Freeking Without Flores Part 2

Limited Information author and Star City Games Content Manager Steve Sadin and I pick up where we left off — more or less — with Michael J Flores in talking about the individual cards from New Phyrexia. We look at different decks the cards might go in ranging from 40 card draft decks to 99 card Commander vessels. It is an exciting and deep set with cards that shake up just about every format. Hope you enjoy it!

PS If you are going to be at the Gray Matter Conventions Prerelease in New York City on Saturday, May 7th both Steve and I will be there.

Freeking Without Flores Part 1

Limited Information author and Star City Games Content Manager Steve Sadin and I pick up where we left off — more or less — with Michael J Flores in talking about the individual cards from New Phyrexia. We look at different decks the cards might go in ranging from 40 card draft decks to 99 card Commander vessels. It is an exciting and deep set with cards that shake up just about every format. Hope you enjoy it!

PS If you are going to be at the Gray Matter Conventions Prerelease in New York City on Saturday, May 7th both Steve and I will be there.

Spoiler Alert (or Freeking with Flores)

Still reeling from the news that World Champion Guillaume Matignon and Worlds Finalist Guillaume Wafo-Tapa — along with two other players — were being suspended from the DCI for their involvement in leaking the New Phyrexia “godbooks” out to the Magic community, Mike and I sat down for a cup of coffee to discuss. We were joined mid conversation by Steve Sadin and then moved on to discuss the blue and white cards from the new set that were made public earlier that week.

Look for some permutation of me, Mike and Steve to talk about the remaining colors later in the week.

Carmelo Cast

Anyone who follows me (@Top8Games) or Steve Sadin (@stevesadin) on Twitter is probably aware of how excited we were about the Carmelo Anthony trade that has brought him to the New York Knicks. Anyone who follows Mike (@fivewithflores) knows what a basketball fan he is and it was impossible for us to not get together and chat about the trade, argue about the merits of various players, and — once the dust settled — talk plenty about Magic as well.

The original plan for the podcast was to talk while Mike’s daughter Bella took her karate class. The class got canceled and Bella was available to set us straight on what cards Steve should have played in his deck for Magic Weekend in Paris, who wins in a fight between Jace and Great Sable Stag, and what the best Planeswalker actually is. Here is a hint:

This should have been posted sooner but circumstances entirely within my control conspired to delay it. Shortly after this goes up I will be headed over to Katz’s Delicatessen for what will hopefully become Katz Kast with several dozen Magic players including the likes of out-of-towners Gerry Thompson, Megan Holland, and Gavin Verhey who are all visiting for the SCG Open Series in Edison, New Jersey this weekend.

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

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 2

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 1

I am not so sure how “cool” this is — as was promised by Matt Wang in a previous post — but I did manage to wrangle Limited Information author and Top8Magician Steve Sadin to do a draft walkthrough with me just before Christmas. Steve and I did a couple of these way back when and they were always fun.  I remember a podcasting session where we forced blue-red Storm in Time Spiral block. Using the fancy-pants technology of RareDraft.com we were able to visually record all the draft picks and you can hear our discussion about the picks in the first installment. We also talk about how the draft played out in the second installment.

I have been drafting a lot of MonoWhite or nearly MonoWhite in triple Zendikar and this draft played out pretty much according to that plan. Here is the draft:

Here is where we discuss the draft in two parts:

Sadin Draft Walkthrough Part 1

Sadin Draft Walkthrough Part 2

Finally, here is the deck that we built:

1 Kabira Crossroads
1 Kor Aeronaut
1 Journey to Nowhere
1 Bold Defense
2 Kor Skyfisher
2 Steppe Lynx
2 Kor Cartographer
2 Kor Hookmaster
13 Plains
1 Kazandu Blademaster
1 Brave the Elements
1 Stonework Puma
1 Explorer’s Scope
1 Celestial Mantle
1 Devout Lightcaster
1 Kor Outfitter
1 Burst Lightning
4 Mountain
1 Kor Duelist
2 Nimbus Wings