Episode 158 – Bant Spirits Deck Guide | Allied Strategies Magic the Gathering Podcast Podcast

Episode 131 – Cool Dominaria Cards and Llanowar Elves: There are so many cool cards in the Dominaria spoiler that it’s a good thing we have a few extra weeks to talk about them! This week we’ve picked out just a few to discuss in the context of Standard (mostly). In addition to the cool cards of Dominaria, somehow Llanowar elves made its way […] by Allied Strategies Magic the Gathering Podcast

78 min listen

Episode 130 – Krark-Clan Ironworks: This week, Ben joins us to talk about the Krark-Clan Ironworks combo deck that he and his friends played to exceptional results last weekend at GP Phoenix. If you’ve never played or heard of the deck before, you’ll love hearing about all the crazy stuff that it can do, and you’ll be ready if you […] by Allied Strategies Magic the Gathering Podcast

64 min listen

Episode 124 – Decks Ben Almost Played: Dedicated Pro Players like Ben spent months testing Modern, but each could only register one deck for the Pro Tour itself. This week we dive into that testing process with a focus on all of the other decks that Ben tried before ending up on boring old affinity for the tournament itself. Last time there […] by Allied Strategies Magic the Gathering Podcast

59 min listen

Episode 140 – In-Depth PT DOM Draft Analysis: This week is an in-depth analysis of a single draft from the recent Pro Tour – we went over every single pick of the draft, an episode archetype that we have really liked doing at least once after each Pro Tour. In the history of the podcast, however, we have never disagreed with each other […] by Allied Strategies Magic the Gathering Podcast

75 min listen

Episode 139 – PT Dominaria Prep: Ben joins us from the past this week for a special timeshifted episode to discuss the decks that he tested for Pro Tour Dominaria. This Pro Tour was notably different than most due to the longer time gap between the set’s release and the event – how did this affect testing? This set also brought […] by Allied Strategies Magic the Gathering Podcast

62 min listen

Episode 127 – Vintage with Sam Sherman: Magic’s most powerful format isn’t as scary as it seems – this week we break down the defining cards and decks of the format with Sam, a frequent vintage player and all-around highly talented magician. Part of what makes vintage such an exciting format is the modular way that the blue decks are built, so […] by Allied Strategies Magic the Gathering Podcast

69 min listen

Episode 123 – Teaming Up: Neal and Ben almost won a GP! They made it to the top 4 of last weekend’s GP Indy on a team with Eric Severson, who joins us this week for his second appearance on Allied Strategies to discuss Team events. This year features a large amount of team tournaments of a variety of formats […] by Allied Strategies Magic the Gathering Podcast

61 min listen

Episode 146 – Hardened Scales Deck Guide: This episode is an in-depth guide to another great Modern deck powered by Mox Opal and Ancient Stirrings! Hardened Scales is an enchantment that combines with every creature in the deck to generate ridiculous bursts of value that are often immediately lethal through surprising board states and life totals. We went over every card in […] by Allied Strategies Magic the Gathering Podcast

64 min listen

Episode 125 – Sticks and Seers: Our Podcast’s very own Ben Weitz drafted in a feature pod at the recent Pro Tour – which means the entire draft was recorded for posterity! This week on the show we dive in to that draft and go over every single pick that Ben made. If you want to follow along, here is the […] by Allied Strategies Magic the Gathering Podcast

105 min listen

Episode 138 – Mana Efficiency: Dive deep into Magic theory with us this week, as we cover the concept of Mana Efficiency. This week, we not only define and explain Mana Efficiency for the beginning or intermediate players, we also cover a number of extrapolations and corollaries that should be interesting for even the most grizzled veteran. What does Mana […] by Allied Strategies Magic the Gathering Podcast

75 min listen

Episode 144 – M19 First Look: Limited: The last three core sets have each featured dramatically different limited formats. Magic Origins was a fast-paced format where being on the play was a big deal and missing your 2-drop was often fatal, whereas M14 was the polar opposite: a format where Divination was a first-pickable card, Opportunity was a bomb, and cards like […] by Allied Strategies Magic the Gathering Podcast

53 min listen

Episode 137 – Dominaria Limited Revisited: This week we return to Dominaria limited to examine the draft format now that we’ve gotten the chance to get a few dozen matches under our belts. What is the general texture of the format? How are our predictions about specific cards holding up? What archetypes are consistently viable draft strategies and what signals should […] by Allied Strategies Magic the Gathering Podcast

63 min listen

Episode 126 – A Slice of Standard: Ben’s been trying to make dinosaur decks work in Standard for the past few weeks, and this week he’s sharing that process and the resulting decks with us! We also talk about a few of the other decks Ben’s been working with, as well as Bant Approach, a deck that Tristan has been having success […] by Allied Strategies Magic the Gathering Podcast

59 min listen

Patreon Deck Episode 3 – Merfolk: This special edition of Allied Strategies aired one week early for our supporters over at Patreon! We took a look at Merfolk, the tribe which won the Patreon poll, and built a sleek and aggressive deck that looks capable of coming in way under its opponents, then closing out games with a combination of cheap […] by Allied Strategies Magic the Gathering Podcast

55 min listen

Episode 148 – PT 25A Prep: Neal’s playing a rogue deck this Pro Tour – join us this week to hear about his testing process and how he ended up transforming one of this Standard format’s fringe combo decks into an aggro deck! Next week we’ll be back to regularly scheduled content for episode 149, and then we’ll have episode 150 […] by Allied Strategies Magic the Gathering Podcast

