MTG Salvation Article Archives: Category: Standard (Type 2)"Please," said the spirit, kneeling in prayer at the shrine. After catching a few hours sleep while my friend drove me to the MN National Qualifier, I scarfed down a couple hot biscuit sandwiches and chugged an energy drink. I had a week-long break from school, and the girlfriend was gone to visit her relatives. http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/attachment. Mono Red Aggro is not Mono Blue Control. The king, er, queen of the hill. Welcome back! This is the first part of what will hopefully be several articles about – you guessed it – the Theory of Vintage. Good Game: Evolving Boros by Andrew Hanson Worlds has come and gone. No Angels Needed Here on Jwar Isle Welcome to the first article in my series, Constructed Ascension. Good Game: Deck Double-Header by Andrew Hanson Oh, the first month of a new Standard is always so exciting. Good Game: Dun Dun Junnnnd by Andrew Hanson Alright, let me begin by apologizing for the title. Oh Wrath of God, I knew they'd never get rid of you. Good Game: What Goes, What Stays? Good Game: Sing 'Em a Lullaby, Put 'Em to Sleep by Andrew Hanson Hello readers, and welcome back to Good Game, where I apparently discuss Merfolk decks almost exclusively. Good Game: Evolution of a Fish by Andrew Hanson Last time, I asked you, the readership, what you would prefer to see today, and the majority called for more Merfolk. Good Game: Swimming with the Fishes by Andrew Hanson This past weekend, I made the trip up to Phoenix to attend the last PTQ of the season (for me, at least; I won't be able to make any others). Despite my love affair with Faeries, I’ll be the first to admit that it’s more than refreshing to see Standard so wide open. When I decided to start my column back in February, my intention was just to write about Constructed. Good Game: Is This Horse Dead Yet? I had this past weekend off, so I decided to head over to my old apartment in Grand Rapids to support my roommate in his efforts to qualify for the MTGO Champs event, which could have potentially sent him to Worlds. With only two weeks before Magic 2010 is released, I think everyone is at least a little excited about what cards could make their way into the new breed of core set. While GP: Seattle was a while ago, the lessons learned there still apply today. By the time the M10 rules changes were announced, my article from last week had already been submitted to my editors and I wasn't able to talk about the impact they'd have or offer my opinion on the issue. Good Game: Another One in Albuquerque by Andrew Hanson This past weekend, myself and four other guys made the six-and-a-half hour trek to Albuquerque for a PTQ. Going into this qualifying season, I wasn't sure what to expect. Back in February, my roommate Ben and I had decided to go to Ontario, Canada to compete in a PTQ for Honolulu. Good Game: A Little Fae, a Little Draft by Andrew Hanson Greetings, fellow Magic junkies. Although I grew up in Flint, I recently moved to Grand Rapids to go to school. Three Weeks before Regionals: “Yeah, I’m probably just going to show up late and railbird Regionals, don’t have to play due to Pro Level qualification for Nats”. After playing in event after event, it becomes clearer and clearer each time that no matter how much you test and prepare, sometimes it's just not your day. Good Game: Relapse in San Diego Some of you may notice that this article is a week early (I usually write a bi-weekly article), but there are just too many events that I need to report on to do it once every other week. As I'm sure you all are well aware, the Regional Championships are this weekend. Good Game: A Little Bit of a Bunch by Andrew Hanson Howdy Internet goers! At the time of this writing, the Prerelease for Alara Reborn is over and the Release events are but days away. The end of April is fast-approaching, and that means that a new set is hot on our heels. Good Game: Fae Don't Hate Red by Andrew Hanson Needs no introduction. Gosh, has it been a crazy week. Well, it's all over. Last weekend marked the end of the Extended season for me, and the season officially ends in just two weeks for everyone else. Kyoto feels like both a success and a failure to me at this point. Magic Casualty: Blightning Deck Wins Competetive Standard is a world filled with decks jammed packed with double digit dollar value rares and more than one deck archetype that just won't die, despite any hate printed for it. Indianapolis is a ways from Michigan. For the Birds I'm not sure if it's just the places where I choose to spend my time, but I often hear a lot of back-handed comments about the current state of Standard. Good Game: In a Bigger Pond by Andrew Hanson Left to Right: Luis Scott-Vargas, Nick Lynn, Dave Ochoa, Mark Herberholz, Gerry Thompson, Michael Jacob, Jamie Park, Me, Kamui Kaye, Josh Utter-LeytonPro Tour: Kyoto. PT Kyoto is starting up right now, and with that, we're about to see a whole lot of standard tech. Hello, dear reader, and welcome to the first installment of Thirst for Knowledge, my weekly column dedicated to all things in Constructed Magic. by Andrew Hanson Conflux has been out for the better part of a month now, and as you read this, Pro Tour Kyoto is only one week away. Welcome back to...wherever we are! Hey Everybody! I hope you all had a merry Christmas, got all that yule-tide joy out of your system, and are ready to read about some Magic. Wednesday classes were done and I was home, getting ready for a trip up to Phoenix for Thanksgiving. The State Championships for this game are known for being just glorified FNMs, but not here. Whoops. If you have been