The words that hit my brain tell me that whoever’s on the other end of the phone needs me to tell them something, so that things can be made”ready” for whatever it is I’m doing today. I’d really like to give them some creative profanity instead, but it’s early and I’ve practically forgotten how to talk. I hear my gravel-and-salt voice scrape together five words:”Bring me The Red Cards.”
Watch as Nick goes through a draft, showing you the cards and his draft picks. Once again, Nick opened some ridiculous bombs – but the choices between bombs presented him with some truly astounding strategical decisions. All that, and Nick asks for your feedback!
If you read this column frequently – and everyone involved hopes that you do – you know that I like to build and play my own decks. Sometimes the deck is a serious venture that I truly believe can win a tournament here and there… Other decks are purely fun, like the one this piece is about. It’s annoying to play against. If you accidentally win with it, expect your opponent to be very mad. Oh, and I have pictures of hot babes.
When I first sat down to write this series, I had no idea that over 55 pages later, I would finish the first five articles. That’s a novella. I cannot begin to name all of the things I cut or left out, either…. But I’m gonna try here, discussing the Banned and Restricted list, why people are afraid of Ante, the importance of Jeweled Bird – and the Top Ten Creatures In 5!
Over the last two months, a number of people e-mailed to ask about”budgetizing” Type I decks, especially”The Deck.” Since Christmas is just around the corner and people may make some major purchases, this might be a good time to talk about it… And let me tell you, substituting the Power Nine, like Inquest suggested, is a terrible idea.
I’ve got lots of tricks for Limited players – but considering that 90% of them revolve around unblocked black creatures that do horrible things to you when unmorphed, there are staples. Oh, and Dirge of Dread.
White doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Here’s this group of people (and currently birds), right? Knights, paladins, monks, clerics, and soldiers – all of these pretty much military positions – but none of them make any attempt to plan ahead or foil the opposition. It has no proactive cards; all it can do is react. Is that right?
Last weekend, the Extended season started with a very loud bang in the form of an 833 player Grand Prix in Europe. Clearly, this was a tough tournament to play in – but a lot can be learned from this bloodbath, which left 819 casualties on day one. The Day One survivors provide a snapshot of what decks are good in the post Houston metagame, because no bad decks are going 7-1-1, that’s for sure. What deck does Rob think that YOU should add to your playtest gauntlet right now?
“For awhile, my game was getting progressively better. I was playing at a higher and higher level. Anyway, I’ve been noticing I’ve hit this plateau lately, so I was trying to figure out why I can’t get off of it. I want to know why I’m stuck.”
“Okay. I’m starting to feel like your therapist now.”
“Jungian?”
“Freudian – and I’m a little creeped out by it. What have you come up with?”
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?
