I realize that asking players to prepare for two similar things is very unfair. In school, I am sure none of you are forced to take, say, two related classes at the same time. Calculus and Chemistry? Probability and Statistics? That would be crazy! Give me a break.
Poor poor Masters players…
There is a simple principle that applies to Magic – and so many people ignore or forget this principle that I find it astounding. Remembering and following this principle will improve your Limited game a good deal – so what is it?
In our local Sunday tournaments over the past five weeks, I’ve been on a bit of a tear, making it to the finals all five times to split the big money prize. One of the decks that I played during this successful stint was a B/G Oversold Cemetery deck that dropped an accelerated Braids, Cabal Minion to get a quick lock on the opponent. The deck also sported more synergy than any deck I had played in months, and I quickly became enamored with it. How could I make the deck better? How could I shore up its weaknesses? What were its bad matchups?
Pugg Fuggly bombed out in the first round of an online draft… But he listed the possible picks and the cards he actually chose, allowing us to trace the path of his three-pack loss. My job is to appraise what he did masterfully, what was all right, and what he could have done better.
This deck is a mid-to-early late game beatdown deck. The strategy of this deck is to survive the first few turns, laying down a few creature-improving enchantments and playing the angels. Pumped, non-tapping angels combined with the nifty effects of Exalted and Blinding Angels will let you attack with less fear of retribution. What are the strengths of this deck? And will it work?
Wizards pointed Type I players to Illusionary Mask when they introduced Morph trigger creatures. Building a deck around Mask, though, requires a bit of work, and you need to Mask out a really good creature to make all that worth it. So far, the standard is set by Phyrexian Dreadnought, and it’s a very tough one.
Is losing frustrating? Yes. Tough on the psyche? Yes. Part of Magic? Yes. I’ll never deny that it is. You know what else is part of Magic? Whining. Complaining. Griping. Bitching. Sometimes when you’re on tilt, you gotta let it out, man. And some bad beats make great stories
Though I’m known as a Constructed specialist, my biggest Magic weakness stems directly from Constructed – you see, I like new weird decks way too much. When the rest of Team YMG has long since chosen their decks for the Pro Tour, I’ll still be working on some new, rogue deck idea. So I’m going to indulge my passion. I’m not going to give you the umpteenth article about Tog, U/G Madness, or Slide – no, it’s going to be a month of off-the-beaten-path decks.
U/G Madness is Tier 1 for a reason. This deck harnesses a lot of raw power and offers the potential for some of the most unfair draws available in competitive Standard. It falls somewhere between the polarizing effects of the other two Tier 1 decks, not as controlling as ‘Tog, not as aggro as R/G. In the same vein, U/G doesn’t have many bad matchups, and also has few amazing matchups. So what are the issues involved in a U/G Deck, and what do the pros argue about?
I untapped and cast Wheel numbers two and three during my upkeep. He pitched all seven cards to the first Wheel (taking twenty-eight damage), drew seven more (fourteen damage), pitched them (another twenty-eight damage) and drew seven more for a final fourteen points of damage. Over a hundred damage in his end step and my upkeep phase. Lifegain is not a winning strategy; my Dreams deck, on the other hand, seems to be.
Ted offered you $50 for your best secret Regionals tech – and now he’s going to let you choose the winner! Five strange, but potentially-abusable decks have been chosen – so read the top five and see what the authors had to say about them!
What you are about to read is a report of one the most screwed-up Pro Tours by far. Pyromancers, twenty-six-land goblin decks, Explosive Vegetations that are used in the role of reanimation spells, people boarding Rorix in every conceivable matchup, and the Withered Wretch-Silvos-Akroma, Angel of Wrath deck that made top8. All this in the city of water and old buildings… And in the country that brings you the ex-porn actress/present parliamentary representative. I will most definitely not be discussing those all in detail, as it would just blow my mind.
Cloudreach Cavalry is the most situational card on the list in terms of when you draft and play it. I wouldn’t recommend playing this with fewer than five birds/mistforms in your deck, but if you have eight or more birds, especially if a few of them cost three mana, this card becomes a powerhouse. And please, don’t play Aven Envoy to make this card more powerful. For that matter, don’t play Aven Envoy to Amplify your Stingers and Warhawks. Just don’t play it. The Envoy, I mean.
Much like P.T. Barnum faking his own death in order to see what people would say about him, it turns out that a fake resignation brings the nicest people out of the woodwork to tell me how great I am. It was great, and I have now vowed that I ever get the chance to engineer my own demise, I’m takin’ it. For those who didn’t get the joke, though, April Fools.
If Keeper is really the best deck Type One has to offer, then we need to explore its weaknesses. We need to find ways of defeating it. Even the toughest nut can be cracked, and I will show you how to crack this nut in five easy steps.
