In 1998 Cathy Nicoloff quipped about the Death of Sligh in Type 2,”Red’s primary problem is obvious. It has mucho death and no disruption. Any combo deck that can kill before red deals the final hammering can twiddle itself in peace for four turns without worrying.” Who knew that she’d be speaking truly about the death of aggro in Type I six years hence?
I’m really digging this daily feature thing. I get my mug on the front page everyday and I get to talk about what you want to hear. I still intend to write articles from time to time, but this way, five days a week, I get to go elbow deep into issues you all care about. But enough of my rambling about loving my job, it’s time for some reader mail!
I’ve always been afraid of change. It’s because of this irrational switch-o-phobia that the release of a new set is so consistently a trying time for me. I don’t deal with it well. I tremble, I break out in hives, I make irrational claims like”I invented the untap phase.” It helps me to cope – a little.
Eventually though, I do come to grips with the terrible truth – the fact that the Limited format that I’ve been enjoying for so many blissful months is now a faint memory, no more than an insufficiently stifled fart in the cosmic wind.
To most, Type One tournaments are twenty to forty people battling for a Mox at indeterminate intervals, or even smaller weekend gatherings. Not everyone has Power cards, proxy policies vary (most aren’t sanctioned events for this reason), and people will not be playing the absolute best decks (ah, Psychatog, how I hate thee so…). So today, I’ll explore some of the available data for small tournaments in January and February that were still big enough to get posted on www.morphling.de and try to find some insight into small metagames based on their differences with larger ones.
If the Regional championships were being held this weekend, do you know what deck you would be playing? Is it going to be something fun because you’re a casual player that likes to cast Eater of Days and Stifle the come into play ability? How about something aggressive so you can maximize the amount of relaxation you get in between rounds of the grueling all-day tournament? Whatever you choose to play at Regionals, you have to be well informed, and hopefully I can present to you a version of Astral Slide that has been devastating in my own testing.
Second-guessing one of your draft picks? Heard a juicy rumor and want to know if it’s true? Need advice on your Regionals deck? Not sure if you made the right play at last weekend’s tournament?
Kartin’ Ken Krouner is here for you!
Second-guessing one of your draft picks? Heard a juicy rumor and want to know if it’s true? Need advice on your Regionals deck? Not sure if you made the right play at last weekend’s tournament?
Kartin’ Ken Krouner is here for you!
Unless you have been hiding under a rock for about four months, you will know that the new and upcoming net-deck is Affinity. Those of you who kept track of Kobe progress will undoubtedly notice the high Affinity concentration, and more important, Skullclamp in Affinity. If you thought Skullclamp was good before, watch what happens when you throw it in a deck that casts half of its creatures for free.
Of course, that is Block Constructed, and this is Standard. While there are similarities, there is one card that makes a world of difference.
I’ve been toying with Centaur Glade ever since it popped up in Onslaught. Anyone who played against it or with it in Limited knows how good it can be. It never made a splash in Constructed, though. It was too slow. Boy, oh, boy, does it give control decks fits, though. If you can resolve one against a control deck, you can hold all of those spells in your hand and make them deal with uncounterable 3/3 Centaur tokens. That’s nothing to sneeze at. The question remained: How can I make this card work? The answer always eluded me… until now.
The basic elements of the metagame at the moment, are first, blazingly fast Aggro in the form of Madness and Workshop-based decks such as TnT and Oshawa Stompy, as well as regular Madness; second, Workshop Prison decks; third, Aggro-Control decks that are usually Fish or Dryad based; fourth, Control decks like Tog, Keeper, URphid, and Landstill; and fifth, Combo decks like TPS, Twister.dec, Dragon, and Rector. This metagame, in other words, has five major points – and multiple axes.
As for why Tog is the best deck in the current metagame, you’ll just have to read it.
Nonbos are combos that almost work, but are either too slow or too inconsistent to win anything – at least, not every match in a long tournament. So, you ask, why should I read an article about combos that don’t work? Two reasons. First, knowing this may help you understand what a Regionals opponent is trying to do to you – at least in rounds one and two. These combos are good enough that people will try them. Second, I have wrongly called combos nonbos in the past. That means that there is a chance that I have the core of a real deck, but it just needs a little tuning.
Shunt
Okay, so Deflection and Misdirection should have been Red now? This pie business is sure confusing.
Anyway, Deflection was a chase card after Jester’s Cap back in Ice Age days, but it was just too tempo inefficient. Barring a Fireball for twenty, Deflection didn’t really do all that much for four mana, aside from having cute flavor text. Shunt, at three mana, isn’t all that different in Type I. Remember, this effect truly took off with Misdirection’s free cost.
Second-guessing one of your draft picks? Heard a juicy rumor and want to know if it’s true? Need advice on your Regionals deck? Not sure if you made the right play at last weekend’s tournament?
Kartin’ Ken Krouner is here for you!
Second-guessing one of your draft picks? Heard a juicy rumor and want to know if it’s true? Need advice on your Regionals deck? Not sure if you made the right play at last weekend’s tournament?
Kartin’ Ken Krouner is here for you!
So what you have with Skullclamp is a whole lot of people who know how good it is going to be and a smaller – but still substantial – number of people trying to figure out how to beat it. The thing is, you can’t necessarily go up against a Skullclamp and attack it directly. That’s like trying to play a G/W deck full of Uktabi Orangutans and Monk Realists in an attempt to beat Trix. Sure, you can technically destroy their relevant permanents, but you can’t do so in a timely enough manner for it to matter.
