The scarce resource is a fundamental strategic concept, whether in business, life or Magic, but it doesn’t get talked about nearly enough. Understanding scarce resource theory will help you draft, sideboard and make tough judgment calls during play, and is just as important a fundamental as card advantage or tempo. If you’ve been looking for a general guide that will lead you to making better plays, this is it!
This is going to be a long one, so I’ll keep the introduction short. This is a first look at the Constructed quality of Betrayers of Kamigawa. Since my expertise is only in Standard, I’m going to leave Limited and Extended evaluations to other people. I’m also going to give a separate rating for a card’s Kamigawa Block Constructed worthiness, since that format is quite different from Standard.
It’s that time again. It’s time for the release of a new set, full of plenty of new cards waiting to be sprung upon the magic populace. New cards are, fundamentally, a cool thing. New toys to play with means more fun for everyone, right? And better yet, if those new cards have a new ability, some interesting mechanic to tinker with and build around, that creates even more possibilities! Every keyword added to the game gives players more options for deckbuilding, more choices of what direction to go. Keywords are an all-around good thing. This is Wizards of the Coast’s attitude, and I agree with them. To a point.
Welcome back to the third installment of your daily dosage of deck. Today we are going to feature an old 250 combo in a neat, tight, sixty-card deck. The goal of the deck is simple, and I think that many of our readers might like it. It is a bit rare-heavy, but that can easily be changed. Let’s take a look.
In Part I, we looked at some of the most extreme matchups for Extended White Weenie, both the worst (board-locking NO Stick and Pernicious Deed-packing Rock), as well as what we initially thought of as some of the best – Red Decks. While the various Rock decks and U/W control were about as bad as expected, and Red Deck Wins was maybe even better than expected, Goblins didn’t turn out as expected at all. In this section, we will round up most of the rest of the expected Extended metagame and begin to determine if White Weenie is bad or just misunderstood.
Welcome to the next installment of A Deck a Day, the column where we rustle up a deck for you casual players. Many of my regular readers probably know that I’m on the Five Color Ruling Committee (or Council, I can never remember which, and I always see it abbreviated 5CRC, so I don’t even know). What many of you may not recall is that I also sit on the Peasant Magic ruling body as well. Although I recently had a Peasant Magic article published in Scrye, I haven’t written here about Peasant Magic for a while. Let’s change that today.
Stax has been an important part of the Vintage metagame since its introduction in early 2003. Back then, the card choices were pretty easy due to the limited amount of broken stuff. Sphere of Resistance, Smokestack, Tangle Wire and Meditate were indeed the only lock components available before Mirrodin for an artifact Prison deck (Winter Orb does not fit in Stax’s game plan). Now, we have plenty of new tools in the form of Chalice of the Void, Thirst for Knowledge, Trinisphere and Crucible of Worlds. Nevertheless, card slots are not expendable and choices have to be made in order to have the most finely tuned build according to your metagame. This article will provide general guidelines for answering most of the questions you should ask yourself if you want to take Stax at a Vintage tournament.
Over the last few columns, I’ve mentioned Shrine decks. It’s always been in the context of “What does this deck have in the sideboard for Shrine decks?” Most people, it seems, don’t understand why I’m worried about Shrine decks. The reactions have run the gamut from “You’re a silly man who makes me laugh with your worrying about Shrines” to “What a stupid idiot you are! No one plays Shrine decks!” I beg to differ – those decks are ubiquitous online. That means that someday soon you’ll be facing them in real life, too.
Tony’s simple yet ingenious plan was to draft a bunch, play a bunch, then draft some more. Now this sounds fun, if a little pedantic. “Take Nagao, take Kokusho, splice Glacial Ray…”. Useful and all, but I imagine the interest would wane over the day. But what if, instead of drafting the current set, the event revolved around drafting completely dead, useless formats? Wouldn’t that be fun? You bet it would.
Hello and welcome to my own temporary daily series outlining a casual deck of some sort or another. Adam Gryphondorf has done an excellent job these past few weeks with his article series, and now I have the torch. My series will feature casual decks, not decks that I recommend taking to the next PTQ or anything. Although some casual decks have a solid history at local store tourneys and Friday Night Magic, the majority of these decks are designed for the kitchen table.
Ben Bleiweiss is one of the most knowledgeable buyers and sellers of Magic cards on the planet and is the driving force behind keeping StarCityGames.com’s prices ahead of the competition. Being the cynical Magic player that you are, you decide that you aren’t impressed by his 90% success rate when he ranked Champions of Kamigawa and want to know why you should listen to what he has to say this time. The answer? Because you can’t afford not to!
Flores: Tell me a deck I can write about that your readers will love.
Knut: Well Mike, you know how much you love U/G Threshold? The readers at StarCityGames.com are like that about White Weenie, except even more so. They have a passion for that deck that burns brighter than ten thousand suns.
Flores: Okay, but this will be Extended, not some Romeo-style Standard deck.
Knut: Even better!
After bombing out at U.S. Nats while playing a horrible Goblin deck, I promised never again to sully my hands with Goblin Warchiefs or Piledrivers, content to play with artifact lands in the only deck that can use them well. Fast forward to a week ago and Ruel’s Goblin deck caught my eye and I was able to pilot it to a mighty *ahem* 2-2 finish at a local Neutral Ground tournament. Now, with weeks of playtesting under my belt against a gauntlet that includes five of the most relevant matchups in Extended today, I’m happy to say that I’m finally able to give you reliable information on how it performs against the field.
This is the third in a series of articles that chronicle the last several Extended seasons. As always, the roots of the current Extended season can be found in the past: with the exception of Ravager Affinity, all of the Pro Tour: Columbus decks have appeared, in some form or other, in years ago. Some go back a lot farther than you might think, and there’s still tech in them thar decks!
Intrepid reporter Eli Kaplan has slowly been making a name for himself by posting solid finishes at Japanese Grand Prix. This time, paired with a motley crue of teammates, he attempts to strike gold by once again proving that the Japanese players are not the only ones who can earn money at Japanese Grand Prix.
