So, long story longer a favor was called in and I was compelled to put my level two judging skills to use at a National Qualifier in the tiny nation of Wachovia in Eastern Europe somewhere. I’m not sure exactly where it is, but as long as the pilot knew where we were going, and the taxi man after him, well… why worry? Everyone is somewhere, and as long as I didn’t lose track of myself I wasn’t going to worry about finding myself on a map.
Aoccdrnig to rseracaeh cnodutced at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.
Johnnny-who-ain’t-written-‘bout-Magic-in-a-while is back for a one-shot. One shot, and I’ll be spent. But, you’ll really enjoy it and say how good it was. Heh.
My constant requests for article ideas finally yielded the suggestion from Oscar”Cinnamon Buns” Tan that, in lieu of a substantial issue to discuss, I develop a new deck, like in the days of olde tyme Tog-Growing. So I skimmed over a list of set mechanics, figuring it shouldn’t be too hard to find one that hadn’t been broken yet. Kicker was wicked bad, so I finally settled on Threshold.
A while ago I said that countermagic is a key component of Type I. Since that time, Wizards has seen fit to add more and more spells that counters things. As always, the Type I environment is changing, and it is obvious that the need for counters changes with it. One of Stephen Menendian’s recent StarCity forum discussion pieces has been on the utility of Stifle. That’s a valid recognition of one facet of the Counterspell problem that I want to examine today.
It has been a year now since I unleashed the secret of the”perfect deck” upon you, and my, how the time has crawled. In any case, I have returned to inform the masses that, with the release of Mirrodin block, the “perfect deck” can now be translated effectively from Type I to Type II! Rejoice, all – for another major archetype has entered the arena and will undoubtedly establish a Tier all unto itself!
Ken is very good at being wrong. The only statement he might ever be right about is calling himself the wrongest man ever, but he may be so wrong that he is wrong on that too.
In a way I hate to see the end of this dilemma series. I mean, sure, I’ve been getting the butt-end of most of them, but who doesn’t love an underdog?
Jim hates to write. I hate to playtest. So basically, what I intend to do from this day forward to satisfy my contract (and I really, really mean it this time) is to use Jimmy and myself as a kind of half-man, half-monster machine; I’ll write about Jimmy’s playtesting data whenever he’s too lazy to do it, and he’ll write whenever the hell he feels inspired to throw one of his crazy metagame-smashin’ decks into the shark pool that is the StarCityGames community. We’ve got a new one for you, so hang on to your knickers and dive in!
You are clearly the most handsome, intelligent, charming, witty, selfless, kind, mentally-stable, engaging writer the internet, and indeed the world, has to offer. How do you deal with the jealousy of those like Nick Eisel, Mike Turian, Paul Sottosanti, and Woodward and Bernstein?
First off, you have the congrats of all of #mtgplaty for your
engagement/marriage to JB Smith, documented and revealed in
this weekend’s Sideboard coverage, but i must ask: is this true?
So I’m actually playing Type 1 again. Along with this comes reading and posting on TheManaDrain.com about all sorts of things. One of these things was an announcement for a Type 1 tournament in Connecticut. This gave me a warm, happy feeling, because I thought it was a posting for one of Ray Robillard’s awesome sauce Waterbury tournaments. Alas, it was not, but there was still the allure of first and second place getting a Lotus. I decided to play Tog a bit more against people, and it was still doing well, but I had seen how broken Slavery was and I really wanted to play it…
My aim is to give a broad overview of the current Standard format with an eye towards some of the general concepts that I believe to define the environment. I also want to talk about what decks are likely to be successful for Regionals in light of these same concepts. Why should you listen to me? I mean, who am I to say what’s what? Well, I’ve designed a successful metagame deck for almost every iteration of Standard that I’ve ever played in. If there’s anything that I know how to do, it’s how to come up with a plan of attack for the Standard environment.
The reason Flores’s article compelled this response is not just because Flores was outlining how rogue decks refuse to play bad cards, and how the goal of a rogue deck should be to carefully craft a predator/prey relationship with the targeted metagame, but because I felt I had an object lesson or two I could share, given my long experience with”going rogue.” And, more importantly for all you Regionals-watchers, I felt I could provide a modern example of the rogue playtester, complete with a new decklist for Regionals.
