It’s the last week that anyone’s going to care about Ravnica-only Limited, as Guildpact will be all the rage next week… And so The Ferrett goes nuts with digressions on his errant digits, a careful dissection of last week’s “What Would Readers Do?” situation, and – finally – a Blue/Black deck!
As usual, The Ferrett opens a Sealed pool to see what sorts of goodness he can build… And this week is tricky, with four colors that are good, but not quite good enough. You’ll also witness the usual “What Would Readers Do?” and hear some thoughts on how League Decks mutate as additional booster packs are added!
When you’re in love, it’s not manly to gush about the cutie-buns you’ve just fallen for; you’re supposed to bury your love deep inside your heart, acknowledging it only occasionally with a manly grunt and perhaps a raised eyebrow. It’s even less acceptable when you fall for a card.
One of the things about being a Christian Magic player is that the instructions are right in the Bible: You shall have no other gods besides Me. But it’s hard to remember that when the Mana Gods are crapping on your forehead.
The Big Secret Of SCG is that its Editor-in-Chief stopped playing Magic almost eighteen months ago. I have retained enough knowledge from reading articles to know what the must-picks are in Draft, and I have some general idea of the trends in every Constructed format… But it’s time I got back on the horse. So let’s see what happens when I step back into the new, exciting world of Ravnica Sealed!
If you ever want to make a Wizards employee squirm, speak the words “1998 Inquest Tournament Guide” in their presence. “Oh yeah,” they’ll say, looking furtively to one side. “That.” And then they’ll change the subject so quickly your head will spin. The Guide gets passed around sometimes from old-timers to newbies, an unfortunate relic of a time when Magic was only four years old and nobody knew what the heck they were doing.
I found my copy recently. I thought I’d share.
Scoping out the individual metagame is critical to winning in multiplayer — but it’s even more crucial for enjoying it. Coming to the table with the wrong style of deck can result in hurt feelings and group breakups that make Jessica and Nick look tame. Thus, let us examine the types of metagames that tend to appear in multiplayer groups, and the best decks to sweep the each kind of group.
If you’ve never been to a prerelease, here’s what it’s like: You have this big pile of cards in front of you. In half an hour, you have to make a deck out of them. Today I’m going to take the least experienced among you and try to instruct you how to take your “pile” and turn it into a deck that can win.
One of the most widely-read writers on Multiplayer returns to the field, condensing his overly-long series of articles back from the Pleistocene Era of Magic into several sweet, easily-readable theories. Today, The Ferrett takes on the core concepts of Aggro, Combo, and Control to show you why multiplayer is different from a single-player duel – and how these differences make him reject articles from friendly readers. Plus, a brief rant on the status of our non-Premium articles!
Today, StarCityGames.com is rolling over. If you look at the URL above this blurb, the end of it reads “10000.html” – which, in nerd parlance, means that you are looking at our 10,000th article. That’s gotta be the largest article archive in all of Magic; people have written ten thousand articles on some aspect of this silly little card game we all love, sent it in, and had it published for people to read. Thus, as the Editor-In-Chief of StarCityGames.com, I figured I should probably celebrate this completely arbitrary anniversary with a look back at the milestones of this site we all love – including the two most influential writers on StarCityGames, the real explanation of why we went Premium, and StarCityGames.com’s worst humiliation.
Last week’s challenge was to find the top three Saviors of Kamigawa multiplayer cards, and the winner — after several weeks of second-place finishes — is Edd Black, for his excellent and amusing work on One For Timmy! One For Johnny! And This One’s For Spike! Thus, Edd wins the $20!
Next week’s challenge?
I Coulda Been A Contender.
Now that Regionals is over and we will know shortly what decks came out on top, tell us about your crazy Regionals decks that didn’t work because Deck X was too strong. This is not a request for your tourney report, nor an explanation of how Homura, Human Ascendant almost worked in your Big Red deck. No, we want the craziest, the roguest ideas for Standard decks that utterly failed because Tooth and Nail was too strong or you couldn’t win against Mono-Blue Control to save your life. Tell us why your strangest deck utterly failed to make the grade, and you could win $20! Send your article into Mail us at https://sales.starcitygames.com/contactus/contactform.php?emailid=2 today!
