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Playing Devil’s Advocate: An Analysis of Red Deck Wins in Anaheim

Has there been a more apt moniker for a deck than Red Deck Wins? It’s like the flavor text for Goblin Offensive – a perfect fit. All it does is lay a few creatures, lock down your land for a turn or two and beat you about the head and shoulders until dead. In the Extended environment before Pro Tour: New Orleans, this is what passed for”blazing speed.” Then came New Orleans, and suddenly, a deck capable of a turn 4 kill was”too slow.”

Thankfully, the format came to its senses as 21% of the Day 2 participants in Anaheim were running some form of the deck…

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Mirrodin Draft Archetypes: The Road Most Traveled

Mirrodin R/G is the rich, popular, athletic kid in school. It has everything anyone could ever want and more. Giant, high-quality monsters? Check. A preposterous amount of artifact removal? Check. A smattering of creature removal? Check. The best rare and common in the set? Check.

So why would anyone want to play anything other than R/G?

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Yawgmoth’s Whimsy #84: The Wrong Threats, the Right Answers

David Price once said”there are no wrong threats, only wrong answers.” That’s true in duels, but not always true in multiplayer. If you don’t believe me, try casting a quick Sneak Attack in a big game. Unless you have a great hand and mana free, that is the wrong threat, because everyone at the table will be coming straight for you.

In multiplayer games, slow but steady is often better than attracting attention. Build up a solid position, deploy your forces, and then strike with your secret weapon. Of course, your opponents will be trying to deploy their secret weapons as well. You may get lucky, get yours off first and win the game. But if you don’t, you need an answer to their secret weapons…

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Swimming In Less Broken Waters? Dabbling With Desires In Extended

I was looking forward to Extended Season, perhaps breaking out some old favorite from last year, or a build that did well at Worlds. New Orleans changed all that. I’m going to enjoy this Holiday treat that ends January 1st and I hope you will too. People have complained loudly about the format, and now they have their wish. Take advantage of the opportunity to play with some disgusting decks in a competitive environment before the bannings take effect.

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You CAN Play Type I #115 Part 1: The Control Player’s Bible Head to Head –

Today’s feature demonstrates an updated but still skeletal version of Suicide Black, to illustrate how the”modern” deck plays. The only truly modern development incorporated at this point is the obvious substitution of Chalice of the Void for Null Rod, so we don’t take in the changes all at once, and to better appreciate the latest post-Mirrodin tech.

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From Right Field: Taking Care of Your V.D.

Then, I started thinking to myself,”Self, we need to get back on track. We need to start showing people that they can indeed be competitive with a deck that doesn’t cost two hundred seventy-five dollars and that has cards that are unwanted and unloved.” Yes, I am King Scrubracer, ruler of The Island of Misfit Cards.

My column’s mandate, updated and improved, is to generate decks that you, the average player, can build and still be competitive with. Or rather, to be grammatically correct, with which you can be competitive. I’m also going to show you how I (and my crew) make the choices that we do.

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Clocks on Blocks with Ticks and Tocks

Playtesting began with me trying to learn how to play Kai’s Tinker deck he listed on Brainburst. Tragically, I somehow forgot that Kai no longer plays decks that normal mortals can grok. I was doing alright with the deck, but it felt like I never had anything locked away. I never drew the friggin’ Upheavals unless they were in my opening hand, Bosh always ended up in my damned hand so I couldn’t Tinker for him… I just wasn’t getting it. Even when I did get my win conditions on the board, the win never seemed inevitable.

I’m a sketchy player, people… inevitability of winning is important. One-turn kill? Yes please, thank you!

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What’s Eatin’ Aten?

Just a couple days ago, Tim Aten posted his Red pick order for Mirrodin and I was absolutely shocked at how different it was when compared to mine. Now don’t get me wrong, Tim can certainly play with the best of em’ and I’ve always had lots of respect for his game. Heck, we even ran a team PTQ together a while back with Kenny the Shungfather. I just can’t understand how his pick order could be so different than mine and I feel inclined to share my own findings.

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Searching For the Shrews in Extended

With the evolutionary shot-in-the-arm of Mirrodin, Extended had turned into a monstrous format. Wielding bone-crushing brutality and terrifying speed, the top decks tore up lesser creations with the savagery of Fast Mana and Broken Tutor Effects. Stax, Tinker, and Seeeeething Gobvantage thundered and roared across the landscape, with Tog occasionally darting in to take down weaker and unprepared players.

Then one day, a bright DCI light blazed across the sky and hit the format like an Extinction Level Event. The impact crater marked the passing of the Power decks, but also marked the ascendance of the smaller, more flexible and fair decks to finally have their day. The format has chilled and it’s time for the shrews to take over.

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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.

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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!

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