Gifts Ungiven

Have you been reading this blog for a while and enjoying my articles, especially those that emphasize building novel deck concepts and developing them over time?

Then you'll enjoy In Development, my new column over at ChannelFireball.com. My focus on this column will be creative deck building and deck development in a competitive play environment - something longtime Gifts Ungiven readers will be familiar with.

...and if you haven't been reading ChannelFireball.com already, why not? We have new articles today from Gerry T, Josh Silvestri, and, naturally, me. Give it a look.

Also, never fear -- I'll still be posting here on all those topics that don't fall within the scope of my column, along with putting up a pointer each week to the column, with a little insight into the column's topic. This week I'm looking at Clarity of Purpose, and how we can tell whether a deck is worth building or a card is worth playing.

Head on over to ChannelFireball.com to read my latest In Development column, Developing a Context. This week, the discussion focuses on giving form to an unplayed Standard environment, and putting together deck lists to face down the challenges of our imagined Standard.

I do recommend reading the whole article rather than just skimming for the deck lists, as the former will be rather more informative than the latter.

Also, on a wholly related side note, Ascension is so far proving to be a house in the G/W Walker build in testing. More on that next week.

My latest In Development, Red Teaming, is up at ChannelFireball.com. This week, I discuss how to give a deck concept a shakedown cruise, and settle in on one control and one aggro build.

Outside of the column, work has been eating my brain a bit in the past couple weeks. Thus the lack of Gifts Ungiven posts. There should be some in the coming days, as even though I'm on a business trip, I finally have some time to do a little more additional thinking about formats new and old, so there may be actual posts.

My latest column, Tensions in Sideboarding, is up. Click on over to CFB to see what is likely to be the only Magic article this week (or quite possibly this year) that uses Excel.

Also read about my first ever competitive misplay, circa Ice Age or so. Have you been killed by the combo the site you're writing for is named after? I have.

Thursday's Daily Deck List at the mothership is the Nayamorphic build that I've been talking about over at ChannelFireball.com. If you'd like to learn how the deck came to be, click here, and if you want some advice on building a sideboard to go with it, click here

I'm looking forward to seeing how much uptake this generates (if any). It's neat, at any rate.

This week's In Development focuses on post-Reflecting-Pool mana bases for 4+ color decks. If you enjoy my posts that are full of analysis and references to older formats, then you'll like A Series of Harrowing Decisions.

This week's In Development is Building Up From Good Enough, and it's all about how we can work to improve a design that's already working pretty nicely. The subject matter these week is Nayamorphic, and at the end of the day we keep some things, lose others, and come out with a better deck.

This week's In Develoment has gone up, and the subject is Building the Enemy - looking at recent deck lists and figuring out how that should influence our own design choices. It also includes a brief tournament report from a recent County Championship winner in the U.K.

I've included some "liner notes" for this week's In Development in this post. Click through to the extended entry to see my current gauntlet, culled from the Decks of the Week data I talked about in my column.

Remember when I reviewed how Gifts Ungiven was used through multiple Extended seasons? This week, I'm pitching the wisdom of doing that kind of review generally as we head into the new Extended PTQ season for San Juan.

In Building Your Extended Reference Library I've put together not only that pitch, but also a whole bunch of links to prior seasons and worked examples of what useful things we can learn from them.

Enjoy.

Yesterday, Jonathon Loucks detailed a novel approach to making a Gifts Ungiven deck by deciding on the Gifts packages first, and then assembling the deck around it.

This week's In Development, cleverly titled Wishing for Gifts, takes a look at my favorite deck, Gifts Ungiven, and the possibilities we can find in a Gifts Ungiven deck with Glittering Wish giving us access to a wishboard.

It's proselytizing time at In Development, with this week's column titled You Should Play in a PTQ. Click on over to hear my pitch for PTQs as a darn good time, first and foremost.

This is a fun little video from ChannelFireball that also happens to show off the Superstars venue. Once a grain storage facility and later an art gallery, it's a giant warehouse-style place with lots of space to play. If you're planning on going to the $10 sealed event this weekend, you'll be playing in that building.

