It’s a sad day for us here at StarCityGames.com. This will be the last Chris Romeo article for a while. I’ll let the man himself tell you the details, but we all wish him the best of luck, and hope he returns to our front page soon. Good luck Chris, and thanks for the good times!
I have failed you. Remember a few weeks ago how we had a vote on which card I should use in my next deck? No Rest for the Wicked won. However, Shivan Wumpus and Lord of the Pit tied for second, missing the top slot by only one vote. I promised to do decks on the two runners-up too. I’ve done a Shivan Wumpus deck. I was going to do Lord of the Pit this week. I even had a great name for the deck: Pit Boss. But I chickened out and went for an Elf deck instead.
Today is Thanksgiving. As one who concentrates on inexpensive decks, I’m especially thankful for the fan-freakin’-tastic commons and uncommons that the folks at Wizards have been making over the past few years. I could make my word count for this article right now just by listing all of the kick aspirin commons and uncommons that are Standard-legal right now. While I’m cheesy (check out that moustache!), I’m not that cheesy.
I made a Kithkin Soldier deck. I know. I can’t believe it, either. Me, Chris Romeo, building a White Weenie deck as his first one using the latest cards. Go figure. I wanted the goodness of Clash in there somewhere, to smooth the draws. This is the part where you scurry to figure out which card with Clash I could possibly use in a White Weenie deck. It’s Springjack Knight.
This week, Chris makes good on his promise to build Standard decks around the much-maligned Shivan Wumpus. He brings us not one, not two, but three decks that pack the punishing 6/6. SO how did they fare in the maelstrom of Magic Online testing? Click here to find out!
Obviously, clearly, and undoubtedly, Grave Pact is just so very made for No Rest for the Wicked. They go together like peanut butter with jelly, fries with that shake, and yo’ momma with me. “Oh, snap!” In fact, it’s so easy that I didn’t even really try it. Of course, it could be that it isn’t as easy as I think…
Every once in a while, I get an e-mail or StarCityGames.com in-box message asking about this deck that I mention which inspired my very first Magic column. The deck was called Ants in the Pants, and I wrote about it for a defunct web site called 7Towers.net. Given that people still seem interested and that I couldn’t finish any of the sixteen article ideas I had this week, I decided to reprint the piece here…
Two weeks ago, as a way to focus my time and attention, I asked you kind and thoughtful readers to vote on which of five cards I should feature in this week’s article. You voted for Ana Battlemage. Let me deconstruct this card and see what I’ve gotten myself into…
Chris Romeo takes a thoughtful stroll through the garden of Lorwyn, pointing out the cards and the combos that have recently piqued his interest. All the colors are trawled for hidden gems, and the flotsam is ritually derided in the signature Romeo style. Looking for the budget bombs in the coming Standard format? Chris has the article for you!
Right now, the card that has me the most torn up is Mobilization. I love that card. I was enamored of it back when it was first printed in Onslaught, and I’m no less taken by it today. It makes token Soldiers, no less. They have Vigilance. I can make as many as I can afford to pay for. What’s not to love?
I write about budget decks. I tell those without unlimited Magic funds to make sure that the first thing that they do when each new set comes out is to get four copies of each common and uncommon. Since we know the schedule of sets’ releases, we should be able to budget for that purchase by putting aside five or so bucks a week. Some players, though, don’t have any money for anything beyond that. Not even enough to get four Heartwood Storytellers or four Stalking Vengeances. Why do I ignore those folks?
It’s been a while – probably too long – since I reached into my male bag. I mean, my mailbag. Without further ado, let’s see what interesting stuff is in here. As usual, I’ll be changing the names to protect whatever dignity people have left after writing to me. Unless they want me to use their name. In which case, I will decide if they’re just going for Internet immortality or if they’re being genuine.
I finally got out of the house on a Saturday and played actual, honest-to-goodness tournament Magic against real human beings who sat across from, beside, and diagonal to me. I wanted to commemorate this occasion with a tournament report worthy of our own Jamie Wakefield, King of the Fatties, Conqueror of Beautiful Women from Exotic Places and Exotic Women from Beautiful Places, Tournament Report Writer Extraordinaire. I will probably fail, but at least I’ll have tried.
While I am often referred to as “Dr. Romeo“ in this column, I‘m not a doctor in the conventional sense of the word. I’m a doctor of jurisprudence. In other words, I just have the title of doctor, like Dr. Henry Kissinger with his Ph.D. from Harvard, or Dr. Dre with his degree in funkology. So, before writing this column I had little knowledge of the physiology and neurology of Zombies. I had to find out if Zombies dreamed…
Aside from the fact that I have to spend more money that I don’t really have, I love it when a new set comes out. That’s true even if, like Tenth Edition (a.k.a. Xth), it’s mostly comprised of cards that I already have, thanks to years of hoarding the ones that I’ve purchased. That’s because the fun isn’t necessarily in getting new cards but in using old cards in new ways. At a minimum, it’s the chance to use old cards in combinations and in formats in which I’ve never gotten to use them.
