Blake is the content manager for DailyMTG.com, making him the one you should email if you have thoughts on the website, good or less good (or not good). He's a longtime coverage reporter and hasn't turned down a game of Magic in any format ever.
The Daily Magic Update is a roundup of everything Magic you should know on October 23, 2017. Today's Update is brought to you by old cards, spooky cards, and Humans of all shapes and five colors.
There were rumblings. Musings. Articles, even. That Humans, of all things, were poised for Modern breakout. And break out they did. Check out the Deck of the Day for more on the winning deck, but also check out this Top 8 for 7.5 different archetypes (Death and Taxes and Eldrazi and Taxes are quite similar). Also check out the replay on the SCGTour video archive page.
So we crowned not only a North American Legacy Champion, but Vintage as well, as the yearly Eternal Weekend did its thing all, um, weekend. There is a ton of video coverage to comb through, so check it out here or head to the Eternal Weekend site for text coverage of both Vintage and Legacy tournaments.
Marshall Sutcliffe, the busiest man in Magic, has launched a new segment on his channel MTG Breakdown called, well, MTG Breakdown Rewind, where he has pros relive some of their most famous matches and provide commentary over them. For the debut, he rubs salt in the wounds of talks with Reid Duke about his famous 2nd-place finish at the Magic World Championship in 2013.
Chewie and the Dorks rage against so-called "Nerd Rage." Well, they don't rage. They politely discuss and provide reasons against raging. Which I guess is the opposite of rage.
We've reached that part of the format where things get weird. People have had enough time to experiment with the format after learning the ins and outs of the more normal archetypes; now the oddball strategies are being developed. So learn from Kowalski how to draft black-green explore decks, white-blue fliers decks, or, my favorite, mono-blue burn. (Note: that last one is not an actual archetype. Attempting to draft it will not go well.)
Search for Azcanta is so very good, it's starting to get some chatter in Modern. Briksza shows you how, but first you have to say his last name three times fast. Good luck.
It's a long video podcast, but an enjoyable one, as Mr. Tutor (can I call you Booster?) and co-host Lady Janey J are both charming, fun personalities. The podcast has a more casual/fun/intermediate-level bent, and is definitely enjoyable for anyone at that level. Below you can find the fifth episode, released just over the weekend.
Magic Online is flashing back to original Innistrad this week, one of the most celebrated Draft formats of all time. You can check out more details here, but if you're already just counting down the days, this Reddit thread has some pretty good advice to people who've never played the format before. And, yes, the top comment is about Invisible Stalker plus Butcher's Cleaver.
Sure, Green-Blue Merfolk gets all of the Ixalan-related press in Modern (and another copy finished in 3rd place this past weekend), but Humans has quietly become the new tribal darling in the format. And thanks to Collins Mullen, it now has an SCG Open title to its generically tribal name.
Mullen literally played 36 creatures and 4 non-creature, non-land spells in his main deck—and those four spells were Æther Vials, which just let him cast more Humans. He even ditched Collected Company, which many tribal decks lean on. Heck, his entire sideboard was creatures, and every last one of them was a Human. It's like someone bet him he couldn't play a deck with 51 creatures all of the same creature type between main deck and sideboard.
Ixalan even had two important additions to the deck despite Humans not actually being one of the four tribes traipsing around that set. Kitesail Freebooter adds to the list of disruptive Humans to go with two versions of Thalia, Meddling Mage, and Reflector Mage that really let the deck play a Death and Taxes–style game without the mana denial.
Then this gem allows the deck to go wacky with five colors:
Between this and Cavern of Souls and Ancient Ziggurat (now you see why no Collected Company), the deck has really no issue casting Humans of any color. And since Humans is such a ubiquitous tribe, I can only see this one getting stronger.
The Daily Magic Update is a roundup of everything Magic you should know on November 28, 2017. And one big thing you should know is that this will be the last Daily Magic Update ever! Don'...
The Daily Magic Update is a roundup of everything Magic you should know on November 27, 2017. Today's Update is brought to you by Grand Prix Lyon! With the World Magic Cup so close, the t...
