Picks of the Week: November 30, 2014

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.

More Than New Lipstick

The new “new” website went live for Magic: The Gathering this week and it, like it’s previous iteration released in June, was met with lukewarm-to-continuously critical feedback from many. The same underlying organization was there but with what looked like a better coat of paint on the top.

It’s a bit more complicated than that.

Anyone familiar with the site from years prior knows that the core design and structure that was in place before was old, unwieldy, and could pass as “the” definition of late-90’s web design. The change that hit this summer wrecked a bunch of things, including SEO, site search, and RSS feeds. But the one thing it truly fixed was the structure.

The old-old site is often pointed to. “I knew where everything was!” “I can’t find anything!” Nobody, not even I, could argue the site was fundamentally more functional for users. The secret sauce was the backend was far more powerful for the team running it. Think about this: Sometime between the old-new’s launch and the new-new’s rollout last week, a decision was made to change the look, feel, and on-page organization that would also fix several ongoing bugs (RSS, search) and dynamically respond to the browser and interface of each user.

Have you tried looking at the same article on your desktop, tablet, and mobile phone at the same time?

While there’s plenty of improvements to be made, and obvious decision points to debate regarding accessibility and organization of information like player stats and events, the fact is the mothership is more than prepared to adjust and improve. As someone that’s done a lot of reading on a tablet the past year I will say I really like the new site on my device of choice.

I’m just glad the rest of ways to reach it are catching up.

The Very Modern Model of a Modern Masters Set

Modern Masters 2015 Edition is coming and I couldn’t be more pleased to have made my called shot on Las Vegas, Nevada as the US Grand Prix location. I’m excited to meet Heather, take my wife on a trip that will involve spas and pampering, and witness one of the largest gatherings of Magic players in history.

What I’m also excited to see is the commitment to publishing reprint sets focused on accessibility for Modern. With the inclusion of Zendikar and Scars of Mirrodin blocks, we’ll assuredly see the enemy fetch lands long before they come back to Standard. We’ll see Phyrexian mana without another block dedicated to New Phyrexia. We’ll see a sampling of greatest hits for Limited, potentially including another wave of rarity downgrades.

With the “Magic Year” sets going away for the new Standard and block structure coming for 2016, it puts Modern Masters as a truly unique physical product: The closest to a cube as paper Magic will see printed. That future seems awesome.

Enemy of the State

Commander is a complicated format that tugs at the corners of the rules every time I play it. Getting refreshers like the one Judge’s Corner ran on state-based actions is good for those situations when somebody needs to make a reasonable call on what should happen.

I just always pray the rules confusion isn’t about layers.

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.

Limited Resources 262 - History Lessons with Randy Buehler

Let’s be realistic here - it is nigh impossible for your eyes to gaze upon every word written about Magic in a calendar week. Even if you are a regular content consumer there are going to be weeks where other things taken precedence. For me this was one of those weeks.

The good news, though, is that I have about an hour everyday where I am getting to and from work. I use this time to catch up on podcasts and the jet-lag fueled conversation between Marshall Sutcliffe and Randy Buehler really hit home. After an incredibly deep discussion during the Crack-a-Pack (where Marshall and guest open a pack of what is usually the latest set and debate the merits of each as a first pick), Randy just opens up and discusses nearly 20 years of Magic through the lens of draft, pro play, and development. If you have been playing the game for any length of time this is a real treat. I’ve been involved with the cards for almost the entire duration but for a long stretch of time I just jammed games without much thought. Hearing Randy go back and talk about cards and formats I recalled with an eye towards high level play and development helped me to relive my youth through the lens of my adulthood.

That feeling is somewhat indescribable.

Limited Resources is a rich repository of information on improving play without being obtuse. What makes it so palatable is the ease at which the hosts can discuss the topic and impart their wisdom. Listening to this episode leaves an afterimage of though: Randy Buehler is gifted in the realm of game design and the coverage team is better for having him on board.

Arrow - The CW

I have never been an avid reader of comics. At some point in the past decade I picked up a few trade paperbacks of Moon Knight and Iron Fist, attracted to the art, authors, and general non-super status of these heroes. Moon Knight can be described as Batman but with multiple personality disorder and Iron Fist is a fantastic martial artist with some dragon soul powers (Jeskai anyone?). I enjoy it when the ones that are supposed to be powerful are little more than moral.

So when the CW announced they were going to be doing a television series based upon Green Arrow, I was cautiously excited. I had a passing familiarity with the character from a childhood of collecting comics cards (the precursor to my Magic collection) and checking Wikipedia and perusing newsstands. The Green Arrow - a well trained yet normal human - is right in my wheelhouse. If I had one concern it was that the same network that broadcast The Vampire Diaries was going to be the driving force behind Arrow.

My fears were largely unfounded. While the show took a few episodes to find a foundation, once the stones were set everything started moving forward. Very few episodes took time off from advancing the plot in meaningful ways. The characters have complicated and real relationships and there are enough Easter Eggs to keep moderately hardcore fans alive.

