Power and Toughness—The Return of BR Zombies at TCG Player Spring States
My alarm, a Tibetan singing bowl app on my iPhone, went off not as peacefully as you’d imagine, at 8am. I shit, shower, shave, and head out on my bike towards Kings Games for the TCG Spring States tournament. It’s got a 3x multiplier and, though people are really, really down on Kings, where I … Continue reading
Power and Toughness—15 Minutes Before Bringing It Up
Male Student: [Annoyed] I’m getting a little tired of this. Dr. Peter Venkman: You volunteered, didn’t you? We’re paying you, are we? Male Student: Yeah, but I didn’t know you we’re gonna be giving me electric shocks. What are trying to prove here, anyway? Dr. Peter Venkman: I’m studying the effect on negative reinforcement on … Continue reading
Power and Toughness—I Don’t Like to Touch
Limited is the throw-away collection of formats. There’ s no lasting relationships formed with cards there is in constructed Magic. I’ve been married to Thragtusk and Restoration Angel for about a year. As an atheist it’s incredibly difficult to work with beings of an angelic persuasion but this one has a special touch that flips … Continue reading
Arting Around—The Blur of Dragon’s Maze
It’s sometimes a struggle to come up with content for Arting Around. I tire of “this art’s good, this art’s bad” judgments of taste. I’ve taken to altering my cards with Sharpie markers to indicate my criticism as clearly as I can. Perhaps this will be the subject of a future article. After viewing the … Continue reading
Power and Toughness—I Tried a Bunch of Decks in Standard and It Was Fun
Another unrelenting Internet outage at my apartment has me writing to you on my phone, posting just a few hours before this article goes live, and generally being sloppy. But, hey, I turned 73 years old this weekend, so cut me some slack. (Ed.’s note: Happy birthday, Matt!) I didn’t go to the PTQ in Connecticut … Continue reading
Arting Around—Render Silent and Advent of the Wurm
There was a twelve year-old boy who played baseball, wore through a VHS tape of Ghostbusters, collected trading cards, and had just gotten into comic book art. He drew all the time. At some point baseball cards stopped making sense to him. They seemed kind of like a scam and didn’t *do* anything. Once bought … Continue reading
Power and Toughness—#GPPITT
This thing could easily stretch to 10,000 words so I’m gonna let photographs do a significant portion of the talking. Some of the Hipsters had a testing group going for a couple of weeks leading up to Grand Prix Pittsburgh. Hunter writes brilliantly about it here. I bought a box of Gatecrash, fucking up my … Continue reading
Power and Toughness—Magic: The Onlinening
Fat oaf: So let me get this straight. You’re a CIA agent sent by the Queen of America to deliver this top-secret scooter to the West Pole? Stimpy: “Eh, that’s right. To the big chief spy himself, Stinky Wizzleteats!” I’m not a Magic: The Gathering expert but I like myself a good game of Standard. As of … Continue reading
Arting Around—Nameless Inversion
I’m really turned on by full art cards. The lack of text adds mystery. You’ll probably have to read “I’m really turned on by full art cards” once every three or four Arting Arounds. They’re just the best. The mystery involved in what the card actually does is fantastic. Even when we know what the … Continue reading
Power and Toughness—Jund, Success, Humility, and Byes
When you’re 50 points away from a second bye for the next season, and there’re only two weeks left in the current season, and you’re planning on attending three Grand Prix in the coming months, you end up playing a shit-ton of Magic. There’s no easily accessible PTQ in sight. I dunno if Monique’s going … Continue reading