There's plenty to be excited about in this week of Magic. New cards. New bannings. New formats to enjoy. Spectacular content. This week we've got plenty of great Magic content to share, but there's also so much more. From music and book recommendations to games being played at the limits of human reflexes and precision, these are just a few of our favorite things this week had to offer.

Picks of the Week: January 25, 2015

Adam Styborski is Content Manager for Gathering Magic, writer of Command Tower for magicthegathering.com, text coverage reporter at Grand Prix and Pro Tours for Wizards, a Pauper Cube developer, and known curmudgeon.You can find him sharing things on Twitter as @the_stybs.

I spent most of the last week feeling half-dead. A likely victim of the flu, I forced myself to keep up and squeezed in as much productivity as I could between bouts of wrestling with nausea. I only have three picks this week, so expect a return to more usual form when I’m not actively dying next week (I hope).

Super Sunday (No, the Other One)

The Super Sunday Series is a clever little tournament set up and run by many of the organizers of Grand Prix. The idea of having something awesome to play on Sunday after washing out on Saturday – a trip to Wizards for an invite-only tournament with more money on the line – hits a sweet spot for me. While my days at Grand Prix are devoted to either coverage or talking to as many awesome people as possible, the Super Sunday Series is one of the few events I sorely wish I could play in.

While watching it unfold remote isn’t my dream scenario, getting a tease and taste of the new Standard by a combination of powerful pros and everyday players is exciting. While those interested in the hardest hitting reporting and investigation of the changes to the format might find the lack of deck lists unsuitable (I’m sure some will come later!) the sampling of “this what we’re seeing, and why” leaves the rest to my imagination.

I have to say that it’s pretty sexy.

A Vomit Bag is in the Seat Back Pocket For Your Convenience

The days of text-only Magic coverage are long gone. While there are a few holdout Grand Prix – name those in countries and locations where equipment and connectivity is unavailable or prohibitively expensive – and major cash tournaments, there’s hardly a weekend where live video streaming of physical Magic isn’t available. Heck, you could have found Prerelease streams last weekend!

Advancing video coverage requires a lot of things, particularly novel solutions to difficult-to-solve-on-tiny-budget problems. Unlike “professional” sports with multimillion dollar budgets and full access to film crews and equipment, even the best video coverage today is limited by the talent and budgets available. Recent tools, like cards-in-hand on the Pro Tour, are driven by the clever intersection of technology and manpower.

New technologies promise even more down the road.

The new line of GoPro cameras promise broadcast quality capture and streaming connectivity in a nigh indestructible package. Is this the missing piece to bringing cards-in-hand to smaller events? Perhaps not, but every step forward technology makes for consumer use is one further for the potential of watching our niche game a little more.

Want to Cast Treasure Cruise All the Time?

This week saw the fall of Treasure Cruise from every Eternal format. When you’re restricted in Vintage you know something’s up. Fortunately, there’s another Eternal format where Treasure Cruise continues as the force to be reckoned with: Pauper.

Playing with commons may not seem exciting for the uninitiated, but the power and synergy of commons from across the span of Magic’s history isn’t to be trifled with. Are you or someone you know a fan of “old school Draw-Go decks” and loudly complains there isn’t enough card draw and counterspells these days?

Monoblue Delver - Pauper | Silvercherudim

• Creatures (20)
• 4 Cloud of Faeries
• 4 Delver of Secrets
• 4 Ninja of the Deep Hours
• 4 Spellstutter Sprite
• 4 Spire Golem

• Spells (23)
• 3 Ponder
• 4 Preordain
• 2 Treasure Cruise
• 4 Counterspell
• 2 Deprive
• 2 Gush
• 3 Mana Leak
• 2 Snap
• 1 Bonesplitter

• Lands (17)
• 17 Island

• Sideboard (15)
• 3 Annul
• 3 Aura Flux
• 2 Boomerang
• 1 Dispel
• 2 Quicksand
• 2 Relic of Progenitus
• 2 Stormbound Geist

Buy This Deck

Fire up Magic Online and get ready to live in Value Town once more.

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.

Sealed Draft

I am a limited junkie. I much prefer building decks on the fly and having to figure out how to make the most of a curtailed card pool. Draft or sealed; two, six, or eight players - I cannot get enough of the forty card decks and it’s one of the reasons I have built and curate my Pauper Cube. So many restrictions!

That being said I am always looking for new challenges with limited and ways to test out the new inclusions in the Cube. It appears that the Super Sunday Series has a new toy for me to try: Sealed Draft. The concept is surprisingly simple: take three packs and log the contents. Once that is done take three news packs then draft them. It’s so simple and elegant and wonderful.

Mind = blown.

