At StarCityGames.com, this time is known as the “What the heck can we do to keep you interested?” week. Who wants to read about Limited strategy now that a new set is going to rearrange the Limited rules in six days? So perhaps The Ferrett had better pull something more interesting out to get your attention, like… The first free-verse Sealed Deck review, as done through the eyes of a real poet!
When you open up a deck with Gleancrawler, Dark Confidant, and Followed Footsteps, you gotta try it. I mean, come on – Footsteps on a Gleancrawler? It’s every Timmy’s fever dream. But in reality, two of these three crazy-strong rares didn’t work out nearly as well as I thought they would, and what I got was a timely lesson on how what’s in your card pool affects how potent a rare can be.
This week’s pool gives me strong blue with no Counterspells or card drawing, insane Selesnya cards without a token producer to be found, strong Green with almost no beef, and strong White with a single weak flier. What is this, Bizarro world?
This week, The Ferrett pulls open one of those tricky pools that you don’t mind getting but you hate building, with strong cards in every color. So assuming that he doesn’t eeny-meenie-miney-moe it, how does he decide? Plus, some thoughts on mana curves, a confirmation of a Nick Eisel tip, and a request that you help Ferrett cure his vampirism!
This week, The Ferrett gets a deck where he builds it wrong. But is that his fault? Not only do you get an analysis of the deck, but an analysis of what makes a player lose… All in addition to the usual plugs, and a request for a feedback on an upcoming article series!
For the second time in a month, The Ferrett cracks a card pool with Borborygmos in it, and yet again he has to leave that 6/7, trampling, bloodthirsty bad boy in the sideboard in order to build a decent deck. Why? Because Guildpact hates him, that’s why. Oh, and he also asks you all a question on why you read Magic writing.
What we have here is the most complete snapshot of the new Standard scene that you’re likely to see. We ran a computer program that analyzed every matchup in the sixteen rounds at Pro Tour: Honolulu, figured out which decks were facing each other, and broke down each deck’s win percentage both against the field, and against every deck that it faced. Want to know how many times Orhov Descent faced Zoo, and whether it won on average? Now you can.
There was a time when I had hoped to wrangle an invite to the Magic Invitational on the basis of my popularity, but that was way back in 2001. Back then, I was the best Magic writer on the Internet… Depending on where you put the italics.
Today, years after I’ve peaked, I’ll discuss not only my failed Invitational gambit, but discuss a Ravnica deck that is so all over the map, you’d think it was McNally’s.
Here’s the deck I opened, in rares:
Borborygmos. Yay! I’m totally playing Red/Green!
Godless Shrine. Yay! I totally got my money back!
Firemane Angel. Yay! I’m totally playing Red/Green/White!
…Except I didn’t go Red/Green/White. Why? Well, you’ll just have to see for yourself.
The undefeated decks from Dortmund have come in, and the lessons are clearer than ever: make the wrong choices about your mana base, and you lose. Thus, this week The Ferrett analyzes the Dortmund x-0s, as well as giving you a PTQ deck of his that features a lot of tricky calls.
In Ravnica Sealed, you’ll often wind up with a conundrum: you can play twenty-three killer cards, where every card is worth having in the deck, but you have to go four colors. Or you can go with three colors and throw a few marginal cards in to bring it up to twenty-three, lowering the number of late-game elbow drops but also minimizing your manascrew. And so comes the question: consistency or power? With that in mind, The Ferrett looks at the decks that went undefeated on Day One to try to draw some conclusions about the format.
Instead of discussing Ravnica Limited this time, The Ferrett asks some more universal questions on the nature of Magic – like, how can you win a game when you’re there only 40% of the time? Are you getting the game that you’re giving? And why is Matt Vienneau such an angry, angry man in Round Five?
As the editor-in-chief of this site, it’s my job to get your feedback… And in general, I enjoy it. My goal is to make StarCityGames.com better in every single way, so even when you email me to tell me, “THE PREMIUM ARTICLES SUCK MONKEY BUTT THIS WEEK,” I look at it as a happy challenge. What didn’t you like about the Premium articles? How can I fix it? Which is why it pains me to tell you that when it comes to complaining about the latest awful thing that Wizards has done, you are irrelevant.
I went 4-1 in my flight at the Prerelease, losing only to the guy who won it on the back of a really annoying Niv-Mizzet. Along the way to my half-a-box prize, I discovered quite a few things about these fantabulous new Guildpact cards – which cards didn’t work out as well as I’d hoped, which cards were golden, and which cards I saw breaking other people in half. And speaking of breaking people in half, let me tell you about one of the smashingest turns I ever saw….
When a mediocre-to-good player writes about Sealed, he’s always lamenting his choices by the end of the article. Oh, it’s not that the author built a bad deck — they’re a competent player, after all – but there’s always that post-game realization that maybe Black was a little more potent than they gave it credit for (and was worth splashing for), or that this creature wasn’t nearly as good as they thought it was. So how’s a novice going to cope with the trainwreck color-clash that Guildpact brings? The Ferrett walks you Limited newbies through the basics of Sealed play!
