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.
Until last year, Terry Soh was just a kid from Malaysia who couldn’t get a draft in his home country. Now he’s a bonafide Pro Tour star, with two Grand Prix Top 8s, a National Team slot, and two Pro Tour Top 8s to his name. How did this leap occur? Terry thinks you can do the exact same thing he did, and he’s willing to give you the steps necessary to accomplish just that.
Can you make a good version of all-common White Weenie for the Standard environment? How about mono-Red Land Destruction? Chris finishes his “all commons all the time” stint with a couple of new decks that earn mixed results.
Extended decks or goofy theme decks? Who the hell cares man, it’s Ninjas vs. Pirates in the latest installment of SCG Daily from Doctor Mox!
Set reviews often come across as boring because writers include way too many cards in their review: “Come one, come all, to the Giant Set-a-Thon where Mega Magic Reviews are held! You’ll hold onto your seats as I count through every single card, no matter how obviously useless or powerful! Rar!” Instead of listing every card, and then saying how much it sucks in Five-Color compared to previous cards, I’ll just skip the bad ones altogether to bring you only the noteworthy Betrayer cards of Five-Color.
The one thing that everyone seems to agree upon, me included, is that the casual side of StarCityGames.com has dropped off over the past couple of years. So where do we start improving? That’s where I need your help.
It’s not very often that you can Top 10 a Pro Tour and then go undefeated in the Swiss of Grand Prix in an entirely different format the very next weekend, but that’s exactly what Joe Black did last week. Want to know the decklist he piloted in Boston and a complete sideboarding guide to U/W Desire, what he thinks about the Pro Tour players lounge, or maybe you’re just looking for a picture of Gabe Walls in public, with cake all over his face… it’s all here, folks.
“That’s an impressive list of interesting cards in a color not known for producing a lot of midlevel playable cards. Red gets some creatures for block, a few for Standard, and with XXXXX, quite possibly one for the ages.” Which cards is Zvi talking about? You’ll have to read it to find out!
There’s a lot of contention regarding what should and shouldn’t be on the Vintage restricted list. Wizards took five cards off the restricted list in Vintage during 2004: Fork, Braingeyser, Stroke of Genius, Doomsday, and Earthcraft. To pretty much everyone, these cards were considered undegenerate and could be unrestricted with a reasonable amount of safety. While there are occasional tweaks when a new B&R list comes out, usually nothing is changed. Still, every quarter there is usually a firestorm of debate regarding changes to the list. Since it’s going to be March soon, it seemed like a good time stoke the fires of Vintage debate once more with an article…
If you listen to the forums, it appears that Doctor Mox is everyone’s new favorite writer, but who is this masked man, and why does he keep talking about his Volkswagon? Bah, none of that matters, since today the Doc is back to bring you another amusing-yet-useful look at the current Extended format.
Rick completes his excellent Constructed set review today with what many people feel is the strongest color in Betrayers: Black. What cards will be keepers in Standard and Block Constructed? Have a look.
Zvi continues his review today with the Blue and the Black cards. Which cards does he signify as platinum hits and which hyped cards does he say you can pass on? You’ll have to check inside for the goods.
We decided to switch things up today and step away from the established metagame into the realm of the rogues. How does a deck like Dump Truck stack up in this very diverse and hard-to-predict environment? JMU has tested it and the evidence is not as bad as you might think.
