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!
So I witnessed the new Onslaught Block metagame up close and personal this weekend… And although we spent a hell of a lot of time reporting on everything that we saw, there were certain lessons that may have been lost in the shuffle. So let me condense the combined knowledge of thirty-seven articles and match reports to bring you the New Lessons of Onslaught Block.
I have playtested this for weeks, and it goes 7-3 vs. MWC, 8-2 vs. Goblins, 9-1 vs. Beasts and crushes Zombie Bidding.
Cool, huh?
Frequently, the deck is not cool. It is not even good. And it raises one fundamental question: If the deck is that bad, how did he get numbers that good? Is he hallucinating, or lying? The answer is neither; he probably got results like that because he violated most of the rules of tourney preparation. So let me show you how to do it right.
While I imagine the top decks from Detroit will be dissected and analyzed in depth, I decided to zero in on how has Scourge impacted the metagame. I compiled all of the cards used in the Day 2 decklists to see what Scourge cards had the most impact. We’ll start with the Top 10…
The idea behind BWC is to shut down your opponents while gaining card advantage, eventually killing them with an Angel, Dragon, or Abomination. If they try to rush you, punish them with the deck’s twelve global removal spells. If they try and hold back, you one-for-one them (or two-for-one them with Cruel Revival) until you can drop one of your fatties or destroy their hand with Head Games.
In Bennie Smith’s most recent article,”The Legend of Chuck,” Bennie discusses a player in his multiplayer group named – not surprisingly – Chuck. Most every multiplayer group has at least one Chuck, and just about everyone would like to get rid of Chuck – or at least see him change his style. Bennie asked for suggestions to help him deal with his reputation as a strong player with solid decks that can kill everyone on the board quickly. I’m here to show you how to”ground” Chuck, and dump the reputation that is putting a damper on the win totals.
This year’s GenCon will be held on July 23-26 at the Indianapolis Convention Center, and the Tenth Anniversary celebration will feature a Type I Championship sponsored by Wizards. As such, I think it’s about time I discuss what The Deck will look like in a July environment… And discuss how stupid Mind’s Desire still makes the environment.