reading any of my other articles, you know that I've been testing and thinking a lot for States. States is almost here. I don't know about you, but I'm excited. I’m going to be presenting this article as a lead-up to Standard States/Champs next month. As the release date for [i]Alara[/i] neared, I could not help but feel sorrow over the idea of losing Lord of Atlantis, and the rest of Merfolk with him. Welcome to the New Standard I recently qualified for Nationals via a top 4 finish at Regionals and plan on openly talking about my preparation for U. At the very end of extended season, I lost the final of the March 15 PTQ in Sacramento to Josh Utter-Leyton. [i]Editor's Note: This article was originally written before the recent Regionals and includes an updated section at the end of the tournament results. I haven't written an article here in quite a while. ...Control, based on my observations of the group, certainly seemed to be the name of the game. The most commonly attended competitive tournaments are the local Friday Night Magics. Okay, so I think Rogues are the best aggro deck. The time of Friday Night Tribal has come and gone. Win, lose, or draw; the competitive aspect of Magic is something everybody should try out. But the one deck at the top tables [at Worlds] that few were expecting (judging by the deck's success) was Dragonstorm. Unfortunately as it appears, most of the Rumor Mill does not seem to share the opinion that the card would be a contender in Constructed formats, but only a limited bomb. In my last article, I said that, in order to win a tournament, you need two things (in a vacuum): deck building and play skill. Just because your deck hasn't won a large-scale tournament doesn't make it bad, and you should run good cards whenever you can (as they increase the power level of the deck as a whole). Lorwyn is the new set on the block, rotating in as the Ravnica block rotates out. Ok, we're going to start off this review with a look at the new cards in standard from Xth Edition, Cold Snap, and Time Spiral. Well, the Prerelease is over, and Lorwyn is officially here. As we stand on the cusp of Lorwyn, let's look at some bold predictions for Time Spiral that were made last fall. The absence of the CoP comes at a time when there is more playable burn in Standard than has been the case in quite a good long while, making Burn a viable deck. ...And this is why Magic has a rule about arbitrarily large numbers. Currently, Beach House has three things going for it that really help address the deck's two big weaknesses. In the game of Magic: the Gathering, there are three major archetypes (or styles that decks tend toward): aggro (aggressive and creature-based), combo (wins using a two-or-more-card combination), and control. I hate studying for a test. The old norm of set reviews involved going over every card in every color one article a time. I am a straight line, by the book kind of guy. There are things you know you know, things you don't know you know, and things that you know you don't know. It all started with a replay. Pretty much everyone can agree that control decks are Blue, and that they counter stuff. If you wanted to build a competitive deck for today's metagame, where would you start? I'd start with the metagame itself. The first Standard competitive decks to feature the Urzatron (Urza's Mine, Urza's Tower, and Urza's Power Plant) appeared during the Mirrodin expansion set, and neither the first, nor the second deck to utilize these three supermana lands featured Blue in Planar Chaos is finally here!
Alright, you got me - Planar Chaos has been here for a while. Happybounce takes a chance at revitalizing an old archetype by building a non-Glare deck. Building your own Magic deck isn't easy. When Wizards began the Time Spiral block, they assured us that the entire set was ‘out of the box’ in terms of mechanics and design. I'd like to start this article by pointing out something most of you probably aren't aware of, and that's that Thallid has the fastest goldfish of any one drop in Standard right now. Scrubland is not about making you better overnight. My rating is below 1600 - I believe at this point it's at 1577 in Constructed. It’s finally here. I apologize in advance. Can you hear it? That’s the sound of the color wheel rolling out of control!!! So long, color wheel! Welcome back Disenchant! Go to hell Naturalize! You know what, I’m so happy that even Haakon isn’t frightening me anymore. Every new set that comes out brings us new cards to build decks around. Talking to a lot of the more seasoned Magic players, you get the feeling that now is a boring time for the Standard format of Magic. Every time I stop playing Magic for a while, I begin to miss it. The funny thing is, even though this deck looks like a nine-year old kid added 20 cards to the 9th edition "World Aflame" precon, it actually wins games. Today on Salvation Theatre, we are exploring a fascinating new set and its implications for our most prolific tournament format: Standard. Yawgmoth's Will is arguably the single most powerful card ever printed for use in constructed magic. Mono Blue Control. It is now officially the season of ice cream, that immensely unhealthy, yet gloriously satisfying blend of sugar, artificial flavour, and cow extract. Well, when I wrote this article, many people predicted I'd be playing again. The current Standard environment has no lack of multicolor decks - the shocklands, painlands, bouncelands, and Birds of Paradise make it so easy to run two or even three colors in a deck without much fear of getting colorscrewed. Half of this article was written several days before Regionals occurred.
