I love doing my financial recaps of older sets where I mine the expensive cards, but going back further is a little harder in two ways. First, there are just so few good cards in older sets. Second, the good ones don’t often turn over, so it’s hard to establish prices. Luckily, Mirage Block was the first “modern” block and it brought in some great spells that wizards still sling today. Let’s take a walk through time as we re-acquaint ourselves with the block. Below is a list of some of the choice picks from the block; I left out the cards worth under two dollars, leaving only the prime cards on the list. There are some cards in here that I guarantee will surprise you.

Part of speculation and long-term strategies involves making sure that your cash is doing the most work that it can. When your cards are not performing, you need to fire them and get some more productive cards on the line. This weekend at GP: Indy, I divested from several cards that I had been sitting on. The subtheme of my article is “win, lose or draw,” with a look at how an Eternal player confronts finite cash, broad possibilities and the desire to clean house.

As Greedo would agree, setting phasers to ‘Fun’ is hard work.

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

Neale polishes off the competitive commanders, and opens the floor for Azuza lists! Think you have the most savage green machine?

Darksteel, the second set in Mirrodin block, is notorious for driving off more Magic players than any other set, even the Urza block. It contained high-power cards for Affinity that did not require finesse to win with. It was like UG Madness in that the best deck was cheap, easy to play and frustrating to metagame against.

In many ways, Mirrodin is marred by the sets that came after it. Mirrodin was a set focused on artifacts and how they interact with the color wheel, and that was revolutionary at the time. Mirrodin made decks like Stax in Vintage into powerhouses and the essential cards are still climbing. This week, take a look at the first half of the set and get a feel for the metal world!

With a tale of two Commander decks, Neale shares everything that’s right and wrong in Commander!

Competitive Commander. Neale is no oxymoron, and these six decks are out to kill you. Find out what they are and how to stop them!