By Paul W. This article aims at analysing the main tendencies in the current highlander metagame. By eluding to top tournament finishes over the course of the last two consecutive seasons, it renders visible the dominant decks as of now. Albeit Highlander being considered an open format free of oppressing strategies, the article attempts at providing a cohesive theoretical explanation on why some decks have […]
Today marks the 1st October, which means the release of a new Ban/Unban Announcement. The Changes read as follows: and are unbanned is banned (The official Statement can be found here: http://www.magicplayer.org/forum/index.php?topic=1319.0 ) Since this should not be a wall of text but a short sunday read, I just decided that every word I spend on the Unbans is one word less I can spend on […]
by PAUL W. During the tournament, I found myself in a miraculous spot. I somehow managed to reach top 8 of my first tournament ever in one of the most diverse formats you can imagine. In this article, I want to share impressions about how I approached the tourney and the process of refining my deck to give back the great HL-community the joy I […]
After going 4-2 with Temur Twin at MGM7 and missing Top8, I decided to go back to my roots and battle with my beloved Jeskai Twin deck. The day before, I was torn between this pet deck of mine and a UW Tempo version, that had been feeling great. The 2 decks felt equally „right“ so I sleeved them both up and took a few […]
Once in awhile you stumble over a card you have not seen in play anywhere and which seems quite good. You test it out and it is most likely not good enough – after all there is probably a reason why you have not seen it anywhere. Sometimes though, it suprises you and you test it further: You think it is „playable“ or at least […]
Before the Tournament MGM6 was no different to MGM5 in regard to deck selection: I was again pretty clueless. Everything I tried – Temur Kiki-Tempo, Esper Tempo, Mardu Lowrange – felt so close to eachother in powerlevel but also had weak spots I couldn’t ignore. I didn’t feel particularly good about any deck really. And that has been a continuing theme of the past few […]
Revisiting Archetypes is one of the most fun things for me. If I build a deck and it feels not quite strong enough, I whisper to it “I will come back to you, don’t worry, soon, very soon” and gently put it back into the Deckbox. And by soon I mean 4-5 Sets, until a few cards get released that grab my attention and remind […]
Hello and welcome to what is hopefully becoming kind of an article series: 8 Cuts. Cutting 8 cards out of an existing deck and replace them with other cards. Why? 1. 100 Cards are a lot and identifying the weakest links is challenging and interesting. 2. I believe it’s hard to be immune to what I call „Staple-Blindness“ – some cards have been part of […]
Mid of February 2016: The 5th Installment of the Metagame Master Tournament Series was coming up and I didn’t know what to play. Absolutely no clue. I had been playing twice a week and was still waiting to feel confident about one particular deck, to have that „click!this is it!“-moment. I had been testing Mardu Midrange, Esper Midrange, Jeskai Burn and everything felt very close […]