Joshua continues his unconventional look at mono-colored strategies in the current Standard metagame. We’ve had Green and Black… today’s offerings are White and Red. Is the mono-colored strategy a real contender in this multicolored Magical age?
We have a lot of options in the current Standard metagame, especially in regard to the creation of colored mana. Indeed, the plethora of incredible multicolored lands at our disposal makes playing a mono-colored deck little more than Magical suicide… or does it? Joshua Claytor begs to differ…
The winner of the StarCityGames.com 1K Open tournament is one that I did not expect… and to be honest, I’d dismissed it. Fader seemed to me like it was a one-hit wonder (much like Solar Pox was, in my mind at least), winning a few State championships and falling off the face of Standard.
I was wrong.
We’re a few short days away from Champs, and everyone should be settling in on a deck choice, be it Flores hot new tech, one of the very good decks from the StarCityGames event, or a unique homebrew. I’ve had my deck for a few weeks now. I’ve been tuning it, trying to make it hum against what I expect the metagame to be in Kentucky. I’m excited for the event; after three tests on Friday, I get a weekend to relax and see if I can run my streak of top 8 finishes in the state to a fourth year…
We are going to look at the control decks of the format today. I feel that these decks are going to have a huge part of the Champs environment (when has control been weak?). We get many solid cards from Time Spiral for the control strategies, and these decks are where I have spent the bulk of my testing time. I am a control player at heart, and I feel that I know this style a lot better than I know the aggressive decks or the tempo decks.
What exactly is a tempo deck? My own definition is more then likely a simple one, and it can be put up for debate. I feel that a tempo deck is any of many decks that use a creature beatdown strategy and back up those men with something else besides burn spells. It may be hand disruption, countermagic, or land denial.
Today’s article deals with the beatdown decks of the format. Traditionally, new formats are defined by the beatdown decks, and if you cannot deal with some of these (Zoo, Gruul, Sand Burn) then your deck may not be the best bet to play for the tournament. Other decks are a little more left-of-center (Mono Green, Dark Boros), and you could be well suited being prepared for them, at the very least.
In the fifth installment of his entertaining series, Joshua brings us a rundown of the Champions-free Ravnica Block Constructed decks that may see play in some form at the coming Standard Champs tournaments. Next week, JXC moves onto deck ideas and archetypes involving Time Spiral cards… stay tuned!
Joshua Claytor continues his comprehensive series, examining the current Standard workhorses and producing updated (and Kamigawa-free) “skeleton” version for preliminary Champs testing. This particular article delivers some of the decks operating on the fringe of the current metagame…
Josh continues his enlightening series on the Standard metagame both pre- and post-Time Spiral. Today, he tackles a number of the stronger archetypes in the current Standard, presenting updated non-Champions skeleton builds in preparation for the coming of the new set.
The Netherlands did not add much to the current project that we are looking at, with Sea Stompy making it in to the Top 8, Heartbeat, Counterbalance Control, Snakes with Glare, multiple Critical Mass (Called Go Anan is the Best Player in coverage), a B/G Aggro deck (we talked about that in the last article), and Erayo…
Josh embarks on an epic series examining the current decks in the Standard metagame, looking at what they’re set to lose in the next rotation. He shares some skeleton builds that could make up the metagame come Standard Champs; excellent preparation for those wanting an edge on their local field.
Josh continues his entertaining Daily series with a fun Standard deck built around one of the unsung cards of Ninth Edition – Polymorph.
No one really cares what I study in school. People just want to see a decklist, and that is what I am going to bring you in yet another installment of Why Does No One Play This Card.
I’m going to present another raw decklist here, and this time we are going to take a look at removing your opponent’s best resource for winning. I love Millstone, and all the related cards, but sometimes they do not get enough respect. Seeing that we are looking at adding a transmute theme, we might as well run with the Dimir guild and see where we can go.
