Here’s my promise: Despite costing many times less to build than most other decks reviewed for Extended on this website, our deck today will be able to put up a competitive game against every major deck except for Life. Once again, our deck may not be as good as the top tier decks, but it’s sturdy enough to make for long (by Extended standards), interesting games. Intrigued? Then come along my friends, for I have something fun to show you.
Today Romeo takes a peek at some interesting new Blue cards from Betrayers of Kamigawa and tries to add it all up to make a competitive new Mono-Blue Standard deck that is a bit off the beaten path. To help enhance Romeo’s swell verbiage and cheesecake links, we’ve also included some of Yawgatog’s outstanding photoshoppery to give you a sample of what is normally only available to Premium members. Enjoy!
If you’re interested in becoming a better player or getting your hands on the latest tech, Insider Trading is not for you. This column is dedicated to the game outside of the game; the one that takes place when you sit down across from another player, flip open your trade binder and get ready to deal.
In his debut column, StarCityGames.com President Pete Hoefling offers a key piece of advice for becoming a more successful trader, taps the StarCityGames.com sales database to reveal which Betrayers of Kamigawa singles are really the most sought after cards of the set and lists twenty-five cards that should be in your trade binder, but probably aren’t.
You are playing in a PTQ this Saturday. It is the first round and you have no idea what anyone is playing. You are playing…let’s say Rock (Swords optional) and your opponent is going first. Your hand has plays for the first three turns of the game and the mana to make them so you keep as did the player across from you. Your opponent leads the game off with a Seat of the Synod and no play.
You draw your card for the turn and contemplate the Cabal Therapy in your hand. What do you name?
The term Metagame, like the terms postmodern and existentialism, gets thrown around a lot by pseudo-intellectuals who don’t actually know its meaning. The word metagame means, most simply, the types of decks that are being played in a geographic area. The metagame includes both deck archetypes and individually tuned decks. For example, the metagame for an area might consist of control decks. There might be one prevalent control deck, or a couple of different types, but control decks are being played the most overall. The metagame is what will determine whether your deck succeeds or fails.
In the first half, I went over the restricted list and covered the mechanics which appeared in the restricted cards. To recap, they were undercosted cards (Ancestral Recall), overpowered cards which cannot properly be costed (Balance), mana producers (Black Lotus), cards which are overpowered in multiples (Black Vise), tutors (Demonic Tutor), and combo engines (Dream Halls). In this half, I’ll go over some of the other cards that are unrestricted in Vintage that might fit into one or more of these categories along with some of the commonly requested restrictions.
One cannot doubt that Control Slaver has been growing both in popularity and success in Vintage. Many prominent players were critical of the deck at first, but it has since put up enough results to convince the skeptics. While the deck’s ability is beyond dispute, what has not been settled is the question regarding the optimal build. In this article, I focus on an important issue that many players face when constructing their Control Slaver lists: should the Intuition/Accumulated Knowledge engine be in the deck?
After whipping through the frenetic world of Affinity and Tooth and Nail yesterday, today Dr. Moxenstein turns his keen analytical eye on Green/Black and Mono-Blue in your favorite Friday Night format.
Anyone who has read Pale Mage over the years knows one thing: the man is obsessed with Aluren in Extended. Oiso’s Aluren win wrested the pale one from his Magic writing coma and set him straight on a curvy path of deck analysis, complete with a look at the successful Aluren decks over the past few years and Pale’s own PTQ vartiation he will be playing for the rest of the season.
One of the things I think is often lacking in Magic articles is honesty. I’m not talking about people giving inferior lists so they can protect their tech, although that certainly happens. I’m talking about people not being honest enough with themselves to be honest with us about what they did and why. Today I will be fully honest about exactly how well my Goblin deck performed at Grand Prix: Boston, the mistakes I made with it, and the modifications I feel are necessary to make it even more competitive in this crazy environment.
I never got to assemble Kaldra, but that doesn’t mean I’ve given up my other dreams, including all five Hondens in play, using the Green Myojin to toss out the other four, and to a lesser extent, attacking with an 8/12 trampling land. In addition to the Black review, this article contains a large section focusing on my attempts to pummel people with Genju of the Realms in draft.
As a part of the revamped Casual and Multiplayer section, StarCityGames.com is looking for new writers to produce weekly columns on alternative formats! The two formats we’re looking for experts on are Peasant Magic and Tribal Wars.
Potential writers must be able to:
Note that for Tribal, we’re not strictly concerned with the smashing the format, but are looking more for someone who can design a deck around a specific creature race every week. (Hint: Don’t start with Goblins.) Still, it should be able to stand up to the competition in Tribal Wars or Creature World.
If you think you can handle this, please email a sample column and links to any previously-published articles to The Ferrett, Casual and Multiplayer Editor, at Mail us at https://sales.starcitygames.com/contactus/contactform.php?emailid=2.
Dear Doctor Mox,
Don’t you realize that TYPE TWO is the only true Constructed format? Who cares if there’s a PTQ season ongoing? FNM is the tournament that separates the men from the boys!
Come on, Mox! Pull your finger out! Give us the skinny on the Standard scene!
Aaron,
Renton, WA
Fresh off a Top 4 finish at Pro Tour: Nagoya, Murray Evans is here to give you the skinny on how to draft the deck that carried him to another Sunday finish: Blue/Red. In addition to detailing how to draft it in Champions Limited, Murray also gives you updated information on what will be good for the archetype out of Betrayers and tells you whether or not he thinks the deck will still be viable when the new set rotates in.
