"The Gamer's Emporium" - December 26, 2015

Welcome friends,

this week we have a very special guest, and boy does he deliver. Our local store owner joined us this week, and while we had to teach him how to draft Khans, he taught us a thing or two about how to play Magic. Together, the three of us craft a fantastic deck, which does about as well as you might expect. Take a look.



I'd say the main flaw with Mardu is the lack of a late game, but the removal can more than make up for it. It's not that you can't have a late game in Mardu, it's just that everything you add to make sure you can go long takes away from your early agression.

We never played a true control deck, and I don't know what we would have done against a deck full of counters and bounce, but as it stands, we had a pretty good thing going on. Trumpet blast can truely be a blowout with a field full of weenies, and the combo with Act of Treason is absolutely insane.

It was really fun having Shawn there with us, because we all had very different play styles, and often we would have different opinions about what was the best play. At any given time there may or may not have been a right answer, and depending on your top deck, that can change in an instant.

While aggressive decks are known for their lack of options as compared to control decks, the mechanics of Khans of Tarkir (the morph in particular) allows you to keep your options open much longer than it otherwise might.

I thoroughly enjoyed having Shawn on our channel, and if we get a positive response, he may end up coming back.

Thanks for watching, and we'll see you next time,


-Step.

"Way Too Jeskai" - December 19, 2014

I have to appologize for the unscheduled hiatus last week. Our internet would barely let us connect long enough to upload the videos, nevermind review them.

As a result, we're bringing you last week's now! Welcome to our latest Jeskai deck! Drafting it was well worth the lessons learned.

The first thing you'll probably notice is that it's very hard to win games when you're not drawing one of your colours. Even though the draft looked good to me, it turns out that a good deck without a solid mana base isn't a good deck. People have been drafting the common lands a little higher with every draft, and it has become hard to get a hold of them if you're not looking for it.

Another thing to mention is that it pays to reassess the board if it's been stalled for a while. Sometimes things change without you even realizing it. Maybe there's an ability you're afraid of which requires mana to use, maybe someone's about to hit six land and can untap something which has been singing bell struck. This format is both fast and slow in that the board gets developed very quickly on both sides, and stalls into the long game. That being the case, it's important to know where the stall is happening, so you know where your ins might be.

That way you don't accidentally run a creature who suddenly has flying into a creature which has had reach all along.

I think the deck would have been fine if we'd gotten one or two more tap lands, but we'll never really know.

Just a head's up, next week we'll be having a special guest. Sean, the owner of The Gamer's Emporium, will be here to show us how he does it and tell us about his store. We're looking forward to it, and hope you are too.

Thanks for watching, and we'll see you next week,


-Step.

"A Comedy of Garretts" - December 05, 2014

This week we have Garrett on for his very first Khans of Tarkir draft. Never having drafted the set before, he didn't have much to say about our picks, but as usual, he really shone during play. This is especially evident in round three, where he clearly should have been in command of the controls. Enjoy!

Even though our first pick, which pushed us into our colours to begin with, never really came out to play, we made what I think was a pretty superb Temur deck. It had an aggressive curve with some removal, and a couple of big finishers.

I was a little trepidatious about splashing the Mantis rider, but with all the tap lands and the Mardu Warshrieker for white mana fixing, running it was basically free, and it paid off.

Though we had learned not to be greedy after last week, the lesson of  "keep calm" was pressed home to me again this week, as you'll see in round 3.

All in all it was fun, and we'll probably be having Garrett back soon, after he's had some experience with the set.

Thanks for watching, and we'll see you next time.


-Step.