“So, you’re not playing Goblins right now just because they’re finally so good that people who wouldn’t normally even look at Goblins are playing them? You’re not being fair to yourself. You’ve always loved Goblins. It’s not like you’re jumping on the bandwagon. Heck, you were driving that bandwagon in the Summer of 2001 when you played that silly deck with Goblin Ringleader. Go on. Play Goblins. You know you want to.”
So, of course, I did…
Suicide Black has a basic premise: Play undercosted spells with drawbacks and disrupt your opponent, while you crush them with a stack of cardboard. The style of play is shoot first, ask questions later. It doesn’t matter that you are killing yourself in the process — because out of all twenty points of life that you and your opponent have, only the last one counts.
I have made Top 8 twice with this deck in fairly large unsanctioned tournies (eighty people). The first time, I thought I was just lucky. The second time, I figured that maybe this deck has something going for it.
I was so ready to regale you with tales of incredible victories with my latest deck. The problem is that I’d have to lie.
You see, this week, I tried to create a (mostly) Blue deck. I’m bad at that. I’m also bad at playing Blue decks. I feel very exposed. I get nervous sitting back and waiting. I’m always afraid that my opponent is going to overwhelm me with threats, which they often do. So, I counter everything I see early. Then, when the big threats hit, I have nothing left.
You’d think that, if I know this, I could do something about it…
I keep running across people online and web articles bemoaning the current state of Type 2 as being”stagnant” and”boring.” Supposedly U/W Control, Affinity, and Goblins have the format in a stranglehold, that there are no other decks worth playing.
Really? I have a fistful of decks that say otherwise.
After somehow managing to get myself placed on the surgical table, a nurse walks over with a huge syringe filled with some white liquid and pops it into my IV while smiling at me. I clearly ask what”that” was, and she looked at me as though she couldn’t hear me and said,”what?” I asked again and this time I made it about a quarter of the way through the sentence when I blacked out. Twenty something days later, I woke up…
[Editor’s Note: I had never cried when reading a Magic article before, but then again, I had never heard a tale like Richie Proffitt’s.]
A couple weeks back I was putting together Astral Slide and I was considering running Temple of the False God. Oh yes. The Temple of the Four Land Mana Screw. The Temple of the Beating Myself In the Face When Playing Land Destruction. It’s like I played a land and it says nothing on the card! Hoboy! Beatings! So instead, I put in the Cloudposts. It changed my world. It opened my eyes.
It let me cycle a Decree for fifteen power in tiny White men during the end step of a U/W control player’s turn. I was in love. And like all loves, a person just ends up looking for the better and better high. Maybe I mean drugs. I probably mean drugs. So when I glanced at that infamous Kai/Roland Bode article I was sorely tempted. Why bother with Cloudpost when you can have the mighty Urzatron
Last week, I said T.H.E.F.U.C.C. gives you faster results than Chasey Lain, and invited readers to send the most mind-boggling problems so we can see how far the formula goes.
My thanks to all you demanding readers, you tried your damnedest.
Articles – many articles – are written every time a set comes out, but does anyone ever go back and call people up about their trading articles, hot picks, and so on? Hell if I remember – I don’t recall last week very well. I don’t think they do, though. Not often. Hot picks come out and then no one ever makes a comment about them months later, to see how they panned out. What I’m going to find out is,”Where are they now?”
Booster draft is about sending good signals. If you start hate drafting in booster draft, you will wind up confusing the person next to you and they could take a card in your color. This can be rough for you as they will generally be passing to you in a future pack. Matters aren’t as clear in Booster Draft as they are in Rochester, so make sure you keep your head on. Things move faster, and there is more room for misinterpretation. One early hate-draft could dismantle your entire plan.
Unlike in Rochester, there is an exception here…
About Ken Krouner: T8 Pro Tour: Barcelona. 63rd PTNY (Academy). 0-7 at some Japanese PT. Killed Randy Beuhler with his own creature in the first Multiplayer Invitational. Roughly ten money (T32 or T16) GP money finishes. Took a couple of years off to work in Germany — came back, won a prerelease and then found out it was actually a PTQ.
Card Advantage is simpler and more visible than tempo, so the spectacular plays you associate with Type I are usually those that build incredible CA, from Stroke of Genius to Mind Twist. The most powerful card ever printed, Necropotence, is also the most powerful CA engine ever printed.
It’s really very simple. If Restriction 1 says you only draw one card a turn, or your regular draw, then one way to win is by drawing more cards. However, spectacular plays aren’t common. Normally, you have to choose between two average plays. Thus, you want a simple method to count CA, to help you decide… and that’s what I’m going to provide.
It’s probably no surprise that I felt that Bonesplitter needed to be in here. Nothing says”aggressive” like a spell that gives +2/+0 and keeps on giving even after the creature dies. I also wanted something cheap to stop other creatures. Pacifism had been my spell of choice ever since those impotent, slack-jawed cretins in R&D decided to drop Reprisal from 8th Edition. Why did you do that? Why? Why, dear, God, oh, why? What Rhodes Scholar decided that a White spell that costs 1W and only blows up creatures that are really big was too good?
I’m sorry, what were we talking about?
To begin, I’d like to go back to something I glossed over in”Counting Card Advantage.” A lot of the forum discussion touched on”virtual” card advantage, but I doubt all readers know exactly what this is. It was a term coined by Eric”Danger” Taylor in”Virtual Card Advantage in Urza’s Block, a Sub-Category of Card Advantage Theory” (The Dojo, August 4, 1999). EDT’s classic article actually discussed two specific sets of scenarios, and the first concluded:
You can’t ignore tokens when counting card advantage.
Of course, we headed right back down the yellow-brick road to my old stomping grounds in Louisiana. Yep, we headed to the Swamps. Looking down bayou way gave us access to creatures that allowed us to sacrifice that stolen critter. We had Carrion Feeder, Nantuko Husk, Fallen Angel, and Phyrexian Plaguelord. (Thank you, 8th Edition!) The great thing about those last two was that, while they’re rares, they’re rares that are cheap. Not cheap like a truck stop floozy. I mean, inexpensive to purchase.
Last month, Will Rieffer provided us a Twelve-Land Charbelcher (TLC) build featuring Lightning Rift, Grid Monitor, Sulfuric Vortex, and the usual suspects. I had already been playing my version of TLC for about three weeks prior to his article, which didn’t have many of the cards present in his build. After some testing, I came to the conclusion that if you’re going to run TLC, you should be using every possible card to further the end of activating Goblin Charbelcher and killing your opponent. Cards like Grid Monitor, Hammer of Bogardan, and Shrapnel Blast, while all useful in their own right, do not further this end. Also, Will’s build didn’t have any redundancy built in to recover Goblin Charbelcher in case it was destroyed or countered, but this was less of a problem due to the random smattering of other damage sources in the deck.
I have won three local Standard tournaments with this build of TLC and have placed in the top 4 one other time. I originally just wanted to have fun playing the deck, but it ended up far more competitive than I anticipated.
