I would have played Runeclaw Bear.
Runeclaw. That is a badass name. And it generates an appropriately badass picture. And it’s fantastic. If you wander through the fantasy woods and meet a grizzly, then you stand still like you’ve been taught in Boy Scouts and wait for it to leave. If you meet a Runeclaw, you better have some magic in your back pocket ready to defend you.
While most of the reprints have more flavorful names, I still think Remove Soul has more flavor than Essence Scatter.
Paul Rietzl’s Magic The Gathering Hall of Fame Ballot
July 14, 2009
From Thestarkingtonpost:
I didn’t think Hall of Fame voting was going to be so hard this year. After eliminating everyone I had not heard of or had a negative impression of, I ranked all the remaining players using criteria such as integrity, sportsmanship, general contributions to the Pro Tour, quality of finishes and how scary they are/were as an opponent. Ultimately many of my close friends ranked quite well as you can imagine because I know more about them.
M10 Limited First Impressions by The Ferrett
July 13, 2009
The Ferrett gives his first impressions on some of the M10 cards.
On Saturday, I played M10 for eleven hours straight, making the finals of a twenty-five man tournament and then drafting an utterly horrid Blue deck that went 1-2. As usual, here are my impressions of the cards as I saw ‘em; some looked good and played poorly, others looked terrible but were better than expected.
LSV’s Pick Orders for Drafting M10
July 13, 2009
LSV gives us his pick orders for the commons and uncommons of M10.
The good news is that pick orders are possibly more useful now than in any previous set (since I have never outlined any for a Core Set before)! You do have to consider mana curve and creature count, but you really should be pretty safe taking the best cards out of each pack in your colors. I won’t be ranking the rares today, since I haven’t played with most of them, but I will order the top 15 uncommons and commons of each color, as well as provide an overall list of top commons.
Playing With Elvish Archdruid in Standard
July 10, 2009
Mike Flores gives us a couple of decklist ideas for Elvish Archdruid in Magic The Gathering’s Standard format.
First, Elvish Archdruid is awesome in aggro mono-green Elves.
Turn one play a land, Llanowar Elves.
Turn two play a land, Elvish Archdruid.
Turn three play another, tap all three lands and Llanowar Elves for Hunting Triad. Okay, now the Elves squad has five 2/2 Elves in play … Tap Elvish Archdruid for five mana to deploy ye olde Elvish Promenade and you’ve got ten 2/2 creatures … on turn three.
Just watch out for sweepers like Firespout and Volcanic Fallout.
How to Practice to Win a Magic The Gathering Tournament
July 10, 2009
Gavin writes one of the best articles about Magic The Gathering strategy in 2009, Perfect Practice Makes Perfect.
He tells us to make our make playtesting sessions more serious to mimic the tournament environment.
One of the most common mistakes I see in playtesting is having the wrong mindset. To playtest to the best of your ability, you should still hold a mindset of seriousness and intensity. Now, this is not often the kind of behavior seen in playtesting. There are four or six people around a table, playing games at a lightning pace to maximize the amount of games they get in, goofing around, eating out of a big bowl of chips, with some sport on the television speakers in the background. How many items on that list are around in a tournament? Hopefully zero. So why are they there in playtesting?
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