The right admirable Dr. Mox tackles this week’s 2005 Championship Deck Challenge assignment with his customary gusto, producing a solid control deck in spite of the fact that he is the most diabolical hater of control archetypes this side of the Mississippi.
Cak foregoes his Gopher homecoming to gather more info on Ravnica’s fasted Limited guild: The Boros.
In my previous article on this deck, I explained the maindeck choices and gave some general sideboard options. I focused on the strategy of the deck and the explanation of why particular cards were included, or excluded. However, I did not spend much time talking about sideboarding, but instead gave some possible options and a general sideboard. In this article, I am going to talk about the sideboard. I will discuss how to construct it and how to use it against specific decks. I omitted discussion of two particularly relevant cards in the last article, and I will discuss their usefulness here. However, in order to explain all of this, I will need to explain more about how to play this deck properly.
We’re used to hard workers here at Star City, but Yawgatog is officially insane. Check out his latest parody of the big boys today where he takes on new MTG.com superstar “Pat Robotta”.
I know I promised in my last article that I was going to do a draft guide for the R/W Boros archetype in Ravnica Limited this week, but I simply didn’t get to draft the deck enough yet to know all of the inner workings. While doing my usual weekly barrage of drafts though, I did come upon another archetype that has turned out to be much better than I’d ever expected from just looking at the spoiler. That archetype is the Dimir Guild’s Mill deck.
Yesterday’s article by Hark Blowswater was one of the most widely read Humor articles ever featured here on Star City. Can today’s installment of Yawg’s Daily top even that?
In years past, Jim Ferraiolo has produced decks on the cutting edge of Standard technology, earning numerous players Top 8 berths at States, Regionals, and Nationals alike. This year he’s participating in Control week and serves up a new flavor of Opposition-esque goodness for your consideration.
Oscar the Lawyer produces what may be his final set review ever, and has lots to say about the goodies that Ravnica may or may not have provided the Vintage community.
Ted asked us if anyone would like to cover Constructed articles for States. He needed someone to do a deck in each of the viable archetypes, requesting for a group of someones to brave control. Recently the thought had occurred to me that far too many people have no idea exactly what it is they should do when they cast a Gifts Ungiven. They just do what they read people often go for, or they screw up really bad. It’s normally the latter on the PTQ scene, so today we’re going to cover Gifts decks for States and teach you how to cast that silly spell.
How do you take 60 pages of text and summarize it in one pithy blurb?
John.
Friggin’.
Rizzo.
Parental Guidance is suggested.
Last week, I threw a trio of deck outlines (they had been tested but not rigorously so) at you as jumping off points for the class to refine their decks. We’re going to do the same thing this week, but first I thought that I’d answer the excellent questions that some of your classmates came up with.
Fantastically talented Premium chop artist Yawgatog takes the reins of the Daily this week and proves that he’s nearly as funny and amusing with the text as he is with the images. You would have to be a fool not to read SCG Daily this week.
I opened a sealed deck that I was quite happy with as it finally let me utilize the power of the Golgari and contained a nice splashed bomb in Flame Fusillade. I lost all three matches I played with it, and apart from one I lost to an obvious misplay, I don’t know why I lost. Ravnica appears to have an extra degree of difficulty from your typical Limited environment and though I wasn’t successful last weekend, I did manage to learn a lot. I also have a nice sealed deck exercise for those of you that are interested.
What I’m looking to do here is a little bit different than most articles because this is a Choose Your Own Adventure article series for looking at Standard in the weeks leading up to States. I’ll start with three decks, one aggressive, one controlling, and one with a combinatory element, to be discussed, tweaked, and (perhaps by some adventurous few beyond just myself) tested if they look interesting. It’s an opportunity to allow for an exchange of ideas, among people who might be interested in using the Forums… but who might not be interested in contributing to any one particular thread, as elements of the deck in question hadn’t caught their interest. Consider this a place where ideas can change hands, and profit everyone involved, so long as people are willing to ride along with the experiment.
Due to our high volume of Ravnica orders, Ben’s Corner will not be appearing this week. However, I did want to make the following announcements:
1) Ravnica Foils will be entered into inventory Friday afternoon. Please click the “Click here to be emailed when it’s back in stock!” button to receive immediate notification the second each Ravnica foil is added to inventory.
2) Pro Player cards have been given their own category, and are now available for sale. Buy a Kai today!
Have a great weekend, attend your local Ravnica Release tournament this weekend, and I’ll see you all next week!
– Ben Bleiweiss
– General Manager, StarCityGames.com
