This week, I want to talk about a deck that is a part of the metagame, but I have been constantly advising you against it in just about every one of my past metagame articles. Even though I put the beats on this deck, I still think it is important to talk about for the sake of a more complete understanding of the metagame. That, and it isn’t actually as bad as I let on.
I am not the Wizard of Oz. I am simply a man, out from behind the curtain with some decks. I have a lot of cards and build a lot of decks. I’m going to tell you what I know and what I’m thinking about with regard to Regionals ‘04.
The slow crawl towards Regionals continues, this week with my current favorite deck, and one that has been dismissed as terrible with the recent metagame shift. The deck of course is one-time powerhouse U/W Control. You know what? The critics are right. I’m here to tell you that while “traditional” U/W control has no real place in the metagame, there is an approach to U/W that will not only be competitive, but might just be the solution that I’ve been searching for to the puzzle that is the Regionals environment.
Success or failure in a Magic tournament is not decided over 1,000 games played in your living room before the tournament. Success or failure will depend on a very small number of games, and on one or two incidents during those games – choosing whether or not to mulligan, choosing which cards to sideboard in or out, deciding which creatures to attack with or which spell to cast on your fourth turn, little things like that. Your testing, therefore, needs to focus on preparing you to make those decisions.
So I was all set to exhaustively test one of the Weird decks on Tuesday. BDM and I were going to meet at Neutral Ground and have at it, but as usual, that didn’t work out. For one thing, whenever we meet at Neutral Ground, no matter the reason, people just end up drafting. To make matters worse, out of nowhere, Jonathan Magic, Brian Kibler, and EFro showed up to test for the GP this weekend. It was awesome, as I haven’t seen Jon in forever and was shocked to see him testing at all again. But that doesn’t mean that I didn’t get some Weird deck testing in myself!
I’ve begun to feel that all I’m capable of writing about is Lynch Mob, but deep down inside, I know that’s not all true. It’s just that this deck has consumed my every thought, and I spend so much time testing it and working with ways to improve it, that it’s hard for me to get outside of that particular mindset. I know I have so many more things I would like to discuss, so I decided to try and file them all together into one column.
I’ve got a secret to share with you. It will get you qualified for Nationals at this year’s Regionals; it’ll get you in position to take the slot or the cash at your next PTQ. Yes, competitive Magic success can be yours for the taking, if you just listen to this one insight, this nugget of wisdom I’m willing to impart to you. Yes, it’s the Real Deal, the Magic Carpet ready to scoop you up and deposit you on the Gravy Train. If you want to Win And Win Big! then you better keep reading.
Today, the story of why I am not afraid of Circle of Protection: Red, Silver Knight, Worship, Pulse of the Fields, or any other stupid White cards.
The deck I’m going to talk about plays Lightning Rift. This deck also plays Fireball, Starstorm, and Slice and Dice. It also plays crazy cards like Choking Tethers and… Cowardice. And in the right metagame, it just might be good!
Three Words: Competitive Wall Deck. Well, at least it was until Chris got his hands to it. Peep the carnage inside…
After careful analysis into what makes the top decks tick, I crafted a decklist that seemed to be strong against the format, generating decent-to-good matchups with all of the other top decks. Balancing the deck was by far the most difficult issue of the bunch, seeing as how having game against both Goblins and Affinity is difficult enough, but throw in Slide and other White-based control decks, and you really have an awful lot to prepare for when deckbuilding.
All this talk of metagames, environmental details, and even the rogue deck articles I’ve done the past couple of weeks demanded that I lay out my actual Regionals experiences to see how my expectations of environments lined up with what I actually hit. I think the answers are surprising.
Ravager Affinity is not an unstoppable Juggernaut. It is not the end of Type II. It does not define the format. Defining a format takes more than Ravager Affinity has got. To prove that, I’ll give you some decklists that wreck Ravager, but first, some metagame musings.
Basically, this deck takes the best deck from Onslaught Block and improves it significantly with powerful cards from Mirrodin Block. In contrast, both Goblin Bidding and Ravager Affinity are basically decks constructed from one block. In addition, if you read about the Bidding decks, you’ll see over and over again that even the people who play them admit that the Bidding itself is rarely that good in important matchups. I know it is cool to bring back lots of Goblins, but leave the ever so clever combos to decks which need to rely on such tricks to win. Red decks don’t need that nonsense to win.
I’d explain what’s in this deck, but you probably wouldn’t believe me anyway. Let me just ask instead whether you like taking lots of Time Walks in Type 2? Do you also like to do large amounts of damage directly to your opponent’s dome? Perhaps you just wanted to find a deck where you could finally abuse Serum Powder? Check inside if you find yourself at all intrigued, but please God, don’t play this deck at Regionals!
