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?
I plan on playing at States this year, however considering how expensive the new lands are I’m not sure if it’s even worth trying to construct a deck. My dream would be to play Battle of Wits…
Inside the Dimir courtrooms, justice is twisted and men are manipulated like puppets on strings. The steady trickling from ever present fountains dulls all sound, but fear, not vigor, fills the air. And from the great bench, the robed magistrate rises. Wearing a fox fur hat.
The Magic Jerk returns and does jerky things like drafting and stuff.
On no he didn’t! Oh yes he did! Damn girlfriend, that’s cold. Funny… but cold.
This deck is not some amazing creation that came to me in a dream. You aren’t going to look at it and exclaim, “Oh my God, that’s the most clever thing I’ve ever seen.” What it is, is rather simple and most good players have had this deck in their testing gauntlet for at least a week or two. What it is, my brethren, is a relentless beating machine that has been really difficult to deal with in testing. What it is, my people, is a strong version of what is likely to be the most popular deck archetype you will see at this year’s Championships.
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.
