Oscar continues to look at Darksteel for more bang for his buck. Is he going to find any Chasey Lain videos here, or is”Cinnamon Buns” going to strike out with the Darksteel sorceries? Click on the link to find out!
The cycle continues. Every few months or so, the Five Color Council has a larger ballot. February appears to be the largest one in a while. This month, we take a close look at three new cards and try to see if an old card should be put out to pasture. We also have an interesting question of succession.
The dilemma this week is something I would not have expected at the beginning of this format, and is certainly not what I would have expected when I was told this was the artifact block…
Over the past few weeks, my columns have included additional sections that tended to be about the laws of randomness and probability, what laymen (“Heh, he said ‘lay’ and ‘men.'”) call the law of averages. A lot of people seem to be confused about these topics. Others just wanted to know more. I’ve typically not gotten involved in these types of detailed columns about complicated theories that seem to exist in the Magic universe. However, it was suggested by one of my readers that given my background, I might, you know, get involved and write something that was both informative and enteratining on the subject…
Turn 5 – At this point, I was generating infinite mana. It was turn 5 because everyone had been targeting me, and I had had my turn 2 Metalworker and turn 3 Thran Dynamo killed. Not good enough. As I put 500 Blue mana in my pool, a bystander asked”But how do you kill them?” I dropped Memnarch, turned to the bystander and said”This game, I’ll kill them with an FTK, a couple elves, that Steelshaper and whatever Steve has under that Bonesplitter. But since I’m stealing everything on the board, including lands, they’ll probably concede.”
The real question was, could I take what I learned about Voltaic Construct and build a competitive Type Two deck capable of generating infinite mana? Well, I could certainly try…
As promised, here’s Jeff’s response to Antonino De Rosa’s article.
White Weenie is such a strange deck – it doesn’t try to mise. It doesn’t burn out players or use fancy tricks. It plays guys. Stand up guys that you can depend on, like Savannah Lions. They will arrive, swing, and get the job done. No frills, just beats. Somehow I always find myself writing about White Weenie every year. It is very stable – very White. It is always a contender even the harshest of environments.
Magic’s greatest crank succumbs to Flores’s relentless pestering, and finally writes another article! Today, Jon discusses the idea of one correct play, set reviews, pokes fun at Elliot Fertik (again), and goes no holds barred with his opinion of Geordie Tait’s recent theoretical excursions.
Did you read Becker’s piece yet? Good. Now we can move on.
I asked Jon to talk about his different play style from Derek Rank’s in those ancient days of the Frenetic Efreet, back when Invested cards like Browse were good, for a reason. Though I will stand by the fact that there is One Right Play on any stack (or any of those non-stack moments when you can play or tap land or whatever), that is not to say that there is necessarily one right Plan. Probably you are scratching your head right now. What do you mean one right Plan? What is a Plan?
I know what you’re thinking.”A sixty-two card Cleric deck!? The kids are too much for him; Rob’s finally gone off the deep end.” Okay, I admit it may look that way, but this deck is actually good. No, really. Five PT top 8’s, four of which were Constructed, remember. You’re going to have to trust me on this one.
I was thinking about doing the usual tournament report thing, but I played Tog four out of the seven rounds, and almost all of the games went the same way. Oh sure, I could’ve hammed them up a little more and all. I mean, it’s a lot more entertaining to read”FINALS: JP”The Irresistible Force” Meyer vs. Kevin”The Immovable Object” Cron, but giving you strategic advice on your Tog deck and how the various matchups should play out will save everyone time.
I was on my worst MODO losing streak ever, and was actually desperate enough to ask Phil Samms for help. Phil, in his infinite wisdom said, “You should draft R/B.” And from those humble beginnings, a strategy was born. I’d ask about stuff like”Pewter Golem or Consume Spirit here?” and Samms would say something like”Neither,” and tell me, in what I imagined to be the tones of a professor lecturing a prize student, that I should be drafting more Nim Lashers and Disciples of the Vault.
At the mention of Nim Lasher in particular, eyes seemed to light up.
In this installment, the Jimmest of Beans provides an updated build of everyone’s favorite Standard combo deck, gives sideboarding information for the current metagame, and answers the question on everbody’s mind:
Jim, how do you play this damned thing?
Ah, Black. The color of Witches, Evil, and Darkness. Ken Ho proved one of my initial thoughts last weekend when he took down GP Oakland with a mono-Black draft deck in Mirrodin Limited. The moment I saw the spoiler for Darksteel, I decided that this deck would finally have enough firepower to exist prominently in the draft metagame.
“If you see a Fangren Hunter in your pack, take it! Put it in your deck, add lands, and shuffle up — It Is Awesome.” — Random Magic Online Quote
Translation: Avoid Green and win!
