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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 #102: The Control Player’s Bible – Head to Head With Stax

With all the excitement about artifacts this week, I decided to move up a feature of an artifact-based deck. Since fellow Paragon Steve Menendian already drew the Growing ‘Tog feature and I couldn’t find other notable Stax players like Matthieu Durand, I pulled a couple of very exciting games against someone you probably don’t know. Today, we welcome Guillaume Cardin, a student from Montreal. While he enjoys Type I, his higher-profile achievements include piloting U/G Madness to the quarterfinals of the last Canadian Nationals….

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Back to Basics #7: Counting Tempo (Part III)

In Part I, we recapped card advantage and summed up that drawing extra cards is like taking extra turns. However, this is put in context when you consider that an extra turn has other components aside from an extra card draw. In Part II, we went further and showed that you also maximize your mana in a particular turn by paying the lowest mana cost for a given effect. In 2003, however, I feel that even the concept”mana” as broadly discussed doesn’t cover everything about tempo; today, we’ll track tempo in the way that Rob Hahn did – attack phases.

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Back to Basics #6: Counting Tempo, Part II

One of your first steps out of scrubdom was the realization that Gray Ogre is mediocre even in Limited, Ironclaw Orcs is a placeholder in red decks when cheaper or better creatures aren’t in the format, and Jackal Pup is still red’s most important front-liner to date… Even though they all deal the same two damage. The simple explanation is that drawbacks don’t matter; the original Sligh decks with Ironclaw Orcs didn’t plan on blocking much, anyway. But this isn’t the complete picture – and to understand tempo, you must understand why the Pups are dangerous.

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Back To Basics #5: Counting Tempo, Part I

My card advantage articles had to assume that only card advantage was important, so you could do the bean counting without getting too confused. However, it’s painfully obvious that card advantage isn’t always the most important thing:
For example, Force of Will trades two cards for an opponent’s spell, yet it’s one of the best blue cards ever printed. So why is Force of Will good? The answer lies in the frequently-misunderstood concept of Tempo.

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You CAN Play Type I #101: The More Impossible The Game, The Sweeter The Victory

Hey – what’s Oscar doing in the fun section? Well, after all the serious debate on the strategy behind the Vintage Championships, Oscar decides to show three improbable routes to victory… Including the famed Invincible Counter-Troll face-off!

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You CAN Play Type I #100: Rector, Intuition, Burning And Cunning Wish To Be Restricted?

You might remember passing notes from the coverage about how Randy Buehler and some other people passed by the Type I Championships and watched a few matches. Players reported, however, that they weren’t just watching idly. Rumor is some serious talking was done. Something about… Updating the Restricted list?

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You CAN Play Type I #99: The Vintage Conundrum – …And Why Did A Lot Of Other Decks Lose?

The Ferrett – and quite a number of people – called the World Championships this past weekend a comedy of errors. And the next time StarCityGame covers a big Type I tournament, I’ll make sure to have a bottle of 80-proof brandy beside me before I read. A big bottle.

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You CAN Play Type I #98: Oscar Tan 101 – The Man Under The Hat

This week’s installment is extremely special and personal, and something quite a few readers have made suggestions on. Last week marked the 100th column I’ve submitted to Star City in the last two years (not counting the Deck Parfait analysis that came before I was made a Featured Writer, and the Mark Rosewater spoof right before his Type I column). Instead of celebrating by spoofing the website, I decided to give in and talk a bit about myself and who the heck I am beyond the websites, forums, e-mails and mIRC channels the vast majority of readers encounter me in…. So meet Oscar Tan!

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You CAN Play Type I #97: What Would JP Meyer Do?, Part Deux

The sample vignettes continue with scenarios from Rector-Trix, Hulk Smash, and Mind’s Desire!

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You CAN Play Type I #97: What Would JP Meyer Do?

GenCon is just around the corner, and there’s less than a month to test the waters of the new metagame before the Type I tournament there. If I could accurately map out the metagame and give you a step-by-step idiot’s guide on how to play against every expected archetype, I’d fly on over and try to win the thing myself… But what I can do is show you several game situations you might expect to see against each major deck, and show you the optimal play.

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You CAN Play Type I #96: The Control Player’s Bible, Part IV.2 – History, 2003 (Part 1)

Oscar’s article is so long today, it broke our format – so we had to break it into two parts. And speaking of broken, Oscar discusses Mind’s Desire and how it’s still warping the Type One metagame, even from beyond the grave of restrictions…

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You CAN Play Type I #96: The Control Player’s Bible, Part IV.2 – History, 2003 (Part 2)

This year’s GenCon will be held on July 23-26 at the Indianapolis Convention Center, and the Tenth Anniversary celebration will feature a Type I Championship sponsored by Wizards. As such, I think it’s about time I discuss what The Deck will look like in a July environment… And discuss how stupid Mind’s Desire still makes the environment.

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You CAN Play Type I #95: Sifting Through Scourge, Part V – Sorceries and Instants

Decree of Annihilation’s cycle effect is incredibly powerful, but that makes you ask which deck it fits in. Obviously, it’s not something aggro, aggro-control and combo need. As for control, Armageddon was used in Type II to keep an opponent’s mana count down while a big creature beat down or an artifact-based lock held him tight. The 7-mana price tag attached to uncounterability precludes this. That leaves you with blue-based control decks with a red splash, but why would these mana-intensive decks want to wreck their own mana and hurt themselves more? Thus, I don’t think you’ll need to be sideboarding Stifles anytime soon.

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You CAN Play Type I #94: Sifting Through Scourge, Part IV – Enchantments and Artifacts

When the Scourge spoilers first came out, people took a look at two cards. Mind’s Desire was the first (and with good reason, if you caught Part II of this series), and Parallel Thoughts was the second. I thought too many people misread Parallel Thoughts, though. Again, if I’m talking about five mana, then I want something as gamebreaking as Morphling or Memory Jar – and many bombs cost less.

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You CAN Play Type I #93, Part II: The Celebrities

I answer more letters – this time from Aaron Forsythe asking about reprints, Wayne Alward bemoaning the sad fate of his created mechanic, and the most touching letter I ever received.

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