Did you know there’s a way to get free Steve Argyle swag? Did you know that yours truly is an Official Minion and that I got my membership package the other day and it was beyond awesome? Piles of shiny tokens, an Ascended Minion Project sticker, and my personal Minion card complete with a by-request sketch of Liliana plus cocktail—with bonus cheeky and gratuitous fantasy boobage! If you’re not foaming at the mouth already, you will be by the end of this article.

I'm a huge proponent of having a favorite set of lands. Being a Painter’s Servant, I like to give some tips on ways to improve your game in both a practical way and in an aesthetic way. I never seem to cover them enough in set reviews because you need them at high-resolution size to objectively see them. Often, there's a slightly larger image on the Wizards site, and the artists will rarely put the images on their blogs.

I think lands are underrated tech. Folks who bring their own lands to a Draft or a Sealed event save the precious minutes in deck-building because they have their own, presleeved and ready to roll. I've had numerous times, especially in Team Sealed, when I need every second to conduct deck-building. For those of you meeting me in Portland in a few short weeks, have your own lands ready and sleeved!

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I find the consistency to be rather pleasant to my Vorthos eye. I don't like seeing odd mismatches below my creatures. The strategy of playing white-bordered lands to put the opponent on tilt or of keeping the lands above the creatures isn't my jam—it's just disorderly. Though, if a land you love is only in white border, make it work!

Today, I have one of each land you might have overlooked—they're stunningly great artworks.

--Albert Einstein

Einstein was unfortunate to have been born in 1879, and therefore, never even had the opportunity to play tournament Magic. I say unfortunate because I'm fairly certain he would have been able to be an elite level tournament player. I would even speculate that he would have been good enough a spell caster to win on the Pro Tour.

While many of Einstein's tremendously insightful quotes obviously were not intended to apply specifically to Magic, like all insightful quotes, they tend to be true about any number of subjects.

Today I am going to talk about the insanity that is making the same mistake over and over again. On the surface, it seems like a fairly rudimentary statement:

"Don't repeat your mistakes!"

"Okay Einstein, thanks for the totally obvious advice..."

Unfortunately, while the principle is solid, the logic is undeniable, and the concept is undeniable individuals (myself included) time and time again fall into the exact same pitfalls and do not heed this advice as steadfastly as we ought to.

Hello! I hope that you are enjoying another blast of Core Set fun with one of the more interesting sets we've seen in a while!

I've had a Commander Cube for about fifteen months now. For the first year, I played it intermittently. However, recently, the Cube has gotten a lot of play. As a result, I've noticed more issues and discovered opportunities to make a lot more changes. First of all, we get to add in Magic 2015 cards! Secondly, I now understand the Cube a lot better and the cards that I have. Therefore, I've been working hard to massage and enhance it.

I suspect that the release of Conspiracy (a multiplayer draft set) has fueled the desire for people to play Commander Cube (also a multiplayer draft set).

I've written a pair of updates recently on the Cube. One wasafter a year and then another was post-Conspiracy. Despite those, we've already made a bunch more changes to the Cube, and I thought it would be fun to let you in on these changes now. Additionally, we can look at what cards from Magic 2015 are good enough to make the cut!

I tend to think of deck lists as snapshots in time of the 75 cards I want to play for a specific event, though there are parts of a deck that are typically found across a number of those events. In other words, some parts define the core strategy of the deck, while others are meant to fine-tune it for the specifics of what you expect to play against in a given tournament. Finding the core you want to play is the part of you that represents a deckbuilder. Finding the last 10 slots is the deck tuner in you.

Obviously I didn’t come up with the strategy of UR Twin, my contribution to this list is as a tuner. I’ve given Owen Turtenwald most of the credit for this deck list, as he was the person who inspired me to play Twisted Image, and it all snowballed from there.

Sideboards are controversial. Some writers spit out long, intricate sideboard guides. Other writers omit guides entirely, feeling they teach bad habits.

Guides have their place. Not everyone that plays Magic has time to test all the matchups and figure out what works and what doesn't. While we do play more post-board matches than preboard, jamming preboard games is more useful for learning a new deck.

Even the most clear-cut decisions aren't necessarily clear to someone who hasn't played the archetype before. For all they know, those six cards that look bad against control are necessary to how the deck functions, and can't be cut under any circumstances.

On the other hand, guides set a bad example in their rigidity. Often, the "correct" way to board for a specific matchup changes when the opponent deviates from the stock list. Other times, the guide itself is imperfect due to human error, or maybe it's outdated due to some new MTGO technology.

An opponent's behavior should influence sideboarding decisions. Consider Daze. In general, it's a good idea to shave Daze on the draw and leave it in on the play, because the card is better when you're a land drop ahead. However, if the opponent jams every spell into it, it's correct to leave them in on the draw. Similarly, if they religiously play around the card, it's correct to cut them on the play.

There's an Esper Blade player that I always shave Wasteland against, even though it's crazy to cut that card against a tricolor deck. The player in question will take pains to fetch basics against tempo decks, and he very rarely has a nonbasic before turn five, bricking Wasteland for the most part.