My favorite part of Magic is still the creativity that it takes to build new decks. But something has happened recently: Winning is becoming more important to me. I don’t know what exactly happened to make me feel this way, but whatever it is, I want to win now. And playing your own decks isn’t the way to do this.
It has to be read to be believed. But there is a major revelation for Chris Romeo fans.
Will last weekend’s results scare me away from playing Phantom Living at Regionals? Of course not! I’m not smart enough for that. I really do chalk last weekend up to a string of bad luck. Besides, it’s been doing very well in testing and got me to the Top 4 against the same field the last time I played it.
We knew that the deck wanted to do two things: Stay alive long enough to hit Threshold, thus exploiting the Hunting Grounds, and drop critters that we wouldn’t normally have a chance to cast. And whether it’s competitive or not, which I believe it is, I must say that the deck is more fun than a roomful of drunk monkeys with typewriters.
How do pros do this all the time? How can they play the same deck over and over and over and over and over without wanting to just pick up a shovel and go ape-friggin’-s**t on the guy sitting across from them? “Tossing a Wonder into the graveyard for your Mongrel, huh? I don’t think so. Why not? Because, if you’ll look to your right, you’ll see that I just set your entire graveyard on fire, you piece of flying wurm dung! BWAH-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!”
Do you really think that you can build an OnBC deck without knowing what the final 25% of the cards will be? You’ve got your nasty Beast thing all ready to go, don’tcha? For all you know, this card will be in Scourge:
FATHER NELSON, HOSER CLERIC
Creature – Cleric Legend
W
1/1
Remove Father Nelson from the game: Choose a creature type. All opponents remove all creatures of the chosen type they control from the game. Search each opponent’s hand, graveyard, and library for all creature cards of the chosen type and remove them from the game. Set them on fire. Draw a card.
Yeah, it’s a little undercosted, but Wizards claims to be giving white some good weenies again.
The good thing is that we’ve already backed up the Lavaborn Muse with a solid body in the Mindslicer. What if the Muse isn’t in play? The Mindslicer is still a 4/3 that can decimate everybody’s hands.
QUESTION: Won’t losing our hand hurt us, too?
ANSWER: LA LA LA LA LA I’m not listening LA LA LA LA LA
I think that I finally (fingers crossed) figured out a solid mono-white Birds deck. I say this because I started 5-0 at this weekend’s tourney, not losing until I faced David Dyer and his RWg Astral Slide deck. That, and I debate with the pros, find a home for a poor lost wizard, and discuss the R/G Anger deck that everyone’s been asking about!
Do you know how hard it is to kill those Phantom guys? A single Phantom Flock stops a flying Wurm not once, not twice, but three times. And then we’ll add Shared Triumph. “Great,” you say. “Shared Triumph makes the Phantoms bigger.” No, Shared Triumph makes Elephants bigger; it makes Phantoms invincible.
It seems that my last few columns have touched a couple of nerves… Mostly in a good way, which is not always what a writer strives for. So let me respond to you all, show you the options my fans have presented, and show you a couple of new Soldier decks I’ve been working on.
This week, we’re going to do something that journalists call Interviewing Yourself. This is a technique in which the writer asks himself (or herself) questions that he (or she) then answers. In theory, this is supposed to give the writer (and, by extension, the reader) some Deep Insight into His (or Her) Own Mind. In reality, it’s a cheap way to get a column.
This one starts as a bit of a love story; I am truly falling in love with Living Wish. I know that it’s a rare.,.. But it’s another one of those rares that you just have to get. If you’re a newer player and like green, make sure to get four Living Wishes. The toolbox effect out of the sideboard can be huge.
Many people – well, a few, anyway – noticed that I didn’t do a piece last week. The reason is simple. I was still recovering from my trip to Grand Prix New Orleans! You see, the StarCity folks found out that I had gone to Tulane and hadn’t been back in fifteen years… So they thought that I’d like the trip. Plus, they wanted me to be a tour guide of sorts. How could I say no?
Odyssey Block was great. It was the block that made me realize that the folks at Wizards R&D are extremely creative people. They may never run out of ideas. As a matter of fact, it kind of reminds me of Urza’s block. Urza’s block was SO full of good stuff that we STILL can’t find the bottom of it.
While some people may have the brightest yard decorations in the neighborhood (requiring the police to stop by and make them shut down every night at 10 p.m. or risk a fine) and others make 132 dozen cookies, I get to write about a Magic deck that is inspired by Christmas carols and Christmas folklore. Yep – my annual Magic deck based on Christmas carols. And I always make sure that it’s Standard-legal. Merry Christmas!
