Ep. 3 - Jund Fires with ChannelFireball's Josh Silvestri

12/17/19 • 78 min

Another fantastic interview with another fantastic guest this week— this time it's ChannelFireball writer and r/spikes mod Josh Silvestri / jsilv! Josh is a veteran of the game and a fantastic conversationalist who can talk at length on any Magic topic you care to throw at him. We discuss a little Magic history (including the founding of the original ChannelFireball LGS in the California Bay Area, and his experience hacking it up with LSV, Paul Cheon and friends). Then we shift into talking about the results of Mythic Championship VII and the post-Oko Standard meta. Next we cover a topic near to jsilv's heart, namely the different iterations of Fires of Invention you can play in Standard (the Jund Food version is his current fav). Finally, we chat about Pioneer and what we've been both playing and thinking about.

Timestamps:

0:00 - Intro
3:44 - Jsilv welcome / Jsilv's history with Magic
18:40 - Mythic Championship VII takeaways
30:58 - Standard / Jund Fires
45:36 - Pioneer thoughts
1:05:57 - Iteration, Magic Arena vs. MTGO

Find Josh on:

Josh's Jund Fires post on r/spikes

Josh's articles on 3 Fires variants on ChannelFireball

Find Arena Craft on:

This show features the track 'Real Virtuality' from Eero Johannes released on the Sound Pellegrino label and is used with permission.

Timestamps:

Find Josh on:

Josh's Jund Fires post on r/spikes

Josh's articles on 3 Fires variants on ChannelFireball

Find Arena Craft on:

This show features the track 'Real Virtuality' from Eero Johannes released on the Sound Pellegrino label and is used with permission.

Previous Episode

Ep. 2 – #1 Mythic Playing Temur Clover Adventures with Aaron Gertler

This week, we bring you an interview with a guy who's no stranger to Mythic #1 – Aaron Gertler. He jumped into the spotlight earlier this year by spending 4 days at #1 on the Arena ranked ladder playing an innovative brew, Simic Mass Manipulation. This deck used ramp to get mid-to-late-game value out of casting big X spells like Entrancing Melody and Mass Manipulation. It was perhaps the first major archetype to feature Mass Manipulation in the maindeck, and turned askew the concept of what a successful deck on the ladder could be.

Now Aaron is back at #1, but this time he's been playing Temur Clover (Adventures), a deck featuring Lucky Clover, Escape To The Wilds, and a full compliment of Adventure creatures. We discuss how Aaron discovered the deck, the process he went through to tweak it to his own ends, and some of the strategies for playing this powerful deck against various metagame staples. Tune in to hear thoughts on current Standard, a rumination on what's good in the metagame right now, and to hear how to attack from a different angle with Temur Clover!

Click here for a current Temur Clover decklist

Click here to read Aaron's article on the deck on Reddit

Click here for one of Aaron's Simic Manipulation posts on Reddit

Find Aaron on Twitter, Reddit, and YouTube.

Find Arena Craft on:

This show features the track 'Real Virtuality' from Eero Johannes released on the Sound Pellegrino label and is used with permission.

Next Episode

Ep. 4 - Live from the floor at Magicfest Portland

This week's episode was so much fun to bring to you — I spent the weekend at Magicfest Portland! The show is my reflections on the experience of attending (it was my first), followed by a series of interviews I did on the floor with attendees, competitors, artists and cosplayers from the event! If you've never been to one of these events before, I would A. recommend you go, and B. encourage you to get a taste of it via this episode! Enjoy.

Timestamps:

0:00 - Intro, my experience at the Magicfest
16:19 - Interviews waiting in line for Mystery Draft
21:40 - Interview with PTW competitor Kory
29:39 - Interview with Mark Poole
34:47 - Interview with Chuck Lukacs
42:13 - Interview with Ken Meyer Jr.
52:33 - Interview with Zenaide Beckham
58:53 - Interview with Arielle

This episode features the words and experiences of a lot of wonderful people from the world of Magic. In order of appearance, here's how to contact and experience the work of:

Mark Poole – http://markpoole.net/

Chuck Lukacs – http://chucklukacs.com/ @LightPusher

Ken Meyer Jr. – http://www.kenmeyerjr.com/ @kenmeyerjr

Zenaide Beckham – @ZBexx EVERYWHERE

Arielle – @air_bubbles @air_bubbles_cosplay

Find Arena Craft on:

This show features the track 'Real Virtuality' from Eero Johannes released on the Sound Pellegrino label and is used with permission.