This week's In Development is up, and it's all about my Johnny-tastic time at last weekend's PTQ. Click on over to read about how I ended up losing a tournament but winning at life with the help of a 10/10, a 1/1, and a funky enchantment.

So, this week's In Development is all about those new duals, with a foray into Tectonic Edge as well.

The comments are fun this time around, too. Am I a rare card shill? I think my neglect of Baneslayer says no, but you can be the judge. :)

This is a great interview with Tomoharu Saitou, discussing his Hypergenesis deck with the assistance of everyone's favorite bilingual Judge (and GP Trial winner) Riki Hayashi.

I need to buck up my own language skills; then maybe someday I can help interview a Korean player for CFB. While you all wait for that to happen, I recommend checking out the rest of the excellent GP Oakland coverage at ChannelFireball.

After a week off due to illness, I'm back in print with this week's In Development that's all about GP Oakland.

I had a great time at the GP, but I think I made a fundamental error when I accepted a draw in round four. If you're interested in my take on Gifts, the ground-level GP Oakland experience, or tournament-level strategy, you may enjoy this week's In Development.

Want some Extended tips? Want to see some Pro Tour photojournalism? Check out this week's In Development, where I talk about taking on both of the PTQs held last weekend at San Diego, as well as include some pics and a link to my full, two hundred picture photoessay covering the Pro Tour experience.

I'll be heading off in a little less than an hour to the first flight of the day for the February ChannelFireball 5K down at Superstars in San Jose. If you can make it today, I encourage you to come on down and enjoy some Standard action with the great Superstars crowd while battling for, well, $5K in prizes.

Click here for more information. The main flight today starts at 10am, with a second flight at 4pm, to be followed by the top 32.

Click here to read ongoing coverage of the event. Last night's archetype breakdown is currently posted, with a strong showing for Jund, Naya, and U/W Control.

I'm slowly regaining my coherence this morning after a long day yesterday at the ChannelFireball.com February 5K event. I made top sixteen using a Junk (that is, B/G/W) deck that I'll be writing about in my column this week.

You can see me and the deck in action in the coverage of the Swiss rounds, here. And I do mean, "see," as in addition to being the round two feature match, there's a picture of me playing at the bottom of the page.

If you look at the archetype breakdown for the main flight, I'm the sole "Junk" representative there.

I exited in the round of sixteen (which you can also read about here) after a somewhat harrowing, one-and-a-half hour match against an Unearth deck. I must admit I was not particularly thinking about Unearth when I put my deck together for the tournament. I lost in the round of sixteen to Magic TV host Tristan Shaun Gregson, who was playing Boss Naya.

I'll have more on all of this in my column this week. I had a great time all day Saturday, sparring with the kind of fun crowd I've come to expect at ChannelFireball and Superstars events.

Also, for those who are in the greater Bay Area and also into Legacy, you may be happy to hear that Superstars will now be hosting regular Legacy tournaments. You can read more about that here.

This week's In Development is Stoneforge Mystic Junk at the 5K, which is a pretty straightforward title. I top 16ed our most recent 5K using a W/B/G deck featuring that new lovely Standard power card, the Stoneforge Mystic.

I had a great deal of fun with this deck -- and hey, won some cash, too. Head on over and check it out.

Grant was my opponent in the round of 32, playing the genuinely frightening Unearth deck.

As he describes, his deck just doesn't interact with most of the field. When I realized what he was playing, I had a brief flash of panic before I devised my game plan against him. Our match took an hour and a half, and was by far the longest in that round.

Grant's a nice guy, and I really enjoyed our match - it was among the best I'd had all day.

Video coverage of the ChannelFireball February 5K is up. Here's my match in the top 16 against Tristan Shaun Gregson (of Magic TV fame) playing Boss Naya:

For the record, I didn't have to die that turn in game two. As I mentioned in my column earlier this week, I literally miscounted my mana and, having done so, made the "aggressive" play that made no sense. Ah, well. It was midnight.

I think these videos turned out quite well. Head over to the ChannelFireball YouTube channel to see videos of several matches from the top 32, including the finals, all with quality narration by Eric Levine.

