Today, I’m going to do some initial analysis of what went down at U.S. and Canadian Regionals. I will also regale you with some of the better stories that came out of my own Regionals experience before shifting gears into the usual (and sorely neglected) Mixed kNuts treatment. But first I get to do something I’ve never done before – I’m going to play chicken little and tell you why I think Skullclamp is likely to get banned.
I had it. I had the solution to the entire metagame question. Ravager Affinity? Check. Goblins, any style, Patriarch’s Bidding or no? Check. Tooth and Nail? Check. Red/White? Check. All the testing I had done for the past few weeks was about to bear fruit. With none of the major matchups worse than 50% pre-board and none worse than 55% post-board, I was invincible. I would kick tail and take names for the tournament report I would invariably write after my stunning victory.
Some of us are going to play in a bring-your-own-pack booster draft pretty soon, and I’m wondering what sets you think would be best to get?
Now that you have the theory behind the deck, here is what went down in the actual tournament. This tourney marks something important for me, for in my quest to become a Featured Writer, I tried to be professional and write down all my match info and salient points of the games with which to bring you a better article. Unfortunately, that does not include any of my opponents’ names, but the rest of it is pretty detailed.
What did I play? I’d been reading tons of articles and had played just about every deck out there, but then I found The Good (Red) Book, Chapter of Paskins, which saith,”And lo, I did smite my enemies with the tiny Red men, and breaketh his artifacts, and there was much rejoicing.” Who am I to argue with that dogma?
Are you not winning as much because you are taking a less competitive approach to Magic or is it the other way around?
In the past, Vintage was not a tough nut to crack. With a minimal amount of research you could either completely break the format by importing an Extended favorite, finding a deck the Germans were working on and perfect it, or stumble across it through greater experience. Not so anymore – at least for the foreseeable season. The DCI has done its job and restricted all of the egregious offenders leaving a remarkably balanced format. No less than seven new archetypes have emerged this year as real competitors, as well as revamped approaches to old favorites.
More of this in-depth look at the fastest growing format in the game.
You probably didn’t win your Region. Since I like to state the obvious, you probably aren’t a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model, either. Interestingly, there are about the same number of U.S. Regionals champions as S.I. swimsuit models. Go figure. Anyway, you didn’t win your Region. You most likely didn’t finish in the money. Heck, you may not have had a winning record. Yet, you were sure that you had a good chance of at least winning some prizes or else you probably wouldn’t have wasted the time and energy to participate. So, what happened?
It seems weird to write in the space after Regionals. We’ve been talking about it for months now as the end-all be-all of tournament glories, and now that it’s over, I feel so empty. It’s a good thing I can fill that space with the box of product I won! Herein I will detail my completely original decklist and the path to Regionals glory.
Just kidding, I only wish I could claim this as an original decklist. Granted, I have never seen or heard of anyone playing this deck, but that doesn’t make it original; all I did was take my crappy infinite life deck and hybridize it with MWC.
I was just wondering if there were any good places to play Type II in or around Pittsburgh.
Haphazard blending is pretty much a recipe for disaster, and unfortunately its how a lot of rogue and pet decks end up in the Bean Bracket. A lot of the decks that I’m going to list below resemble this remark, but first I want to talk about the tier two stuff that at least some people will be playing at Regionals tomorrow. If you’re seriously considering qualifying for Nationals, then you would do well to stay away from the following criminals.
This week we’re going to do Red, so settle in and try to enjoy yourself while we explore the wonders of playing broken spells and attacking with whatever mediocre creatures you managed to pick up seventh pick and beyond.
So comprehensive and joke-filled that we had to break it into two parts.
I’ve never had this hard of a time deciding what to play for a tournament. There are so many good decks, and the format looks like it can be broken wide open since there are only two big decks – Affinity and Goblins, with the third deck TwelvePost on the rise. I have gone through many phases with this format, and I’ll detail most of them for you before revealing the deck I’ll be playing this weekend.