Having sealed act as a preamble to draft creates an incredibly interesting dynamic. Now instead of going in blind drafters will have an idea of potential paths ripe for travel. What once might have been an absolute slam dunk first pick might be relegated to the back of the pack. One of the most enticing aspects of this, for me anyway, is the opportunity to see which cards from my Cube do not make the cut in the more powerful decks. Then I can start pruning them away to make room for updates.

I cannot wait to get five friends together and give this a whirl.

Banned and Restricted

This past Monday Treasure Cruise, Dig Through Time, and Birthing Pod were banned in Modern. I don’t play the format regularly and my main exposure to Modern is as an observer and as an observer I am thrilled.

There are only so many times I could watch a deck burn through cheap spells only to refuel after a Cruise and the allure of Birthing Pod gaining incremental value has worn thin. I for one am eagerly looking forward to Pro Tour Fate Reforged to see what the game’s best can do with a heretofore unexplored format.

The Sidekicks - “Runners in the Nerved World”

When I was in graduate school I tried desperately to connect to different communities. The closest FNM was an hour away across the Canadian border so instead I became more involved in the online Pauper community. For music I was able to find an online radio station that operated out of the very same Canada and a blog by the lead singer of the Lawrence Arms. Brendan Kelly ran (and continues to run) Bad Sandwich Chronicles, and it was through this very not safe for work pop culture observation that I found out about the Sidekicks.

Their first album, “So Long Soggy Dog” blew me away. It was raw and powerful and full of energy. What amazed me was that at the time the lead singer was seventeen at the time of recording. Every album since - “Weight of Air” and “Awkward Breeds” - has shown a marked leap in composition and songwriting. This past week the Sidekicks unleashed “Runners in the Nerved World”.

I am in love.

I can’t quite put my finger on why - the undulating vocals and driving guitars perhaps - but I cannot stop listening to this record. It’s a bit weird and rocks hard, except when it doesn’t. The Sidekicks lull you into a sense of warmth and security with the music and startle you with the lyrics.

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.

Drafting for Nummies

Cubing is one of my favorite experiences in Magic, and the Legacy cube is basically exactly what I want out of a cubing experience. The cards are flexible and powerful, and while there are themes and archetypes, the breadth of interactions is such that you can do almost anything you want. Needless to say, when Magic Online has Cube up, I have a lot of streams with Cube drafts on in the background while I'm grinding away at my schoolwork.

I'm really excited to have Kenji Egashira recording drafts for us. Not only is it just another draft on demand, but Kenji is an awesome personality and a great player. I can stand to learn a lot from his attention to small interactions and willingness to take the paths less traveled and find something new and exciting to do. I plan on learning a lot from Kenji in the coming weeks, and I hope you'll join me for the ride.

Awesome Games Done Blind

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time all but defined my childhood. For the longest time, it was the game by which everything else was measured. It's still pretty high up on my list of best games I've ever played. I've played through the game countless times, and spent many, many hours making sure I had found every secret and finished every quest. It's funny how little I actually knew.

I'm pretty new to the speedrunning scene. I was drawn in by nostalgia, watching awesome streamers like Siglemic power through Super Mario 64 at breakneck speed. I stayed because of people like Cosmo breaking my favorite childhood games in half; showing just how much is possible with enough time, energy, and ingenuity.

A few weeks ago, Awesome Games Done Quick went down in the District of Columbia, and it was spectacular. A collection of the most dedicated and proficient gamers in the country gathered together to play sweet games and raise money for charity? Yes, please. unfortunately, I only caught the very end of the marathon live (don't worry - I'm caught up now!), but it was one of the most incredible things I've ever seen. Not only does Runnerguy2489 work his way through the first three dungeons of Ocarina of Time at an incredible pace. He does it blindfolded. He manages to navigate through the world through a combination of memory, reflex, and using audio cues from his environment. Not only that, but he's able to perform frame-perfect abuses of the game engine without being able to see what's going on! It's a truly incredible feat of gaming for a fantastic cause, and a fantastic reminder of the kinds of unbelievable things that people are capable.

Iron Druid Chronicles – Kevin Hearne

I've had a little bit of a breather from my academic responsibilities over the last week, and I've been using judiciously to catch up on my gaming, writing, and, most importantly, reading. I've always been a big reader, but in recent years I've been neglecting my paperbacks in favor of my other hobbies, largely because it's been awhile since I've found an author I really like. Last weekend I tore through six books by Kevin Hearne, and it was time well spent.

Hearne's Iron Druid Chronicles are fast-paced, quick reads with a little humor, plenty of action, and fun characters with an Irish flare. If you're a fan of Jim Butcher, like I am, then I seriously recommend giving these a shot.