I’m going to GP Manchester next month. The format is Theros Block Constructed. Problems are pretty obvious: I don’t know the full block yet, because Journey Into Nyx spoilers began just today. Has that ever stopped me?
Nothing really notable here, just a fun draft I had. Spoiler: [scryfall]Tromokratis[/scryfall].
Back in the day, we had [scryfall]Plague Rats[/scryfall]. That wasn’t a big card. Sure, everyone knew about it and probably everyone who had seen it had thought about using it, because we didn’t have the deckbuilding restrictions we have today. In 40 card deck with – say – 14 Swamps and 26 Rats (these days probably 15 or 16 lands and rest for the Rats), those could be pretty bad for you. We even had one of those decks as a gauntlet deck (a deck your deck has to be able to beat in order to be considered playable) for a while.
Over the years, they tried again. We had [scryfall]Pestilence Rats[/scryfall] which didn’t care only about others with a same name, but all rats. Then there were [scryfall]Relentless Rats[/scryfall] which was closer to the original [scryfall]Plague Rats[/scryfall], but partly by changing the rules on card limits. They are still reportedly pretty hard to get, because they are pretty popular in casual play.
Then, they finally got it right. [scryfall]Pack Rat[/scryfall] wasn’t taken very seriously year and a half ago, but over time they have become a format defining card after Kentaro Yamamoto played them in his Pro Theros monoblack devotion deck to a Top 8 finish over a year after the card first came out. Its actually such a format defining card that its beginning to lose popularity because everyone is expecting them and have weapons at the ready, including moving back to Esper.
I was thinking about making a [scryfall]Species Gorger[/scryfall] deck and I probably eventually will, but I felt I would be trying to play EDH in Pauper. Granted, that’s the idea, but I would rather use wholly different approaches. With Pauper, I have a chance to rethink stuff, so I decided to go to another direction, again trying to use the resources I have readily available, namely mana.
So, where to dump the mana? There was a shade back in alpha and there’s been a shade in the core set and most blocks ever since. (I didn’t check, but I’m pretty sure.) They’ve never been for the Spikes out there, but apparently they have their fans, as they’ve survived for so long. However, they could be very good in EDH.
So, the question is, who do we get to lead this pack?
Building a deck is all about context. Sure, some cards will be weak in any context, but even well thought-out decks will fail if the other decks in the metagame aren’t considered in the process. Even within a format certain decks can thrive in a certain meta and falter if moved to another environment. Just look at Frank Karsten’s article on the worst Pro Tour winning decks. Some of those are unthinkable today due to changes in card quality, but they weren’t that good in their day either. They just happened to be just the right deck for that particular tournament.
I was watching Grand Prix Cincinnatti coverage. I got in pretty late, because of reasons, so I started watching from the quarterfinals and since it was very late in Finland, I only watched through semifinals. Besides the only interesting Esper Control game ever (where Brad Nelson had pretty much the greatest comeback of all time), I saw this old guy playing a version of my current deck, which I’ve been calling Suicide King.
Its when I heard his story being told by the coverage team when this became very interesting to me.
I’ve been playing with a [scryfall]Sygg, River Cutthroat[/scryfall] deck lately. I have a tendency to change my decks quite often, but I just wanted to play a weenie strategy after not doing so for a while. This isn’t as good as the [scryfall]Edric, Spymaster of Trest[/scryfall], but there’s also the point of not being overbearing. Edric will just win most of the games, even if the other players combine their forces from the beginning. Edric just happens to be so fast.
So, if winning is your only goal, use Edric (this deck didn’t not win once during its lifetime). Otherwise read on.
I don’t usually metagame that much. I would much rather play a deck I like and hope its good than try to metagame and play a deck I don’t necessarily like as much and which will cost me a lot of money. However, there’s of course room to metagame within the decks.
Right now, I think one good metagame question is whether you should play [scryfall]Naturalize[/scryfall] mainboard.
I saw a couple openings of the Born of the Gods Event Deck. So, they were informative on the contents and did throw around a couple of suggestions, but to me, that’s not a real review. So, I bought the deck and took it out for a spin today at the FNM.
1. A travel or journey, especially by foot, notably by a pilgrim.
Peregrination
Sorcery, 3G
Search your library for up to two basic land cards, reveal those cards, and put one onto the battlefield tapped and the other into your hand. Shuffle your library, then scry 1. (Look at the top card of your library. You may put that card on the bottom of your library.)
[scryfall]Peregrination[/scryfall] is the latest ramp card, this time from Born of the Gods. The question here is pretty obvious: Is the higher mana cost really worth one more mana?