I now have at least partial top 8 listings from eleven German, five French, two Polish, one Swiss, one Hong Kong, and one South American Regionals / Nationals. If you are looking for breakdowns of all the Top 8 decks from foreign Regionals, quirky decklists, and analysis of what cards are getting played in each deck, you’ve come to the right place.
People misuse the term”rogue” more than they do the term”fascist.” They hear the word in context and they think they know what it means. Rogue doesn’t mean bad. If you play with bad cards, please don’t call them rogue. Bad cards are bad. Rogue cards are very good when the metagame predictions are right and the strategies hold, even if they may seem bad otherwise. A Gray Ogre is not a good card. No rogue deck designer would ever tell you to play with Gray Ogre even if you had a deck where Gray Ogre seemed like the perfect fit: you can get the superior Suq’Ata Lancer at the same cost and size; you can get the slightly worse – but still superior to Gray Ogre – Goblin Chariot at the same. A Stromgald Cabal might not look much better than a Gray Ogre against a G/R land destruction opponent, but man does it put the hurt on a White combo deck.
As everyone is well aware, Magic Online has been experiencing quite a bit of difficulty as of late. Well actually, not as of late – as of the last nine months, to be truthful. The server crashes sporadically, matches pause arbitrarily for extended periods, abusive cards with game-winning bugs somehow make it into the live server code, and two thirds of the game’s major functionality (Premier Events and Leagues) aren’t even available as of this writing. It has not been a happy time for Magic Online and its denizens. The one question on everyone’s mind is: Why?
Last week’s”all numbers, all the time” article elicited two requests for data, which was perfect, because this was my week of crazy midterms, so I needed material. The first request, from Rudy van Soest, was that I take my assorted collection of data and find some trends, so I compiled a listing of all the IsoKeeper builds from September on and tried to figure out the optimal build. The second was from JP Meyer, who said,”My loins are quivering in anticipation. I love the set breakdowns, but you know what I love more? When you list what cards appear the most per set.” How can you resist a request like that?
Okay, it’s pretty early. You still have a solid month to prepare for Regionals this year. You’re probably going to need it, too. The format is very diverse, and the top decks are tough to play, offering tons of different game play choices and subtle deck building options that could mean the difference between top 8 (and a qualification for Nats), or 2-2 drop. In any metagame, you really have to know the matchups, but this one in particular is very unforgiving of errors. So what’s a guy to do? Well I’ve got nine steps to help you out and then a discussion of what I’ve discovered during playtesting.
I have decided to bite the bullet. For as long as I have been a featured writer at StarCity, my personal bio has included the following sentences:”He has a Five Color Showcase deck he has been working on for years, and won Type Two, Extended, and Type One tournaments with it. This ultimate work is called, ironically,”Abe’s Deck of Happiness and Joy” – a title which proves that, like everybody else, Abe thinks the world revolves around him. The only difference is that Abe admits it.”
Many people haved asked me to tell them about Abe’s Deck of Happiness and Joy, and I’ve finally broken down.
Looking over the Pro Tour: Kobe decklists, Shrapnel Blast wasn’t in the majority of Affinity decks. Can you use your insider pro knowledge to let me know why it didn’t get played?
It’s been almost a year in the making folks, but Joe Black is finally here. At long last, the man who many consider the funniest Magic writer around has joined StarCityGames.com! Readers will Thrill! at Osyp’s harrowing tale of how he became”The Beefmaster.” Audiences will Chill! (and eat a donut) as Osyp recounts all the tawdry details of Mike Turian’s Bachelor Party. Magic players will Laugh! all the way to the bank as Osyp debunks popular metagame myths and recounts etiquette faux pas in other countries. This is one Featured Writer debut that simply cannot be missed!
TwelvePost was made for a format much different from that of current Type Two – there were no Biddings, Goblins, Decrees, or even Akroma’s Vengeances. It took advantage of fast mana lands to cast game-winning spells as quickly as possible. Its principle was if you can’t out race them, overpower them. Few things are more powerful than an 11/11 indestructible trampler backed by Leonin Abunas and Platinum Angel. Currently Affinity has a tough time removing Platinum Angel and Abunas game one, as many versions only have Shrapnel Blast to remove the pair. Killing both requires them to draw two of only four cards and they still have to kill you. Limiting your opponent’s outs like that is pretty good.
I also plan on attending the team sealed PTQs, and I was
wondering if you had any suggestions about the relative power level of the three decks you build. I’ve heard some suggest that it’s best to build two strong decks and one weaker deck – do you advocate this strategy, or would you recommend trying to build decks of even power?
There is one matchup in which Ravager Affinity consistently has trouble. Playtesting and stacking skills notwithstanding, the mirror match is an awful prospect for whoever decides to use the deck. Although artifact destruction spells and answers to opposing Disciples of the Vault can be boarded in, these options crowd up the sideboard and necessarily dilute the effectiveness of the deck’s win conditions. For all its cleverness, casting Furnace Dragon will usually be like cutting off Chiss-Goria’s tooth to spite his face. Artifact destruction is not the answer to winning the Ravager Affinity mirror. The answer lies much closer to home.
I’ll do a card by card breakdown for all seventeen of the Ravager decks placing in the top 2 of European Regionals, and then talk about the rest of the current metagame. Then I’ll close with the latest decklists for a playtest Gauntlet. Well, what are you waiting for?
