What sold me on the deck eventually was my theory on Type 1: The deck that can do the most broken things wins most. I figured that the same must hold true for Type 2! So for the next day or so, I thought a bit about the deck and what I’d do with it and the sideboard (which turned out to be so-so) and how to make Affinity even more broken.
Every year after States, I like to review the top decks and see what new cards have made the biggest impact. In years past, this has been my”See, I told you [Set X] didn’t suck as much as you thought it did” effort to shut up the naysayers that crop up after each release – only this time, most people seemed to really like Mirrodin. So while I’m not really trying to make a big point this year, it’s still fun to see what’s working from Mirrodin. So what are the best Constructed cards to emerge from the artifact set?
Getting a 4-3-1 record isn’t exactly a badge of pride…Unless you’re playing with a deck built as a joke.* My roommate had the idea of using a Daru Spiritualist, targeting it with some of the en-Kor gang, and making lots of clerics that were very hard to kill. As it turns out, en-Kors weren’t legal, but Lightning Greaves was, and we could routinely get a trillion life by turn 4.
As I’m sure all or most of you are aware, www.MagicTheGathering.com is once again allowing we, the Magic players, to design a Magic card of our very own! What we’ve got so far looks really good; all we’re missing is a flavor text. And as anyone who’s looked in on my”The Real Story Behind…” series knows… I’m a big fan of flavor texts!
When I first saw that Annul was coming back, I was a little worried that it might actually be good this time around. Thankfully, though, my fears have been partially assuaged as the card is simply too unreliable. The problem with Annul is that none of us want to be stuck with it in our hand. This leads to the usual eagerness to cast it, and often on the first decent artifact that goes on the stack. This is obviously a big problem with the card, as anybody with a brain is going to cast their worst spells first if at all possible. If you sit on Annul too long, they’ll just beat you with the garbage creatures that you didn’t counter and you can sit and look at the artwork all day while it goes to waste in your hand.
What I fail to understand is why people pooh-pooh Type I players who call for a brake on the format’s still-unrestricted broken tempo cards and call them”casual” players, but not bat an eye when Kai Budde says:”I hate the format. Basically, if you want to win, you have to build a deck that wins on turn 2 or turn 3, and if you do that it always becomes really inconsistent.” It’s pretty much the same problem in Type I. But hey, I like being on the same side of the argument as Kai Budde.
The Ferrett covered New Orleans this weekend, and saw all of that broken Tinker action up close and personal… And in the process, he catalogued all of the common wisdom that everyone at the Pro Tour seemed to know instinctively. So let the Here Edits This Site Here guy explain why you shouldn’t count on Tinker being banned, why the format will be slower even if it’s not, why mulliganing is key in this format, and what single card is the most complex card in Extended!
I put a lot of effort into testing for Champs this year and chose to play B/W Control. I found it capable of dealing with Goblins and random creature decks, and still able to compete against control decks. So why did things go horribly wrong, and what’s the real problem with B/W Control that I didn’t consider?
Champs have come and gone… and a NEW gauntlet has been created in it’s wake. Ladies and gentlemen… the NEW Standard decks to beat!
Pro Tour New Orleans has come and gone, but not before giving us the NEW Extended gauntlet! StarCityGames.com proudly presents the Extended Decks To Beat!
As usual, one of the internet’s most entertaining writers would like to remind you how horrible he is… Yet somehow he has a 1900+ Limited rating and made Day Two at Grand Prix: Kansas City. He’s going to show you the white picks, explain his finish at the Grand Prix, and discuss his growing loathing of Feature Matches. Listen to him. He’s good.
“Dude, that B/R Control deck looks like crap.”
“Of course it looks like crap. It is crap. When have I built a good deck?”
“Never, dude.”
“This is no exception. But it was fun, let me tell you.”
“So did it win any matches at all?”
“Surprisingly…”
Hulk Smash was the big story of the Vintage Championships last GenCon, but a lot of people forget about the finalist’s deck: Vengeur Masque. Masque has since established itself as Type I’s premier aggro deck. The philosophies behind The Funker and Stacker 2 merged somewhat into Benjamin Rott’s Tools ‘n’ Tubbies, which was in turn supplanted by Vengeur. The two are very similar in spirit, with Survival of the Fittest providing the card advantage for both, but with Illusionary Mask playing the key tempo booster for Vengeur.
I won’t soon forget those guys. From beginning to end, the trip to Pro Tour: Boston was a life-changing experience for me, probably the least worldly of young men. Not only did I learn a lot about myself, but I got to see new places, meet new people – it was the epitome of a great trip. I can only hope that someday I get a chance to head back Pittsburgh way, where the hills are steep and the network cables always abuzz.
I figured that since my first two cards in the draft happened to be a combo, I should try drafting a combo deck in the last rounds. Most people might stick to the plan and play it safe with a top 8 on the line. Me? I do things my way. I can draft the best deck ever and I will 1-2. If I draft a pile of bad cards that I can have fun playing with, I will defeat the world.
