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This Week in Magic #4

By Trick Jarrett ⋅ November 20, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment ⋅

Hello folks and welcome to another round up of great articles and blog posts from around the Magic metaverse. It was requested that I provide a list of the sites I trawl looking for nuggets of awesomeness, I append that list at the end so scroll on down if that is what you’re looking for.

Monday, 11/16/09

• Wizards.com – Announcing: Rise of the Eldrazi – Simply so that we can stop hoping the set name is different, I was overjoyed that the set was released.
• AffinityForIslands.com – Power vs Consistency – An excellent exploration into the topic about the trade off between power and consistency in decks.

Tuesday, 11/17/09

• ManaNation.com – Magic’s Next Year – Trick looks over the upcoming sets, the unannounced block, and speculates on some of the things coming in Magic’s future.
• ManaNation.com – Ben’s Smash into the Red Zone – A very fun EDH deck and article by Ben McDole.
• StarCityGames.com – The Long Winding Road Legacy Metagame Analysis – With so much attention showered on Standard, Legacy can be a nice change of pace and this is an excellent overview of a store’s Legacy event Metagame.
• BlackBorder.com – Standard Roundup – By Joel Calafell, he gives an excellent overview of the metagame for Standard (pre-Worlds)
• Gwafa’s Bazaar – Accepted Value – I enjoyed the brief discussion about the ethics of a trade and the value of cards.
• MTG Metagame – The Beginning – Tricks of the Trade – Another fun human interest-ish story about one player’s entry into Magic, his plan setting, and going ‘infi’

Wednesday, 11/18/09

• ManaNation.com – Magic : the Classroom – Testing Prep – Dan explains what he does with his students to support limited play on a very tight budget.
• ManaNation.com – Can Vampires Compete in the Current Standard? – A guest article submitted to us, I liked this article for its take and perspective as well as the final list it provided.
• StarCityGames.com – The Kitchen Table – Yet more stories from the Three Kingdoms – I didn’t do anything with Three Kingdoms when it came out, so I greatly enjoyed this look into the inspiration and history behind it.
• theStarkingtonPost.com – Quiet Speculation 12 – Kelly takes a look at an interesting Standard deck that has been making the rounds, though admittedly it didn’t make a showing at Worlds.

Thursday, 11/19/09

• ManaNation.com – Catching Lightning in a Bottle – Kelly discusses how you can follow tournaments and utilize that knowledge to better invest in Magic cards.
• ManaNation.com – Off the Beaten Path – Three Pyromancers – Sam explores three alternative Standard decks around Pyromancer Ascension.
• Wizards.com – Worlds 2009 Round 3: Wise, Mise, or Otherwise – I greatly enjoyed this match report as it included the banter between Matej Zatlkaj and Kai Budde.
• Wizards.com – Level Up – A fun post on the coverage blog that looked at the Pros and how they needed to perform to attain the next Pro player level for 2010.

Friday, 11/20/09

• ManaNation.com – Drafting with JBoots Zendikar #5 – Jon Boutin is competing in Rome at Worlds but he still found time to send us this draft video series.
• Wizards.com – Look Out, R&D! It’s a Trap! – Matt Place shares some insight from R&D about what they face and what traps they avoid.

Now, onto the list. All in all I scan nearly 30 websites either via regular visits or using RSS feeds. Then I collect the week’s articles I enjoy, find enlightening, or interesting in my bookmarks to later be assembled into this post. Sometimes posts don’t stand up to the second viewing and so get cut as I write the article, though not often.

Article Sites:

• Wizards.com
• ManaNation.com
• StarCityGames.com
• ChannelFireball.com
• TCGPlayer.com
• MTGSalvation.com
• Blackborder.com
• PureMTGO.com

Blogs:

• 5 Color Control.com
• CasualMagic
• MTG Rares
• Five with Flores.com
• MTG Color Pie
• Magic Malaysia.com
• Mister Orange Productions
• QuietSpeculation.com
• theStarkingtonPost.com
• GatheringMagic.com
• Show us your Noobs
• Magic Lampoon.com
• Planeswalker Stronghold
• Affinity for Islands.com
• Gwafa Hazid
• MTG Metagame
• Otherwoldly Journey
• Wrong Way Go Back.com
• The Jitte.com
• MTG Drafter.com
• MTG Realm
• Death mark
• Dragon Guardian.com
• Cube Drafting.com
• DCI Family.org

You will note that Podcasts are not listed here, that’s because the truth is I rarely have time to listen or watch other podcasts. I do my best but nothing is regular enough I feel confident in listing here. I’m working on it :)

– Trick

Editor of ManaNation.com, Patrick "Trick" Jarrett loves Magic. He's played it since 1995, he's written about it since 2003, and he's run ManaNation.com since 2007. He writes about and covers Magic: The Gathering for a living.

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