It’s nice to see T2 and limited catching on – but multiplayer deckbuilders have been doing tribal all along. Looking back over my past articles, I see fun decks built around sea creatures, elves, zombies, soldiers and more. It’s a common multiplayer idea – but I want to talk about how to build such decks in general, not about any specific tribal deck.
Red’s trade-offs usually feel pretty chaotic -“I can get a powerful effect, but I’m likely to get burned in the process (either by actually getting burned, or losing random cards).” Black’s trade-offs are a bit more cold and calculating -“I lose this predictable resource to make X happen to everyone else.” So how does black fare in multiplayer?
During OBC Season, I got stuck testing R/G Beats extensively – and discovered that it was the Little Deck That Couldn’t. For States, I’ve been testing six different builds of U/W Mobilization – and once again, I have discovered that none of them work. Let me warn you why this is one deck you should not even CONSIDER taking to States – and wonder why I am so clearly drawn to sucktacular decks….
I’ve seen people do it:”End of turn, tap Flooded Strand to go look for a …” The point is that there is clearly no actual reason to use the fetchland – because you’re short on land! You want to draw a land next turn. Use the damned things right.
“Life’s just much too hard today,” I hear every player say. They just don’t appreciate getting killed. But maybe that’s just because getting killed means that they lose yet again. It gets tiring very fast. And do you know what they just lost to? To my broken Plague Post deck.
The thirty-five best white cards in multiplayer, plus over ten neatly organized staples for you law-and-order types. And a request to prove Anthony wrong! Shouldn’t be too hard, folks.
Anthony’s last week at StarCity starts off with the thirty-five best red cards in multiplayer… Plus over ten”staples” every self-respecting mountain mage has in their collection! Which Onslaught card has zoomed to #9 on the list? No, it’s not Insurrection.
My foray into mediocrity at the last Houston Qualifier led me to try it again at one of the early PT: Chicago Qualifiers. After all, what’s a better way to spend an afternoon than going 3-3 with your friends?
Neither of these decks are groundbreaking. I mean, where are all of the Onslaught cards? But you gotta remember that sometimes, new cards just don’t help certain decks. Look at PTQ Chicago in 2000: Fires decks were all the rage. But what won the thing? A good, solid Rebel deck. Invasion didn’t give Rebels anything… But it also didn’t take anything away.
“Hi, my name is Dave, and I’m a Wits-aholic….”
“Hi, Dave.”
“But back when Battle of Wits occasionally won tournaments, Toby and Brock ran the same number of counterspells: Thirty-six. Are there even nine counters in Standard today that are worth playing? And does that mean that Wits is dead?”
Before you start the Hall (which begins today), read this primer so you know how to get the most out of its new, interactive features! Damn, we’re starting to look good on this site – and we’ll look even better now that Alongi’s announcing his StarCity retirement, which should also boost our image.
Anyhow, I was playing this Etherlords computer card game with a couple of other guys. I had a good time, and after about five games, I wondered aloud to myself what was so different. Then I realized: There were no lands. And hot on the on the cranial-pathway-burning heels of that thought was this:”Man, this is nice.”
Wizards shouldn’t write articles how they’re vexed with the fact that I’m allowed to judge a set on its own merits – and not as it is presented in their carefully-presented propaganda induced visions. Strangely enough, they weren’t featuring Skittish Valesk as one of their preview cards.
This is the reward for winning the Invitational? Ouch! If I were to ever be immortalized on a Magic card, I’d be hoping for a better overall effort. I think an Invitational card should be clearly-focused on the character, and it should faithfully capture the likeness of the winner of the Invitational. This is, unfortunately, not the case with Voidmage Prodigy.
Here is a depressing little fact: Almost no rogue decks win major tournaments. Jamie Wakefield’s PTQ win with Secret Force is legendary partly because of Jamie’s writing skill and partly because he was like the Little Engine That Could – failing repeatedly with the same deck before finally qualifying. I’m the king of rogue decks, and if I really wanted to win, I wouldn’t go rogue… But if I did, here’s the basic steps I’d take towards making a competitive deck.
