Essays on Magic: The Gathering

Introduction Whew, been a solid week of play testing and familiarizing myself with the new standard. It's been fun! First of all, wanted to give kudos to WOTC development for this set. Very deep, tons of options, lots of build arounds.. the cards are playing out as interesting as I expected from the spoiler.. Nothing is standing out as Oko egregious. The meta is still totally up in the air... However, a loose rock paper scissors dynamic has started to emerge. The three basic types of decks are 1) Synergistic agro decks looking to punish the ramp decks and their lack of interactions... Most mono color strategies fall under this category as well as GW enchantments or RB sac. They often play bad cards that work well with each other, or help break another excellent card. 2) Disruption decks, looking to prey on small creatures and decks looking to assemble a combination of particular cards to win. This is mostly dominated by various Esper, UB and Doom Foretold decks. 3) Gro...

NEW STANDARD WOOHOOO!! The first month of a new standard format is easily my favourite time in magic. The unknown space where people are trying out the new cards and new ideas. In today's information rich environment it's one of the few opportunities deck builders and metagamers have to truly break it. The idea of breaking a format fuels my ego and motivates me more than nearly everything in magic.. I'm VERY excited for the new cards in THB standard. Lots of interesting build around cards with plenty of support. I think they hit a home run with this set (for standard). Ten Format Warping Cards Whenever I examine a new format, while most people are focused on what are the most powerful cards, I'm keeping my eyes peeled for what are the most format warping  cards and strategies. It doesn't matter if there are a bunch of great 1/1 creatures if every color has their own Goblin Chainwhirler. It doesn't matter if there are a bunch of great enchantments if...