Josh turns his fascination towards off-the-wall decks on Blue/Green Beats – a deck that has been flying under the radar until today, but one that Mr. Claytor says has a lot of power ready to be harnessed.
Two years ago, Jens Thoren won the Invitational with a tricky little creation designed to abuse Mirari’s Wake in concert with Mirari and Cunning Wish; seven months later, modified versions of the deck proved to be among the most powerful weapons in Regionals and Nationals tournaments around the world. On the other hand, Jon Finkel 3-0’ed the Standard portion of the same event with a Battle of Wits deck which proved mostly irrelevant in both States and Regionals. How do the Invitational decks stack up this time around and more importantly – how are each of the decks affected by Saviors of Kamigawa? Step inside my office friends, as we attempt to find out.
More than just a discussion about Zvi’s forays into Vintage ahead of this weekend’s Star City Power Nine tournament, it also includes rules to follow for Vintage deck design, Zvi’s list of Control Slaver, Hall of Fame discussion and more!
Nick’s been drafting the new set a lot since the prerelease and has compiled a solid list of cards that are either falling well short of the hype, or that are absolutely dominating some drafts. Which ones are which? Now that would be cheating… Regardless, this article should give a nice boost to your Saviors Limited learning curve.
Yesterday, I mentioned how competitive I was. A lot of people would never believe that. They see me playing cheap, rogue decks. They see me laugh while playing, sometimes even when I’m losing. How could this guy be competitive? He’s losing, and he’s having fun.
Trust me. I am.
While I call these set reviews “The Obligatory…”, I didn’t do one for Betrayers. Betrayers really didn’t seem very interesting and it was really hard trying to justify an entire article when the only card that I thought that would see play was Ninja of Deep Hours. In the end, I think that Umezawa’s Jitte is really the only other card from that set that is seeing play, unlike Champions where more and more cards are seeing play as time goes on. Saviors, on the other hand, looks packed with cards that appear to be both powerful, interesting, or both.
You know that Mono-Blue Urzatron deck that’s been floating around Magic Online, but that no one has really written about yet? Well Quentin Martin has the inside scoop on what the deck looks like and what it plays like. If you want something fun, goofy, and quite controlly to play at Regionals, this might be your lucky day.
At the end of yesterday’s column, I was telling you about my crazy, stupid early days in Magic (Winter 1998 – Spring 1999). They had nothing to do with winning or figuring out the best cards for our decks. It was about hanging out with the gang…
We’ll be honest with you in the blurb here and tell you that the editors didn’t really know how to classify this article, but it includes a spiffy new Extended decklist at the very end, so we’ve placed it here in Strategy. However, before you get to the decklist, Richie speaks his mind about the state of Magic, the Player Rewards program, and the Top 6 Things He Dislikes about the game today.
“Since I first started writing this article, I have been waiting to talk about this card. It is so much fun when it’s in the right deck, yet so useless when you don’t have enough triggers for it. I first learnt of its powers when Tim Aten taught us all a lesson in a draft at the Invitational.” What card is Sam talking about? You’ll have to check inside to find out!
The Invitational Winner discusses his winning deck, the unconventional sideboard plan he developed for it, and how he developed the best version of what is widely considered the best deck in Standard.
Having trouble deciding what to play in Rochester? You probably should be… the results of Richmond probably add to the confusion. Hopefully, I’ll be able to shed some light on the situation, giving you some guidelines for your deck choice at what will surely be the hottest American Vintage tournament of the year.
Since he returned to Magic writing, Sean McKeown has produced some of the most knowledgeable and useful articles on the Regionals metagame seen this year, and this article is no different. It does however, include some spicy meatballs in terms of decklists, including two proposed Celestial Kirin Control decks and a first draft at breaking Enduring Ideal.
One of the most common questions I get is “Why do you – of all people – write a column about budget decks?” Pull up a swivel chair, and let me tell you some things about me, things that drive what I do in From Right Field and how I do it.
Rick Rust delivers an awesome article today, taking apart what Saviors of Kamigawa has to offer the best decks in Standard as part of his set review, and then proposing not one, not two, but an astounding nine possible decks that try to abuse the new set including what could be a very saucy Reanimator build. This is great Regionals preparation for netdeckers and rogue players alike.
