Drafting Magic 2013

Magic 2013 was the draft format I got started with on youtube. I have liked it the best of all the core sets.

Its the flashback draft format happening right now on Magic Online. Try it out. You might enjoy it.





A couple of tips

1. It is a very midrange format. It is hard to be super aggro but it does work from time to time.
2. Exalted is real. This is one of the reasons for tip #3.
3. White is the best color.
4. When you go black and it is open - go heavy black! The shade works.
5. Red comes with good burn and mediocre creatures.
6. Friendly color combinations work best.
7. You need strong uncommons to do well with blue. However, the uncommons are very strong.
8. One toughness creatures die easily. If they don't, they are very good.  Consider sideboarding them out against Red.
9. Creatures with enter the battlefield effects are awesome.
10. Green is a stronger color than usual.

The pressure

A feeling of pressure during a tournament could totally ruin you and your performance. How to deal with it? Read on to find out.

• Keep expectationes low. Don't visualize yourself holding a trophy just after winning four rounds. Simply do your job and play to your maximum ability.  So focusing or worrying about results when you are playing is pointless. The more expectations you take with you into a tournament, the more mental weight you will have piled on your shoulders each round you play.
• I bet you feel very comfortable during FNM, but why many players get nervous in Grand Prix event? The game is the same. Rules are the same. You played Magic bazillion times before and you are not doing anything different than what you have done many times before. Perceive every game of Magic as a kitchen table game. It is just Magic.
• Paired against local pro player or worldwide fameous name? 'Hell no, I'm surely doomed.' Is it really true? While playing against a newbie, does it mean you are giving him adventage? Definately not. You are trying to win a game at any cost. Either your opponent. Don't pay attention against whom you are playing. No matter if it is pro player or potentially worse player than you are. Pay attention to matchup and state of board, instead. 
• Losing is a natural thing. It doesn't mean you are a bad player. The sooner you realize it, the better it is for you. A new dawn will come and so the new tournaments. 

Tom Ross wins SCG Modern Open Columbus with Tron

Tom Ross won the SCG Modern Open! Great job! But it was not RG Tron. It was GW Tron!

Why would you give up the best dual land in Modern to play white instead of red?

Well, there are a couple of reasons.

First, lets have a look at the deck.

Main deck
4 Ancient Stirrings
1 Brushland
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Chromatic Star
4 Expedition Map
1 Forest
1 Ghost Quarter
4 Karn Liberated
3 Oblivion Stone
3 Path to Exile
3 Razorverge Thicket
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Sanctum of Ugin
1 Spellskite
4 Sylvan Scrying
2 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
2 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
4 Urza's Mine
4 Urza's Power Plant
4 Urza's Tower
2 World Breaker
2 Wurmcoil Engine


Sideboard
3 Blessed Alliance
1 Ghost Quarter
3 Nature's Claim
1 Ravenous Trap
2 Rest in Peace
2 Thragtusk
3 Warping Wail

The idea of playing GW instead of GR is not new to Tron players. The main reason has been Path to Exile. Get a powerful spot removal spell instead of  Pyroclasm - should work well in certain metas. Timely Reinforcements also was a staple in the GW Tron decks. This is noticeably missing in Tom Ross's list.

As the author of the Modern Bible of RG Tron I have never advocated GW Tron. Today, I might have changed my mind.

Modern Bible or RG Tron: http://mtgolibrary.blogspot.se/2015/02/the-modern-bible-of-rg-tron-part-1.html

The answers are all in the sideboard. Rest in Peace seems a much more powerful answer to Dredge than Relic of Progenitus. Blessed Alliance also swings the troublesome Burn Match in a way the older sideboard cards just never did. 

Also, it helped that Blood Moon decks are very popular. Contrary to popular belief, Blood Moon is not very effective against Tron decks with Oblivion Stones, Ugins and Karns.

Amazing deck choice, Tom! One day I may even consider playing Warping Wail which I am still on the fence about. 

Treasure Chests in paper Magic

From November 26 through December 17, stores around the world will be able to host Standard Showdown tournaments on Saturdays with special promotional prize boosters earned through undefeated play. Apart from performance, Wizards suggested distributing them as prizes for new players.

