Magic has a small number of fundamental rules: One land per turn, one attack phase per turn, a certain maximum power-to-mana ratio for creatures, and one card drawn per turn. Breaking this last rule – one card per turn – is one of the most basic yet most powerful strategies in the game.
Make sure all your decks have a chance against green. Only one of our decks could beat opposing fatties consistently, and our performance suffered because of it. Try to build your decks in such a way that at least two of the decks can handle any given matchup without problem. On a similar note, make sure all the decks have some answer to the premiere commons that other teams are likely to have – like Sparksmith, Wellwisher, and Lavamancer’s Skill.
This is a list of good, solid multiplayer cards – the cards to look for if you don’t have them. Each group starts with really inexpensive cards – generally commons, all available cheaply. Then I throw in a couple slightly more expensive cards towards the end, and finish it up with one or two expensive cards that are nearly always worth it.
I met jeers of”you suck” and”You have no skill.” People were furious, ready to slap me across the face, fuming in frustration. I definitely felt unwelcome, and I wanted to leave as quickly as possible to avoid any confrontation or possible problems. People were screaming, angry. All because I tapped two Islands, played a card and said,”No.”
What the hell are you supposed to do with a metagame that runs at least six decks deep? The smart answer is, of course,”Find the best deck and play it.” But you have to ask: What is the best deck? Is it the deck that has made the most Top 8s so far? Is it the deck that features the best matchups against the field? Is it something else entirely? How about we look at our testing gauntlet and see if we can find the answers, shall we?
I read Jim Ferraiolo’s article about his B/G Oversold Cemetery deck with great interest, because it’s a style of deck I love. I decided to take it to a tournament as a pre-Regionals run; how did his deck do in a real-world test?
Since I am supposing that Legions is not a major influence over the Standard metagame, I can look at results from large Standard tournaments from before its release and include them in my tracking. I have a boatload of data to look through to find the strongest deck; the deck most likely to land me a qualifying finish in the Regional tournament. What have I discovered with looks at the Top 8s from States and the National Qualifiers?
I tried Ben Seck’s original deck, but found its dependence on Buried Alive to be too big a problem. I tested Zvi’s B/G/r deck and discovered that it was too inconsistent for this hyper-aggresive environment. So eventually, I developed a hybrid deck that has a tremendous amount of power behind it and is capable of stunning feats that no conventional deck can come close to matching. It’s extremely fun to play and scary to face – two things that go a long way in an event like Regionals.
Will last weekend’s results scare me away from playing Phantom Living at Regionals? Of course not! I’m not smart enough for that. I really do chalk last weekend up to a string of bad luck. Besides, it’s been doing very well in testing and got me to the Top 4 against the same field the last time I played it.
Taking a page from other blue-based decks from High Tide to Forbiddian, Roland added red to his deck in anticipation of the mirror, and went 7-0 at the last Dülmen, beating two other Growing ‘Togs. To make room, he even removed Berserk, figuring he wouldn’t need to slip past as many blockers. This is the deck that many people are now claiming is almost unbeatable. It proves, they claim, that Gush is broken.
W/R is near and dear to my heart, constant reader, because there are some things you just don’t forget. Your first kiss, your first sexual experience, the time you decided to cram some excitement back into your life by diving out of a moving plane – these are all memories that linger at the forefront of your mind. And one of my most cherished Magic memories is the time I qualified for the Pro Tour by playing R/W in the Top 8.
Is it possible that I have already seen the best piece of Scourge artwork here? I could easily imagine that it’s true – and if not, then there must be some really special works in store for us.
This is the issue at the very heart of this dilemma: What is Green’s game these days? Paul would have you believe that aggro is every bit as viable as control. This dilemma is about far more than a simple two cards; it is about a general philosophy in this color combination.
Green/Black is a deck that wants to put on steadily increasing pressure in the form of larger and larger creatures backed by removal and some amounts of evasion. Creatures with an efficient ratio of power-to-casting-cost are paramount to this strategy, as there is no better way to make your opponent fold under your pressure… And Crypt Sliver has no synergy with any of the cards in Green.
At Pro Tour: Chicago this year, the room was buzzing about the triple-Exalted Angel deck. Now, double Exalted Angel is certainly ridiculous… But the person who had the deck still only went 2-1. If a deck with three Exalted Angels can go 2-1, then it is clear that every deck is at risk. What sorts of things does a good draft deck need, and how can you draft to support it?
