Come on Innistrad Part 4

After a long break — and an apocryphal ‘cast that never materialized — Michael J Flores and I settled in for a long podcasting session to discuss just about every card in Innistrad. And when I say “settled in” I actually mean it since we opted to podcast from the uneven floors of the Top8Magic offices rather than the windy, jackhammer laden streets of Manhattan. Everybody loves Liliana and Snapcast Mage but what are some of the hidden Constructed gems of Innistrad? The podcast is broken up into five sections going in WUBRG order — with lands, multicolors, and artifacts randomly tacked onto the red section — and we did our best to sort it all out.

Come on Innistrad Part 3

After a long break — and an apocryphal ‘cast that never materialized — Michael J Flores and I settled in for a long podcasting session to discuss just about every card in Innistrad. And when I say “settled in” I actually mean it since we opted to podcast from the uneven floors of the Top8Magic offices rather than the windy, jackhammer laden streets of Manhattan. Everybody loves Liliana and Snapcast Mage but what are some of the hidden Constructed gems of Innistrad? The podcast is broken up into five sections going in WUBRG order — with lands, multicolors, and artifacts randomly tacked onto the red section — and we did our best to sort it all out.

Come on Innistrad Part 2

After a long break — and an apocryphal ‘cast that never materialized — Michael J Flores and I settled in for a long podcasting session to discuss just about every card in Innistrad. And when I say “settled in” I actually mean it since we opted to podcast from the uneven floors of the Top8Magic offices rather than the windy, jackhammer laden streets of Manhattan. Everybody loves Liliana and Snapcast Mage but what are some of the hidden Constructed gems of Innistrad? The podcast is broken up into five sections going in WUBRG order — with lands, multicolors, and artifacts randomly tacked onto the red section — and we did our best to sort it all out.

Come on Innistrad Part 1

After a long break — and an apocryphal ‘cast that never materialized — Michael J Flores and I settled in for a long podcasting session to discuss just about every card in Innistrad. And when I say “settled in” I actually mean it since we opted to podcast from the uneven floors of the Top8Magic offices rather than the windy, jackhammer laden streets of Manhattan. Everybody loves Liliana and Snapcast Mage but what are some of the hidden Constructed gems of Innistrad? The podcast is broken up into five sections going in WUBRG order — with lands, multicolors, and artifacts randomly tacked onto the red section — and we did our best to sort it all out.

Predisposal

Michael Flores and I got together last night to drink some cold brewed coffee from Joe’s, talk about the ramifications of the changes to Organized Play for last weekend’s Magic 2012 Prerelease events, make some suggestions on how to handle Prereleases in the future, and do some brainstorming about potential Standard decks for the upcoming $75K tournament in Chicago.

We also spoke about Pascal Maynard’s winning decklist from the Canadian Magic Tour which is listed below:

ShiftBlade
Pascal Maynard — Winner
Canadian Magic Tour

4 Squadron Hawk
3 Emeria Angel
4 Preordain
4 Mana Leak
3 Spell Pierce
2 Sword of Feast and Famine
2 Gravitational Shift
2 Gideon Jura
2 Jace Beleren
2 Dismember
2 Into the Roil
2 Journey to Nowhere
1 Gitaxian Probe
1 Deprive
4 Seachrome Coast
4 Celestial Colonnade
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Inkmoth Nexus
4 Island
3 Plains
2 Arid Mesa
1 Scalding Tarn
Sideboard:
4 Flashfreeze
3 Day of Judgment
2 Celestial Purge
2 Spellskite
2 Mental Misstep
1 Dismember
1 Divine Offering

Mike also mentioned an old interview he did on SCG which is linked here.

The A-B-Sieged of Mirrodin

A couple of days ago MIchael Flores and I sat down and the new Top8Magic.com offices and started talking about the cards in Mirrodin Besieged in anticipation of the coming Prerelease weekend. The podcast is largely traffic and jackhammer free but there is a section toward the end when we go and play in traffic. We wander through the at-the-time spoiled cards and talk about their impact on formats ranging from booster drafts to Standard and even a little Commander (although, to be fair,  that discussion included a lot of MIke saying “What is Commander?”)

Good luck to everyone playing in a Prerelease this weekend and choose your side wisely!

Mike and I will have a four part podcast going up over the weekend where we discuss this card and a handful of the other cards that have been officially previewed thus far (*cough*Koth*cough*) but I wanted you to get a look at Painsmith in the meanwhile.

This is going to be a brutal card in Limited with any one-drop Infect creatures that might be lurking, unspoiled thus far, in the new set. With Infect the Painsmith will be crafting far more than two damage if the enhanced creature gets through. Keep in mind that dealing in poison counters is effectively dealing double damage to a player — this is not The Sliver Kids kind of poison counters. +2/+0 represents 20% of a players life total when dealt in poison and that is not even counting the base damage that the creature is doing — and it is not accounting for playing more than one artifact in a turn.

For Constructed… I am not so sure about this one although she can do some filthy stuff in a black-green deck that also has Carapace Forger and Ezuri’s Brigade — especially the latter. You can hold back your artifacts, play them out to turn on the Metalcraft of the Brigade and attack for 10 or even 12 points of tramply, deathtouchy goodness. If you can just find a way to bounce and replay your Memnites over and over again you can create a lethal attack out of nowhere but I will be content to use this guy as a Rancor-ish effect that keeps dealing and dealing as long as I can play artifacts.

Tune in over the weekend to get MichaelJ’s take on this card and a handful of the others.

Enjoy this long podcast with BDM and Flores as they provide a recap of US Nationals!

US Nationals Recap with BDM and Flores

I know it has been a while since the last set of cast but with cards flooding into the M11 Visual Spoiler page on the mothership Mike and I got together, with a special guest appearance from the hirsute Steve Sadin, to discuss Conundrum Sphinx and his spoiled friends from M11. It was a fun set of ‘casts to record as the three of us have not done anything together in quite some time and there were plenty of exciting cards to discuss. Topics of discussion included the tournament worthiness of Sphinx of Jwar Isle, which cards will win the most money for the rest of the year, and which cards seem like they are being overrated (Hint: It rhymes with with Rhyme Dispersal).

Make sure to check the Visual Spoiler page and the various weekly columns for the rest of this week and next as more cards are revealed every day. And of course, don’t forget to make your plans for the M11 Prerelease in a little over a week.

Sphinx or Sub-Sphinx? Part 4

I know it has been a while since the last set of cast but with cards flooding into the M11 Visual Spoiler page on the mothership Mike and I got together, with a special guest appearance from the hirsute Steve Sadin, to discuss Conundrum Sphinx and his spoiled friends from M11. It was a fun set of ‘casts to record as the three of us have not done anything together in quite some time and there were plenty of exciting cards to discuss. Topics of discussion included the tournament worthiness of Sphinx of Jwar Isle, which cards will win the most money for the rest of the year, and which cards seem like they are being overrated (Hint: It rhymes with with Rhyme Dispersal).

Make sure to check the Visual Spoiler page and the various weekly columns for the rest of this week and next as more cards are revealed every day. And of course, don’t forget to make your plans for the M11 Prerelease in a little over a week.

Sphinx or Sub-Sphinx? Part 3