I saw an article on Mask decks last week, and I wanted to talk about it – strategies for dealing with Mask, a discussion on whether Mask is a combo deck, and alternate mana bases and color configurations for it.
The initial reactions in my mailbox were as varied as they were ecstatic. For multicolored control alone, Darren Di Battista posited that maybe they shouldn’t be used because they might hurt colored mana development later on. What’s the approach you need to take to the new Onslaught fetchlands?
Ah, yes.”Draw X” always gets your attention, and Read The Runes caught my eye… But a small Read the Runes doesn’t look very impressive; compare this to a small Braingeyser or a small Stroke. So we end up with the question,”Can combo use this to set up the end game?”
We begin with what was the most talked-about enchantment in Type I circles, obviously because this card has explosive potential…. But what deck does Future Sight belong in? With Future Sight in play, Academy can turn over Moxen and keep fueling cheap card drawers until it puts together the combo. But is it a good idea?
Blackmail is clearly a second-rate Duress. But is that bad? Well, actually it is – unless you can find a deck that wants four more discard slots. You know, though, that no deck wants all that discard, the simplest reason being it sucks to strip an empty hand while a weenie beats down on you. Discard is just disruption; you need other things to win you the game.
No deck that can handle the double-black mana cost has wanted a four-mana slot since Phyrexian Negator, anyway. Ben Bleiweiss called Grinning Demon”Juzam Djinns five through eight,” and that sums it up nicely – albeit in exactly the opposite way Ben intended.
Take a look at what is probably the best Type I Morph in Onslaught: Dwarven Blastminer. Now compare it to its illustrious predecessor, Dwarven Miner. Let’s play Spot the Differences.
At this point, you might expect me to burst your bubble and tell you why the KrOathan sideboarding plan is all hype and why it stinks. I won’t. Simply put, it’s one of the strongest transformational sideboard strategies seen in years.
There are two basic sideboarding options for an aggro deck. First, it can add threats and speed up; second, it can add control elements, moving towards aggro/control. The first option seems to be the most intuitive, but it’s actually the most difficult to pull off.
How do you tweak”The Deck” against aggro? Oscar goes over your sideboarding options when playing Magic’s most complex deck!
00:03:22 – — Basti says: ”Go easy on me.”
00:03:22 – — Rakso says: ”Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war”
00:04:02 – Rakso says:’keep’
00:04:05 – Basti says:’I am playing White Weenie!’
00:04:10 – Rakso says:’I accept your concession.’
Just how out of touch am I with the mainstream Magic world? It hit me when I finally found the time to click to the Worlds coverage: I couldn’t relate to a single thing. And frankly, I blame the Sideboard.
The Funker is a psychotic deck that’s has characteristics in common with The Deck, Zoo, and Stacker 2, but isn’t really any of them. It’s dangerous as all hell. And Oscar goes head-to-head with it in a lightsaber-clashin’ battle to the finish!
you have to critically determine which games are won due to Shade and which are due to,”Hymn, Hymn, I win!” The variants are very close in terms of cards used, play the same strategy, and you have to base your judgment only in the games where the changes made an impact. Obviously, it’ll take people a while to notice something… And even longer to decide if there’s a problem.
Nantuko Shade – an autodrop into any Suicide Black deck, right? Certainly you’re seeing it in most builds as a given. But that one card changes the whole nature of the deck… And Oscar tells you why.
