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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!

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.

I now have at least partial top 8 listings from eleven German, five French, two Polish, one Swiss, one Hong Kong, and one South American Regionals / Nationals. If you are looking for breakdowns of all the Top 8 decks from foreign Regionals, quirky decklists, and analysis of what cards are getting played in each deck, you’ve come to the right place.

I have been talking mostly about stock decks for this series, but as we are getting closer to Regionals I want to take some time to look at some of the more interesting contenders. While this deck should only represent a small portion of the metagame, it has a certain”rock-like” appeal that may draw some of the aggro-control players over, since aggro-control has pretty much been reduced to Green/Red. In a world full of blazingly fast aggressive decks and sluggish, but powerful control decks, the Aggro-Control deck sort of got lost in the shuffle. Luckily this deck has a lot of game against the respective decks in the Metagame, and it is a valid contender.

All the matchup information is included in part two of this comprehensive article.