This past weekend, Mike had the rare chance to put his States deck to the test in an actual Ravnica-legal Standard tournament packed with Neutral Ground regulars. In today’s article, Mike discusses what he learned by playing in that tournament, and shares the decklist he’ll be playing in this weekend’s State Championship!
Yesterday, Teddy Card Game promised to write about the deck he was taking to States if the guy who designed the deck gave him permission to do so. That designer is none other than Seth Burn, and Seth has decided to reveal the deck himself! If you are still undecided about what you are playing at Champs, and are looking for the latest in hot tech plus a heavily tested decklist, look no further!
Raise your hand if you’ve heard of the Metagame Clock. Anyone? Bueller? The Metagame Clock is what’ll help me get a grip on things. Maybe it’ll help you as well, as some last-minute reading that puts things in perspective.
My goal for this week is to weave all of these things together for a look at the States metagame and the choices that are going to be present and inherent in each archetype. I’ll also give a few hints as to how the key contenders match up against each other, and we can go from there into creating an assumed picture of the metagame as well as the suggestions that can come from it as to how to succeed. I like looking at the whole picture and figuring out the so-called “rules of the format”, and that’s something that may be profitable here as well. It may also be highly premature, so we’ll see how firm our conclusions are before taking that particular step.
Dark Confidant (henceforth “Bob”) provides one main function – card drawing. It can also beat, and can hold a Jitte, but card drawing is what it does best. However, that card drawing comes at a price – a significant price if you draw something like Ink-Eyes or Kokusho. I found myself wondering if it was possible to build a winning deck around The Great One and his abilities.
Going to play in Champs this weekend? Josh Silvestri has some important reminders that you should definitely think through before you sit down for round 1 on Saturday.
Haven’t found a deck you like for States? Don’t want to be among the countless hordes playing Red/White, Mono-Blue Control, Gifts Ungiven or Black/Green? Then read this article to see Ben’s ramblings about a slew of cards being overlooked in Standard right now. Editor’s Warning: Following any of this advice might be dangerous to your health, sanity and chances of winning!
Wondering what people are going to be playing at States? Ben takes at look at the StarCityGames.com sales database to make some startling predictions! Find which cards have been selling the best from Standard and which are falling behind.
Also in Ben’s Corner: Which new pieces of original Magic artwork has Star City added to its inventory? Hark, do I spy with my eye nifty new Magic carrying bags? Where can I go this weekend to sell my cards to StarCityGames.com in person? The answers to all these questions are just a click away!
The thrilling conclusion! Five builds later, Eli reviews his work and tries to judge which is the best color combination in Ravnica Sealed.
Year after year Teddy Card Game has provided the most accurate skinny on exactly what the Championships metagame will look like. He’s at it again this year with updated decklists, metagame percentages, latebreaking rogue options, and delectable cheesecake. This is the most wide-open Standard format in years… if you don’t read this article, you could be missing a crucial piece of information you need to succeed this weekend.
Lifegain gets a bad rap. Really, it does. Those of us who started off as casual players remember one of the first things we learned when moving to a competitive scene is that Lifegain Sucks. So what would you say if I told you there was a potentially tier 1 deck for States that attempts to abuse lifegain to kill your opponent?
Another day, another Sealed pool. With than two weeks for Ravnica, are you ready for the Prerelease tournaments? Polish your skills and see how your thoughts stack up to Eli’s. As a bonus to today’s offering you also get an incredibly Japanese Vulturous Zombie combo deck to ponder for States. Wild tech? Yesiree!
When I sit down to play a game of Magic, nothing delivers the goods like Super Grow. Because the things I enjoy doing the most in this fine game, namely, drawing tons of cards, countering everything thrown at me, and beating my opponent bloody with cheap and arbitrarily large creatures is what 3cThreshold does best.
The master of wacky decks arrives once again with some casual decks that abuse the latest cards in fascinating ways! Want an infinite Tolsimir deck? How about a way to abuse Grozoth? Abe provides the goods, starting now!
If you had asked me one week ago, I would have told you that the deck featured in this article was my 100% recommendation for Champs. After this weekend I think the deck I posted last Friday may be the best deck in the format, but this deck is still really good and can easily take home a Top 8 slot.
