Jon Finkel

Pro Tour Hall of Famer Jon Finkel added a 13th Pro Tour Top 8 to his amazing resume at Pro Tour Dark Ascension, helped greatly by his Blue-white Standard deck featuring Delver of Secrets and a heavy dose of spirits that came from the deckbuilding mind of Sam Black.

Pro Tour Dark Ascension Deck Tech: Spirit Delver with Jon Finkel

Ben Stark

Ben Stark, the Limited guru from Team ChannelFireball, walks through the complete Dark Ascension set reviewing the key draft archetypes that have emerged at Pro Tour Dark Ascension.

Pro Tour Dark Ascension: Drafting Dark Ascension with Ben Stark

Raphael Levy

Magic Pro Tour Hall of Famer Raphael Levy shows off his Standard deck that he worked on with Emmanuel Vernay, a five-color Re-animator deck that culminates with Elesh Norn, Inferno Titan, and Wurmcoil Engine.

Pro Tour Dark Ascension Deck Tech: Frites with Raphael Levy

The penultimate round of the Swiss. Top 8 on the line everywhere you look. No more hiding places. No more hard-luck stories. Just one on one with everything at stake. Emerging storylines everywhere - Conley Woods dominant. ChannelFireball looking to blow away the competition. Canada looking for a Top 8 through David Caplan. Richard Bland of England, hasn't lost since Thursday. Paulo needing a point to be sure. There is nothing better than the feature match area with a round to go, and we're right at the heart of the action. Join us.

2011 Worlds: Best. Fun. Ever.

The final round of team play is a critical one. With nine points for the team victory, that's an 18-point swing on the line. Six rounds of Modern follow, and even a succession of 2-1s for your three team members make it very hard to claw back that lost ground. When the dust settles after this final team round, it becomes virtually impossible for a team further down the standings to make a run at the final two for Sunday action. That makes this clash between Switzerland and the United States a huge match. See Ali Aintrazi, Haibing Hu, and David Ochoa face off againt Dario Vicedomini, Matthias Kunzler, and Matteo Rusconi. Modern, Legacy, Standard, as it happens.

2011 Worlds: The Round That Means the Most

In our as-it-happens round up from the feature match area, Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa of Brazil takes on Gerry Thompson, both at 8-2. Also at 8-2 are rivals and new-found friends Matthias Hunt and Fabian Thiele. Both of them are in the running for the Rookie of the Year title, and both were desperate to play each other. Now they have their chance. Finally, we see the Innovator Patrick Chapin in a blazing set against 2006 Player of the Year Shouta Yasooka. Blistering Magic, from some of the best in the world.

2011 Worlds: Draft Under the LIghts

After six rounds of Standard, the day is over for individuals in the main event. For the National Team members, however, there's still two rounds to go, and this time there's the addition of Modern and Legacy into the Constructed mix. With Tim Willoughby bringing you text coverage of the early two leaders -- Netherlands and Chinese Taipei -- I'll be watching the current occupants of the third and fourth spots in the standings. It's Dan Lanthier for Canada in the Legacy against Dimitry Olenin of the Russian Federation. In Modern, Noah Long took on Simen Korzunov, while Standard saw Marc Anderson facing Nikolay Zlobnov. Three formats, two teams, one winner. Teams at Worlds.

2011 Worlds: Team Night in Canada

It's early morning here in San Francisco, and the excitement is mounting as Worlds is less than an hour away. We tour the event floor interviewing left, right, and center, as the clock ticks down to six rounds of Standard. Want to hear what it's really like? Listen in, with dozens of players from around the world talking about their hopes for the days ahead, including National Champions, Pro Tour winners, Player of the Year contenders, Hall of Famers old and new...there's something for everyone as Worlds gets under way.

2011 Worlds: From the Beginning

It's the final round of GP Amsterdam, but for at least some of the feature match winners it won't be the end of the road. The top 8 beckons, but ahead of our intrepid octet are three more tables. All three may well ID, leaving these four tables effectively playing for 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th place. While all of these are excellent achievements, only two are likely to be greeted with a smile. Tiebreaks you can't control. The best Magic you can play when it matters most? It's time to deal with what you can, and wait for the final standings.