This week's In Development follows up, in spirit, on some of my recent posts. This time around, it's all about how overly broad generalization about what you're playing and playing against will mean that you're (1) making bad play choices and (2) not sure why your game isn't working out the way you'd like it to.

You can read more here.

You can also follow me at twitter here.

This week's In Development talks about sequencing, and then applies it to a revised Stoneforge Mystic Junk list and a Stoneforge Mystic Bant list.

Clearly, I'm a fan of those Kor Artificers.

Click here for the article and click here to follow me on twitter.

Earlier this week I wrote about a Standard $1K this Saturday that plugs into a not-fully described "big" event leading to a $5K down the line. Today, ChannelFireball released the full info:

The ChannelFireball Spring $15,000 Series is a collection of $1K qualifier events spread across a variety of formats, all feeding into a $5K in late June. You can either pay $100 to enter the $5K, or qualify by ending up in the top 10% of the field at any of the preceding $1K events. There are, of course, prizes for winning the individual $1K events (this time around, first place gets a foil set of Worldwake).

Here's the schedule:

March 27th - Standard, $20 entry fee
April 3rd - Extended, $20 entry fee
April 10th - Standard, $20 entry fee
May 1st - Sealed (Rise of the Eldrazi), $30 entry fee
May 8th- Sealed (Rise of the Eldrazi), $30 entry fee
May 15th - Booster Draft (Rise of the Eldrazi), $30 entry fee
May 22nd - Standard, $20 entry fee
June 5th - Sealed (Rise of the Eldrazi), $30 entry fee
June 19th - Standard, $20 entry fee
June 25th (a Friday) - Standard, $20 entry fee
June 26th - The Spring championship, $100 entry fee or qualify via one of the $1K events

Pretty cool. I'm going to be attending at least some of these qualifiers, and hopefully the big show at the end as well.

The ChannelFireball 15K Spring Series continues this weekend, with a brief dip into Extended. Come on by Superstars Game Center in San Jose this weekend for an Extended 1K featuring its own prize pool and qualification for the Spring Series 5K finale for the top 10% of the field.

Here are all the details.

I couldn't make it to last week's Standard event, but I plan on being there this weekend, with an all-new Extended deck along for the ride.

If you can make it to San Jose, come on by and play for prizes, qualification for the 5K, and a chance to see what weirdness I'm bringing this time around.

This week's In Development bears the snappy title Seven Magic Moments, and is all about what we can learn from watching coverage of past events. The pitch is punctuated with my highlight reel of seven favorite Magic moments, and the lessons they contain.

Head on over there, and then hit me up on twitter and let me know what coverage moments are in your highlight reel.

This week's In Development really hit a positive chord with the audience. I'm glad that my most commented columns are the ones where I share my love for the game, whether I'm telling everyone that PTQs are fun are reminding all of us that we're blessed with a wealth of awesome play in the video coverage.

If you haven't already, head on over to the column and check it out, then find me on twitter and let me know what you think.

In this week's In Development I've put on my game designer hat (I have one!) and looked at possible options for keeping Legacy healthy even if you aren't going to reprint some key cards.

Head on over and check it out, then hit me up on twitter and let me know what you think.

I spent the last week testing out new decks for post-Rise Standard, and now it's time for you to reap the rewards from my efforts. Check out this week's In Development for five new deck lists, some field-tested card evaluations, and a smattering of H.P. Lovecraft references.

Check it out here, then find me on twitter and let me know what you think.

It's In Development time again, and this week, that means it's time to revisit the Red Teaming concept and apply it to post-Rise Standard. I've recently revised my Red Teaming approach to remove some roadblocks to innovation that I was experiencing while using the old method. This week, I go over the new method and walk through an example of applying it to a post-Rise Jund build.

Click here to read the article, then hit me up on twitter and let me know what you think.

It's In Development time again, and this week I'm making a Jund list...in the sense that it contains Bloodbraid Elves and the colors black, red, and green. However...

No Putrid Leech.

No Lightning Bolt.

No Blightning.

Srsly.

Yeah, I expect to get some comments, but I'm really happy with this design, and had a blast with it at last week's FNM. How can you not love a turn-four Sorin Markov?

