In Defense of Mishra’s Workshop

I wanted my first post back to be about a sweet new deck I’ve been working on. In fact, writing this completely ruins the joke I had set up in the opening paragraph of the primer that was set to go live in a few days. I probably won’t change it mind you because it still makes me laugh, but it’s the principle of the thing dang it! Still, with all of this talk swirling around about a rumored “major shakeup” to Vintage with the Ban/Restricted list announcement that coincides with the release of Shadows over Innistrad I wanted to write something quick and dirty (a.k.a. unedited) that sums up my opinion on what should be done.

Catching Up With Vintage

It’s been a while since I last posted. Schoolwork caught up with me, and because of that I haven’t had much time to even play Magic let alone write about it. The lack of preparation for my events has led to me being in a slump for the first time since the spring of 2012. It also resulted in my first dead last finish in my entire career. While some of it might legitimately be variance, you can’t learn anything by attributing every failure you have to bad luck. So I’m taking my three weeks of Winter Break to rededicate myself to the game, and get back on top of where Vintage is right now and where it might be heading in the future.

It’s a Banned New Day

This past Monday Wizards of the Coast gave me the best belated birthday present I could have asked for:

Eternal Insight Episode 2

Hey all. Due to my schedule (and some writers block), I don’t have a traditional article for this post. What I do have is a two and a half hour interview conducted by Samuel Alaimo for Eternal Central about Team Degen, my Vintage Champs experience/report, and a lot more. Hope you enjoy!

The People’s Cannon

I’ve been waiting to write this post for a long time. As someone who considers himself a deck builder first and a player second, the moment I found this deck back in April I wanted to shout it from the rooftops. Now that Vintage Champs is in the record books I can finally share it with you all. Here it is:

A Call for Restriction

Magic Origins is nearly upon us, and as spoilers pour in the Magic community is buzzing about how they’ll impact various formats. While there are a few cards that are generating some interest from the players of Magic’s oldest format, most of the discussion in the Vintage community is based around something else being released alongside Magic Origins: the Banned and Restricted List update.

A Basic Miracles Primer

As we sit firmly in the middle of June, summer doldrums have gripped Magic. Spoiler season for Magic Origins hasn’t really hit us full force and the formats are pretty well defined in terms of what works and what doesn’t. It’s times like these where it becomes hard to know exactly what to write about that won’t cause you guys to be bored to tears.

Grand Prix Las Vegas Judge Report

Two weeks ago, I wrote a post about what I wanted to accomplish at Grand Prix Las Vegas from a judging perspective. It’s been around a week and a half, and I feel that enough time has passed to accurately go back and reflect on the event.

GP Las Vegas 2015 Vintage Decklists

After five days of insanity, I’m back home from Grand Prix Las Vegas 2015. In my last update, I said the next thing I wrote would be a follow up on the goals I set out to accomplish while judging the largest Grand Prix in history. That post is going to wait until I’m a little more recovered from the weekend. Instead, I’m going to talk about the 48 person Vintage side event that happened on Saturday of the Grand Prix.

Three Goals for Vegas

As of this writing, I am around 16 hours away from stepping onto an airplane that will take me to the largest Magic tournament of all time. Unlike a good majority of the people traveling to this event, I am not going to be one of the 10,000 people doing battle. I’m going to be throwing on my Blacks and helping run the event as one of the many judges that will be on staff.