Planar Chaos looms upon the horizon, soon to be legal and leading the masses into Damnation. Alright, I could have resisted, but it was so much more fun not to. As the saying goes, “Lead me not into temptation… I can find it just fine on my own.” I figured I’d start today off by mentioning a few interesting cards beyond the blatantly obvious ones (Groundbreaker is Some Good? O RLY?).
For his first Featured Writer column, Rivien brings us an interesting Standard deck that abuses land in a variety of different ways. While unlikely to kick down the doors of high-level tournament play, it contains a sackful of synergy and a pocketful of fun…
Some people hate the metagame right now. Oddly, I don’t, for the first time since Standard was Invasion and Odyssey. I really can’t believe just how diverse everything has been ever since Time Spiral hooked up with Ravnica Block. I’m left to wonder how much of this diversity has to do with the extra cards in Standard, and how much has to do with their “tier-two design” strategy. Either way, I admit I’m impressed.
But I do hate Dragonstorm.
Welcome to Tribal Bible #11, my “Golden Issue”, so to speak, given that my birthday also falls on the 11th (of August, for what it’s worth), and I wanted to do something special, something that would be noticed, and something people would talk about. As such, while there may be only one deck this week, I promise it’s a doozy – it’s legal in every format except Vanguard, Block Constructed (any), and Singleton. What could it possibly be? Well, have a look, why don’t you?
Alright, ladies and germs, let’s rock. Time Spiral’s here, you’re here, I’m here, and we’re ready to TRIIIIIIBAAAAAAAAL! Okay, it’s not quite the same as being ready to rumble, but what is?
For my second installment of Prismatic Lens, we’re going to take a look at Blue, and a deck that I cooked up for the Prismatic format using entirely Blue cards. Predictably, this is a fairly strong deck, even barring the fact that my current budget does not allow for silliness like Absorb and Undermine.
This week’s offering has to do with a format known online as Prismatic, of which I have long been a fan. Prismatic is a format of wild draws, crazy interactions, and big, flashy cards. It’s a slower format than most others, and lends itself to control strategies. Most interestingly, all those seven to ten mana cards like Myojins and Time Stretch you long ago dismissed as junk? Chances are, they have a chance to shine here.
Life is just full of surprises sometimes. For example, when some utter random builds a rogue budget (for Classic) deck with next to no knowledge of the metagame and still manages to finish in the Top 8 of a 112-person event. Just for further grins and giggles, let’s say said utter random has never even played the format casually before.
Well, I’ll be your utter random today. So how did I do it?
There happens to be three major types of undead legal in Tribal Standard right now. I felt that the coincidence there was too great to pass up, and so I write this mere hours before October 31st to bring you what may well be the first Tribal Standard decks to discuss with Time Spiral enabled, and hopefully a bit of holiday spirit (pun intended, because I can).
Maybe you’ve thought to yourself at some point, “Should I register on the StarCityGames forums and post my opinions on article XYZ?” Maybe you’ve discovered some incredible combo and you’d like to share it with everyone, or maybe some writer said something you disagree with to the point of religious zeal and by golly, you really want to chastise that writer! Perhaps you’ve got a burning desire to discuss the top decks in your favorite format right now and you want to add your thoughts to whatever discussion is present…
R&D needs to sit down and ask themselves if they’re keeping the promise they gave us to scale Blue down to the levels of the more mortal colors… because I don’t think they’re doing it. Blue looks like it’s about to hit a Golden Age.
So we’re about to be smacked with the end of Kamigawa Block, and I for one am applauding.
Well, not entirely. I have a shameful secret… there are some cards I’m actually going to miss. What I’m presenting today are the soon-to-be murdered corpses of three decks of mine that won’t survive the rotation intact. This is something of a bummer to me, because really, these might have been good decks.
Today’s offering is going to plumb the depths of flavor concealed within the Legendary creatures of the Time Spiral set, all the while attempting to do something which most flavor reviews are either uninterested or incapable of providing – words directed to people who like to actually win a game once in awhile!
Rivien takes a look at both the good and the bad in the Tribal Standard format. He also glances at the positive effects that Time Spiral may add, and makes an impassioned pleas for Wizards to take the format seriously. All this, and a decklist too!
This week continues the journey on the path of the many styles of Human decks available to the mono-color world, and a sojourn into a surprise deck celebrating all that is Human. Well, within the world of Magic, anyhow. Real humans are much more boring and less worthy of discussion. Plus, they say their own piece every week in the forums, for better or worse, while exposing themselves to my raucous japes and smarmy witticisms.
