Allied Strategies Magic the Gathering Podcast

Join us as we spend an entire episode breaking down every single pick of one player’s draft from the Pro Tour. This time, the honor of being that featured drafter goes to our buddy Mark Jacobson, whose stellar performance on the first day of the event earned him a place in the featured pod on […]

Sam and Ben are at the Pro Tour! Hear about their preparation for the Standard format as they reveal the decks they considered, the innovations they came up with, and the secrets of their testing process. We’ll be back next week at our usual time and going forward we may be re-working our Pro Tour […]

A full sized episode is airing this Sunday! Our hosts (or at least two of them) are busy getting ready for the Pro Tour, and the episode will contain spoilers for their strategy, so we won’t release it until that’s no longer relevant. To tide you over until then, we’ve collected some of the funniest […]

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 […]

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 […]

The best deck in Guilds of Ravnica draft is Dimir Control, and this week we’re providing you with a guide to drafting it. We’ve broken the archetype down into the different effects you’re looking for, and which cards do the best job filling each of those roles. You’ll also learn the order that we prioritize […]

This week we’re going card-by-card to give you a thorough guide to Bant Spirits, a powerful aggro deck that’s dominated recent Modern tournaments including Grand Prix Detroit where Sam’s team used it to make the finals! Here’s a link to the decklist if you’d like to follow along: https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=20093&d=330612 Download this episode here! (right click and […]

It’s turn 3. Your 2/2 is staring down your opponent’s 2/2. Should you attack? The answer requires an understanding of your role – are you the aggressor or are you the defender? This episode defines those terms and arms you with the tools you need to answer that question for yourself. We cover how roles […]

Multicolored sets tend to create complicated draft environments, and Guilds of Ravnica looks to be no exception. This week, we’ve picked out some cards to discuss that we think might highlight some of the different options available to you at the draft table. We also cover some adjustments we’re making to our baseline evaluation of […]

The full spoiler for Guilds of Ravnica is out and there are dozens of cards (and millions of lines of text on them) that are interesting in the context of Standard. Join us this week as we select a few such cards and discuss their potential merits in the post-rotation world. You may also get […]

Sam Pardee breaks down the nuances of the aggro matchup against control on this week’s episode. You’ll learn how to change your plan of attack against your control opponent based on the specifics of each player’s deck. We’ll also cover the complicated art of playing around sweepers and countermagic, cards that your control opponents are […]

How will the mechanics of Guilds of Ravnica play in the limited environment? We’ve analyzed each of them individually to bring you thorough predictions about how they’ll play, what patterns they’ll incentivize, and how highly you’ll need to prioritize certain effects. We also discussed the tension or accord created by mechanics overlapping in colors, and […]

Sam Pardee joins the show this week to dive deep into the nuances of Red decks in Standard. Many guides lump all Red decks together, but you can gain an edge by figuring out what specific plan your opponent is enacting, and by carefully paying attention to which cards they’ve played you can infer much […]

We took some of the best Banter/End Story content from the past 20 or so episodes and condensed it into a 20 minute compilation. Don’t worry, our regularly scheduled content is still coming later this week, this is a bonus! Let us know what you think about this sort of content and if it’s something […]

For the past month or so, we’ve been collecting your questions on a variety of Magic and not-so-Magic topics, and today we’re answering them all! Today we’re also saying goodbye to Neal – he’s transitioning from being a co-host to a listener due to Magic becoming a smaller part of his life. We’re so thankful […]