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Sourkraut Soup

Okay, Randy Buehler said in his article commenting on the most recent bannings that he viewed Oath making the list as a lifetime achievement award. In my experience, achievement is not rewarded with forced retirement. Granted, the card is one hundred percent abuseable and there have been many ways to build a decent deck around it, but I don’t see a need to bench it. Randy also indicated that it never dominated, but that its very existence heavily influenced the environment.

So does the existence of Counterspell. Whoopdee frickin’ doo. Actually, a solid argument could be made that the existence of Psychatog has more influence over the Extended environment than Oath of Druids ever did, and that rat bastard is still legal.

Avoid the Scurvy Psychatogs – Pirates! In The New Extended… and PT: New Orleans?

This deck is much better than you think. My testing for New Orleans saw this deck perform insanely well against Psychatog, and pretty well against both versions of the Goblin Charbelcher deck (Mana Severance and Goblin Recruiter). It suffered against Red Deck Wins, which I didn’t expect to see in huge numbers, and The Rock gave it a tight game with its early disruption.

So, that’s the good stuff. Now, onto the bad stuff. The deck loses to Tinker. Very, very badly. Bye now!

Wait a minute… Tinker has been banned, you say? Well, sing hosannas!

Zen and the Art of Ignoring Luck

Let’s envision a world where there is no such definition as luck and everyone understands and accepts the natural randomness of Magic. The local area hosts ten Magic players with skill levels that should assure a regular seat in the top 8 of any given PTQ that hosts approximately sixty people. If one were to trend the performance of these individuals over the course of several PTQs, the number of appearances of each individual in the top 8 should be approximately equal, with the occasional debut of a less talented player.

Compare this with what you see in your local community. You’ve ascertained ten players to be of top 8 caliber. However, only four of those ten seem to follow your assessment and regularly star in the top 8. The other six are only special guests. What differentiates these two groups of players if it isn’t skill?

The Compendium of Alternate Formats, Entry Four: Rainbow Stairwell

Rainbow Stairwell is a format for a sixty-card deck. It can be built in a variety of ways, but the rules are similar. The main premise of the deck is that you have to use cards with a converted casting cost 1-6, one card of each cost in each color and artifacts. Gold cards are therefore disallowed.

So, for example, for your one drop, you could play Unsummon, Giant Growth, Mon’s Goblin Raiders, Dark Ritual, Healing Salve, and Soul Net as your six cards. It doesn’t matter how much mana is of that color, just the total converted casting cost. So a card like Silvos, Rogue Elemental, with its three Green in the casting cost, is just as good for your Green Six spot as Sulam Djinn, with its one Green. Six cards of each color plus artifacts, running from a cost of one through six. There are, as always, additional rules…

Reanimator in the New Extended

Come January 1st, Extended is going to be a very different format. The most recent banned list has torn the format asunder, laying waste to the staple decks in the environment. The last banned list got rid of Reanimator and Frantic Search-based combos, and this one puts the screws to Tinker, Belcher, Hermit, Goblin, and Oath decks.

It should be obvious to all, that decks unaffected by the last two banned lists (like Tog and Rock) will be powerhouses in the new Extended. The interesting question for deck designers like myself is, can we build new decks or revamp the “dead” decks in such a way that they are actually competitive?

The Mirrodin Green Dilemma: Deconstruct!

This is the best color in the set folks. There isn’t another color that is close. White and Red are close to each other, and are the two colors that follow behind Green, but power level-wise they are closer to Black than they are to this mightiest of colors. Before I delve into this dilemma I’d like to analyze why Green is the best color. When you look at the top three commons in Green: Fangren Hunter, Deconstruct, and Tel-Jilad Archers, it may not be clear how they are better than the three best commons in the other colors…

The Comprehensive 8th Edition Draft Review: Red

I like the simplicity of Red. For a lot of cards in this article you will notice very short write ups, simply because there is nothing complicated about the card. Normally it burns something, or it repeatedly turns sideways until either it or your opponent is dead. Not that this is a bad thing of course. The bad thing about Red is that it contains a large number of great cards, but also a large amount of rubbish. Look down the list to Anaba Shaman and see how quickly the quality drops off after that.

AIM High! Mirrodin Red For Limited and Advice For Would Be Moshers

Geordie Tait is a little misguided when it comes to rating rares and uncommons as Tier 1 or Tier 2. First, as I covered in the forums of his article on colored rares, his rare appraisals are a little off. More importantly, he seems to be a member of the Loxodon Warhammer cult. He claims that Loxodon Warhammer is head and shoulders above the other most powerful uncommons like Grab the Reins, Icy Manipulator, and Crystal Shard.

Well let me tell you, kids: the Hammer is not the End-all Be-all. It’s a piece of equipment that costs three and three more each time you move it onto something. I’m not arguing that it’s not retarded; what I am arguing is that it isn’t appreciably better than the other insane uncommons, and perhaps not better at all. Man does it pain me to say this, but here it goes… I think Kai was right (eye roll) and Crystal Shard is better than the Hammer. There, I’ve said it.

Exploring Zombo.com – A Standard Walk With the Undead

Zombies is basically within the same family of decks as mono-Black Control; they are related and share cards freely. Pure Aggro Zombies exists on one end of the spectrum, and then pure mono-Black control exists on the other. Generally you slide closer to MBC by removing Zombies and putting in more anti-aggro spells, like Barter in Blood or Infest. Between the two decks exists a happy medium, where spells like Persecute and Phyrexian Arena roam freely. The goal of this article is to discuss the cards and the play style of the midrange decks.

AIM High: Part Two or The Rest of It

Welcome to Tim’s extended AIM conversation he recorded between Golden Girl Bea Arthur and somebody else. What, you think he’s joking this time? Guess you’ll have to read and find out.

Mirrodin Draft Archetypes: U/B or “Don’t Play This If You Want To Win”

I’ll be honest – I have not had all that much success with this archetype, even with ridiculous card quality in my U/B decks. I’ve had Crystal Shard/Skeleton Shard/Looming Hoverguard/Betrayal of Flesh times two and still lost because the opponent played an artifact that I could not deal with effectively. U/B has lots and lots of synergy available within the archetype’s cardpool, but the lack of any true removal for artifacts cripples the potential of the deck before it even begins. That said, I still think it’s an archetype that the best players can have success with and I’ll tell you why…

Yawgmoth’s Whimsy #83: Combo Still Ain’t Dead – A Look at Post-Banning Extended

I am sure I will not be the only person to mention that the recent bannings do some serious harm to Tinker decks. The banning of Tinker and Grim Monolith also hurt the Mana Severance/Goblin Charbelcher decks and even the Mind’s Desire/Twiddle deck. Cutting Oath of Druids gets rid of Scepter-Oath, and even some classics like TurboLand. The elimination of Goblin Recruiter eliminates the combo-Goblins decks. Finally, no Hermit means he won’t be Angry any more.

So the bannings may have gotten rid of several Combo decks, but don’t think that combo has left the building. There are a score of other combo or combo-ish decks that have potential. I’ll start by listing some of the more obscure possibilities, and then move on to the mainstream decks.

Double or Nothing: PTQ Amsterdam in London *Top 8*

I missed the boat with this build, I really did. Lumengrid Warden? Lumengrid Sentinel? What was I playing at? I figured that the 1/3 guys would slow my opponent down a little to enable me to get to the late game, where my Mirror Golem, Vorrac and Grab the Reins would rule supreme! So how in the world did I make the Top 8?