MTG Salvation

If you are under the legal drinking age in your respective country(ies), please replace all instances of the word "alcohol" in this article with "orange juice!" The author of this article and the MTGSalvation staff in no way recommend the consumption of alcohol by minors or those who otherwise abstain.

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. Time Spiral was definitely outside the box in this sense, and yet one could still look at the various colors and recognize their attributes. Blue still countered and Red still burned things.

I have news people. That box is dead. Planar Chaos killed it.

I apologize in advance. I am truly and deeply sorry for all of you wonderful people out there who play aggressive decks. It appears that your first FNM after Time Spiral rotates in will quite likely be extremely painful and frustrating. Not only will you be staring down the most powerful set of control cards since Onslaught’s Blue and White, but several of those same cards will be returning to the format.

Today on Salvation Theatre, we are exploring a fascinating new set and its implications for our most prolific tournament format: Standard. My co-host Morgan_Coke and I shall be reviewing the most powerful cards to emerge from the new Coldsnap expansion. We will help you to decide where to spend your precious pounds, and point out cards that are slightly less than useful. We will also be drinking dangerous amounts of gin at noon beside a roaring fireplace.

It is now officially the season of ice cream, that immensely unhealthy, yet gloriously satisfying blend of sugar, artificial flavour, and cow extract. This season actually seems to extend into the Magic competitive scene too. No one was willing to bet me on the large number of Wraths and Faith’s Fetters run at Regionals, and that was probably a wise move. Nor did anyone dispute the strong presence of Black in the format either, sometimes out of the sideboard, or making not-so-surprising appearances in the top 8s, or a Flores’ column, or casting Ghost Council… cough! So that’s Vanilla and Chocolate Ice cream for yah, and although the metaphor does seem thin (ironic), those colours certainly were delicious for some and unhealthy for others (usually opponents).

Half of this article was written several days before Regionals occurred. I finally settled on a decklist, a deck that I have been playing competitively for more than a month now,. This first part is me gushing about my list, the location of Regionals, and the metagame / tech that I anticipated. What I am trying to offer beyond the typical tournament report is an amusing look at how our expectations and the tournament reality always differ so wonderfully, how the best-laid plans may not make it past the first round, and how hard we all try to minimize that possibility. Through it all, I will also try to look constructively or critically at my own play, and that of my opponents as well.

Control decks start to lose the moment they forfeit the ability to prevent things from happening for any sustained period of time. Healthy aggro decks usually beat control decks because Aggro often makes many things happen in a short time frame.