This was an exciting week for Magic. From the Vault: Angels was announced. Decklists for Duel Decks: Elspeth vs Kiora were revealed. The purpose and state of the Modern format was hotly debated. In the midst of all this excitement, Team Gathering Magic would like to share just a few of their favorite things that this week had to offer. From awesome Uncharted Realms flavor to pure modern mayhem, these are our picks for this week.

Picks of the Week: February 22, 2015

Alex Ullman is Associate Editor for Gathering Magic, a renowned Pauper (cube and Constructed) player, and member of the victorious 2009 Magic Online Community Cup team.You can find him on Twitter as @nerdtothecore.

Is it spring yet? I tend to write wherever I can carry my laptop, but the scenery outside every window remains the dreary gray of a Northeastern Winter. I’d love something to break me out of this Ghostfire reality.

The Time I Fell Down a Volcano

Gavin Verhey is a pretty awesome guy. Personally I’ve welched on plans to hang out with him not once, but twice, and we’ve never actually met. His stance on getting out into the Magic community is amazing, and his Tumblr is evidence of that outreach. On top of this he is quite the writer and his time behind the walls of Wizards hasn’t dulled his chops.

This is evident in the blog post linked above. An adventure story unlike any I’ve read, Gavin is able to draw you into his mindset and make you feel excited for the experiences that seem much more at home in a movie than actual life. Maybe it’s because we all know he ends up okay (he is writing the story, after all) that makes it easier to scroll down and see what happens next. It is a testament to his way with words that keeps the story, almost too big to believe, grounded and moving forward.

Full disclosure - I would never do what Gavin did. I recounted this tale to my fiancee, a far more seasoned traveller than I and she remarked she would have stayed in Miami. Gavin earns points (POINTS!) for his unbridled sense of wonder at the world. It’s a rare person who has climbed a glacier and fallen down a volcano, and continues to seek out new experiences. Oh, he also happens to be a force for good in the world.

Gavin, we salute you!

Thoroughly Modern Men: The Problem with Modern versus Leave Modern Alone

In the wake of Pro Tour Fate Reforged there has been much noise made about Modern as a format. The impression I get as an observer is that some people simply aren’t thrilled, as a whole, with the current state of things. The pushed linear strategies are strong enough to complete and demand significant sideboard slots while some decks are pushed to the margins. The ban list looks like a the potpourri category of Jeopardy to some and a masterwork to others. Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa and Matt Sperling take opposing sides of the argument in dueling articles for ChannelFireball.

The discourse is secondary to the underlying truth: Magic is many things to many people. What some see as deficient in certain formats may actually be perceived as a strength by others. I have a personal stake in this discussion as a steward of the Pauper format on Magic Online. As a largely player driven format it does not get the same level of scrutiny as high level formats such as Standard and Modern (or heck, even Legacy). In turn the community has a diverse perspective, some aspects of which I find baffling (with regards to Treasure Cruise, but that’s a tale for another article). Seeing that I am not alone with regards to split decisions on formats is a comfort, however small.

So what can be done? Not to cop out by I am not so sure. The Cube Curator in me wants more detailed articulation from Wizards about format intention and direction. While the development articles we do get are wonderful they only scratch the surface. At the same point I understand that Wizards can’t give away all of their secrets and intentions so some things need to stay beyond the reach of Toto.

These arguments are healthy and show a level of dedication to the game that is sure to keep Magic around for quite a while. I think this logical leap isn’t that daring or made on wings of hope, I just do wish for a day when we all better understand the motivations behind the machinations.

Khanfall

I am no Vorthos. My attempt to make a flavor driven Marrow-Gnawer deck fell apart and turned into another Golgari deck for my collection. While I often find the stories found in Uncharted Realms entertaining I’ve never had them in my “must read” when the Mothership refreshes.

Until Khans of Tarkir.

I don’t know what it is about this story but I find it incredibly compelling. Maybe it’s the way the color philosophies are weaved throughout, or maybe it’s because I find Sarkhan to be a compelling protagonist. Perhaps it’s because Wizards finally found a way to merge the continuity with the game play in a way that speaks to players like me. Regardless, I’ve found myself eager to know what happens next in the plane without, then with, dragons.

