Lands and Beatdown
Master Red Mage Dan Paskins tackles the topic of the Japanese Red Decks and tells you why it’s possible you are playing too many lands in your beatdown decks.
Boros Deck Wins
I’ve been wary of doing set reviews ever since I called Lightning Rift “junk” back when looking at Onslaught. So this is most emphatically not a review of the new Red cards. Instead it is a quick primer of what options will be available in Standard, more of a brainstorming of decklists with glorious Red cards in it than anything else. What is a Red mage to do when besieged with the urge to *gulp* splash other colors into your beautiful creation? Here are four new Ravnica Standard decklists to help answer those questions.
Rules of the Red
In case you were previously unaware of it, there are rules to building successful Red decks. With a new Standard season nearly upon us, the esteemed Mr. Paskins has taken it upon himself to enlighten the ignorant and bring joy to fiery mages and goblin cohorts everywhere.
Crazy Red Mage Storms English Nationals
I’ve always loved the National Championships. My favorite of all was six years ago, when I finished second with the first version of Red Deck Wins. That tournament qualified me for the World Championships in Yokohama, which was simply great in spite of the fact that I ended up losing more than I won, and the report I wrote afterwards got chosen by Mike Flores as the first Editor’s Choice on the Magic Dojo. I never thought, particularly recently, that I’d play in another Nationals which could match that.
Playing the Obvious – A Paskins Regionals Saga
I still remember the first Regionals that I qualified at. It was a rather different format from the current system, because rather than playing in a tournament, all you had to do was phone up and book a place at Nationals. The following year, I went 7-2 with my White deck which splashed for 4 Ray of Command, and every year after that, I managed to have enough ranking points not to have to bother. Up until last year, where I made a Red deck and qualified.
This year proved to be a bit more difficult…
Paskins on Regionals
Dan Paskins has already played in English Regionals. Want to know what the master Red mage played and what advice he has on the format in general? Step inside, my friends, step inside…
The Best Card in Vintage? Mountain!
Like many people, I am very excited about the editor’s idea of getting the Pros to play Vintage and see if they can dominate in the next big tournament. Being shamefully ignorant of the format, I thought I would have a look at the coverage of the tournament in Richmond this weekend, to see what sort of competition Zvi and the gang would have. I learned all about lots of new concepts such as “Stax”, “TPS”, “Meandeck Tendrils” and “Gifts Belcher”, as well as recognizing some old favorites such as Oath and Fish. So then I thought I’d read the coverage to see which of these decks was coming out on top. And got an odd sense of déjà vu…
SCG Daily – Doctor’s Note
I am writing to you to inform you that one of your employees, Mr. Daniel Paskins, has recently been placed in my care, and therefore will not be able to write his regular articles for your website in the near future.
SCG Daily – I Make the Card
I won’t ever get to go to the Invitational, so I can only try to fulfil this objective by proxy. But most players at one time or another have thought about designing their own cards (including some people who have designed whole expansions), so humor me while I explain which Red card I would make, if I had the opportunity.
SCG Daily – Going A-viking
In which one Daniel Paskins, Master of all things Red, details his seedy history raping and pillaging Kent with cards like Gerrard’s Wisdom and Wall of Blossoms. The horror, the horror!
When Flooded Shoreline Ruled Britannia
Flooded Shoreline has appeared before in SCG Daily. About a fortnight ago, Abe Sargent made it the focus of his, um, Bad Rare Challenge. But while Flooded Shoreline might now be no more than an old, bad rare, there was a time when it was part of the world’s best deck.
SCG Daily – Musings from Dan Paskins
This week’s Daily author is the master of the Red himself, Englishman Dan Paskins.
Red Deck Wins 2005
With the speed that PTQ players are tweaking their combo, beatdown, and control decks these days, it may look like Red Deck Wins has been left in the dust – a relic of the early days of the season when players had yet to properly prepare for the Red menace. Thankfully, notes Dan, Red deck designers are not above a few innovations themselves and today Dan provides a look at a few tweaks you can add to your Red Deck to stay ahead of the combo curve.
The Interactive Extended Tournament Report
I’ve been thinking for a while about how to improve tournament reports and make them more useful for the people reading them, and I’ve decided that what I’m going to try doing is a more interactive style of report. For each of the crucial decisions during the tournament which decided how I got on, I’ll explain the situation and then ask you what you would have done in this situation, before explaining what I did and what I should have done. If there’s anything that you want more information about, then just post in the forums and I’ll do my best to reply.
Tainted Red Decks – A Look at Goblins in Extended
Students of the Paskins School are generally known for turning their noses up at players that add other colors to Red decks, citing them as “tainted” and wondering why anyone would feel the need to defile such a glorious color with unfortunate impurities. This week, however, Dan takes a look at recent Goblin decks in Extended and comes to the conclusion that there are some very good reasons to add Black cards to everyone’s favorite Red men.