Today Mike takes a look at some of the more intriguing questions to come out of this Extended season. Will we ever see another format like this one? Is this the greatest Constructed format of all time? How in the world do you choose a deck when there are thirty viable decks out there and more being discovered all the time? Flores knows…
The problem with the Casual Challenge is that sometimes, you face tough choices. For this week’s Type Four: Limited Infinity challenge, we had several articles, each good in their own way. Andrew Farias brought up some troubling issues with Type 4 rules, whereas David Kleppinger wrote an excellent introduction to Type 4. However, in the end I’m going to have to give it to Andrew Lubich’s Ten Cards You’re Not Playing With In Your Type 4 Stack (But You Should Be) for sheer creativity — it wasn’t the most strategic of articles, but the cards he chose were consistently geared to create a more interesting game. Thus, Andrew takes the prize in the tightest squeaker yet!
Since we were discussing a format with infinite mana this week, next week’s challenge will feature infinite cards — or at least 250 of them. Next week’s Casual Challenge?
5-Color Magic.
That’s right — win $20 for your best writing on the all-color format! We’ve had a dry spell on good 5-color articles, so send them in to Mail us at https://sales.starcitygames.com/contactus/contactform.php?emailid=2 and win the prize!
If you assume that TJ properly balanced his ratio of en-Kor, Target-Me-And-I-Get-Bigger guys, and sacrifice outlets in his Grand Prix: Boston Life deck, then taking out Task Forces for Worldly Tutors is a perfectly legitimate swap. All other draws being equal, Worldly Tutor can always turn into a Daru Spiritualist, which leaves you with the same effective number of Target-Me guys overall. You lose a card in the process, this way, but in exchange you receive the vastly superior Spiritualist over the underpowered Task Force. Of course, this means you now have to add green, but I don’t want Living Wish in it. Why? Read on.
Mike explains his fascination with decks that bear the Dan Paskins Seal of Approval, and offers up a most teched out decklist of the most popular deck this Extended Season. People will be playing this decklist at your local qualifiers, so the only way to get a drop on the competition is to read this article.
Now that Affinity is officially dead, we expect a landslide of new Standard articles discussing the bevy of new possibilities open to savvy deckbuilders. Adam of the Funny Last Name starts things off today by peeking at an overlooked two-mana instant that may see some play in the upcoming Standard and Block Constructed seasons, and includes a G/W Control deck that showcases the card’s versatility.
I always wanted to remake the classic Prison deck in the wake of Mirrodin block. Now is my opportunity to do so with several crucial card being reprinted. The Prison deck is one of the first deck archetypes, and it was known for it’s ability to lock down the game with relative ease. It used Icy Manipulators, Winter Orbs, Armageddon, Relic Barriers, Howling Mines and are to lock you down, then played a Song of Titania and swung with a bunch of artifacts for game. This time around we’ll vary the parts a bit with some newer cards and see how effective this old archetype can still be.
When Champions of Kamigawa was introduced, my typical slew of articles on sealed deck construction was noticeably absent. I could offer a myriad of excuses for my lack of literary offerings, from being too busy at work to insisting that I still wasn’t quite moved in and had plenty house organization left to do. The reality was that I just didn’t understand Kamigawa sealed. It wasn’t until the Betrayers Team Sealed tournament at the Prerelease that the answer dawned on me. The key word that you need to understand in order to succeed at Champions Sealed deck is synergy.
It’s Pro Tour week for Mr. Aten, so what does he do? That’s right, that lazy sack of meat farmed out the entire article to his friends and made them write the review of Betrayers of Kamigawa White. So why should you still be interested in this article? Because Tim has friends with names you might have heard of like Nassif, Parker, Kibler and Krouner, that’s why!
Since I’m never content to play someone else’s deck, I spent a lot of time trying to break Extended. Since I’m not divinely inspired and am sorely lacking in “copious free time,” I didn’t. I will present three combo decks that each fail, each for different reasons. Golden Retriever is not better than the alternatives. Snap-Witness works, but not in this metagame. Finally, Food Chain Myojin is… well it’s just plain cool.
Before I begin today’s deck, I want to mention that the idea for this deck came from my friend Aaron. Aaron witnessed me playing a Symbol Status for 12 creatures and declared it to be broken. Of course, I agree. I’ve always thought that Symbol Status was one of the best cards in Unhinged.
Hi, my name is Ruud Warmenhoven and I have finished in the Top 16 at every Extended pro-level tournament I have ever entered. In all these events I played a weird deck that most people would call rogue and wouldn’t include in their testing. I have been seen casting such hits as Battlefield Scrounger, Constant Mists, Lightning Angel and now Sensei’s Divining Top and won games with them. The story of how I ended up playing the Top at Eindhoven involves the English, a drunken bar fight, and a man named Draco…
The threat is stronger than the execution. I first read this strategic insight during a past life in which I played and studied Chess instead of Magic. Some Chess strategies simply don’t apply to Magic – Chess is a game of perfect information in which identical forces contest with all pieces beginning on the board. Magic involves imperfect information and each draw can radically change the balance of force available to each player. Nevertheless, many strategic truths apply as powerfully to Magic as to Chess… and this may be one of them.
Extended is my favorite format, so I get very down on myself if I play poorly. The expectations of my performance I hold for Extended far exceed what is reasonable, given my poor preparation habits. This is because I am old, and old people have no time to prepare. Don’t laugh, kids, it will happen to you one day.
Let me put this another way: I suck, but I’m not supposed to suck when I shuffle up Aluren.
After reading Ben Bleiweiss’ article, I have my own pet theory on the reason behind the supposed death of American Magic. It’s not because of poker. It’s not the result of poor internet etiquette, either. My finger is pointed squarely at geography.
Today Zvi muses on the best versions of the best decks to come out of the last two Grand Prix weekends, including Tsuyoshi Fujita’s incredible Sneak Attack deck. Still think the deck is a fluke? Here’s a preview of Zvi’s analysis which includes an optimized decklist: “I love this deck. It goldfishes better than any other deck in the format…”
