Advanced Metagaming
Part theory article, part Regionals report, and part strategy article containing an updated version of Staff-Go, this article has something for everyone.
Tightening Up For Regionals
Regionals is coming. It’s right there off in the distance. If you squint your eyes and tilt your head you can almost see it.
And you’re ready for it. You’ve got your deck. You’ve playtested it. You’re going to get a good night’s sleep (cough) and eat a nice big breakfast (cough, cough) before you leave in the morning.
You’re going to win that damn tournament. Man, if only winning Magic tournaments were that easy!
Lessons Learned From Umezawa’s Jitte
This article has some discussion about a little bit of everything, but the fact that it is another excellent article from Richard Feldman should be more than enough to get all of you to read it.
Old School Blue
Over the years, Richard Feldman has written some excellent articles often discussing variations of decks that are ahead of their time. Today is no different, but to truly get your attention on what Richard thinks Mono-Blue should look like for this Regionals, we will post the following three lines:
The Win Condition
3 Proteus Staff (Win Condition #1-3 of 4)
1 Goblin Charbelcher (Win Condition #4 of 4)
The Real Problem
Some time ago, Ben Bleiweiss started a bit of a ruckus over the “decline of American Magic.” He wrote that “The single most problematic element hurting American Magic…is a highly destructive communitywide attitude.” I propose the following: The single most problematic element hurting American Magic is our inability to argue with one another.
Life Sucks, Then You Die In The Top 8
If you assume that TJ properly balanced his ratio of en-Kor, Target-Me-And-I-Get-Bigger guys, and sacrifice outlets in his Grand Prix: Boston Life deck, then taking out Task Forces for Worldly Tutors is a perfectly legitimate swap. All other draws being equal, Worldly Tutor can always turn into a Daru Spiritualist, which leaves you with the same effective number of Target-Me guys overall. You lose a card in the process, this way, but in exchange you receive the vastly superior Spiritualist over the underpowered Task Force. Of course, this means you now have to add green, but I don’t want Living Wish in it. Why? Read on.
Context Analysis: Knowing When To Cut The Good Cards
It is very dangerous to point at a card and say, “That card won me that game; therefore, it should be in my deck.” There’s always more to the story than whether or not the card was good in one particular game or in one particular match. Even Feast of Worms can win games under the right circumstances.
That’s why this concept of negative context analysis is so tough to come to grips with. You improve your deck only very slightly when you realize that a good-in-general card should really be replaced by a jankier card that fits your deck better. If a certain “good” card wins you five out of ten playtest games, you’ll probably never stop to think whether a different card would have won you six out of ten.
Tuning Up Tooth and Nail
What I intend to do with this article is to help you, the average Tooth and Nail player, improve and fine-tune your deck beyond the traditional (or outdated, depending on your perspective) choices that netdecks have to offer. Before I get started with the specifics, though, I feel the need to make one thing perfectly clear: Whatever you do, do not play Cloudposts in your deck.
Stupid Tooth and Nail: B/G at Midwest Regionals
This is the story of some Black cards, some Green cards, and a little card called Tooth and Nail.
Building a Better Cemetery: The Best G/B Deck You’ve Never Seen Part II
A deeper examination of why Richard feels he’s right.
Building a Better Cemetery: The Best G/B Deck You’ve Never Seen Part I
Okay, enough is enough. I am sick and tired of these watered-down G/B Cemetery decklists popping up all over the internet. Not because I’m sick of hearing about it, but because they’re all wrong.
Please Don’t Bid On Me: Black/White Control In Onslaught Block
The deck is solid. I won’t make any wild claims like”it can go at least 50-50 against every deck in the field,” but with the exception of its one nightmare matchup (Zombie Bidding), its chances against any given deck usually fall somewhere between decent and good. If you’re like me and you’d rather go rogue than play what everyone else is expecting – and if there aren’t too many Bidding players in your expected metagame – you could do a lot worse than black-white control for your next Onslaught Block tournament.