Khanfall is just wonderful. Describing a meeting of the Khans in a post-Sarkhan-altered past, we see another moment when everything changes. I won’t get spoilery here as you should definitely give this one a read.

Kelly Digges does a fantastic job of showcasing distinct characters and philosophies in a short story. This is not easy and should be lauded. It is not hard to see the influence of the color wheel on the narrative and the fact that Digges is able to condense such a broad spectrum into a brief tale speaks to the strength of the five aspects of Magic.

It has been a long time since I’ve felt invested in the characters in a Magic set. Not since the Weatherlight saga have I hung on every word. For an old timer like me, well, this is the story gravy.

Carlos Gutierrez is an Associate Editor for Gathering Magic, an engineer-in-training, and a Commander and Pauper enthusiast. By day, he works as a STEM educator, but he spends his weekends hitting all his land drops and trying new board games, puzzles, and video games.You can find all of him sharing Commander craziness, baked goods on Twitter, and complaints about graduate school at @cag5383.

Moderating Modern

Modern is many things to many players, but in the wake of Pro Tour Fate Reforged there have been a lot of questions about what Modern is "supposed" to be, and particularly the role of the banned list in maintaining the format. Is this supposed to be a turn four format, where anything above that threshold is safe and anything that crosses it is promptly banned? Is the banned list supposed to be used as a tool for balancing the format, even when there are already a breadth of viable archetypes available to choose from?

This week we saw no less than four articles detailing the current state of Modern, each with different ideas about whether the format is healthy and what, if anything, should be done to make Modern better. Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa started things off saying that Modern is too dependent on matchups and sideboards. You can play a linear deck or a fair deck, but most of your matchups come down to whether or not you made space in your sideboard for Stony Silence or Leyline of Sanctity. Matt Sperling fired back saying that there shouldn't be a fair deck that can answer all of the powerful linear decks, and that perhaps a more clearly defined definition of what Modern is "supposed" to be is in order. Ari Lax and Gerard Fabiano also shared their thoughts on the format, using their preparation for previous events as a framework.

I didn't start seriously playing or collecting Magic until around Onslaught, so personally, I'm a fan of Modern. It's my favorite constructed format because it has a wide variety of powerful decks, but entirely built of cards that I have evocative experiences with. I'm excited to see a breadth of decks doing well at the highest levels of play. I wish that there were a little more play to the games. I'm tired of various linear, minimally interactive decks. I'm tired of Tarmogoyf plus discard being the the uncontested best shell for "fair" decks. I miss decks like Blue-White Tron occupying a proactive-ish control space in the metagame. I'd like to see Faeries or some other tempo control deck become a thing or for Life from the Loam to become playable again. Decks like this are pushed out of the metagame by powerful splash hate in the form of Stony Silence and Blood Moon, or their inability to stretch their answers far enough to answer everything from Splinter Twin to Karn Liberated to Cranial Plating.

There are a lot of very fast, very linear decks in Modern. Those strategies need to exist, and they need to be good. The fundamental question is whether a good format should have this many linear, proactive decks where matchups are heavily polarized by the presence of all-but-unbeatable hate cards. Personally, I'd like to see games slow down a little more. I'd like to see fewer minimally interactive combo decks and combo-control decks. I'd love to see the return of Gifts Ungiven, Knight of the Reliquary, and other powerful, interactive threats that just can't keep up in this metagame. But is that what the community wants? More importantly, is that what's best for the format? I honestly don't know, but I think this is an important discussion to have, and it's one I intend to follow very closely.

Smash Practice with Zhu and Cactuar

Super Smash Bros. Melee is an old game, but it has a thriving and growing scene following it. The game is monstrously technical, and the learning curve has deterred a lot of players from diving in and finding out what the game has to offer. Two top-level players local to the Philadelphia region, Zhu and Cactuar, are looking to change that with Smash Practice. If you tune in to watch them hang out, try a new fruit of the week, and answer questions, they'll teach you everything you need to know, breaking down the basics, advanced theory, and giving you things to practice to help you pick up the game.

If you've been wondering whether this is the time to get into Melee, I strongly encourage you to give it a shot, and to let this awesome tag team help you find your way.