Whenever a new set comes out, the best first decks tend to be based upon existing decks, and they tend to be aggro – it’s always easier to find ways to deal twenty damage than ways of preventing twenty damage. Case in point: Onslaught Block Goblins. They translate very well to a post-Mirrodin Standard – they don’t get much, but neither do they lose much.
When playing in the mirror, we found that the more streamlined Goblin build would generally beat the”beefier” build. So I went for the quicker approach, adjusting the sideboard so I could downshift as needed, depending upon the matchup. Goblin Pyromancer replaced Starstorm, which was our own little bit of tech. There are definitely times where Starstorm is the better card… And there are times where giving all your Goblins +3/+0 for an alpha strike and/or serving as a Tivadar’s Crusade works, too. My results with the card were mixed….
Zombie Bidding, it has been noted by pundits who are better-known than I, one of those pseudo-combo decks masquerading as a creature-oriented aggro-control deck – say that three times fast. The idea is to basically hold the fort until you can get the graveyard chock full o’ Zombies, Patriarch’s Bidding them back, clear the board – yes, that means you too, Akroma, Angel of Wrath – and then sweep over the next turn for the kill. Lather, rinse, repeat until opponent is dead.
Our take on B/W Control has shown the most promise. I find it hard to believe it’s nowhere to be seen among the top-tier Onslaught Block decks. It has all the tools to handle the current Tier I decks – Zombie Bidding, Goblins, MWC, Slide – but I haven’t seen a build that can beat those decks. That doesn’t mean I don’t think such a build exists. In my opinion, the right mix of cards hasn’t been found yet – the archetype is solid. So let’s take a look!
I was working on tweaking U/G to my satisfaction for Regionals, and Brad put together this rogue-ish deck built around the Unholy Triumvirate of Cabal Archon, Rotlung Reanimator, and Withered Wretch. I chuckled at his efforts – after all, didn’t he know about Compost? Compost destroys mono-black decks. I decided to humor him by hauling out U/G against his horribly untuned deck… And got my clock cleaned. Hmm. Maybe this deck has some potential after all.
So what are my opinions of the set, from what I saw (which, based on five rounds, wasn’t much)? I’m not sure. It’s keeping with the Timmy-ness we’ve come to expect from OnBC. But unless Mirrodin keeps with the trend of overpriced creature removal, underpowered hand denial, and neutered counterspells, I don’t know how good most of these cards will be in the full Standard environment.
I have slowly come to the realization that I will, in all likeliness, never become the next big thing on the Pro Tour. Yes, there are a few”old timers” on the Pro Tour, such as the inimitable Mike Pustilnik, but I have never been able to reach that”critical mass” point where I had the momentum to carry my skills, such as they are, into lucrative employment as a professional Magic player. For me and all the other Bennie Smiths out there, the two tournaments we really look forward to are States and Regionals. A win at States or a Top 8 at Regionals would be the pinnacle of my competitive Magic career, Pro Tour or no Pro Tour.
For those following the recent discussion regarding Nick Eisel’s continuing to write for this site, The Ferrett issued a call to arms for more good writers on Onslaught drafting. So I decided, what the heck, why not give this a try? Beats waiting for Gary Wise to ever get his articles done. I am a good Limited player, though, rated as one of the better players in the state of Oregon, and I do draft plenty down at my local game store.
U/G Madness, a.k.a.”Wonder Dog,” is a deck near and dear to my heart. However, unlike most of its Tier 1 counterparts, U/G has a fair amount of flexibility in terms of different cards that can be added to it, altering it in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. So why don’t I walk you through a complete list of all the cards that have been tried in U/G Madness, and how each addition alters the strategy?
Compared to old Necro decks, which needed to get Necropotence into play as fast as humanly possible and had little chance of winning without the power of the skull, this is a considerable upgrade. Graveborn Identity leans heavily on Graveborn Muse, but it’s not a crutch.
I’m not ready to say Legions is the new Homelands, as others have – there’s more than three playable cards in this set – but the list of cards I’d call tournament-playable is short. But middle sets are often lacking in that department, as it’s the final set in block formats that tend to have the bulk of the bombs. While lacking in cards for Constructed environments, though, this set is going to be a blast to draft.
The deck is surprisingly good, better than I certainly expected. In our testing, it was no worse than 50/50 vs. Rock and U/G Madness, ate Sligh for lunch and gave Oath decks fits. This was before these improvements.
So I started playing around with trying to move popular OBC decks to Extended. Wonder Dog (U/G Madness) and Mono-Black Control easily made the jump from Odyssey Block Constructed to Standard. Could the archetypes go further and dominate Extended? (That’s a loaded question. I wouldn’t be writing this article if the answer was”no.”) Enheartened by results at Reims, I decided to playtest and see what I got.
I had been planning to make my”Road to States 2002″ articles a huge, expansive series of articles covering every possible archetype and different permutations of decks. Unfortunately, when one is working three different jobs and trying to actually test for States, that does seem to cut into one’s writing time…. So I’ll try to make up for it with a marginally entertaining tournament report.
I’ve monkeyed around with adding different colors to OBC Deep Dog in order to strengthen the mirror and maybe help against Sligh, but I discovered that Dog’s mana base is like a Porsche’s fuel injection: It’s very, very fine-tuned and it doesn’t like different kinds of gas. Black is right out. But what other color might work?
