Archive: Category: Standard (Type 2)
Prepping for Nats #1: Fun /w RG Beats (July 18th, 2008)
Hi. This is Dave Feinstein. *crowd boos* I recently qualified for Nationals via a top 4 finish at Re
Chrome Moxicillin, The Obligatory Regionals Report (June 26th, 2008)
At the very end of extended season, I lost the final of the March 15 PTQ in Sacramento to Josh Utter
SLC Punk: Another Regionals Article (June 10th, 2008)
Editor's Note: This article was originally written before the recent Regionals and includes an updat
MTGO III and Shadowmoor's Mistakes (April 29th, 2008)
I haven't written an article here in quite a while.
The Great White Hope (April 8th, 2008)
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Power Issues--How to Win at an FNM (March 26th, 2008)
The most commonly attended competitive tournaments are the local Friday Night Magics.
Actually, It's Spelled "Rogues" (February 28th, 2008)
Okay, so I think Rogues are the best aggro deck.
Kill By Numbers: The Zombie Revival (February 26th, 2008)
The time of Friday Night Tribal has come and gone.
City Champs: The Quest from Chump to Champ (February 19th, 2008)
Win, lose, or draw; the competitive aspect of Magic is something everybody should try out.
The Longevity of Dragonstorm/Living in Rogue (January 17th, 2008)
But the one deck at the top tables [at Worlds] that few were expecting (judging by the deck's success) was Dragonstorm.
Chameleon Colossus: Smashing Faces (January 10th, 2008)
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.
Going Rogue for States Pt II: The RL Effect (November 5th, 2007)
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Going Rogue for States (October 24th, 2007)
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 in Standard (October 24th, 2007)
Lorwyn is the new set on the block, rotating in as the Ravnica block rotates out.
The Lanky and Morgan Standard Review (October 11th, 2007)
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.
Lorwyn: the Tribaling (October 4th, 2007)
Well, the Prerelease is over, and Lorwyn is officially here.
[MTGS Classics] Spiral in Standard (August 23rd, 2007)
As we stand on the cusp of Lorwyn, let's look at some bold predictions for Time Spiral that were made last fall.
Burn It All Down (August 22nd, 2007)
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.
The Flashy Play - TSP to * Infinity (July 11th, 2007)
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Yin Yang and the Slide at the Great Wall (July 4th, 2007)
Currently, Beach House has three things going for it that really help address the deck's two big weaknesses.
Grabbing Control #1 (June 27th, 2007)
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.
The 2007 Regionals Primer (May 31st, 2007)
I hate studying for a test.
The Future of Standard (May 21st, 2007)
The old norm of set reviews involved going over every card in every color one article a time.
The Flashy Play: Living Ends (May 1st, 2007)
I am a straight line, by the book kind of guy.
The Flashy Play: PandeGargadon (April 24th, 2007)
There are things you know you know, things you don't know you know, and things that you know you don't know.
The Creation of a Babylover (April 19th, 2007)
It all started with a replay.
D.I.Y.: Control What Controls You (April 5th, 2007)
Pretty much everyone can agree that control decks are Blue, and that they counter stuff.
The Metagame Deck, Type 2 (April 4th, 2007)
If you wanted to build a competitive deck for today's metagame, where would you start? I'd start with the metagame itself.
Return of the Not-A-CounterTron (March 29th, 2007)
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
D.I.Y.: Making the Most of Your Monsters (March 28th, 2007)
Planar Chaos is finally here! Alright, you got me - Planar Chaos has been here for a while.
D.I.Y.: You Can Rebuild Them, Make Them Stronger, Faster (March 15th, 2007)
Happybounce takes a chance at revitalizing an old archetype by building a non-Glare deck.
D.I.Y.: The (Not So) Basics (March 8th, 2007)
Building your own Magic deck isn't easy.
The Planar Chaos Standard Review (February 8th, 2007)
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.
Dude, Thallids? (January 24th, 2007)
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: The Art of War (January 10th, 2007)
Scrubland is not about making you better overnight.
Scrubland: The Quest for 1600 (January 3rd, 2007)
My rating is below 1600 - I believe at this point it's at 1577 in Constructed.
Spiral in Standard (October 24th, 2006)
It’s finally here.
Control FREAK: All the Time in the World (October 5th, 2006)
I apologize in advance.
Stories from the Attic... (September 29th, 2006)
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.
Coldsnap's Build-Around Cards (September 12th, 2006)
Every new set that comes out brings us new cards to build decks around.
Putting the NO into sNOw - U/W Control in Standard (September 8th, 2006)
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.
Peasant in Standard: Toasty Winter (September 7th, 2006)
Every time I stop playing Magic for a while, I begin to miss it.
Burn Them All: Mono-Red in Standard (August 21st, 2006)
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.
The Coldsnap Standard Review Theatre (July 31st, 2006)
Today on Salvation Theatre, we are exploring a fascinating new set and its implications for our most prolific tournament format: Standard.
Friggorid, Standard, and Coldsnap (July 11th, 2006)
Yawgmoth's Will is arguably the single most powerful card ever printed for use in constructed magic.
[MTGS Classics] Standardizing Standard: Mono Blue Control (July 4th, 2006)
Mono Blue Control.
