The Planeswalker’s Apprentice – Counterspells

Serj dug deep into his spell pouch and grasped the warm orb. Energy radiated from between his fingers as he pulled it free. Not thinking, he cast the spell almost as quickly as he drew it.

With ease, the Orphan released a stream of moisture from his fingertips, dousing the half cast spell from Serj’s hands.

The impatient spellcaster looked back at the Orphan with disgust. His mana and spell all wasted…

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Welcome back for another installment of The Planeswalker’s Apprentice.

Ever play a match and have your spells countered by counter magic? It’s a real pain to have your best spells stuffed with a quick tap of some mana by your opponent.

To play strategically against counterspells, new players must recognize when their opponent may have one and play around it. In order to do so players must do their homework.

Magic Origins Uncommons Review

Welcome back. I hope all your pre-release events went well and you enjoyed Magic Origins as much as I did. Last week I reviewed the commons in the set. This week I’ll go over some stand out uncommons that can help you on your budget battles. Let’s begin…

Mistakes New Players Make 2 – The Planeswalker’s Apprentice

Last week I wrote an article about the mistakes I have seen over the years from new players. Thanks to your feedback, it’s been suggested that I discuss some points further with remedies and sample decklists. Once these examples have been illustrated here, I’ll be adding them to the original article and it can be used as a primer of sorts if need be.

Mistakes Beginners Make – The Planeswalker’s Apprentice

Serj fell backwards, recoiling from the blast. His Master, touching his brow and sent three more phantom missile blasts into his chest. Serj was desperate. Over the last few weeks he had garnered knowledge but his spell pouch had abandoned him lately. He never seemed to draw upon enough lands to cast his new found spells.

Seeing an opening, he desperately reached into his bag, feeling around for an orb of energy. Yanking it out he looked at it begging for mana. Disappointed, he hung his head dejectedly, realizing he needed to brace for yet another impact from his teacher.

Hello again Apprentices! I’ve been seeing quite a bit of questions from newer players lately. In today’s installment of The Planeswalker’s Apprentice we will take a brief look at all the things I have seen new players do wrong over the years. All of these issues can be remedied with time and experience so let’s have a look…

Finding Your Spark – Your First Steps Into Magic: The Gathering

Recently, I’ve seen many posts on Reddit and other forums about new players looking for advice. The answers vary and usually involve bumbling around many different websites, buying various product, ect. I’d like to take a quick detour on our typical subjects and go basic today on The Planeswalker’s Apprentice.

For some of you this may be review or very simple but I’ll go into the topic as if a player is 100% new to Magic: The Gathering. Now, before you do anything, you need to know bare bones basics on what to expect from this game. Magic: The Gathering is a collectable card game that can be played in multiple ways with two players or more. Each player represents a powerful spellcaster called a Planeswalker and each card in their deck represents a spell or resource this spellcaster knows. Each match against an opponent is a random encounter between Planeswalkers, two magic wielding gunslingers if you will, both vying for supremacy in the showdown. The game is collectable and can become an expensive hobby since players attempt to get the best individual cards needed in order to strategically defeat their opponents. All the available cards have varied strengths and weaknesses and no two games, even with players playing identical decks, are ever played the same. Players are defeated in multiple ways, most commonly by going from 20 to 0 life.

Intrigued? Great! If you are interested in Magic: The Gathering it’s because you most likely either saw Magic products in stores, saw people playing it and was curious or heard about it from a friend. Each one of these casual introductions offer a different path you should take to get involved in the game. Let’s have a look…

Singleton

Singleton. The name evokes a mysterious world where anything can happen. Copies of spells and non-basic lands are restricted to just one per deck. This restriction changes everything. From my years in Magic, I am passionate about this format and feel like it’s the truest format to what the game was intended to be, two casual decks slugging it out for kitchen table supremacy.

But what happens when you turn casual into competitive? In this case, Singleton becomes a great format to level the playing field and I have seen both new players as well as old win tournaments. I have been hosting 60 card Singleton tournaments and I have to say it’s a great challenge for all the players involved and a memorable experience.