Grand Prix Amsterdam: Deal with what you Can

In the final part of our Legacy podcast adventures, Jamie Westlake of the Netherlands takes us through the intricacies of the Ad Nauseam-Tendrils combo deck, while 2010 Dutch National Champion Bas Melis reveals a whopping fourteen counterspells in his blue-white Stoneblade deck. All in all, ten great decks for you to try at your next Legacy event.

Grand Prix Amsterdam: Learning Legacy: ANT and UW Stoneblade

Go inside the world of Magic: The Gathering for insights, interviews, and much more.

I’m digging it

Only thing about this podcast that really bothers me is the feed gets broken so often that I miss podcasts and wonder what happened.  None of the other feeds I&#39;ve gotten from Wizards breaks as often as this one.

Only a couple of issues

Magic: The Gathering Podcast

There are some incredible combos in Legacy, and we talk to two pace-setting players here on day two. Kim Grymer of Denmark is at 10-0 from ZERO Byes, and his painter's Servant deck looks to mill the opponent in one Grindstone activation. Then overnight leader Jerome Puthod of France talks us through his Hive Mind deck. Oh look, here are some Pacts that you won't be paying for...

Grand Prix Amsterdam: Learning Legacy: Hive Mind and Painter's Servant

Decks five and six in our overview of Legacy. Ireland's Mark McGovern combines black (B), Blue (U), and Green (G) spells to utilize powerful discard, destruction, and countermagic, while Vincent Lemoine of Belgium walks us through the awesomeness that is Reanimator. Turn one Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur? Now that's some powerful Magic.

Grand Prix Amsterdam: Learning Legacy: BUG and Reanimator

GP Paris 2008 winner Arjan van Leeuwen has an unusual deck this weekend, that features Innistrad unheralded black card Bump in the Night! Then New Zealander Gene Brumby talks us through the classic Combo deck High Tide.

Grand Prix Amsterdam: Learning Legacy: In your Face and High Tide

Into the feature match area we go, and the intracies of Legacy up close and personal. Robert van Medevoort and Ruud Warmenhoven look to claim victory for the home team, while others in the public spotlight include Player of the Year contender Vincent Lemoine and Czech standout Petr Brozek.

Grand Prix Amsterdam: Launching Legacy

Carrie Oliver burst onto the scene with a terrific performance at Pro Tour Nagoya, while Germany's Klaus Jons is a veteran of the European Grand Prix and Pro Tour circuits. We talk to Carrie about her aggressive Zoo deck, and then Klaus talks us through the entertainment of pairing Natural Order with Progenitus in his No Bant deck.

Grand Prix Amsterdam: Learning Legacy: Zoo and No Bant

1,878 players have come to the RAI Convention Center here in Amsterdam for what is the fifth largest GP in Magic history. Once again, Legacy has proved to be a massive draw, with a vast array of over 12,000 cards to choose from. We look at some of the players who have made the start list, and talk about some of the decks we're going to see in action.

Grand Prix Amsterdam: Setting the Scene

Rich Hagon interviews Pro Tour Philadelphia champion Samuele Estratti in the moments after defeating Josh Utter-Leyton in the Finals of the Pro Tour.

Pro Tour Philadelphia: Winner Intervew 

No need to hype this one, is there? One of the greatest players ever to play the game sits down with us on the eve of Pro Tour Philadephia to talk about winning in Kuala Lumpur, his 94-year-old grandfather, Modern, his hopes for the weekend, and his new charity venture. Stop reading. Start listening.

Pro Tour Philadelphia: Sitdown with Jon Finkel 

Day One of Pro Tour Philadelphia, day one of Modern as a tournament format, Day One of what should be an amazing three days of Magic. In the hour before the tournament starts, we delve into the fray, talking to some of the greats of the game, and some of the players waiting to take their shot at joining the pantheon. Everything you need to kickstart your understanding of Modern, right here, from the people who are making it happen.