64 min listen

Episode 142 – M19 First Look: Constructed: The 2019 Core Set is fast approaching, and in classic Allied Strategies fashion, we’ve picked out a few cards each to talk about in terms of constructed (almost entirely Standard). We also spent a bit of time talking about Grand Prix Vegas, which was the first GP in half a year that all three of […] by Allied Strategies Magic the Gathering Podcast

58 min listen

Patreon Deck Episode: Nicol Bolas, the Ravager: Nicol Bolas, the Ravager has 4 qualities that make him potentially very powerful in standard. He’s cheap, he’s reasonably sized, he does something immediately when played, and he can take over games. Our wonderful Patrons therefore decided that this episode would involve us building an M19 Standard deck featuring Bolas. A normal edition of Allied […] by Allied Strategies Magic the Gathering Podcast

68 min listen

Episode 128 – Modern at the MOCS: Playing a Magic tournament with only a dozen or two other players is a very different experience from the large fields of a Grand Prix or even a Pro Tour. Especially with a format like modern, you can make metagame predictions based off your knowledge of other players’ preferences, such as Reid Duke’s Jund, Craig […] by Allied Strategies Magic the Gathering Podcast

58 min listen

Episode 147 – M19 Draft Guide: All three of your podcast hosts have picked up some Professional REL Drafting experience with the new set at GP Sacramento and this week we’re sharing it with you! Learn about our opinions of each two-color combination, their relative power levels, and key commons/uncommons that you may have overlooked but that perform better in this […] by Allied Strategies Magic the Gathering Podcast

77 min listen

Episode 134 – Dominaria’s Gold Uncommons: You can learn a lot about a format from its cycle of multicolored uncommons. At the very least, they hint at what sort of archetype each two color pair might default to, but their relative power level can also influence which of those color pairs is strongest to draft. This week on Allied Strategies we’re […] by Allied Strategies Magic the Gathering Podcast

81 min listen

Episode 160 – Modern Decks to Beat: With a few upcoming Modern tournaments, we’re using this week to identify the best Aggro, Combo, and Midrange decks to beat in the current metagame. We also cover an exciting new fringe deck that we think has some potential, and finally we did a rapid-fire round of opinions on a dozen or so of the […] by Allied Strategies Magic the Gathering Podcast

20 min listen

Episode 135 – Dominaria in Modern: For the millionth week in the row we’re going to talk about Dominaria cards! Theorizing about this set hasn’t gotten old yet – and after prerelease weekend we got together to talk about how some of these cards might impact the Modern metagame, which is famously stable and diverse at the moment. Ben’s already gotten […] by Allied Strategies Magic the Gathering Podcast

63 min listen

Episode 164 – Big Red: A few weeks ago, Ben had an idea for a Standard deck. Hear the story of how that idea underwent the rigors of Pro Tour testing and ended up being the deck that both Ben and Sam sleeved up event. You’ll also learn how to adapt the deck to different metagame factors, and predictions for […] by Allied Strategies Magic the Gathering Podcast

20 min listen

Episode 141 – Choosing a 75 for PT DOM: Nailing down a specific 75 card configuration for any event is a complicated process. It’s the kind of subject that takes much more theory than we can cover in one episode if we wanted to create a general guide, but this week we were able to go deep on a specific example with Ben’s constructed […] by Allied Strategies Magic the Gathering Podcast

53 min listen

Episode 150 – Pro Tour Champion Allen Wu: Special guest Pro Tour 25th Anniversary Champion Allen Wu joins us this week to talk about his victory and the legacy deck he played at the tournament. Learn about the technology he likes in the deck, his thoughts on Legacy in general, and his delightful teammates. Next week will be our mailbag episode – send […] by Allied Strategies Magic the Gathering Podcast

49 min listen

Episode 161 – Sideboarding: The best Magic players get much of their edge from games 2 and 3, so this week’s episode is a marathon guide to picking up some equity post-board. You’ll learn about the theory of the sideboard with practical examples from real decks, covering all the major constructed formats and a bit of limited too. We […] by Allied Strategies Magic the Gathering Podcast

20 min listen

Episode 132 – Dominaria Cards that Might be Great: Last week we were excited by the cards that had been spoiled from Dominaria. This week things have gotten even more promising, with a bunch of spoilers that offer great potential to the deckbuilder willing to build around them. We’ve picked some such cards to talk about to try to determine which might be Standard […] by Allied Strategies Magic the Gathering Podcast

75 min listen

Episode 145 – M19 Sealed Primer: With Limited Grands Prix fast approaching, we decided to use this week to talk about our initial thoughts of the M19 Sealed format now that we’ve played some combination of physical and online Prerelease events. We’ve also got a Mailbag episode coming up for Episode #150 (so 5 episodes from now) – if you have […] by Allied Strategies Magic the Gathering Podcast

64 min listen

Episode 129 – Masters 25 Limited Predictions: Masters 25 is here and there are a lot of things going on in the limited format. After a very studious half-hour or so, Tristan and Neal have identified a number of potential archetypes, combos, and synergies that are present in the set. Today we share those with you! We also briefly cover the Dominaria […] by Allied Strategies Magic the Gathering Podcast

74 min listen

Episode 136 – Brewing a Brawl Deck: This week we’re venturing in to a new format on Allied Strategies – Brawl! This 60-card singleton format features a commander but only standard legal cards, and is dominated by Baral and Ghalta on magic online in a way that formats are rarely dominated. We’ve decided to basically ignore that phenomenon, and brew up a […] by Allied Strategies Magic the Gathering Podcast

73 min listen

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Episode 158 – Bant Spirits Deck Guide

Episode 158 – Bant Spirits Deck Guide

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