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A staggering amount of Magic content is published each day each day on a plethora of content sites, blogs, podcasts, and discussion forums. No matter how honest an effort you make, it's easy to fall behind and miss incredible articles because there just isn't enough time to read everything.
To that end, we've collected some of the best articles of the week covering a broad range of topics. If you're looking for articles, these are the ones you don't want to miss!
On Foolproof Magic
Magic is a complex and difficult game. Between the cards that are in play, the cards that aren't, and the sheer number of possible interactions, he amount of information that each player is trying to process on any given turn is staggering. This kind of information overload can lead to mechanical mistakes. This week A. E. Marling shares a few of his strategies for avoiding these kinds of errors. Put some of these tips and tricks into practice and build good habits to avoid Magical mishaps.
GatheringMagic.com: A. E. Marling (@AEMarling) - Foolproof Magic
On Standard Heroics
It doesn't often happen anymore that someone breaks Standard. Ivan Jen may have managed to do just that with his unique take on an aggressive Jeskai Heroic combo deck. Previous iterations have relied on fragile manabases held together by Sylvan Caryatid. Jen's ability tore through the field with its ability to aggro players out and attack for lethal from almost no board position. In this article, Jen details the brewing process that led to his Standard powerhouse and how the deck might change moving forward.
StarCityGames.com: Ivan Jen - Defeating Standard in Oakland
This past weekend was pay dirt for brew masters everywhere. I'm a Johnny, Combo Player at heart. I don't usually play conventional decks but rather "ideas." For me, I like style points and a deck that can win at a moment's notice (the first Modern deck I brewed when I got back into magic was Amulet/Hive Mind, which was right after Seething Song got banned). I'm always looking for interesting mechanics and how to exploit them. The more elegant the deck and concept, the better. Infinites and auto-wins get my gears turning because snatching victory from the jaws of defeat is the ultimate troll move in Magic, more so if I'm in a possibly hopeless position. My local game store in San Francisco calls me the "Mad Scientist" because I like brewing decks. I'd say more like Dr. Fronkenstien (nod to Young Frankenstein). I'd take parts of various successful or failed deck ideas and reanimate them into new shells when cards came out. At my LGS, I played Mono-Red and U/W Heroic when Theros came out, Bant Heroic when Sage of Hours came out (an attempt at multiple turns with Hidden Strings), and Jeskai Ascendancy when Khans of Tarkir came out.
When Jeskai Ascendancy was spoiled and people said it had a combo with Retraction Helix, I knew I had to work on it. I tried the green shell with Astral Cornucopias and Briber's Purse and found it durdled around too much trying to find pieces and the cards themselves did nothing on their own. In the end I decided to give it a try in my old U/W Heroic deck. The difference between that deck then and now was that it got two new cantrips - Defiant Strike (actually new) and Dragon Mantle (new because of the red splash).
On Legacy
Treasure Cruise has had an enormous impact on Legacy, and Commander 2014 may shake things up even further. Before you make the trek to Grand Prix New Jersey, William "Huey" Jensen is ready to break down the format so you know what to expect. From Show and Tell to Stoneforge Mystic, Huey shares archetypical lists of all the archetypes you need to be prepared for.
ChannelFireball.com: William "Huey" Jensen (@HueyJensen) - Legacy Primer for Grand Prix New Jersey
With Grand Prix New Jersey just over a week away, Legacy is once again about to be thrust into the spotlight. There are only a couple Legacy Grand Prix every year, and since Legacy is such a fun format I always look forward to them. Legacy is a very diverse format with a ton of archetypes. In this article I'll give you an overview of some of the most popular archetypes so you'll have a better idea what to expect when heading into the Grand Prix next weekend.
On Three Color Mana
Right now, Standard is all about powerful wedge cards. Jeskai Ascendancy, Siege Rhino, Sidisi, Brood Tyrant, and more - these are are unbelievably powerful if you can manage to cast them on time. The trick is building a manabase that can support as many of these cards as possible. It's been a long time since players have had so many options in a Standard format. Aggressive decks can play painlands and Mana Confluence. Control decks can play Temple of Enlightenment and Tranquil Cove. Even fetchlands have to figure into that somewhere.
In this piece Frank Karsten lends his expertise to helping you build an effect three-color mana base that is unique to your colors and goals. Whether you want to be aggressive, controlling, or something else altogether, Frank's advive will help you make the mana happen.
ChannelFireball.com: Frank Karsten (@karsten_frank)- Protect Yourself
With the abundance of nonbasic lands and powerful three-color cards in Standard, the construction of a good mana base has become quite a challenge. In this article, I will go over the advantages and disadvantages of various lands, provide some guidelines on how many colored sources you need, and illustrate my mana base construction approach with an example.
On Commander Introductions
Commander 2014 is here, and it is awesome! This is one of the most exciting casual products we've had in some time, right along with Conspiracy. These products will bring in a huge crowd of players who are new to Commander, which is fantastic. Except that Commander is a format with a lot of complexity. The rules aren't especially intuitive, unless you've been playing for quite some time.
Over the next few weeks, Adam Styborski will be writing a "Commander 101" series on Command Tower to serve as a stepping stone for understanding the rules of Commander and the basics of multiplayer Magic. If you've got some friends you want to introduce Comander to, pick up some precons and send them to The Stybs.
DailyMTG.com: Adam Styborski (@the_stybs) - Welcome to Level One Hundred
Here's a rhetorical question: How did you learn the rules of Commander?
While you may have found a column on Commander (like this one!) and searched up the rules from there, and some more saw the Commander decks that came out in years past (and this week!), I would wager the vast majority of you were introduced to the format by a friend who already played it.
Leading up to the Magic: The Gathering—Commander (2014 Edition) release, DailyMTG.com editor Blake Rasmussen brought up the idea of taking Command Tower on a detour. Like the phenomenal work Marshall Sutcliffe and Reid Duke brought when they rebooted Limited Information and started on Level One, respectively, going "back to the basics" is the best way to start exploring what something is really all about.
In fact, if you substitute "Commander" for "Magic" in the first few paragraphs of Duke's introductory Level One article, you'd find much of what I'd want to say reintroducing Commander as a format.
While it'd be convenient (and powerful) to lean on others' writing to start over looking at Commander, we can settle for just not reinventing the wheel: Over the last two weeks, I've asked for advice from you and it's going to be used. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.
It's everyone else I'm speaking to now.
On Forging a Spark
Commander 2014 marked the return of a number of awesome characters from Magic's history. One of those was Nahiri, the Lithomancer, formerly Stoneforge Mystic. Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Stoneforge Mystic were awesome friends during Zendikar, but it's been awhile since the team together.
Dave Lee's Durdling Around has featured all manner of adventures with Jace and Misty, and the return of Nahiri promises many more. In his first comic since Nahiri was spoiled, Dave shows his interpretation of how Nahiri came to be a Planeswalker.
ManaDeprived.com: Dave lee (@derfington)- Misty, Destroyer of Canon
