I’m going to be playing next weekend in the GP Utrecht. I don’t have any clue on what I’m going to be playing, and I’m leaving for Netherlands on Sunday, so I don’t have a lot of time to decide what to play. However, M15 did bring me something I think would make my monoblack deck stronger. It might be surprising, but its [scryfall]Crippling Blight[/scryfall].
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?
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.