My favorite part of Magic is still the creativity that it takes to build new decks. But something has happened recently: Winning is becoming more important to me. I don’t know what exactly happened to make me feel this way, but whatever it is, I want to win now. And playing your own decks isn’t the way to do this.
Please Note: The following prerelease report contains a bit of drama. It will contain a controversial decision that I made which reduced my chances of finishing with a box, plus a description of what may or may not have been a play error that caused a match loss. I ask your advice and help in the forums.
The title of this article does not make any sense until you get to the portion of the article that’s not even really part of the article. So please bear with me. This week, we’ll be exploring Onslaught red and green cards whose values fluctuate depending on your deck: How many Goblins do you need before you can play Airdrop Condor or Reckless One? How many elves do you need before you can play Wirewood Pride, Voice of the Woods, or Heedless One?
I’m talking about Dan Bock. He was the guy who played an all-land deck at a previous Pro Tour in Japan. Now, normally I don’t beg decklists from people who play all-land decks in major tournaments… But this was a special case. Dan qualified playing Full English Breakfast at the last Extended PTQ where Survival of the Fittest was legal. Since that time, he has recreated FEB several times – in Extended without Survival, in 5-Color, and in T1. Now he has built it in Highlander format, and it’s now kicking serious butt with Phage.
Today, we explore the most basic of all blue-based aggro-control decks. It’s called Fish by default, but you also know it as Merfolk and Skies. Fish, as we noted last week, suffers from the classic weakness of having weenies that are pathetic in combat. If you’re playing control or combo, however, that doesn’t really help you, because you’re not going to do a lot of that. Examining a game against Fish will help you analyze the more complex aggro-control decks we’ll move on to later.
A prerelease survival guide? Sure, why not? There’s only one problem – I have a ticket to see a midnight session of Matrix Reloaded in one hour and fifty-one minutes, and I’m only just typing this now. Well… I guess that I’ll present a list of cards you should be wary of when building your Sealed deck, and tricks to look out for while you’re playing, and what you shouldn’t do given the new mechanics. And I’ll type it all the bullet-time so I can get this done in the next hour!
Yes, it is a combo deck. The pieces are cheap; the deck is a blast to play. The niftiest thing is nailing someone with a Head Games. Not bad for a $1 rare, if it resolves! It can completely screw with someone’s hand and game plan – and even with the minute amount of mana acceleration, comes out on turn 2 with disturbing frequency. Turn 2 Blood Oath happens, too… And that’s a lot of fun. It’s playable in both multiplayer and dueling, but what’s really nifty about this deck is how it takes very different roles in multi and duels….
The two key components of the archetype are mana and explosive effects. This is very important to keep in mind during the draft, because some of the picks are not immediately identifiable. The basic premise behind the deck is to ramp mana quickly and cast large splashable or in-color threats. The deck has an extremely powerful late game, considering that you take Invokers higher and splash a lot of giant creatures – so if you get all of the tools, it is simply too powerful for regular two-color decks.
There are a lot of cards out there that are just plain underused. Sometimes they are a great card that was unable to be used in decks of the time due to a funky metagame. Maybe they are latent powerhouses in Five Color – or maybe in Type Two, Extended, or Type One. And finally, a large chunk of cards are pure multiplayer goodness. All of these cards, whatever set and whatever age of Magic, have a common thread: They’re good. We’re not talking about jank like Debt of Loyalty and Jabari’s Influence (and who says white doesn’t steal things?). Instead, these are good cards that are just getting ignored, and I think it’s time someone used them.
In the end, an 8-2 does indeed make it… But alas, it won’t be me this time. I end up in 11th on tie-breaks, which is still pretty damn good for my first tourney in a year and a half, particularly given the size of the crowd that showed up. Still, if you’re looking for a fantastic tourney report and a good idea of how Wake works, look here!
Regionals was an uncomfortable car ride followed by a big disappointment diced up to lay amidst small flares of occasional fun, the meetings with friends and MODO clan members that were like little pepper granules of merriment amidst the undercooked, salmonella-inducing hamburger patty of defeat. This whole putrid meal was served up with a side order of uncomfortable accommodations and a large Pepsi. No, I didn’t have fun at Regionals, where I saw two weeks of intense study and preparation go down the tubes – but mark my words, I’ll have fun writing about it, or die trying.
Somebody asked me to write about my wolves Tribes deck, curious as to how I had built it. Now, the deck is in constant state of flux – or at least the non-tribal part of it is – so I couldn’t really write about the deck. Furthermore, the non-tribal part is so taste-dependent and highlanderish that I can’t really do a good article about it, since there would be no real strategic reasoning behind the cards I chose for the deck. And yet that will not stop me.
“So you finally lost.”
“Yeah, it was a good run. First match loss in the eighth round is not a bad day. I mean, five, oh, and two is great after seven rounds. That’s top eight in a seven-round PTQ, right?”
“That’s true, man. But you suck. No lies; you really suck at this game, and yet you managed to be in contention for seven rounds. That’s pretty cool.”
At this point, I am sitting at 3-1-1 and feeling pretty good about myself… But of course, we all know that I did not X-0 the rest of the tournament. Locusts would have swarmed the earth, fire would have rained out of the sky, and other bad times would be going on.
It has to be read to be believed. But there is a major revelation for Chris Romeo fans.
