Today’s article is dedicated to those who responded to my last article,”The Art of Retaliation,” asking for a deck that I use in my group games to”punish” transgressors who have had the audacity to beat me. Me! Well, let me share the only deck in my collection that’s undefeated in a dozen games – and show you how to lay the smackdown with global annihilation!
You think you got tired of the phrase”ditch Wonder, in”?
You just wait. In a few months’ time, the words”end of turn, cycle this for a plains” will be gouged into your brain.”Sack Goblin Prospector, make Warchief, swing” will bring on the dry heaves. To me, Onslaught block has a”fixed” feel about it. It feels like we have the top decks fixed in place already. Everything else we create will be a footnote. The cries of”Wizards is making our decks for us” can still be heard; it’s hard to be innovative when the established,”obvious” decks are so brutal.
Never in a long-term metagame have so many combo decks competed. I suspect that only one or two will survive the culling that will inevitably ensue as combo players discover which deck is truly”best.” I think this is an inherently unstable mixture…. Or is it possible that there could be a balanced metagame with multiple combo decks vying for power and glory – thus bucking the trend of metagames of all times?
When I think of Magic’s customers, I think about players like you and me, who purchase this beloved cardboard crack made by Wizards of the Coast – and in terms of product, they’ve been knocking the ball out the park. But there’s more to the health of Magic than decisions made by R&D in designing and developing good sets; the way Wizards treats the distributors and game shops that sell Magic is important, too. And according to our game shop owner and some recent events I’ve been involved with, Wizards is the hands-down worst gaming company to deal with, period.
Looking to buy or sell some cards? Come visit us at booth # 2007!
Looking for LIVE Coverage of this Saturday’s Vintage World Championships? Come visit us right here… at StarCityGames.com!
There’s a lot of crap out there in Magic land, and there are a lot of things that I’m not fully satisfied with. People keep telling me it’s not good to keep things bottled up, and I’ve been feeling a bit ranty lately, so I figured I’d try and get it all out in one big lump of bile and filth – including Rob Dougherty’s articles, the lameness of certain forum bitchers, and the quality of internet writing. Oh, and Mary Van Tyne guest stars for a female take on how much women hate my weekly cheesecake photos!
You’ve played Peasant Magic, of course – but what about Kings’ Magic? Or Third World Kings’ Magic? ABC Magic? Lich? The hyperphenomenal Blitz? 237? Siege? Rainbow? Legend of the Elder Dragons? Peter gives you a bunch of weirdo formats to spice up your weekend!
Perhaps the distinguishing feature of the Type One metagame since the restriction of Necropotence in 2000 has been the omnipresence of utterly domineering blue-based control decks. However, a combination of forces has conspired to wrest the upper tiers of the Type One metagame from Control’s exclusive, greedy clutches. Whereas the top tier was once defined as blue-based control decks, other decks began to seep in. Let me walk you through some of the most important decks in Vintage today, including Keeper, Forbiddian, Gro-A-Tog, TnT, MaskNaught, and Hulk Smash.
Writing about a Magic Online draft sounded like fun, so I gave it a try, hoping the picks would be interesting as opposed to an”I opened two bombs in my colors, got passed seven more, and 3-0ed the draft with ease.” I quickly discovered that there’s probably a reason Nick Eisel only did this twice: It’s a real pain in the ass. And yet I went through the effort of writing down everything I saw and then walking you through a complete draft, where you can debate my picks and I point out things that I may have done wrong.
It seems many of us in the pro community have fallen in love with a concept that often shows itself in events: Play what you are comfortable with. This may be a fine concept for the weekend warrior, who only participates in a small number of events and doesn’t have time to playtest… But a dedicated group of playtesters should be able to find the best deck and storm the field with it. If we intuitively know this, why then do so many pro groups still play a number of decks? And what does this mean for the non-pro groups?
I’m not going to dwell on the annoying fact that these two colors seem to be able to overcome any set of obstacles in draft formats. Instead, I’ll give a complete guide to drafting one of what I believe is the format’s top two archetypes. The pros are forcing it for a reason – and it’s not because they like the artwork on Islands and Plains better than the rest of the lands.
With so many impressive finishes, it’s abundantly clear this Onslaught Block-laden Standard deck has what it takes in the current Standard environment. The pertinent question for Pro Tour hopefuls is,”Can this deck be effectively modified for use in Block Constructed tournaments?”
I would like to highlight some excerpts from my previous articles and compare them to passages from Kai Budde’s writing, which came later. Why am I doing this? Many reasons. Firstly – which I’m pretty sure isn’t a word – I saw some eerie resemblances. Relatedly, which may or may not be a word, these resemblances may imply that I may actually know what I’m talking about. It’s all shameless self-promotion, I swear!
GenCon is just around the corner, and there’s less than a month to test the waters of the new metagame before the Type I tournament there. If I could accurately map out the metagame and give you a step-by-step idiot’s guide on how to play against every expected archetype, I’d fly on over and try to win the thing myself… But what I can do is show you several game situations you might expect to see against each major deck, and show you the optimal play.
The sample vignettes continue with scenarios from Rector-Trix, Hulk Smash, and Mind’s Desire!
