I keep running across people online and web articles bemoaning the current state of Type 2 as being”stagnant” and”boring.” Supposedly U/W Control, Affinity, and Goblins have the format in a stranglehold, that there are no other decks worth playing.
Really? I have a fistful of decks that say otherwise.
A lot of older songs, especially ones from the 50s and 60s, seem a bit formulaic to me. They are, for lack of a better word, boring. Simplistic. But there is the occasional song that is just magic to music. Good old fashioned great songs. True treasure. I feel the same way about Magic decks. Some old decks should be retired quickly – they are boring and stale. But not all decks in the graveyard of Magic are so inclined. With a few recent sets of crazy cards, maybe it’s time to revisit a few of these oldies. Can we make them better? Can we make them even more fun to play?
Kartin’ Ken confuses Long kritics, White Urzatron control piques reader interest, and Vintage articles dominate the week, all in the latest edition of the StarCityGames.com Digest!
I know a lot of you were waiting for the artifact dilemma. Sadly Mike was so distraught over his recent beatings in the polls, that he has gone into hiding and has been difficult to reach. It may also have to do with Amsterdam preparation and spending time with his lovely fiancé. I don’t remember if I have said this publicly or not, but congratulations Mike and Rachel, you are both great people and I wish you a long, happy life together. In the meantime, I want to go over all the Equipment one by one in my own sassy, against the grain pick order. I don’t feel like I am cutting off my Dilemma series, as I will be discussing all Equipment not just the commons.
A couple weeks back I was putting together Astral Slide and I was considering running Temple of the False God. Oh yes. The Temple of the Four Land Mana Screw. The Temple of the Beating Myself In the Face When Playing Land Destruction. It’s like I played a land and it says nothing on the card! Hoboy! Beatings! So instead, I put in the Cloudposts. It changed my world. It opened my eyes.
It let me cycle a Decree for fifteen power in tiny White men during the end step of a U/W control player’s turn. I was in love. And like all loves, a person just ends up looking for the better and better high. Maybe I mean drugs. I probably mean drugs. So when I glanced at that infamous Kai/Roland Bode article I was sorely tempted. Why bother with Cloudpost when you can have the mighty Urzatron
If you are one of those people who see signaling as a divine holy art, which should be worshiped and protected, then you will not like this article. However, if you’re like me, and think that you need every helping hand you can get when trying to find your niche on the color wheel, then you may find this article of some use. Yes, Ladies and Gentlemen, it’s print run time.
On Saturday, January 24th, the Darksteel Prerelease RETURNS to Richmond, Virginia! Here’s just a few of the cool things that the Richmond, Virginia Darksteel Prerelease will have to offer this time around:
It took me exactly three Mirrodin boosters before I found one of my Class I cards. Sitting in an uncommon slot was Betrayal of Flesh, laughing at me in its dancing-and-steaming-undead sort of way. “No one uses me outside of Limited,” it cackled,”what makes you want to give a try?” I blinked.”Oh. Well. See, I think I’m crazy,” I said to my little digital card.
“Proceed,” it replied merrily.
There is no room for budget deck builds in a full-proxy metagame, and any deck that cannot stop combo madness quickly just plain fails.
With such a unique (some would say skewed) environment, I quickly ruled out Keeper for its weakness against Long, as well as Spoils Mask, Long, Dragon and Madness as decks that just weren’t going to be fun to play with. Knowing I would be facing many workshop decks, and more importantly, Long.dec, I chose to run U/R Fish, a deck holding great versatility in the sideboard and with enough counters to slow combo down. More importantly, it could support Null Rod, which would prove incredible in the troubled times to come.
Now we look forward at the 2004 metagame. The restriction of Long has certainly opened up the field for many decks. However, two cards are going to become central to the 2004 Type One Metagame: Mana Drain and Mishra’s Workshop. Multiple decks will be running both cards and using them for nice tempo boosts, which lead to unrecoverable game states. These two cards will define the metagame and the decks built around them. In actuality, Mana Drain is probably going to see three to four times as much play as Mishra’s Workshop in top 8s, simply because of availability. Nevertheless, both cards should be watched carefully.
Since Onslaught, we have learning something about drafting synergistic decks with the advent of tribal. This is what makes us take a bad elf over a good card. Pros have been making draft decisions based on synergies for years. The best drafters in the world go into a draft saying,”Maybe X card is the best card in the pack, but is it the best card for my deck?”
Mirrodin takes this concept to a whole new level. We have to be extra alert to synergistic cards because sometimes they are disguised as cards of another color. For instance, many people would say Wizard Replica is a fairly Blue card due to its activation cost, even thought it is an artifact. I would argue to say that Wizard Replica is better in a Red-Green deck than it is in a Blue deck! Just to have the very rare ability of flying in a Red-Green deck can have a monumental impact of how well-rounded the deck is. While you might think that Tel-Jilad Archers is the only guy in the line-up that can halt a Skyhunter Patrol, I say what about the Wizard Replica?
Okay. So the tournament is coming up, you’ve pretty much finalized your decklist, and like the good child you are, you’ve also finalized your sideboard. Now. Imagine you find a mystical bottle behind the couch. A juice bottle, if you would. This juice bottle is old, dusty, and err, old. You rub it out of pure frustration in the hope that genie will come out and cure said frustrations. Sure enough, a genie. Whoduh thunk it?
Back in November, Knut suggested to find the ten most important issues to Type 1 players and to base an article on this. I thought of ten questions on my own which I polled members of The Mana Drain on. Helping me to interpret the data is Steve”Smmennycakes” (he loves it when you call him that) Menendian and providing color commentary is Vintage World Champ Carl Winter.
This is one of the decks that I have started off testing for the upcoming Extended season. It showed promise last year with some appearances in Grand Prix, and John Eardley won a PTQ with it in Columbus, Ohio. I have been testing this deck pretty much exclusively, looking for something that has a good match-up against the Rock, Tog, Red Deck Wins, and Dump Truck. The deck I speak of is Tradewind Opposition.
Last week, I said T.H.E.F.U.C.C. gives you faster results than Chasey Lain, and invited readers to send the most mind-boggling problems so we can see how far the formula goes.
My thanks to all you demanding readers, you tried your damnedest.