There has been some consternation in the Magic community as the spoilers for Dissension have slowly been revealed to the public. This is the start of a several part series that is going to show my progression of a Selesnya aggro deck for Regionals 06’ and the play testing that I do for it. Some countries still have Regionals or JSS qualifiers in the current Standard format, so you should know how to play with or against Heartbeat. Control decks start to lose the moment they forfeit the ability to prevent things from happening for any sustained period of time. There are a few reasons why Sligh (and I don't mean RDW) hasn't been played in Type 2. Every Magic: the Gathering player knows that every not-so-tournament-serious Magic player owns at least one budget, or peasant deck. Every Magic: the Gathering player owns at least one budget deck. Every Magic: the Gathering player owns at least one budget deck. As soon as it was announced as a Pro Tour format, Team Constructed has generated a lot of buzz in the player community. I make cheap decks. Dredge, forgotten? Say what homie? You been smokin' the doobie? Doin' the cystal? Dredge is all over Extended, and even shows up in Vintage and Legacy! How the heck can you say that Dredge is something anyone has forgotten about? Even my grandma kno Pro Tour Honolulu is over now and the new Standard format was shaken up again with the inclusion of Guildpact and the three new guilds provided in that set, as we can easily judge from the results the Tour on the sunny island. Back in Urza's Saga, Land of Broken Cards, there was this little enchantment called Greater Good. So I was reading this old thread in a forum somewhere on the Magic Internet and saw this big old section where this guy talked all about his great idea of making the ultimate deck by putting all the best cards from Affinity and Goblins into one deck. A while ago (back when Mirrodin was still Standard material), I read some posts concerning a deck called "GoodForm", which had something to do with casting Form of the Dragon as soon as you could, and such shenanigans. I make no secret of my love of the Torment set. by Poukis
In this article I will be examining the various decks Ravnica block can offer us (of course looking only at Ravnica: City of Guilds). Yups. There are lots of new opportunities as Ravnica enters the Standard scene. Editor's note: this article is short, but it is packed.
In the Beginning
Some don't get the idea that I only started playing Magic a little after 8th Edition came out in August 2003.
Intro
OK, last week I and 49 other people attended the probably largest tournament (more info in German here) in my area, featuring many players from throughout Austria.
By Tom Fowler
With Regionals looming close on the horizon, you’ll need to be armed with knowledge of the important matchups.
It's Regionals Time. The results coming in from overseas Regionals seem to support how everyone thought the post-Affinity metagame would shape up: a solid three-deck first tier, with numerous second-tier decks succeeding in the correct metagames.
by HKKID
It’s said that if you break a mirror, that’s seven years of bad luck. Remember that great five color deck you built when you first started playing Magic?
BRING THE PAIN: MBC IN TYPE 2
By Tom Fowler
Pop Quiz: What deck could clear the board with a unique Wrath of God effect, make you discard your hand, remove over half your library from the game, and then kill you with one hit from an arbitrarily la
Mono Blue Control.
If you were given a format full of slow decks that don't do much of anything until turn 4, you'd try and break that format with a fast deck right? You'd want to play one mana 2/2s, and one mana fliers.
Now that the bland, grey shadow of Affinity is no longer with us, it's time to spice up our Magic and add some colour. In Magic, control decks have appeared in a wide variety of forms and colors, the three colors most often associated with control are Black, Blue, and White.
This article starts with a pop quiz.
Were the Bans Right?
by Tom Fowler
Necro. I'm sure by now everyone has seen the news on the front page. Betrayers of Kamigawa has been released and all the players in the world are sifting through every card and trying to fine-tune common Type II decks to handle the shifted environment. Aaron Forsythe has informed the Magic community in his recent article that Affinity will be sentenced to some bannings. Tooth and Nail decklists are a dime a dozen. There was complete silence by now. Late last week, an exciting article was brought to the public by Wizards of the Coast.
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