It depends though on what criteria you all have for doing so...Im very new to even looking at this place (saw some link from mtgnews and followed it over here to take a peek)
I am not a writer really....I am a very active member in the T1 community as a whole though (which is to say that I am a tournament level player who is active in the community on starcitygames and themanadrain ((over 800 posts)) I regularly top 8 in my area (CA west coast) and I care about the format)
The only concern I have here is that some of the opinions I have seen expressed are just not quite on par with the rest of the T1 community...
Maybe this is why you really need a kind of primer article for T1 here, and its probably part of the reason that not too many people post about T1 here...
Players will go where the other good players are....
Currently the good players write for star city and post on the mana drain...
But as it stands I used to write short articles for mtgzone.com and I wouldnt mind writing up a "current state of T1" kind of article if you guys would be interested...
Also I would need to know how to submit such an article...
vial is pretty good in here but, there just arent that many creatures needing to be pumped out asap
This is pretty much 100% fundamentally wrong as an approach to fish...especially vial fish...
Fish absolutly does not want to hold creatures back in its hand unless it already has creatures/standstill and no vial currently...
If you get to go first turn land vial chalice on 0...you absolutly want to start pumping the critters...you get to drop second turn flying men which turns into a ninja then gets vialed right back out, then next turn you are all over playing/vialing out any other creature like meddling mage whatever out into play to win the game...not to mention you meddling mage or whatever is no longer counterable...
If you arent playing your creatures then your deck turns into a very bad version of landstill...
Vial also allows your deck to continue playing threats under standstill, rather than being forced to sit back with limited threats and allow your opponent to build up a good hand again...
At worst a second vial in your hand can be played to back up a destroyed one, or you can get one vial set to 1 and the other set to 2....at the worst...
WHAT??? what T1 planet have you been living on that shows FCG as having prooven itself...especially more so than Dragon...
The last SCG tourney in Chicago featured Dragon in the top 8....
where was fish or FCG???? it was at the tourney in much larger numbers than Dragon, but they couldnt break through....beyond that the suprise factor of FCG showing up that big should have carried it further, but it didnt because the deck isnt that great in reality...
Look at the SCGP9 results and you're going to see that it isn't just me that thinks this, the results are proving it.
Food Chain Goblins has done well at exactly ONE large vintage tourney....ONE...
Other than that it hasnt been for over a year since it did well at a real tourney (Waterbury over a year ago)
Food Chain is NOT a top level T1 deck, sorry...
Fish as well is mediocre at best...the deck can perform quite well in the proper meta, but when a meta swings fish dissapears from the winners brackets...take SCG Chicago for example...Fish had the higest turnout (which should place it higher in the tourney) and yet it didnt place a single deck in the top 8...as the meta swings and people take the deck into account it dies off again until the time is right...a month ago or even two an argument could be made for fish being one of if not the best CHOICE to run in a tourney...this doesnt make it the best deck there is...
If I really had to try to rank them I would just group decks as any one of them could probably win on any given occasion (this is what sets these decks apart from fish and goblins, they cannot just win in any environment)
The best decks in the format currently are Stax (of various kinds obviously) and Control Slaver...id put them at #1 and #2
#3 would probably be Gifts
The other 3 would probably be some combination of Oath, Dragon, Workshop Aggro (yes I put this over fish even though it didnt do as well at chicago either)
If I had to extend it out for a couple more spots then id probably add fish and deathlong (yes its an amazing deck, just nobody plays it enough...but its power level is way higher than pretty much anything else)
You might notice that FCG STILL hasnt made it onto my list...it would probably still be a few slots down the list under things like salvagers (oath/bomberman whatever) sensei TPS cerebral assasin, even tog probably...
FCG is a meta choice...it might be appropriate at certain times, but it by no means is a top level deck in the format...
Trike is worse than hellkite/kumano in a number of regards...
Red is not a problem for most dragon decks as well...either a 5 color mana base or dropping in a couple of volcanic islands plus mox ruby make red super easy to get....remember if you are comboing off you stop the loop when you animate witness (and the loop can be started and stopped several times)...at this time you drop either a red land that you bring back or drew into or have in your hand, or mox ruby to generate the infinte red mana needed to combo out with.
Ill give you this...
The entire point of running hellkite/kumano is to have a win outside of the eternal witness kill...if you dont have bazaar active for some reason (or compulsion) you can win anyways with kite/mano by animating it after generating the mana...laquatus doesnt work as well these days because of Oath running gaeas blessing wrecking your idea of winning in that matchup...without witness to recur a second animate (or dance or mancy) you cannot win with trike...
The red splash is neglagible...
The reasoning for verdant force is to buy you time in the stax matchup...free tokens to feed to smokestack was a good thing last time I checked...
What then in your opinion(s) are the best decks currently....Please dont say UbaStax, Stax, CronStax as 3, Stax is one deck type...
Ill give you a small hint...fish and goblins arent on that list (you can argue fish if you want, but you are wrong, fish is a meta deck and a meta deck only forever...)
