Welcome back to another edition of Ideas Unbound. I haven't been playing very much Magic lately, so I haven't had a whole lot to write about. So instead, I've decided to do a Mailbag edition where I answer questions from my friends and local players. As you will see, I got a lot of really good questions, so I plan on doing more of these from time to time.

Alright, where were we? Oh yeah, getting better at Magic. Something to do with Nick Saban...

I have become bored with commander as of late. I have had some of the same decks for 4-5 years and I decided it was time for a change of pace. I hadn’t built a Voltron general yet, and, as soon as I saw Daxos in the Theros spoilers, I knew that he would be my next commander. For those of you who are newer to Commander, Voltron makes reference to the old cartoon in which all these smaller robots combine to make a bigger more powerful robot (like Megazord from the Power Rangers series).

First of all, we would like to thank everyone who reads our blog. You guys are the reason we continue to create this content. As such, it is our goal to continue to produce content that you guys will enjoy and to produce a lot more of it.

We would like to apologize for the current dry spell in content. I will be correcting that soon with a new Ideas Unbound post later this week. I believe Jonathan is also working on another commander oriented Final Judgment post as well. What I’d like to do now is talk about some of the changes we have planned for next year.

One of the worst feelings in the world is when a judge issues you a game loss that you could have prevented. I still remember the first time it happened to me. It was State Champs-Sealed (Ravnica Block) and I had turned in a 39 card deck list. I was so disappointed with myself. In my defense my pool was terrible and I had a hard time building a deck. I had all the mana-fixing, but no actual win-cons. Anyways; I should have been a little bit quicker when building my deck, so I had time to double/triple check my decklist. Most of the time, Game Losses (GL) can be prevented, so I will go through what to watch out for at Competitive REL events.

Welcome back to another Ideas Unbound. This year, I had the opportunity to play in two SCG Invitationals. For those who are unaware, the Invitational is a split format tournament. Each day you play 4 rounds of Standard and 4 rounds of Legacy. I play alot of Standard through the year, so that portion of the tournament has never concerned me. However, I have very little experience actually playing Legacy so I did very poorly in that portion of both events. I have resolved to not let this happen again.

Once again, I must apologize for my lack of content. It has been a crazy few weeks with many tournaments involved. Its all behind me now, though, so I should be back to writing and recording again. Today I'm going to look at my last 12 months of Magic and share some lessons I have learned along the way.

Welcome back to another Ideas Unbound. The first major Standard event using Theros is in the books. Today we are going to look at those results and see if we can get an idea of where the format is heading. I’m still planning on attending Grand Prix Louisville, and I want to try to have a firm grasp on the metagame.

Well folks, it has been a minute since I last felt the compulsion to write about Magic: the
Gathering. Personally, my life has been somewhat of a whirlwind. I have kept up with the
current events to a point, and I am aware that a new set has been released. I, also, happen to
know that the Standard format is about to change dramatically. Gone are the days of Olivia
Voldaren, Huntmaster of the Fells, Restoration Angel, and Thragtusk. We now usher in a new
era brimming with divine intervention. Theros beckons for us to tread her rolling plains. She
begs we conquer her illustrious mountain peaks. She pines for us to dive deeply into her
sprawling waters. She wills us to creep ignorantly about her fetid marshlands. Her forests urge
all passerby to venture between the trees. With that in mind, I would like to make an attempt at
some Standard decks that could potentially show some teeth come this fateful Friday.

Theros has lots of goodies for us EDHers. So, let’s take a look!

Vintage is arguably the most thought provoking format in all of Magic. Between the Power Nine and cards like Necropotence there are a potentially endless number of decks that you could build in order to be competitive is this high powered format. I would like to introduce you all to one of the decks that I am currently playing when somebody asks whether or not I want to play in this format.

The Phyrexian Arena is proud to welcome a new columnist to our line up. The Final Judgment column is written by Jonathan Holland, a level 2 judge out of Middle Tennessee. He will typically be writing about Judging, Commander, and whatever else crosses his mind.

This weekend brings us another Prerelease. As I’ve done for the last few sets today I’m going to do a Theros Prerelease Primer. We will look at some general strategies for Sealed as well as how it pertains to the Theros specifically. Then we will take a brief look at the mechanics as they pertain to Sealed play. At the end, we will evaluate the commons of each color and see look at my top 5 for each.

I've been promising video content for awhile now and I can finally deliver. This is a recording of a Momir Daily I played in this morning. It includes an intro video with a brief description of the format and all 4 rounds of the event. I would especially like feedback about this so I can improve the video content going forward.

Welcome back to another Ideas Unbound. Last week we looked at the mechanics of Theros. This week, we are going to delve a little deeper looking at the cards themselves and how to use them.

With the end of the current Innstrad and M13 Standard format coming, its time to look back at the top cards that influenced the standard format.

Welcome back to another week of Ideas Unbound. The next major event I plan to attend is Grand Prix Louisville, which is after Theros comes out. Between this, and the fact that my new schedule at work means I will not be able to play FNM means that I won’t be focusing much on the current Standard format. Today we are going to look at some of the spoilers from Theros and see what we can divine about the next few months.

So, I am sure that the few readers I had (yes, I like to falsely reassure myself with my own feelings of self importance) are wondering, where's the posts at? What happened to you, Matt? Where've ya' been?

Magic is a game bigger than itself. To play this game at the highest tiers requires commitment. There are several things you have to focus on, from the intricate decision trees that exist in each game and figuring out the right decisions, to the study and focus required to solve metagames and make deck building choices. If you have dreams of one day playing on the Pro Tour, like I do, then you have to be willing to put in the time to achieve the results you desire. I have not been doing this.

Welcome back to another Ideas Unbound. We have reached the pinnacle of Standard where the most cards possible are legal before the Fall release cuts our card pool almost in half. This is always an exciting time because more cards available means more options. Unfortunately last summer, it was Delvers as far as the eye can see, and the summer before that it was Squadron Hawks and Batterskulls. This summer we still have a couple of heavy hitters but there is a larger range of decks available. Let’s take a look at what Standard looks like at the moment.