The December and January Vintage Metagame Report
Pip is back with all the latest statistics and trends in the Vintage world including Pip’s watch list, Type One Pro Points, and information about which cards just might be ripe for restriction.
Pip is back with all the latest statistics and trends in the Vintage world including Pip’s watch list, Type One Pro Points, and information about which cards just might be ripe for restriction.
In my last article, I wrote about the Blue/White Mind’s Desire deck that I plan on playing in the upcoming PTQ season. This article will focus on tournament pointers that I believe will help you play your optimal game at the PTQs. This guide is meant for the beginner to moderate level of Magic player, but most people could probably benefit from perusing the article once or twice as well.
A few days before the prerelease, Ted Knutson asked me if I wanted to play in the StarCityGames Richmond Power 9 event. My only experience playing Vintage at that point was one event at GenCon 2004, but I figured I wasn’t doing anything anyway, so why not give it a shot. If I scrubbed out, I could always hop in a prerelease flight, right? Sadly my day went too well to get any action with Betrayers, but I was rewarded with a Mox Pearl for my “inconvenience”.
Incensed by reader requests, Doctor Mox once again picks up his pen to tell you exactly what he thinks about Aluren, The Rock, and White Weenie for the current Extended season.
During 1999’s Extended PTQ season, a mistake by his teammate forced Michael Flores to ask the question “Who’s the Beatdown?” Six years later, another Extended format prompts him to re-examine the strategies he advocated in what may be the greatest single Magic article of all time. The Limit of Interactivity challenges Michael’s own conclusions, and, while it categorizes Extended decks into two distinct groups, this time they aren’t “beatdown” and “control.”
Wrapping up our Extended Mega-Event is none other than Brian David-Marshall. Instead of covering Solitary Confinement as he originally planned, today BDM brings you a staggering array of potential rogue decks that are already making their impact on this Extended season. If you are looking for something off the beaten path (and in some cases way off) to play this weekend, or maybe just trying to survey some of the randomness you might see at your local PTQ, then you must read this article.
Well, I was gonna start off with a nice review of Betrayers White for Limited but “someone” beat me to the punch. Someone always seems to beat me to the punch, although sometimes someone is someone else. Or something. That notwithstanding, I feel that it’s my civic duty to write a Limited set review. It’s my “area of expertise.” I guess I’ll start with Green and work backwards, tragically overlapping with Eisel in one of the weeks. And since you’re paying for this advice now, as a signup bonus, I’ll toss in Red this week at absolutely no extra charge. You’re actually saving money by purchasing a StarCity premium account. If you have any questions about the math on that, allow me to refer you to my business associate Rodman. He’ll explain everything.
Mike Flores and I spent the weekend losing at Magic, but I’ll spare you the boring details of that sad tale and instead focus on a discussion we had after the tournament was over. What came up on the car ride home wasn’t how to beat the combo decks that ran rampant in Boston, but why our Red decks were suddenly incapable of winning. There were two decks in the Top 16 that tried to win with Red men and burn – the rest of the Top 16 is filled with combo, combo and more combo, until you reach the Top 2 where you find a deck that combines two combo decks in one! So why can’t Red decks keep up? It’s a thing we termed Interaction.
I remember the first time I saw Skullclamp. I had just shown up to the Darksteel prerelease and a friend of mine had the Clamp in play. I had to read the card three times before I could believe what I was reading, and it was clear that this card could do some serious damage in Constructed formats. Now we have another one-mana artifact warping Constructed environments. This time it didn’t even make me blink when I first read it, and I think most people missed its power until it had been played enough to show itself. Aether Vial is no Skullclamp, but it is still fundamentally broken and is probably hurting Magic, especially Extended. It should go.
Dear Doctor Mox,
Why does Wizards make bad cards?
Do Randy and Mark hate me?
Sincerely,
Tiny Tim
P.S. I cry myself to sleep at night when I think about the possibility of opening up another Twist Allegiance.
What would you put in the ultimate anti-metagame deck? Akroma and Worship against RDW, plus Cabal Therapy, Duress and Cranial Extraction against combo and Scepter-Chant, a fast Planar Void against Reanimator, and Pernicious Deed against weenie and Affinity. Infinite Eternal Witness recursion would be nice, and a turn 3 kill would round it out. So, is there such a deck? Yes, actually, there is.
Looking for cool new card interactions in the new set? Well, John’s read Bennie Smith’s article and come up with a heaping helping of fresh new Betrayer-ready combos! How about a combo that provides an infinitely-large creature, or infinite life, or infinite life loss, or infinite mana, all by swapping a single kill card….
In the first part of this series, I introduced a new Type One deck. It was an attempt to break the format – A deck that will take a great deal of time to completely master, will test your limits, hone your skills, and demand elevated focus. In this article, I’m going to explain and justify the various card choices and show how to play them correctly.
In Zvi’s wrap-up, he details whether or not Green got the shaft in Betrayers (as usual), checks under the hood for playable artifacts and lands, and lists his Top 9 cards of the set. If you’ve been following along, or even if you haven’t, this is not to be missed!
Cephalid Breakfast very nearly won a Grand Prix last weekend, so you can be absolutely certain it will be played at upcoming PTQs. Bennie Smith takes the deck to the numbers and looks at all of the matchup data for the deck against every deck played in Pro Tour: Columbus to see where the strengths and weaknesses lie. If you plan to play Extended this season, this is information you must have.