If you underestimate dragon you will lose to it until you stop underestimating it...
While the tourneys listed are fine and all, they are hardly conclusive...Dragon has placed top 8 at several SCG tournies, It top 8s on the west coast and in Europe quite often as well....In terms of combo right now though id say its your best bet....
It depends though on what criteria you all have for doing so...Im very new to even looking at this place (saw some link from mtgnews and followed it over here to take a peek)
I am not a writer really....I am a very active member in the T1 community as a whole though (which is to say that I am a tournament level player who is active in the community on starcitygames and themanadrain ((over 800 posts)) I regularly top 8 in my area (CA west coast) and I care about the format)
The only concern I have here is that some of the opinions I have seen expressed are just not quite on par with the rest of the T1 community...
Maybe this is why you really need a kind of primer article for T1 here, and its probably part of the reason that not too many people post about T1 here...
Players will go where the other good players are....
Currently the good players write for star city and post on the mana drain...
But as it stands I used to write short articles for mtgzone.com and I wouldnt mind writing up a "current state of T1" kind of article if you guys would be interested...
Also I would need to know how to submit such an article...
This is pretty much 100% fundamentally wrong as an approach to fish...especially vial fish...
Fish absolutly does not want to hold creatures back in its hand unless it already has creatures/standstill and no vial currently...
If you get to go first turn land vial chalice on 0...you absolutly want to start pumping the critters...you get to drop second turn flying men which turns into a ninja then gets vialed right back out, then next turn you are all over playing/vialing out any other creature like meddling mage whatever out into play to win the game...not to mention you meddling mage or whatever is no longer counterable...
If you arent playing your creatures then your deck turns into a very bad version of landstill...
Vial also allows your deck to continue playing threats under standstill, rather than being forced to sit back with limited threats and allow your opponent to build up a good hand again...
At worst a second vial in your hand can be played to back up a destroyed one, or you can get one vial set to 1 and the other set to 2....at the worst...
The last SCG tourney in Chicago featured Dragon in the top 8....
where was fish or FCG???? it was at the tourney in much larger numbers than Dragon, but they couldnt break through....beyond that the suprise factor of FCG showing up that big should have carried it further, but it didnt because the deck isnt that great in reality...
Heed your own advice...
Other than that it hasnt been for over a year since it did well at a real tourney (Waterbury over a year ago)
Food Chain is NOT a top level T1 deck, sorry...
Fish as well is mediocre at best...the deck can perform quite well in the proper meta, but when a meta swings fish dissapears from the winners brackets...take SCG Chicago for example...Fish had the higest turnout (which should place it higher in the tourney) and yet it didnt place a single deck in the top 8...as the meta swings and people take the deck into account it dies off again until the time is right...a month ago or even two an argument could be made for fish being one of if not the best CHOICE to run in a tourney...this doesnt make it the best deck there is...
If I really had to try to rank them I would just group decks as any one of them could probably win on any given occasion (this is what sets these decks apart from fish and goblins, they cannot just win in any environment)
The best decks in the format currently are Stax (of various kinds obviously) and Control Slaver...id put them at #1 and #2
#3 would probably be Gifts
The other 3 would probably be some combination of Oath, Dragon, Workshop Aggro (yes I put this over fish even though it didnt do as well at chicago either)
If I had to extend it out for a couple more spots then id probably add fish and deathlong (yes its an amazing deck, just nobody plays it enough...but its power level is way higher than pretty much anything else)
You might notice that FCG STILL hasnt made it onto my list...it would probably still be a few slots down the list under things like salvagers (oath/bomberman whatever) sensei TPS cerebral assasin, even tog probably...
FCG is a meta choice...it might be appropriate at certain times, but it by no means is a top level deck in the format...
Red is not a problem for most dragon decks as well...either a 5 color mana base or dropping in a couple of volcanic islands plus mox ruby make red super easy to get....remember if you are comboing off you stop the loop when you animate witness (and the loop can be started and stopped several times)...at this time you drop either a red land that you bring back or drew into or have in your hand, or mox ruby to generate the infinte red mana needed to combo out with.
Ill give you this...
The entire point of running hellkite/kumano is to have a win outside of the eternal witness kill...if you dont have bazaar active for some reason (or compulsion) you can win anyways with kite/mano by animating it after generating the mana...laquatus doesnt work as well these days because of Oath running gaeas blessing wrecking your idea of winning in that matchup...without witness to recur a second animate (or dance or mancy) you cannot win with trike...
The red splash is neglagible...
The reasoning for verdant force is to buy you time in the stax matchup...free tokens to feed to smokestack was a good thing last time I checked...
Ill give you a small hint...fish and goblins arent on that list (you can argue fish if you want, but you are wrong, fish is a meta deck and a meta deck only forever...)
If you underestimate dragon you will lose to it until you stop underestimating it...
While the tourneys listed are fine and all, they are hardly conclusive...Dragon has placed top 8 at several SCG tournies, It top 8s on the west coast and in Europe quite often as well....In terms of combo right now though id say its your best bet....