TagStandard

I tried Ben Seck’s original deck, but found its dependence on Buried Alive to be too big a problem. I tested Zvi’s B/G/r deck and discovered that it was too inconsistent for this hyper-aggresive environment. So eventually, I developed a hybrid deck that has a tremendous amount of power behind it and is capable of stunning feats that no conventional deck can come close to matching. It’s extremely fun to play and scary to face – two things that go a long way in an event like Regionals.

Life has prevented me from fully dedicating time to one of Magic’s greatest pleasures: Deckbuilding. Unfortunately, I’ve basically been relegated to netdecking like everyone else, allowing myself the pleasure of tweaking the decks to give it a slight rogue flavor – and hopefully not ruining the gumbo in the process. What variants on classic builds are people running these days, and do any of them have good ideas?

We knew that the deck wanted to do two things: Stay alive long enough to hit Threshold, thus exploiting the Hunting Grounds, and drop critters that we wouldn’t normally have a chance to cast. And whether it’s competitive or not, which I believe it is, I must say that the deck is more fun than a roomful of drunk monkeys with typewriters.

“Stupid Husk Tricks,” as I think Ted Knutson coined the term, can at times be pretty darn spiffy – yet in the end, we felt that they were a lot of flash without a lot of substance in our particular case. After doing a rebuild, some tweaking, and watching”Good Kid” kick the crap out of just about every deck we could throw at it, I have to present what I feel is the overall most disruptive deck in the format – a B/G deck that’s competitive.

Elven Call is a swarm deck. It tries to get out more creatures than your opponent can handle and boost them to lethal proportions with the”Overrun effect” of Gempalms, Forcemages, or Coat of Arms. And this deck in particular was a blast to play; even if it turns out not to be the deck you want to run in Regionals, you have to put it together for the sheer fun of playing it.

When I am trying to bust open a metagame, I usually look at the weaknesses of the best decks. In this case there are many decks with similar power level, but most people seem to be choosing Tog or Red/Green. I do not take this as”I will only play versus these decks” but rather,”I will probably play versus one or two of these.” This means that I would like a deck that has good game versus both of these decks, but is not so specific that I lose my games versus anything else.

Let’s face it: R/G in its current incarnation is a menace, and it will be everywhere at Regionals. IT. MUST. BE. STOPPED!
Actually, that was just me being overdramatic, but the idea has merit. Exactly what do you have to do in order to stop R/G?

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?

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.

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!

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 soon stopped laughing over his Force Spike, however, when he attacked me and pumped his guy +19/+19 for the kill! That was insane. I complimented Dennis on his innovative deck idea, and he admitted that he had found it on the internet.

Truth be told, I’m still not entirely satisfied. I still wish I knew a way to fit Krosan Tusker in the deck. I still wish I could feel more comfortable with the deck’s mana situation in general, actually. I still wish I knew a card – something like Centaur Glade or Flamewave Invoker – that could help me better abuse the large amounts of land along with Seedborn Muse. I still wish I had another month or two to hammer out these issues. The Marksman is far from perfect, even for a casual deck.

Captivated by Mike’s brilliant writing, I gave his threshold-based deck a few spins on Apprentice; the basic wisdom learned from that matchup was that the deck was really inconsistent and weird at times. I discussed the deck with a friend of mine – somewhere between Flores’ deck and his, I think, lies the answer.

The man’s fallen off the Pro Tour – but now he’s back with a vengeance, determined to make Regionals his whipping boy as he fights his way back to the gravy train! The former editor of Brainburst, Mindripper, and Magicdigested.com lets someone else do the editing for a change, and gives you a complete rundown on the strengths and weaknesses of all the best decks in Standard – and asks seven questions that every rogue deckbuilder must answer.