Hello and welcome back to the weekly catalogue of the casual. I began the Compendium way back in February of 2003. That’s a long time ago. The Compendium is an attempt to create a large number of formats for casual players all in one place. Just go to my archives and search for “compendium” to find the other eight entries. Today’s format? Bugwar.
In today’s So Many Insane Plays, Stephen unlocks the metagame secrets of Vintage, breaking down all of the tournament results since the Vintage World Championship. What’s winning and what’s changing in Vintage? This is a must-read article for Vintage players!
The PTQ season for Pro Tour: Kuala Lumpur is in full swing, and the Lorwyn cards are available on Magic Online (if you can bear the current lag issues). Today’s Peebles Primers brings us an excellent Sealed cardpool from a recent 4x Premier Event. If you’re looking for a little practice before your PTQ this weekend, Benjamin has the goods for you!
My boy Kevin McCormack recently jumped the “casual player†hurdle and is hurling himself headlong into the realm of competitive events. We’ve got a PTQ this very week in St. Louis, in fact, and I’m expecting him to make a decent showing. But one of the questions he asked me when he first decided he wanted to “get good†was: what articles do I need to read?
I have looked through a fair number of the Top 8 decklists from States, and I haven’t found the combo decks. I haven’t seen any. Am I just missing something, or are they really not present? More importantly, is there a combo deck people just haven’t seen yet? Hint – I think so.
Leading up to States, I heard a lot of grumbling about how underpowered Lorwyn was compared to Time Spiral and Ravnica. I think the results from States and Grand Prix: Krakow put that notion to rest. I’m of the opinion that Lorwyn was pretty masterfully designed – many of the cards don’t set off alarm bells when you’re just looking at the text box and stats, but when you shuffle them up in a deck and start playing with them, many of them give you that “oh, wow!†feeling.
I’m not sure why States, as a tournament, holds such an allure for me. Maybe it’s the freewheeling, undefined metagame, which allows for any deck to break through and become the Next Best Thing. Maybe it’s the mad scramble to find any crumb of tech to wedge into a deck.
For me, I think it’s the plaque.
A deck stuffed to the gills (so to speak) with potent Merfolk and Faeries! What’s not to love! Well, the results aren’t to love if you get greedy and try to throw in too much! Watch what happens when a good deck tumbles! Film at 11!
Adrian Sullivan has quite the pedigree when it comes to the State Championships. This year he worked long and hard with I@n DeGraff, polishing and tweaking an innovative Red deck that can drag wins from nowhere. Today’s Sullivan Library takes a look at the development of this powerful deck, and Adrian suggests that the deck is a true contender in the post-States metagame. If you’re looking for an innovative and exciting Red deck, then this is the article for you!
It’s another Limited day, and another Lorwyn tribe receives the full Eisel treatment! After dealing with Merfolk, Goblins, and Elementals, we move onto the flabbiest monsters in the set – the Giants. Most folk believe that these mana-hungry behemoths are easily swarmed by the quicker tribes on offer… but with a little forethought their synergies are strong. And what’s not to love about swinging with 6/6 monsters?
Since I still get e-mails off and on asking what happened to the Vintage articles, and since the next major Vintage tournament is this weekend, I figured I may as well share some thoughts about Lorwyn and Goblins. Steve’s been too busy talking about his Invitational experiences to really go into depth about any of this stuff, so I can understand why there’s a particular lack of Eternal material going around.
With a Grand Prix seeming to turn up on our Magical doorsteps every week, someone has to make sense of it all. While the search for that person continues, join Rich Hagon for all the news from Brisbane, Bangkok and Krakow.
The Vintage metagame seems rife with Gush. Free card drawing spells are undoubtedly broken, and decks such as GAT are prime to take advantage… but how about looking at the metagame from another angle. How about… Goblins? Backed with disruption? Can the fast yet ultimately fair Goblin tribe really kick up a stink in Magic’s most broken format? Patrick aims to find out…
The forums have spoken… and the new name for my column is “Scouse of Cards.†Thanks to everyone who suggested names! Today, I bring you an underpowered PTQ Lorwyn cardpool. How would you go about building a winning deck? I also crank up the emo dial and share the tale of woe that is my non-attendance at Pro Tour: Valencia…
Newly promoted Level 3 player Steve Sadin takes a break from his Premier routine to bring us a taste of mailbag action. He answers an intriguing question regarding the playability of symmetrical effects before moving onto the intricacies of the Red/Green Aggro deck he knows and loves…
