My return article is going to be about the results of the last major Standard tournament that hit the newsstands recently. Many of the things that happened were small, but I do think that the last thing I mention in this article is something truly staggering.
As I write this, people all over the world are looking at all of the available decklists from this weekend (and previous weekends) that are available at Wizards of the Coast’s website. Whether by stick or carrot, Wizards has managed (at least in theory) to get all of the tournament organizers out there to provide their Top 8 lists. As Mike Flores has already said, we haven’t seen this kind of depth of information available since the days of the Dojo.
But really, it is much more than that. We’re living in the middle of the longest Grinder of all time.
Adrian looks at the success of Scepter-Chant at the recent Extended Pro Tour, tells you what he thinks Nick West and Ruud Warmenhoven got right, and then gives his own updated version of the deck for the next Extended season.
Cabal Rogue has done it again. Their new R/G deck dominated in every State it was played, and will be one of the dominant Standard decks in the metagame. Adrian Sullivan takes you behind the scenes of how the deck was developed, how to play this new powerhouse, and gives a complete matchup guide. If you are going to play any Standard this fall, you need to read this article.
Few writers on this site have discussed it recently because one fact about States has remained constant and obvious: Affinity is the best deck. However, since everyone knows this, Affinity players will have to fight through a wall of hate in order to reach the elimination rounds, a task that won’t be easy. Today, Adrian shares some ideas on how to modify the best deck in the field to better compete against hate, and applies them to what is certain to be the most popular deck at champs. If you plan to play or to beat Affinity this weekend, then you might want to take a look.
While there are an abundance of potential builds to Psychatog, they all share some common traits that make them succeed. One is inevitability… if the game gets to keep going, Psychatog will win. In the old format, it would try to counter the key spells to slow the game down. Then, card drawing would take over, with the odd counterspell here or there to keep the game from getting out of control. Finally, at some point, Dr. Teeth would smack himself onto the table and win in a single brutal turn. Psychatog is so powerful, in fact, it becomes very hard to build a counter-control deck that doesn’t win with him, because he is such an efficient finisher. All Tog decks have the Tog, which allows for inevitable wins. . They all have countermagic.
And they all draw spells, digging around in their deck.
It’s that digging into the deck that makes specializing your Tog builds so reasonable.
What a mess. What a mess. First of all, as I’ve read the forum thread to Geordie Tait’s article, I’ve grown sadder and sadder.
GT has decided to write a card advantage article for new players. Fine. We start debating the finer points of it. Fine. People get heated. Even this is fine.
There are two not-fines. One from Oscar Tan. One from GT.
In essence, this deck does what Baron Harkonnen did back in 1997. It tries to devote itself to just making sure that the opponent does not win. When you play Chronoscepter, your basic plan is this:
If you are looking for a completely rogue creation to play both before and after the Bannings, don’t miss this article!
We all have a pretty good idea of what is going to happen. Most likely Wizards of the Coast will ban all of the”engine” cards. People will loudly cry for the format to change, and Wizards will come through, like they (mostly) should. They will attempt to get rid of the problem decks that currently exist in the format with these bannings: Goblin Charbelcher, Tinker, Goblin Recruiter, Hermit Druid, and it’s always possible they might throw Chrome Mox into the mix as well.
But in doing so, they’ll just be making a mistake. They’ll be trying to cure the symptoms, but miss the disease.
He’s back! One-time Dojo columnist and original rogue deckmaster Adrian Sullivan makes his triumphant return to StarCityGames.com and the Magic writing community. For those of you who’ve never read Adrian before, you can always count on him to provide honest opinions that often cut against the grain of conventional wisdom. In his inaugural column, Adrian tells you how he ended up with a rogue Red deck for Wisconsin States, discusses his play mistakes, and gives advice to those of you looking to take his deck for a spin.
I had the extreme pleasure of going to the Team Pro Tour at New York this year, and the tournament was pretty miserable for me. Why the extreme pleasure? I got to see some friends. I got to play in some side events. My other team (“We’ve Got Girlfriends,” Andy Nishioka and Richie Frangiosa as…
My ride was due to arrive in less than an hour. I didn’t know exactly where the tournament was. I hadn’t slept, and I’d gone out partying the night before. Definitely not the wisest way to prepare for a PTQ. The night before had started well enough. A collection of people were heading to a…
Before splashed big in the metagame for Regionals, I was sitting in Neutral Ground playing a few friendly games of Type Two against Christopher Robin Senhouse. Breaking out a number of decks, I found myself constantly amused and annoyed at what I was losing to. "Attack you with my and Two ," said Chris. Down…
One of the major problems that Sabre (or Bargain) has compared to the older version is that it can sometimes be stopped by an initially lucky counterspell draw, or by an extremely quick beatdown draw. While a lot of players initially found that they were winning against mono-green, as time passed and people began making…
Editor’s Note: A long time ago, the first Magic website was The Dojo – a site that is still legendary for publishing some of the most fundamental principles of Magic. Almost all strategical theory can be traced back to the Dojo’s loyal writers, and any serious Magic player owes these old vets a debt of…