Also Stephen Amell (he who plays Oliver Queen) removes his shift on a fairly regular basis. What can I say - the guy is good looking.

One of the most endearing characters on the show is Felicity Smoak. While she does tip-toe around some tropes about hacking and the capabilities of what can and can’t be done with a good computer and the internet, she is perhaps the most nuanced character on the show. In the mid-season finale (an aside: I despise this nomenclature) she steals the show with two lines. In many ways she is the reason to watch the show and the runners know it- they give her great dialog and really play Emily Bett Rickards’ talents and natural cadence.

Arrow isn’t deep - it doesn’t force you to think. It is good pulp fun. A comic book realized on the small screen.

American Steel - Destroy Their Future

My first semester in graduate school was less than ideal. I moved to a new city where I had few friends. The person I was dating was still in college four hours away and a lifetime in New York City meant I didn’t know how to drive. The company I used to ship my belongings from Brooklyn lost only one box, it just happened to contain most of my CDs and nearly all of my Magic cards (my rare binder survived thankfully). My supervisor and I didn’t get along. Somehow I muscled through my assistantship - a job I was required to work for my program- with that supervisor and was able to find solace in two places: classwork and music. I couldn’t even go to FNM - the closest one I found at the time was located in Canada and I was stranded in New York without a car.

I found an internet radio station that introduced me to many bands still in my rotation. I would get to my desk - no cubicle- and take out my headphones. I’d trudge through the day with punk rock blaring in my ears. When the music hit I felt nothing, and that was good. One of these bands was American Steel.

I did my research: American Steel were Bay Area punks that hit their stride in the mid-90s but then worked on different projects for half a decade. Just as I was starting my first semester they released Destroy Their Future. At the time I was listening to a lot of pop punk like Alkaline Trio and Less Than Jake. American Steel blew me away. Their music was gritty and made me feel like I was listening to the Clash for the very first time. The songs were structured and had a cohesive line yet lacked the rote 1-4-5-6 chord structure that was so pervasive on my iPod at the time.

I quickly acquired the album and then went into their past. Jagged Thoughts has two of my favorite tracks of theirs in “Maria” and “Rainy Day,” but Destroy Their Future, man, that one is special. “Hurtlin’” brings a lump to my throat with its chugging acoustic guitar and accordion tale of cross country tour. My standout, however, has got to be “Old Croy Road.” There’s so much emotion there it can only be conveyed in song.

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.

Gauntlet of Greatness – Randy Buehler

When Magic players hang out, there’s only so long they can go before they start talking about what the best players, decks, and cards of all time are. Whether you’re talking about your friends’ busted Commander deck or the new Standard titans, we love to get into absurd hypothetical arguments and make hyperbolic comparisons to prove our points. How many heated discussions have started with “Is Caw-Blade the best Standard deck of all time?”? How many people’s conclusions were “not close”?

Hall of Famer and host of the Vintage Super League, Randy Buehler, is looking to settle these arguments once and for all. Randy is starting an ambitious series of articles where he fills brackets with some of the greatest Standard decks of all time and jams them against one another until there is an undisputed winner. Have you ever wanted to see Jace, the Mind Sculptor versus Necropotence? Bitterblossom versus Lin Sivvi, Defiant Hero? This is your chance to see the boogeyman of Standards past battle for supremacy, and I can’t wait to see what comes out on top.

All About That Jace – Allen Snell

I don’t know where I was when Allen posted this a month ago. All I know is that I love when Magic and media mix, and this doesn’t have nearly as many hits as it ought to. I’ve got to admit that I’m not a fan of Meghan Trainor’s original All About That Bass, but it’s my girlfriend’s favorite, and this parody made me smile. It’s topical, it’s fun, and Allen is a fantastic performer. Even if I can’t get behind the “No Tibalt” sentiment, this was something I had to share.

The Codex Alera

Ever since I was young I’ve loved reading. Math? History? Who cares? I’m just going to read Sideways Stories from Wayside School under my desk anyway. I’ll devour anything. Fantasy, science fiction, historical fiction, mysteries, biographies – there’s nothing I love more than a good story, and there are a lot of them out there.

The Codex Alera was one of my favorite reads through high school and college. Jim Butcher has been one of my favorite authors for a while now, and this was my first introduction to his books. The world is built on themes from Roman military and fantastically fun to explore. The characters are unique, particularly the main character, Tavi. In a world where everyone has super powers fueled by elementals called furies, Tavi is unique only in how ordinary he is. Tavi has no furies of his own, and he has to navigate a treacherous and violent world with only his wits and friends to keep him afloat. The intrigue and action ramps up with each passing chapter and I have fond memories of many sunny spring afternoons spent reading out on the grass because I couldn’t put my book down.

He may be better known for The Dresden Files, but the Codex Alera is a wild ride, and one that I was sad to see end.