Stores will receive 40 prize boosters (ten for each event). Additonally, stores can also get 44 Standard Showdown Boosters to use as buy-a-box promos over the holiday season. Each purchase of a Kaladesh Booster Box will get you two boosters and each booster contains three-cards:

• one premium Standard legal card, including Zendikar Expeditions and Kaladesh Inventions, not including double-faced cards.
• two Standard legal rares or mythics (Battle for Zendikar through Kaladesh, excluding Oath of the Gatewatch and double-faced cards).

Zendikar Expeditions and Kaladesh Inventions appear in roughly 1 in 33 boosters.

Penny Dreadful - a new super cheap format on Magic Online

What would you say if I told you there is a format where you can play some super powerful rares and a deck costs less than 75 cents? Well, now there are.

Penny Dreadful is a new player run format on Magic Online where every card in the format costs 1 cent or less. That's the rule. There is - to my knowledge - no ban list. Every card on Magic Online that costs 0.01 or less is legal in your deck.

The format self-regulates, as a deck that dominates the format will increase in price slightly and become illegal by the next rotation. There is a rotation upon each new set release on Magic Online.

In a format where the staples will cycle with every set release, brewers take center stage in a race to define the next meta. At less than 1 Tix per deck, no card is out of your budget!

Mechanics that weren't quite powerful enough to compete in Modern and Standard are now king in Penny Dreadful.

Now I just have to figure out how to find someone to play with without joining the clan. 

Yes, its the ship! Treasure Cruise is legal in Penny Dreadful!

Best way to find matches is probably to join the Penny Dreadful clan on MTGO.
The Penny Dreadful web page: http://pdmtgo.com/ 
The Penny Dreadful Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/PennyDreadfulMTG/
Gatherling.com runs a weekly tournament on US-friendly hours: http://gatherling.com/gatherling.php

Changes to Magic Online Events

Wizards has announced several changes to the way Magic Online events work.

* Competetive draft leagues are added. Single elimination events. Better payouts.
* Existing 6-2-2-2 draft leagues renamed "Friendly Draft Leagues"
* Prestive Avatars added to show how awesome you are through your avatar.
* Treasure Chests get better cards and EV goes up about 50 cents per chest.
* Treaure Chests will become tradeable
* C16 and Conspiracy: Take the Crown cards added to treasure chests

Full announcement by Lee Sharpe here: http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/magic-online/magic-online-event-updates-november-2016-11-09

Disable User Account Control In Windows 10

On Microsoft Windows 10, User Account Control ('UAC') prevents applications from making certain changes on your PC. Some applications try to change system-related parts, such as the Registry or the file system.

ML Bot is one of these applications because, in order to manage Magic Online and uninstall / reinstall it, the bot needs to access the file system (the "files on your hard drive"). If you don't disable UAC, ML Bot will not be able to perform certain tasks on Magic Online and in particular to repair MTGO in case of crash. As result the bot will work fine until MTGO crashes. At this point ML Bot will not be able to handle the crash and recover.
Please note that on a stable machine this will hardly happen and keeping the UAC turned will not affect you however typically this is not the case, MTGO is very unstable and crashes often and turning off UAC is mandatory.

Here is how to disable UAC and get rid of its popups in Windows 10.

Step 1
Firstly, right click on the “Start” button and select Control Panel option.

Step 2
Select "view by: large icons"

Step 3
Select the User Account option.

Step 4
Select the 'Change User Account Control setting' option

Step 5
Select User Account Control settings, and move the slider to the bottom (Never Notify). If the slider is already at the bottom (Never Notify) then move it up, release the mouse, move it down again to Never Notify and release it. Click OK.

Step 6
When you click OK the new dialogue box is open. Click YES.

Step 7
At this point UAC should be disabled. You will need to restart your PC. Once restarted, launch ML Bot using the icon on the Desktop,  if you completed the steps successfully the bot will launch without UAC. If you still see a request dialog from UAC, you did not disable UAC and you need to do again the steps above. If the problem still persists, please contact us via email at staff@mtgolibrary.com or mtgolibrary@gmail.com