This is it: The final part. The cards have been chosen for the three decks we’ve been creating… Now it’s time to add the mana. And Abe rolls up his sleeves and gets more down and dirty than he’s ever gotten before, discussing percentages, ratios, and basically discussing 5-Color mana bases like no one has before. Go Abe!
My formal report about Head Judging Grand Prix Los Angeles is on the DCI Judge page; this report contains some of the other stuff that went on over the weekend. At the end, I’ll tell you how I got a well-known Pro Tour bad boy to be on his best behavior all weekend.
Blue has a lot of tricks in it, and you can get very sneaky, but in the end all you have are a bunch of overpriced 1/1 dorks that die to the smallest removal. What are you going to do, alpha strike with Wizards? This is like cheering for banana.
As far as Magic art goes, there is no museum dedicated to it – at least not yet. But wouldn’t that be a nice idea? Imagine a finely crafted building, situated right there on the Wizards campus in Renton, perhaps designed in the style of the Tolarian Academy, or any one of a number of Magically-significant structures. Its sole purpose would be to house the finest art of Magic. And Daren Bader would have his own wing.
Each colour has at least five cards that cycle for colorless mana. Pick any four and two of the fifth and you satisfy the eight cards of one colour minimum but don’t need to play any land of that colour. This means you can, effectively, play mono-color decks in 5-color Magic. So why not?
B/W Astral Slide doesn’t have the luxury of Lightning Rifts to burn out the little ones like its R/W cousin. It needs to survive the initial creature rush a bit better, as decks like G/W and U/G still can provide a lethal amount of heat out of the gates a bit too regularly. Also, with mirror matches now figuring in heavily as part of the metagame, the Treatment also needs a more flexibility against the other kids on the Astral playground. So the green has to be there – but in what quantity?
Several weeks ago, TnT went toe to toe against the best control players in Virginia and New York at the Virginia States Black Lotus tournament. Can Oscar do any better against a deck that can throw out threats as easily as you throw out excess Tahngarth’s Glares? Watch and see!
ELVISH CHAMPION: Okay, settle down. Let’s get down to business. I’d like to welcome you to the 23rd meeting of the Elvish Convocation Interdimensional. I’d like to say 23rd”annual” meeting – but as we all know, Odyssey block was a bad one for elves. So we haven’t met in over a year. Luckily, Wizards took our petition to heart and has added to our ranks in Onslaught. Which brings us to our first order of business: It seems that Jason Jablonski is all hyped about all of the Elves in Onslaught.
I wouldn’t advise playing Weird Harvest in every deck… But when you luck out and get the strongest sealed you’ve ever seen with Rorix, Butcher Orgg, Starstorm, AND Slice And Dice, you know your critters will be better than theirs. And let me tell you how the Top 8 Draft would have been entirely different IF one of the players had known how to play Magic…
Thanksgiving was yesterday… and what are we thankful for here at StarCityGames.com? We’re thankful that great men like Frank Kusumoto founded The Dojo and made it possible for us to continue in the tradition of providing Magic strategy, holding debates on Magic issues, and expanding the community, that’s what! And to remind us of our roots, StarCityGames.com founder Pete Hoefling interviews The Dojo founder Frank Kusumoto… and makes an exciting announcement afterwards!
The main deck served me well enough: Benzo gets lots of easy game one wins versus players who have their answers in the sideboard. The real key to my success was in our sideboarding plans. As my opponents were boarding in cards that allowed them to beat Reanimator decks in their testing, I was bringing in cards that changed the way my deck worked. The cards they sideboarded in were simply inappropriate to deal with the deck they were facing in game 2… So let me show you how, and why, you sideboard against The Rock, TurboOath, U/B Reanimator, Aluren, Tog, Infestation/Upheaval, Enchantress, and Angry Ghoul.
So I’ve tried to persuade you that Mox Jet is not round. Isn’t that enough? No? Well, how about I answer Rizzo’s questions for you, and discuss cards that no sane person should never touch in Magic – like Coat of Arms?
There’s been a lot of debate about what sorts of decks The Rock and Reanimator are – and although people are wrong in their placement, there is a radical shift of the metagame clock that is happening as we watch. However, there are still lessons to be learned – and what can the metagame clock tell us about the viability of Aggro-Control and the future of Reanimator?
Most players are capable of judging the face value of cards: Yes, Silvos is a good green card and Cruel Revival sure is consistent kill! This, however, is more a discussion of which cards work well with each other and what combos you should look out for while drafting, or building your sealed decks. Hence,”synergy.”
My friend Josh Sharp had been working on an idea for using Tainted Aether in an Astral Slide deck. Gosh, wouldn’t that just hose up someone if you could somehow **cough** **Astral Slide** **cough** find a way to make their creatures leave and reenter play a lot?
