“What the hell is that?” You’d be surprised how often those five words have scrolled across my mental marquee in the last few weeks. As a rough estimate, I’d say four thousand. That’s slightly less than the amount of years it feels like I’ve been in the land of the Magic dead.
After my last article, I was criticized in the forums for talking about the guild pairs as basic archetypes of Ravnica Sealed, since actual Sealed decks are almost always three or more colors. And it’s true that the three types of archetypes are all in some way related to the guilds, as not harnessing their power would just be foolish. Let’s take a look at them,. and see how they apply to drafts.
For the 2005 Deck Challenge, I chose some pretty cruddy jobs: mono-Green, Green/White, these are not the things you looked to play when you saw Ravnica and the shiny toys like Circu, Dimir Lobotomist and Lightning Helix. While I worked on those decks, I was brewing an idea: using the tools at hand, figuring out what a truly nasty Green deck could be capable of.
This is the next installment of what promises to be an interminably long series. You never know how many days may be in a week, after all. Cutting up these Ravnica sealed decks should unlock greater wisdom and understanding of the format.
Unlike Vintage, Legacy deck construction hinges more on “building blocks” rather than individual broken cards. It means that despite the huge card pool, there is actually a very restricted range of available tools (read: good cards) to use, many of which are highly conditional. Today I’m going to give you an extensive breakdown of the various building blocks available to Legacy deckbuilders and contribute a fresh deck of my own for your perusal.
Tip Number Seven: Remember that you have an opponent.
Sounds nutty, but it’s true. And what that opponent can do to (or for) you is enormous. But not as enormous as those Burger King fat boy breakfast sandwiches. Saw one on a billboard and it was so terrifying that I hid my children.
In the past, Randy has sleeved up some of the more popular control decks in Vintage, piloting Control Slaver and Meandeck Gifts in his previous victories. Considering his track record, it definitely seems like he knows what he’s doing when choosing what to run. This time, Randy decided to play a Team Meandeck design that none of you have ever seen before.
[Editor’s Note: This article would normally be premium, but keeping with the “interviews with R&D should be free” theme from the past, it has been made available to all readers.]
The ever-so-suave Dr. Romeo checks in this week with his final decklists from the last couple of weeks and a listing of what deck he will be running this coming weekend.
Eli Kaplan, resident Magic gawker in Japan, makes his leap to Featured Writer status with a stint on SCG Daily. In this series, he promises to smash you over the head with Sealed deck builds, to get you ready for Magic Online’s Ravnica prerelease.
Today we hit the end of Control Week. Last year, my control deck ended up as one of the strongest decks in the States metagames and I’m going to add another saucy decklist of my own at the end of this article, but the main thing Knut wanted me to do was go over some of the other writers’ decks and give my comments and ideas on their implementation or viability.
Ben’s Corner presents a list of the 100 most essential commons you’ll need in Extended! Find out which commons you should get your hands on in order to be most prepared for the upcoming Extended PTQ season.
Also in Ben’s Corner: Which of the four Ravnica guilds has taken a massive jump in sales and popularity? Which sets from The Monster have been tamed this week? How high have buy prices gone on our buylist? Click the article to find out!
It’s States time! There is at least one deck that can mill an opponent’s library away, or deal 100 damage – all on turn 4. That’s a God draw to be sure, but it can be done. So, is the deck worth playing? Let’s see.
Pro Tour player and Vs. System Pro Circuit Top 8 member Stuart Wright takes a break from his Extended testing to explore the age old question: Is it possible to jam Gifts Ungiven into every deck archetype imaginable? In this specific case, Stuart’s musings focus on Wildfire Control for the upcoming Standard season.
At this point you all want to have Yawgatog’s babies anyway, so I’ll save the intro schtick and just tell you that today’s send-up of Baron Longscythe is a doozy.
Some cards are great, but have fallen out of favor. Other cards never were in favor, but they’re still pretty darned good. Some have even been released recently but don’t seem to be getting the play that they should. What are these tragically-underused cards, and how can you use them in cool decks?
