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AuthorOscar Tan

Winner of the 2002 Writer War, Oscar lives in the Phillipines and is an aspiring law student.

You CAN Play Type I #115 Part 1: The Control Player’s Bible Head to Head –

Today’s feature demonstrates an updated but still skeletal version of Suicide Black, to illustrate how the”modern” deck plays. The only truly modern development incorporated at this point is the obvious substitution of Chalice of the Void for Null Rod, so we don’t take in the changes all at once, and to better appreciate the latest post-Mirrodin tech.

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You CAN Play Type I #114: CAN Wizards Design For Type I?

“I don’t trust R&D to make what they think are”Type I-specific” cards. No one there knows enough about Type I, and their little gift might prove more abusive than they realized. Then, we’re stuck with it until DCI says something, and no one knows whether or not they’re looking at the new mistake until they actually make a restriction.”

The above text seems to suggest that you do not think Wizards can make cards for, or even designed with half an eye towards, Type 1. In fact, Wizards themselves have admitted they simply have not the time and resources to playtest Type 1 (a statement which, although I find it disappointing, I fully sympathize with), and they would probably agree with your assertion that no-one at Wizards knows enough about Type 1 to design cards for it. But, my question is, does anyone?

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You CAN Play Type I #112: The Control Player’s Bible, Part XXXVI: Head to Head: Classic Suicide Black

Since the printing of Hymn to Tourach (and its eerie wolf-head art), Discard has been Black’s most prominent mechanic. The reactive Blue counterspells can be used in both control and aggro-control deck structures, and the same goes for proactive Black Discard. You have to distinguish Black aggro-control, for example, from more control-oriented strategies such as Pox and Nether Void. In the same way, you distinguish the feel of Tempest-Urza’s Saga-era Type II Suicide Black decks from what you called Type II Mono Black Control.

I’d like to begin my demonstration of Black-based aggro-control, however, with the original”old school” Suicide builds, the kind that was played against”The Deck” and mono Blue back when Fact or Fiction was still unrestricted. These decks featured the simple skeleton of beatdown, discard, and mana denial, and today’s more complicated blends are best understood with the classic foundations.

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You CAN Play Type I #111: Maximizing Mirrodin Part VI – Blue, Black, and Red Creatures

You have to admit that War Elemental is one of the spoiler entries that immediately catches your eye. You’re tempted to do some mental weighing. You can just attack with your first-turn creature or fire off an extra Lightning Bolt like a cumbersome Chain Lightning, then every other burn spell in your hand deals at least twice its damage. Normally, its triple-Red, three-mana cost would be enough to merit it just a passing comment, but things have changed with Chalice of the Void… So is War Elemental better and does it raise the value of the three-slot in Type I?

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You CAN Play Type I #110: Study Extended And Grow Strong

What I fail to understand is why people pooh-pooh Type I players who call for a brake on the format’s still-unrestricted broken tempo cards and call them”casual” players, but not bat an eye when Kai Budde says:”I hate the format. Basically, if you want to win, you have to build a deck that wins on turn 2 or turn 3, and if you do that it always becomes really inconsistent.” It’s pretty much the same problem in Type I. But hey, I like being on the same side of the argument as Kai Budde.

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You CAN Play Type I #109: The Control Player’s Bible, Part XXII.1 – Head to Head with Vengeur Masque

Hulk Smash was the big story of the Vintage Championships last GenCon, but a lot of people forget about the finalist’s deck: Vengeur Masque. Masque has since established itself as Type I’s premier aggro deck. The philosophies behind The Funker and Stacker 2 merged somewhat into Benjamin Rott’s Tools ‘n’ Tubbies, which was in turn supplanted by Vengeur. The two are very similar in spirit, with Survival of the Fittest providing the card advantage for both, but with Illusionary Mask playing the key tempo booster for Vengeur.

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You CAN Play Type I #108: The State Of The Metagame Address (Or, Is Oscar Tan His Own Worst Enemy?)

Again, what should we do? Innovate towards faster kills, meaning Turn 1? I think there’s a point where you know where the metagame is taking you, and you should take the wheel from the driver already. I mean, we now have a format where a 2/1 for one mana has long since been too weak. My point is that Type I is too fast, and that proposing to slow it down is not a move to make Type I less competitive; it’s a move to make Type I more realistic.

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You CAN Play Type I #106: Maximizing Mirrodin, Part IV – The Half Time Mail Call

Dear Oscar:

Suppose R&D wanted to make a card that”forces decks to change their spell mix,” or their designers to think outside the box and not necessarily opt for all the broken cards on the restricted list simply by virtue of their brokenness. R&D wanted this card to essentially”fix” all their old blunders to some extent by making the very thing that is desirable about those spells (their inexpensive costs, out of proportion with their over-powered effects) less desirable. So what’s wrong with that?

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You CAN Play Type I #105: Maximizing Mirrodin, Part III – Scepters And Belchers

Last week, I said three artifacts stand out in Mirrodin: Chrome Mox should be restricted on principle because of the inherent danger of free artifact mana that evades the land drop restrictions. Chalice of the Void deserves to be banned (note, not necessarily”should be”) because of how it cuts off entire decktypes or forces them to radically change their spell mix all by itself, irrespective of the deck that slips it in-or the intelligence of the player who does. Isochron Scepter? Well, that’s a tougher nut to crack.

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You CAN Play Type I #104: Maximizing Mirrodin, Part II – The Three Hyped Artifacts, And Others

Putting all this together, Chalice of the Void:


  • Hoses entire archetypes

  • Can be played in any deck to shut down at least combo and weenie aggro

  • Hoses budget archetypes worst and some powered archetypes least, by nature

These are three very weighty bullet points, and when you say”entire archetypes,” you’re talking about radical changes to the entire Type One metagame.

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You CAN Play Type I #103: Maximizing Mirrodin, Part I – Artifact, White and Green Creatures

You might have drooled the first time you saw Platinum Angel. After all,”don’t lose” was the cornerstone of the original”The Deck” philosophy. That is, by focusing on simply not losing, you can wear your opponent down and later outpace him in resources, and overwhelm him. That philosophy, however, isn’t absolute gospel in today’s far, far faster Type I. In many cases, the best way not to lose is to simply win first, especially when any single deck is hard-pressed to deal with all the many possible ways of losing. That leads us to the Angel’s fundamental problem: It stops you from losing, but it doesn’t help you win.

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