Control FREAK: On Hot Weather, Ice Cream, and Bad Metaphors (June 15th, 2006)
It is now officially the season of ice cream, that immensely unhealthy, yet gloriously satisfying blend of sugar, artificial flavour, and cow extract.
Going Rogue: Five Color Boros and Four Color Tron (June 13th, 2006)
Well, when I wrote this article, many people predicted I'd be playing again.
Mono-Green Aggressive Evasion in Standard (June 12th, 2006)
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.
Control FREAK: Weird Fires at Regionals (May 30th, 2006)
Half of this article was written several days before Regionals occurred.
Why U/W Control Does Not Suck (May 17th, 2006)
There has been some consternation in the Magic community as the spoilers for Dissension have slowly been revealed to the public.
The Selesnya Solution: Playtesting for Regionals '06 (May 16th, 2006)
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.
Playing Heartbeat: A Primer (May 15th, 2006)
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 Freak: An Introduction to Control in Standard (May 10th, 2006)
Control decks start to lose the moment they forfeit the ability to prevent things from happening for any sustained period of time.
The Path of Aggression: Mono-Red Aggro in Standard (May 2nd, 2006)
There are a few reasons why Sligh (and I don't mean RDW) hasn't been played in Type 2.
Middle Class Magic: Mono-Blue Owling Mine (April 27th, 2006)
Every Magic: the Gathering player knows that every not-so-tournament-serious Magic player owns at least one budget, or peasant deck.
Middle Class Magic: White Weenie (April 20th, 2006)
Every Magic: the Gathering player owns at least one budget deck.
Middle Class Magic: Birthday Cash (April 17th, 2006)
Every Magic: the Gathering player owns at least one budget deck.
Friends in PA: A Team Standard PTQ Report (April 5th, 2006)
As soon as it was announced as a Pro Tour format, Team Constructed has generated a lot of buzz in the player community.
Peasant in Standard (March 14th, 2006)
I make cheap decks.
Dredge: the Forgotten Standard (March 9th, 2006)
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 Volcanic Island (March 8th, 2006)
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.
The Poster Child of Greater Good Decks (February 27th, 2006)
Back in Urza's Saga, Land of Broken Cards, there was this little enchantment called Greater Good.
Out of the Game: Super Turbo Ninja Robots (January 25th, 2006)
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.
GoodForm, the Past, the Present (November 28th, 2005)
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.
MBC on a Budget: A Cheap Deck in a Post-Ravnica World (October 24th, 2005)
I make no secret of my love of the Torment set.
A First Glimpse at Ravnica Block Constructed. (October 19th, 2005)
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).
Ravnica Rock (October 10th, 2005)
Yups.
Boros Control (September 26th, 2005)
There are lots of new opportunities as Ravnica enters the Standard scene.
Ten Bold (or Rather, Cowardly) Predictions for Ravnica Type 2 (September 14th, 2005)
Editor's note: this article is short, but it is packed.
Thank God it's Over Now (September 13th, 2005)
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.
Damage Inc. or, How to Screw Yourself Over (August 24th, 2005)
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.
Regionals Matchups: Ponza vs. TNN (June 20th, 2005)
By Tom Fowler With Regionals looming close on the horizon, you’ll need to be armed with knowledge of the important matchups.
The Gigantic Regionals Primer (June 14th, 2005)
It's Regionals Time.
U/W: The Forgotten Archetype (May 23rd, 2005)
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.
Key Matchups: The UG mirror. (May 10th, 2005)
by HKKID It’s said that if you break a mirror, that’s seven years of bad luck.
Going Rogue: 5 Color Control... in Standard? (May 5th, 2005)
Remember that great five color deck you built when you first started playing Magic? You know, the one with Lightning Bolt and Force of Nature and Demonic Tutor and Serra Angel and Counterspell? Remember how badly it lost to that kid at the card store with
Bring the Pain: MBC in T2 (May 2nd, 2005)
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 large mon
Standardizing Standard: Mono Blue Control (April 27th, 2005)
Mono Blue Control.
Put Them Plains DOWN (April 21st, 2005)
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.
Red is the New Grey: Burning the New Standard. (April 19th, 2005)
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.
Here Comes the Rain Again, Blue/Black Control in Standard (April 14th, 2005)
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.
Mono-Green in t2 (April 4th, 2005)
This article starts with a pop quiz.
Were The Bans Right? (March 14th, 2005)
Were the Bans Right? by Tom Fowler Necro.
Ravager Free Zone (March 1st, 2005)
I'm sure by now everyone has seen the news on the front page.
UG Control in Type II (February 28th, 2005)
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.
Affinity - Knocking on Heaven's Door? (February 22nd, 2005)
Aaron Forsythe has informed the Magic community in his recent article that Affinity will be sentenced to some bannings.
Build it Yourself, Tooth & Nail (February 21st, 2005)
Tooth and Nail decklists are a dime a dozen.
Turning Blue: Ignore the Smoke (February 15th, 2005)
There was complete silence by now.
Foreshadowing and the Future of Affinity (February 13th, 2005)
Late last week, an exciting article was brought to the public by Wizards of the Coast.