SCG Daily #5: Week in Reweave … um, Review
To wrap up his week of un-Reweaveable content, Mark would like to address some suggestions that appeared in the forums this week, most of them focusing on Saviors cards.
SCG Daily #4: True Reweaver
Unlike previous entries in the Grand Reweave Experiment, I love this deck. It possesses a ton of what Mike Flores has called Velocity; although you are not gaining card advantage per se, every card in your deck accomplishes more and more, until late in the game it seems like each draw step just breaks the opponent. It’s not uncommon for a Reweave that you draw in the opening hand to still be working your opponent over well into the late game, transforming Meloku tokens into Yosei over and over until you end the game with The Unspeakable.
SCG Daily #3: Unreweaveable
Welcome back to the Grand Reweave Experiment. I guess it sounds kind of arrogant, calling it that, huh? There are not too many Reweave experiments going on, though, so I guess I can put on some airs until there’s another one. Anyway, thanks again to everybody who’s sticking with me this week and responding in the forums.
SCG Daily #2: Kashi-Tribe Reweaver
So, in my first day of the Grand Reweave Experiment, it should not be surprising that I submitted an absolute pile of a U/W deck based upon the combo Reweave + Yosei, the Morning Star. The only thing good about the deck was that its incredible sucktitude pointed out some important things to me I needed to learn. Today’s task is to begin to apply those lessons and come up with something a bit more competitive.
SCG Daily #1: You Gotta Reweave
The concept for this week will be the birthing process. No, not that kind of birthing – I’m referring to ideas here. Specifically I’m going to look at one minor piece of tech from Tsuyoshi Fujita’s recent Pro Tour Block Constructed deck and see if I can design a competitive deck around it.
The Beautiful Struggle: Crazy Subway Guy
One of the editorial secrets here at StarCityGames.com is that we know our readers love bad decks. No no, don’t try to deny it – you guys are absolute suckers for them. Therefore it is completely without reservation that we present Mark Young’s latest article, which is filled to the brim with a series of Type Two abortions. Do these decks have potential? Oh, most certainly. But are they ready for prime time? Well, you make the call…
The Beautiful Struggle: White Weenie Versus the World
The forums keep swearing this deck is good. The testing results from our writers seems to indicate otherwise. So which side if right and what does Mark Young add to this debate? The answers are only a click away and include additional discussion about Mono-Blue, Big Red, and Tooth and Nail.
Setting the Stage for Standard – The Beautiful Struggle: Getting Jittery
Yusssss! Arcbound Ravager is gone from the format! Now I can cut all of the artifact removal from my Beacon of Creation deck! I shall be unstoppable! Wait, what’s that you just played? Are you equipping something to your flyer? Uh-oh. Yes, kids, any reports you may have read regarding the death of artifacts have been greatly exaggerated. There’s still at least one that will give you nightmares on the eve of Regionals.
The Beautiful Struggle: Weird Science for CCB Draft
Funny things start happening after you get a few drafts under your belt with a new set. New avenues seem available. It’s easy to convince yourself that you are privy to the real tech, that some cards which everyone else thinks are crap are super-playable, and other heavily-hyped cards seem not so good. It’s too early to say whether every strange draft idea I have seen in the CCB format will prove itself worthy. But there are a couple of decks that I have drafted, or seen drafted, that really fascinate me and have proven to be at least playable if not good. This article is dedicated to those new draft ideas including one I like to call… Ninjank!
The Beautiful Struggle: Super Vision
With a new Standard environment on the horizon and Extended season in full bloom, Mark takes a step back from the tournament scene to review the various forms of strategic superiority and where they come from.
10 Extended Decks in 10 Days – The Beautiful Struggle: Storm Riders
Masashi Oiso piloted a Black version of Mind’s Desire to a Top 8 finish at Pro Tour: Columbus, but is that the version that most players will want to run for the PTQ season? Mark Young isn’t so sure, and in this comprehensive look at Mind’s Desire he examines the pros and the cons of the deck and its variations for PTQ players everywhere.
Mark’s article is the second in our full-blown Extended event where the best Constructed writers and deckbuilders in the world – including Mark, Jim Ferraiolo, Brian David-Marshall, Chad Ellis, and Mike Flores among others – give you the inside scoop on the new PTQ format for two whole weeks!
The Beautiful Struggle: When Bad Drafts Attack!
I’ve had bad drafts. Bad drafts are close personal friends of mine. Nick Eisel, that was no bad draft. It might have been close to a bad draft, and it would probably have been a train wreck if someone less experienced were running the show. But Eisel turned his draft around and ended up with a deck that he could turn into some tickets. How did he do it, and how can you do it too? Let’s take a look at what happens … When Bad Drafts Attack!
Make Every Pack Your First Pack!
I decided to share with you a little game that I play, which I call the First Pick, First Pack Game. Every time I open a pack that I have bought/won, before I add the cards to my collection, I study the pack as though I were in a draft and it was the first pack I opened for that set and I try to decide what my pick would be.
Best-Laid Plans
My last two articles talked a lot about plan-making: how one should plan in situations where the opponent could have hate cards for your affinity deck, and how one should plan on saving a lost game in the face of the opponent’s tricks. Both of these articles were well-received in the forums, which makes me happy. But, many of the plan-making concepts brought about some thoughtful disagreement from some readers. Since I haven’t yet put in the proper amount of testing to write about Extended, I thought I would take a few pages to write more about what kind of planning I was talking about.
The Art of the Save
In one of the best submissions we’ve received all year, Mark covers a variety of methods and mindsets to help you turn a losing situation into a win. We’re sure you will judge this for yourself, but Gene Siskel returned from the dead to give this article a big fat thumbs up, so you should at least check it out.