Today’s Grydehoj article is a meaty stew filled to the brim with Abe Sargent beats and ideas about how to maximize Cosmic Larva in Standard. No, we’re not kidding about either part of that sentence. Adam might be though. Maybe.
I’m a big fan of customization. There’s never only a single “correct build” of a deck. There may be wrong builds, and there are certainly wrong decks, but perfect builds are, like emotion on Keanu Reeves’ face, either mythical or simply wishful thinking. White Weenie, for example, despite being a rather basic Aggro deck, can run along any number of routes: Do you fly to victory with little birds? Do you equip at instant speed and a discount? Do you tango? The point is, what you do with your White Weenie is up to you. And the same is true with Kiki-Jiki, Mirror-Breaker.
What happens when everyone starts to remove the artifact removal from their maindecks in Standard? Adam shares his thoughts on this topic today, including an Isochron Scepter deck that could be very problematic in the end.
Now that Affinity is officially dead, we expect a landslide of new Standard articles discussing the bevy of new possibilities open to savvy deckbuilders. Adam of the Funny Last Name starts things off today by peeking at an overlooked two-mana instant that may see some play in the upcoming Standard and Block Constructed seasons, and includes a G/W Control deck that showcases the card’s versatility.
Here’s my promise: Despite costing many times less to build than most other decks reviewed for Extended on this website, our deck today will be able to put up a competitive game against every major deck except for Life. Once again, our deck may not be as good as the top tier decks, but it’s sturdy enough to make for long (by Extended standards), interesting games. Intrigued? Then come along my friends, for I have something fun to show you.
A sad day, my friend. At this very moment, while you’re reading these very words, you’re reading the first words from the last article of the Golden Age series. Even though this daily column has gotten about as old as a piece of poorly-fashioned smørrebrød that no one at school will touch because Little Rasmus Rasmussen from Viborg might have burped on it; even though my jokes have become as stretched as those small, dark, stretchy things that you find in roast chicken; even though etc…I’ll miss it. There are so many brilliant Mirage Block cards I’ve yet to namedrop.
It doesn’t matter where I’m heading or how lost I get along the way. I’ll always end up back in Mirage. It’s not just that I like black people on my Magic cards (though, Lord knows, there aren’t many of them outside of Mirage). There’s also the wonderful setting, an environment far-flung from that of traditional fantasy. Sometimes, though, Mirage ignores its keynote mechanics, leaves the Phasing, chimera, and griffins behind. Sometimes, it plays good, old-fashioned, hardscrabble Magic.
When your eyes and my words last met in mutual, pixilated embrace on this very computer monitor, I was teasing you with promises of more the Dark. Well, I am not a politician, and my promises, far from being empty, are quite often brimming with expectation of fulfillment. You’ve already read about the wonders of the Dark’s White and Blue. Today, we’ll take aim at the other colors, jump right into it, and mix our metaphors right from the start by sizing up Red.
The Dark. Of all the sets in Magic, I’m guessing that the least is known about the Dark. I mean, people may mock Homelands, but most players have heard of Autumn Willow and Baron Sengir. Fallen Empires may be as Old School as tube tops, but some idiots are still writing articles about Thrulls and Thallids. Not so with the Dark. Here’s a test: Name a character (he or she need not be a Legend with his or her own card) from the Dark other than Uncle Istvan.
Flanking, unlike Rampage, is conceptually and theoretically simple. In Mirage Block, there were 17 creatures with Flanking, 13 of which were Knights and two of which were Legendary Creatures that were Knights at heart. As Mike Flores has noted, the majority of flankers are three-mana 2/2s; they’re even more concentrated at a single casting cost than the common Bushido creatures in Champions of Kamigawa. A side effect of this is that it’s difficult to build a Flanking-centric deck without burdening yourself with more three-drops than are attributed to the landlord’s daughter. If, however, Flanking and Bushido creatures are seen together, things become interesting.
I’ve never been a big fan of theme decks. If the theme is outlandish enough, I’ll be interested, but “Cat Evening” and “Sexy Cardboard Women Unchained Night” at the game shop just aren’t my cup of tea. This doesn’t mean that I don’t have respect for theme deck builders though. Sure, there may only be 22 Cats in Magic (Okay, Okay. 23, including Wirecat.), but at least, they’re scattered throughout a lot of sets. Not like Chimera or Slivers. But hey, that’s just me. Maybe, it comes from my fear of roleplaying games, from my dread of sitting at the kitchen table someday, using Goblins and Merfolk to recreate the fall of the Bastille. Again. You may be different though. And if you are, you probably adore Fallen Empires.
I know you’ve all been wanting it. I know that each and every man jack of you wake up at night in a hot sweat and wonder, “When, o when, will Adam Grydwhatever devote another article to cards from Mirage Block?” Well, my friends, sometimes, prayers are answered… and I brought a Tombstone Stairwell deck with me to boot.
As I’ve said before, I love Mirage Block. In terms of flavor and game play, nothing beats the African-themed sets. Mirage introduced two keywords to Magic, Flanking and Phasing, the latter of which is known as the most confusing mechanic in the game. Just like anything else though, once you understand the mechanic, there has to be a way to break it. Right?
If you’re anything like me, you find lands boring. At best, they’re there to cast your Craw Giants, and at worst, they sit around mocking you, singing, “If you wanted to pay the cumulative upkeep on Yavimaya Ants, maybe, you shouldn’t have put them in 4-Color Hippo Survivor Madness!” But in the Old Days, things were different. Back then, lands were hyper-cool, and all the women looked like characters from a Tom Tykwer film.
In the previous article of this column, we looked at some of the outstanding cards from Alliances. Well, my friend, there are many more. There are more outstanding Alliances cards than there are worms of the earth, and by golly, we’re going to look at each and every one of them.
