this is not a kneejerk reaction to the planeswalker points system

I’m not going to write about the new Planeswalker Points system. Yes, it’s a fundamental change to an element of Magic that’s gone mostly un-fucked-with for quite some time now. It also gives us a new number to slap down on the table for all to admire. Is it a good system long-term? I don’t know. It doesn’t rate who the best players are, that’s for sure, but it’s not really designed to do that. Will it drive more people to play competitively more often, thus spending more time and money on Magic? That’s the hope, obviously. It probably will.

obligatory alyssa bereznak response post

The Alyssa Bereznak post is the first true crossover hit between the Magic: the Gathering community and greater nerddom. For those of y’all that have, hopefully, streamed in with millions of your average-joe friends to read this fascinating piece of writing you have before you, what you have to understand is shit like this just doesn’t happen. Magic news is for Magic people. We’re comfortable in our little bubbles and don’t venture outside of them too often unless we’re really hungry and the Burger King is right there.

deck choice (a response to pvddr)

There is a very good chance that you are not Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa. Not only, chances are, do you not have his sweet name, you are not as successful a player as PV. This means that you are under no obligation to choose a deck for your next tournament in the same way that PV does.

BOOK: grinder: the brad nelson story, by rich hagon

(Note: if you're unfamiliar with the book, here's an explanation.)

After the success of Johnny Magic and the Card Shark Kids, it was inevitable that someone within the Magic community would write another book about a pro player with the intention of giving those with no knowledge of the Magic pro scene a glimpse inside this difficult-to-penetrate lifestyle. Potential authors, once they know that Grinder: the Brad Nelson Story by Rich Hagon exists, will probably stay away.

scg writer roundup

Patrick Chapin

Style: enthusiastic descriptions that make no sense whatsoever- so he can be viewed either as a version of Evan Erwin that has played nonzero games of Magic or as a schizophrenic professor that wildly oscillates between theories that won them the Nobel prize a dozen years back and the rantings that had them institutionalized six months after said prize. Talks about levels a lot. Popularized the phrase “semi-soft lock,” often used to describe the feeling of eating a DQ Blizzard.

an awed critique of gerry thompson

Gerry Thompson is one of the most brilliant people that currently writes about the game or builds decks, which is part of what makes him occasionally frustrating for me to read. It’s not because his decks, advice, or general tech is bad, because I certainly haven’t done the weeks of testing necessary to refute something he says. In fact, I’ll go ahead and assume that when Gerry tells the audience a card is good in a certain situation, it really is. Instead, what’s frustrating is that he never lets us in on the underlying theory that would let the plebeians figure all this out for ourselves. Several writers (Zvi, Lapille, most recently Sacher) have referenced the old cliche about learning to fish versus receiving fish, and Thompson seems way on the side of giving out heaps of the highest-quality deep-blue-water savory fish known to mankind and not letting the rest of us even see the boat. Show us the boat Gerry. We want to understand it.