Also, Growth Spasm is an amazing card.

If you want to see how I'm misusing my Bloodbraid Elves, click here to read the article and then find me on twitter and let me know what you think.

It's In Development time this week, brought in under the wire by our crack editors, since I was forced to turn it in almost a full day behind schedule due to travel issues.

This time around, we're looking at how to push a deck design toward success, through our own risk aversion and other natural human limitations. In the process, I highlight two recent successful deck designs, and my own updated BRG Planeswalker Control deck.

I also made a mistake in putting together Consuming Vapors and Bituminous Blast, but about a million people corrected me, so that's fine. :)

Click here to read this week's article, and then find me on twitter and let me know what you think.

This week's In Development is a meditation on how to make getting better at the game fun rather than painful, and why doing so may well make you a better player.

Click here to read the article, and then find me on twitter and let me know what you think.

It's In Development time again, and this time around I'm looking at just how darn fast Standard is right now. Why tap out to cast some dudes when you could tap out to cast some dudes with haste? Right.

If you're getting the feeling that it's all life in the fast lane right now, I'm inclined to agree. I go into that and run out my new Jund list (lists, really - check the comments) right here.

So, click here to read the article and then find me on twitter and let me know what you think.

In Development is back, and this time I'm walking through the steps by which I admit I've delved too deep into the vaults of "cute" ideas and need to pull it back a little to generate a deck that will actually win.

Click here to read the article and then find me on twitter and let me know what you think.

Also, kittens. Well, one kitten. Despite the article title.

This week's In Development features a return to the Junk archetype, updated and revised to fit in everyone's favorite Rise of the Eldrazi card - Vengevine!

Also, we have some Ranger of Eos action and Student of Warfare. Yes!

Finally, this week's column features an awesome illustration by Inkwell Looter.

Click here to read the column, and then find me on twitter and let me know what you think.

This week's In Development is up, and this time around we're taking a look at planeswalkers in Standard. Is the secret answer to Rise Standard "more planeswalkers?"

Well, maybe, and maybe not so much.

I take a look at this issue through the power of my favorite research visualization tool, the scatter plot, as applied to the top 32s from five recent high-level events from both MTGO and paper Magic.

Click here to read the article, then find me on twitter and let me know what you think.

It's that time again!

That's right, In Development time. This week, it's all tools, as I touch on the idea of using abstraction to understand a deck's spine and flow. Using a conceptual tool that I originally came up with to solve an experimental problem in my bio work, I talk about how you can put a little fuzz into your perspective to help you understand new decks, sideboard properly, and tinker without destroying.

Click here to read the article, and then find me on twitter to let me know what you think.

Congratulations to Phil Yam for winning the CFB Spring Series 5K this weekend. You can read the full coverage by clicking here - it includes a good deck tech by Phil about the Mythic build he piloted to victory.

I clocked in at 3-2 on the day before dropping, but since I won't be talking about my tournament experience in this week's In Development, I'm including a tournament report and deck list here.

Click through to the extended entry for both.

It's In Development time again, and this time around I'm talking about a novel concept - making an inventory of your strengths, and then building on those strengths.

We've all heard about how we're supposed to patch up our weaknesses, but empirical studies tell us that what we really want to do - what we need to do - is make our strong points stronger.

Click here to read the article, and then find me on twitter and let me know what you think.

Also, as a bonus, this ties into the late hubbub about "casual" and "competitive" play.

It's In Development time again, and this time around I'm expanding on the popular topic of last week's column - how to play to your strengths.

If we're going to play to our strengths, we're going to have to learn what they are, and that, well...that requires a scientific project! Head on over to the article to read about the project plan, and to learn how you are a critical part of successfully developing an understanding of what makes people good at Magic.

Click here to read the article, and then find me on twitter and let me know what you think.

Today's In Development is up, and it's one of my rare "hodgepodge" pieces, featuring the following three items:

• First, a link to the completed Magic Effectiveness Project questionnaire, along with a request for all of you to help out
• Second, a discussion of Jund and how it assuredly is not dead with the release of M11
• Third, a use for Fauna Shaman that does not live in Magical Christmasland

So head on over to the article, and then, as always, find me on twitter and let me know what you think.

