Joshua Justice takes a closer look at rares mythics and playable commons and uncommons with his set review of Innistrad.

The post Innistrad Set Review first appeared on Quiet Speculation.

Joshua breaks down the new Planeswalker Point system, analyzing what these and the SCG Open Series changes mean for you.

The post Planeswalker Points and You first appeared on Quiet Speculation.

Dragon*Con is a convention in Atlanta over Labor Day weekend. This year's Gaming Guest of Honor is Magic's very own Richard Garfield, Ph.D. This year, for the first time that I know of, there will be a proxy Vintage event at Dragon*Con, one of the few Vintage events in the South. We're all hoping this […]

The post Vintage Metagame Primer, Part Two: Workshop and Blue first appeared on Quiet Speculation.

With Magic 2012 recently hitting MTGO, we finally got hard data on what the new metagame looks like, which you can see over on TCGPlayer. I dislike Caw-Blade and Valakut, and I utterly refuse to play monored into Timely Reinforcements, so I was set on playing Pyromancer Ascension and built the deck on MTGO myself. […]

The post Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Cheaper: SCG Richmond 19th first appeared on Quiet Speculation.

Joshua examines the Vintage format and provides a look at proxy strategies for deckbuilders on a budget.

The post Vintage Metagame Primer, Part One: Combo first appeared on Quiet Speculation.

In this article, Joshua explains how to do the standings math to determine if you can draw into top 8.

The post Understanding the Standings first appeared on Quiet Speculation.

If you haven't yet, please enjoy Part 1 of Josh's M12 Set Review, the Mythics and Rares, here! Note: I write set reviews from a tournament player's perspective, not a financial perspective. As such, I try to approach new set releases with a "wide net" of all the cards which might be relevant to tournament […]

The post Magic 2012 Set Review: Commons and Uncommons first appeared on Quiet Speculation.

Note: I write set reviews from a tournament player's perspective, not a financial perspective. As such, I try to approach new set releases with a "wide net" of all the cards which might be relevant to tournament Magic, even if it's just a sideboard 1-of that will never be worth much. This will necessarily include […]

The post Magic 2012 Set Review: Rares and Mythics first appeared on Quiet Speculation.

Joshua takes one last look at the pre-ban format, then focuses on the new Standard, discovering that a surprising card may end up defining the format.

The post Out with the Old, in with the New first appeared on Quiet Speculation.

Next week, we will receive a Banned/Restricted list update. This is at the forefront of everyone's mind due to the overwhelming and continual dominance of the Caw-Blade archetype in Standard, but the DCI may take action in other formats as well. Standard Caw-Blade is so overpowering that it doesn't have a bad matchup. When Jund […]

The post Prelude to the Ban Update first appeared on Quiet Speculation.

We've had 2 weeks of Opens to see the impact New Phyrexia has had on the Standard and Legacy tournament scenes. I'm going to focus on Standard, since the Grand Prix this weekend is Legacy, and will almost certainly have more players than the SCG Open series gets. Waiting on that will give us a bit of a better view on the format. However, for Standard, there's no reason to wait, especially since the format hasn't really undergone much of a change.

The post Impact of New Phyrexia first appeared on Quiet Speculation.

With a new format becoming available for the first time Friday, it's time to take a quick look at what's available. For the most part, these will be aggro or combo decks, since control decks need to be built towards the metagame. As it stands, Caw-Blade is the premiere control deck in the format, and it can be played as-is with the mere addition of Batterskull.

The post Brew Phyrexia first appeared on Quiet Speculation.

A couple of weeks ago, I booked my flight to Pro Tour: Nagoya, by way of Indianapolis, for the StarCityGames Invitational the weekend before. There was only one small problem: I wasn't yet qualified for the Invitational. I went to Charlotte with the aim of solving that problem. Along for the ride were Corey and […]

The post Combat Unnecessary in Charlotte first appeared on Quiet Speculation.

Wizards of the Coast has announced that they discovered the source of the New Phyrexia leak. Guillaume Matignon received a 3-year ban, while Guillaume Wafo-Tapa, Martial Moreau, and David Gauthier all received a 1.5 year ban. Matignon was the only one of the four who was supposed to have access to the full godbook, and […]

The post New Phyrexia Leak: the Real Problem first appeared on Quiet Speculation.

Pull up a spoiler (like this one) and let's take a look at the upcoming set. Mythics Karn Liberated - Overhyped by far. Yes, it's colorless so anyone can play it, but it costs 7 mana so only ramp and control decks would. Ramp decks have better things to ramp into. Control decks are awkwardly […]

The post New Phyrexia Set Review first appeared on Quiet Speculation.

I am now also writing a series on TCGPlayer.com. For those of you who enjoyed my Standard metagame analyses, those will be living on that site now, and done regularly through the various Standard seasons on Magic Online. I've agreed to do this series for them because they are already collecting the data and are […]

The post Magic Achievements first appeared on Quiet Speculation.

Caw-Blade has been clearly established as the dominant deck in this Standard format. As most of you know, it exists in 3 broad frames: straight Blue-White, the Red splash, and the Black splash. The following table shows examples of each taken from the StarCityGames Open Series. It is somewhat messy because it does not follow […]

The post Analysis of the Caw first appeared on Quiet Speculation.

With the release of Mirrodin Besieged, Block Constructed has a reasonable enough cardpool to be playable, and the Daily Events and Premiers on Magic Online are firing. Having won the Premier last week, I am now clearly an expert on the format. Clearly. Here's the deck: Untitled Deck creatures 4 Goblin Wardriver4 Hero of Oxid […]

The post Introduction to Scars Block Constructed first appeared on Quiet Speculation.

Last weekend was SCG Open Memphis. I had arranged a hotel split with Kelly, Doug, and some guy I didn't know. After an uneventful 7 hour car ride, I showed up to the hotel, tried to check in, and was informed that they couldn't find Kelly's registration. Huh. I e-mailed Kelly and told him they […]

The post City of Birds and Swords first appeared on Quiet Speculation.

After DC, I knew I didn't want to wing it again. I decided to do my homework for the upcoming SCG Open in Memphis in order to select my deck properly this time. Time to break out the spreadsheet and analyze the metagame! You can download it and change the relative score of SCG events […]

The post Standard Metagame Data first appeared on Quiet Speculation.