AuthorJosh Silvestri

This weekend I attended the first PTQ in Northern California of the season, because it literally wasn’t even scheduled until recently. To get the obvious out of the way, I lost. I went 3-0 then 0-2, drop, because I was so annoyed after round 5 that I most likely would’ve just played like garbage the next two rounds anyway. I played W/G Aggro heavily metagamed against U/G and Pickles. I’d been working on it for the past few weeks, tweaking for the expected metagame…

My idiotic selection for the Grand Prix Trial this weekend was White Weenie. Why? Because the field was anticipated to be something like 50% Pickles with a smattering of Tarmogoyf and Reanimator decks. This is a field prime to be run over by W/G Goyf or the Little White Men.

My deck of choice lately has been Poison Slivers, the new and very shiny aggro deck that’s gotten a lot of press and had a decent amount of success online. It also may be one of the most annoying decks to see play at a competitive level in some time. Ask your opponents what they think when you play the deck, and they’ll either be amused, or they’ll want to grab the nearest sharp object and get a’stabbin.

This weekend I spent all my time Magic-wise drafting Tenth Edition. Unfortunately, this means I don’t have a heck of a lot new to say on Block or Standard. To top that off, my original article got corrupted, which meant I lost most of it, so instead of a shorter (and worse) version of that, I’ll be breaking my normal Constructed roots and giving you a Tenth Edition Limited article. All this, plus a Vintage bonus section!

There are two basic types of Reanimator deck shells that are proven to work in the Block Constructed format. The first is the basic aggro Reanimator shell, which involves Gathan Raiders and Looter Il-Kor backed by Bridge from Below, Body Double, and Dread Return. Akroma, Angel of Wrath and Bogardan Hellkite are the two main reanimation targets in just about every Reanimator build seen thus far.

Now that we’ve had more time to digest the Grand Prix: Montreal results, seeing more of the decks that weren’t in the Top 16, we’re beginning to hear about a few of the PTQ results. This means we can start testing with more refined versions of the decks we’ve been playing, or seen on MTGO, and personal gauntlets. My group’s initial testing has slowly shown, just like many others, that a B/U base with splashes is pretty much the way to go in this format.

Since Block Constructed season has just officially gotten underway, I’ve decided to split this article. The first half will be me finishing the Designing Decks piece I started last week. The second half will be some pondering on TSP Block including bits and pieces of information from the first couple of PTQs and GP: Montreal thoughts. That’s a lot to tackle, so let’s get started!

I’ve always preferred making decks to playing decks. Something about the essence of crafting your own weapon to bash the other guy really pleases me. However, because I enjoy designing decks so much, it means I have many decks that go wrong, decks I have to discard because they just aren’t good enough. Over the years, I’ve developed a system to help me when I start work on the base of a deck, and to keep track of where I thought the deck was inferior to existing decks.

Regionals is over for another year, and so our attention turns to the next Constructed PTQ season — Time Spiral Block. Josh takes a look at the goodies that Future Sight brings to the table, looking at what may or may not work in the established decks of the format. Mono Red, R/G Big Mana, White Weenie… all the current contenders are under the spotlight. Plus, there’s a couple of new decks to try!