Pro Tour Philadelphia: Modern Metagame Madness

It's the penultimate round of Swiss here at Pro Tour Nagoya, and that means there are no more excuses, no more hard luck stories. There's just winning and losing. In the feature match area, six players know that a win will put them on the cusp of the Top 8, while the losers will likely be left on the outside looking in. Luis Scott-Vargas faces Germany's Daniel Grafensteiner. Toshiyuki Kadooka of Japan faces regional rival Yong Han Choo of Singapore. That leaves an epic clash between Gaudenis Vidugiris and Ben Stark, with Stark looking to secure a second successive Top 8 berth. Find out what happens as the cards fall where they may.

Pro Tour Nagoya: Crunch Time

At Pro Tour Paris earlier this year, Ben Stark took the title, taking him into the lead in the Player of the Year race. Now he sits in second place behind Owen Turtenwald, a man who has five Grand Prix Top 8 appearances this year. The number of Grand Prix he has played this year? Five. So, it seemed like a reasonable plan to talk to the number one and the number two about the draft format that forms the centerpiece of Pro Tour Nagoya. How many archetypes are viable? How many colors should you be playing? What's the role of Phyrexian mana? And how flexible should you be? All the answers come from Owen Turtenwald and Ben Stark. If you download this show and don't learn something useful about this draft format, it's a good bet you forgot to turn on your speakers. Seriously, these guys know the drill, and now so can you.

Pro Tour Nagoya: The Keys to Draft

Two more outstanding players share their thoughts with us. Martin Juza is on a rare visit to his home country, as he's become the number one traveller in world Magic, with the prospect of even more trips to come in 2012 with the expansion of the Grand Prix programme. Martin talks about the most interesting Green cards in the set, while the French Hall of Famer Raphael Levy brings us some fascinating insights into some of the more unusual artifacts. Two of the best in the business, rounding out our in-depth look at New Phyrexia.

Grand Prix Prague: New Phyrexia In-Depth: Green and Artifacts

The scores are in, and 144 players will be back for day two. In this short but sweet finale to day one, we look at who gets to come back and do it all again.

Grand Prix Prague: Scores on the Doors

Only one player out of the 1237 who began the Grand Prix managed to get as far as round twelve with a perfect record. Surprise surprise, it was Shuhei Nakamura, clearly one of the favorites for any Grand Prix he plays in. Now he tries to sweep his first draft pod by taking on the red-hot Louis Deltour of France, who arrives here after a fantastic second place at Grand Prix London a couple of weeks ago. Joining them in Feature Match action are Joel Larsson of Sweden taking on fellow Scandinavian Markku Rikola of Finland, an all-German clash of Andre Mueller versus Sebastian Kuchenbecker, and a fabulous match between Petr Brozek and Robert Jurkovic. Seriously, that last one was epic.

Grand Prix Prague: Undefeated

At 7-0, your place in day two is already assured, but two end-of-day defeats can leave you deep in the pack. Two wins, and you're at the top of the leaderboard overnight. Former Rookie of the Year Lino Burgold, Worlds Top 8 competitor Love Janse, and Japan's 2008 Player of the Year Shuuhei Nakamura are three who are looking to move to 8-0. And, as an added bonus, two of the finest Czech players - Martin Juza and Petr Brozek - go head to head as they battle to secure a day two slot.

Grand Prix Prague: Sealing the Deal

From Belgium, Mark Dictus gives us his view of the Black cards in New Phyrexia. There are some great removal cards available, but in draft you're going to have to fight pretty hard to see some of them. Dismember? Don't count on it. There's Enslave at Uncommon, and Phyrexian Obliterator at Rare among the cards Mark takes a good hard look at. Then we join Sweden's Kenny Oberg as he runs the rule over the Red cards. Red got some new Infect toys to play with, including Ogre Menial and Razor Swine at Common. How much impact will they have on the Limited environment? Get inside the minds of the Pros, coming to you from Grand Prix Prague.

Grand Prix Prague: New Phyrexia In-Depth: Black and Red

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