The goal of the deck is to get enough mana to cast Insurrection and Day of the Dragons in the same turn. Win or lose, people are impressed by this deck – or at least, the sheer audacity of running a four-color deck based around a fifteen-mana combo. It has no real creature removal, no counters, no disruption… Just pure, solid, combo-assembling fun.
The Onslaught pack is where you build your foundation. Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth and Lavamancer’s Skills were a dime a dozen, this is where you’d turn when you wanted to feed your U/R deck some gas. Well, the more things change, the more things stay the same; many of the most powerful cards in the U/R archetype are to be found here. Though Onslaught cards have been done to death with regards to pick orders and analysis, you’ll still want to pay close attention here. OLS is a strange new world, and the Onslaught pack is your doorway into it. You have to study up before it gets slammed in your face.
The OnBC round of qualifiers is underway… and StarCityGames.com is your one-stop source for the latest information!
[The Internet’s Most Extensive Onslaught Block Tech Center!]
[Discuss Onslaught Block Constructed in the StarCityGames.com Forums!]
Anthony Alongi considers Lifeline to be a pretty stupid multiplayer card; he’s right in many ways. Lifeline is pretty close to a mistake. It is way too easy to abuse. If you play a Lifeline deck, have fun – because your opponents won’t.
When I saw a fifty – fifty! – page article cross my desk, I knew that once again Geordie Tait had come through in spades. And if you want the most utterly-exhausting guide to drafting an archetype people once thought dead, Geordie will provide. Tomorrow, he’ll be discussing the Onslaught picks – but if you want to know how and when to go U/R, he tells you in intensely loving detail that reads like a”Dummies” book.
What do Gerard Fabiano, Ed Fear, and most of the Magic-playing community at large have in common? By and large, they have terrible mulliganning habits. I don’t do a lot of things in this game perfectly, but one thing I feel I am awesome at is the Paris Mulligan – so let me show you three guidelines on when to throw back and when to keep, and give you solid examples from both Limited and Constructed games.
Sure, you know Mark Rosewater designs cards… But you only know that because he does all the PR stuff. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, Michael Elliott was the man responsible for shadow, cycling, slivers, licids, growing enchantments, the Rancor bouncing enchantments, echo, rebels and mercenaries, spellshapers, the oaths, fading, the avatars, gating, the en-Kors, the Laccoliths, the Flowstones, madness, the incarnations, amplify, and more…
So we sat him down for a good long interview to ask him why it looks like Wizards is predesigning our decks for us, how he would redesign Magic if he could do it from the ground up, his rivalry with MaRo, and what the most unpublishable mechanic he ever created was!
After years of avoiding it, John’s created a nifty little Oath of Druids-based deck that looks like it might clean house in his multiplayer group. The question: Should he play something so powerful?
Not long after our game was born,
When aggressive decks were looked upon with scorn,
The great Dave P sang of Goblin Might,
And you’ve got to admit – The Price was Right.
But the Day of the Goblins has long since gone,
The slow train of ‘progress’ keeps rumbling on…
Then it pulled to the station of Onslaught Block,
And I’m pleased to report that the Goblins rock.
I’ve been following the procession of articles on how to abuse Mind’s Desire in the current Extended format just in time for Worlds, and the question that keeps coming to mind is: How can people honestly expect to play silly tricks with Snap and Cloud of Faeries and expect the resulting deck to be good?
Full information on all Upper Deck (Yu-Gi-Oh!) events hosted by Star City Events!
The week before GenCon, I had actually played in a Type 1 run by IAmFishMan from TheManaDrain.com. I had gone into it having not played for a month or so beforehand, hoping to have some fun with my Goblin Trenches Keeper. Long story short? I won the tournament and a new Beta Mox Emerald. I was feeling pretty invincible at that point and decided that if I won the World Championships, I would declare dominance over Type 1. Well, as it turns out, I won, but I’m still refusing to declare dominance lest I be viewed as a jackass.
The Ferrett – and quite a number of people – called the World Championships this past weekend a comedy of errors. And the next time StarCityGame covers a big Type I tournament, I’ll make sure to have a bottle of 80-proof brandy beside me before I read. A big bottle.
The deck is solid. I won’t make any wild claims like”it can go at least 50-50 against every deck in the field,” but with the exception of its one nightmare matchup (Zombie Bidding), its chances against any given deck usually fall somewhere between decent and good. If you’re like me and you’d rather go rogue than play what everyone else is expecting – and if there aren’t too many Bidding players in your expected metagame – you could do a lot worse than black-white control for your next Onslaught Block tournament.
This week’s installment is extremely special and personal, and something quite a few readers have made suggestions on. Last week marked the 100th column I’ve submitted to Star City in the last two years (not counting the Deck Parfait analysis that came before I was made a Featured Writer, and the Mark Rosewater spoof right before his Type I column). Instead of celebrating by spoofing the website, I decided to give in and talk a bit about myself and who the heck I am beyond the websites, forums, e-mails and mIRC channels the vast majority of readers encounter me in…. So meet Oscar Tan!