Alas, even editors need to take vacations every once in awhile — and you’d be surprised at how hard it is to find a reliable connection in Sandwich, Massachusetts. Thus, while I was able to edit the articles, I ran out of Internet just as I was about to choose the winners. Alas.
The winner was Tim Ward, who provided a pretty fantastic series on Slivers, ranking all the Slivers (or, um, almost all of them except for Mistform Ultimus). Tim wins this week’s $20 prize!
Next week’s challenge?
The Top Three Saviors of Kamigawa Multiplayer Cards.
You’ve had a couple of weeks to play with them — so what are the most powerful cards? Remember, we want articles, not listings, so show us your work with some suitably powerful Saviors-powered decks designed to plow the rest of the table ! (And for the record? We’ve already had someone win $20 for pointing out the Sekki, Seasons’ Guide/Pandemonium combo — you’ll have to be more creative than that.) So send your submissions into Mail us at https://sales.starcitygames.com/contactus/contactform.php?emailid=2 and you could win $20!
There were many good combos this last week, but the best has to be from Chris Hyde, pointing out how Sekki, Seasons’ Guide was an automatic win with Pandemonium on the table. He even provided two decks — one serious, one for fun — for a neat little infinite combo that blasts the socks out of most people. (Assuming you’re not facing Engineered Plague, of course.) So Chris wins the $20!
So what’s next week’s challenge?
Tribal Wars.
We’re looking for decks based around a particular tribe, much like online Tribal Wars decks (albeit without the "online cards only" restriction). Obviously, throwing together a plain ol’ Goblins deck isn’t going to win you the Casual Challenge; the weirder and more creative the creature type, the better! So send in your article to Mail us at https://sales.starcitygames.com/contactus/contactform.php?emailid=2 today!
Pity Edd Black. He’s written some very funny articles, and has been in second place every week he’s written…. but somehow he always gets edged out. In this case, he had a darned fine Star Wars-related article on Emperor Multiplayer that was a lock… right up until he got knocked out at the last minute by the “How-did-he-think-of-that” hysteria of using Topsy Turvy to reverse the turn sequence and go infinite in Emperor. Workable? Maybe. Funny enough to be worth $20? Yes.
Don’t worry, Edd. Your day is coming.
Though the entries were few and far between this week, next week oughtta get your blood boiling:
The Most Creative Saviors Of Kamigawa Combo.
That’s right; develop a deck (and an article explaining the deck, of course) based around at least one Saviors of Kamigawa card. It doesn’t have to be an infinite combo – just some weird combination of cards that wins games with style. The more unique the win, the better the prize, as long as it’s within reasonable limits. So send your article into Mail us at https://sales.starcitygames.com/contactus/contactform.php?emailid=2 and you could win $20!
The "Top Three Multiplayer Enchantments" week was an interesting one (and not just because of a one-week delay when I was installing and upgrading the new Deck Database). But this week’s winner won on the strength of solid deckbuilding alone: not only did he have solid Pestilence and Death Pits of Rath decks to back up his claim, but his usage of Panoptic Mirror and Armageddon to break Island Sanctuary was a positive hoot. Thus, Dave Almansor’s Building A Better Pestilence Deck takes the $20 prize!
What’s next week’s challenge?
Emperor Multiplayer.
That’s right; everybody’s favorite six-player format finally steps to the fore at StarCityGames.com! Articles can be about either Emperor Constructed or Emperor Draft, though Constructed articles should provide a deck and what position it’s for: Flank or Emperor. (A contest-winning article, however, will provide all three decks for a unified front of terrifying power.)
Send your article in to Mail us at https://sales.starcitygames.com/contactus/contactform.php?emailid=2 and you could win $20 in our Casual Challenge!