This week's In Development is a big comment grabber already. This time around, we're looking at how we can use an understanding of the texture of a deck (thanks to Chris P for that term) to figure out whether an archetype is likely to fit into the current Standard environment.

Specifically, you're gonna have a chance to check out graphs like this one:

As a brief primer, this is a graphical representation of a Jund deck, using the abstraction method I wrote about earlier. What you're looking at is cards, as abstracted to roles, across the mana curve. Note that one card can equate to multiple roles - for example, I scored Bloodbraid Elf as "Threat" and "Card Advantage" in the Jund abstraction.

For reference, the categories are:

A - Acceleration
CA - Card Advantage
T - Threat
R - Removal
D - Disruption

Now, head on over to read the article, and then find me on twitter and let me know what you think.

Also, if you're attending the San Diego Comic Con, come on by the Magic Panel at 6:30pm tomorrow in room 26AB. I'll be there, and the panel includes both Mark Rosewater and Aaron Forsythe.

Just a quick heads up to all the In Development readers out there. This week's column has been delayed due to 'life.' Hopefully, we'll be back on track sometime next week, although this may be a two-week hiatus.

In the meantime, good luck to everyone at GP Columbus. I'm looking forward to seeing what Legacy has to offer this time around.

It's In Development time again after our brief hiatus, and this week's edition is all about the "rules" of Constructed seasons. Do they exist? Are they format dependent? What are they?

Click here to read my in-depth evaluation of six seasons (two Block, two Standard, and two Extended), and the conclusions I draw from them about the lore we've picked up from the community at large about how Constructed seasons work.

After you've read the article, find me on twitter and let me know what you think.

I have to admit that "X, Y...Profit!" is my favorite linguistic construct to describe a plan where the connection between the initial setup and the desired result is unclear. Of course, I'm throwing that all askew in this week's In Development as I discuss Fauna Shaman decks, where the plan - Shaman, Vengevine, Bloodbraid, Profit! - really does work.

This week's article describes, essentially, the process by which I arrived at my current Fauna Shaman deck. In getting there, we take a look at what other people are doing with Fauna Shaman, what the current Standard environment looks like, and how we might want to readdress our deck's mana base and curve.

Click here to read the article, and then hit me up on twitter and let me know what you think.

So, after a few hiccups following the site relaunch, this week's In Development is up.

After being struck - almost literally, to the tune for 24 damage in one turn - by my helplessness against a Valakut Ramp deck at last week's Superstars 1K, I turned my attention toward picking apart how decks generally interact with each others' game plans. It's actually a nice, if unintentional, companion piece to Luis's Pillars of Standard article. Both try to address the same essential questions:

Why is this matchup good or bad? How can I make it better?

As always, you can click here to read the column, and then find me on twitter and let me know what you think.

It's In Development time again, on my new day, Thursday! This means, of course, that the article is up at the usual midnight Eastern time, so you can go read it now.

In my ongoing effort to become the Studs Terkel of Magic, I'm giving everyone a taste of the answers I've received to the Magic Effectiveness Project survey.

There may also be mockups of famous primate researchers as Fauna Shaman variations. That may be in there, too.

Head on over to see the many faces of "Magic strengths" as relayed in the words of your peers, and then enjoy the convenience of the new, web-based version of the survey. If you haven't shared your stories with everyone, now is the time to do so.

Click here to read the article, and then find me on twitter to let me know what you think.

And, by all means, take the survey.

This week's In Development is up a day early (to fill in the gaps caused by many of our team being in Europe, I imagine). This time around I'm suggesting a way we can help each other improve by "building a character sheet" that describes our friends' play strengths. Also, it's survey time once more as I ask you to do the same thing with members of the Hall of Fame.

As a special bonus, check out that word cloud of cards played by Frank Karsten. Click on it if you'd like to see the bigger (more readable) version. The cloud was generated with Jonathan Feinberg's Wordle, which is just tons of fun to play with. Give it a try.

As always, you can click here to read the article, and then click here to find me on twitter and let me know what you think.