Season's Greetings and 25 decklists
Jolly Holidays! We're in the storm before the calm, hastily tying bows on the tasks of 2016 before the new year is upon us. But somewhere before the turn we have a few glorious days of sloth, gluttony and lust to enjoy with friends and family. If Christmas also makes you greedy and envious, mise well try to stir up some pride and wrath as well to collect the full seven. "Catching 'em all" has after all been an important chapter of 20016.
It's about time to update the Decks to Beat section with some of the tech from the last few months.
It's not all news though; I think that 15 of these lists have already been published on the blog in one post or another. Nonetheless, I assume that organizing them may be appreciated by some, and there are a few new inspiring lists (like Danhor's Ernhamgeddon and Sehl's Highlander-96 UR CounterBurn). And we see that The Deck at BSK 2016 had its best showing in a tournament in Sweden in four years, so it might be a good idea to bulk up on Haunting Winds and Crumbles. Mise well add some Ivory Towers when we're at it, as UR Burn is far too consistent. If this trend keeps going, restricting Mishra's Factory is starting to look like a good idea.
PWP Invitational 2016
8 players, photos of 7/8 decks. Each year, eight of the highest rated 93/94 players in the PWP standings gather to fight for glory. Keeping in tradition with the old Duelist Invitational tournaments, the format at these gatherings are variations of the more familiar mid-90s Magic. This year, the arena of choice was Highlander-96.
BSK 2016
52 players, photos of 8/8 decks. Let the grunts commence! For once we actually had a dominance of The Deck in the top8; the original boogie man of constructed Magic claimed no less than four spots in the top8. Variations of UR CounterBurn (with and without Electric Eel) claimed an additional three spots, and it's clear why many see these two decks as the top tier when left unchecked. The last spot was grabbed by Danhor's Ernhnamgeddon, and just outside the top8 we saw Distress, Ponza, Zoo and many other archetypes.
Fishliver Oil Cup Ed. 0
34 players, photos of 8/8 decks. Lorenzo, Megu and the other guys in Camaiore organized a tournament taglined with "Italian rules, Swedish style" and the tech was aplenty. We have eight distinctly different decks in the top8, including stuff like TwiddleVault, Nether Void Ponza and BW Party Crasher. In the end, UR ended up on top after a fierce battle against UWR Skies/Control.
In other news, there's no lack of 93/94 content on the web these days. One of my favorite places to delve down is The Wizard's Tower blog. A couple of weeks back Dave Firth Bard (who recently contributed with a guest tournament report here) wrote a very nice post for The Wizard's Tower where he opened a Revised Gift Box his in-laws had saved away for the 22 years. Taylor, who runs the blog, shortly thereafter posted an opening of a The Dark booster. Some nostalgic product right there, I recommend checking it out.
On the other side of the web, the good people at The Library at Pendrell Vale held an original core set draft. Check out part one and part two here.
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| Macensci's MonoGreen. Seen at the top tables at BSK, but unfortunately missed out on Top8. |
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| Axelsson's UWR Awesomeness. A game away from Top8 at BSK. |
8 players, photos of 7/8 decks. Each year, eight of the highest rated 93/94 players in the PWP standings gather to fight for glory. Keeping in tradition with the old Duelist Invitational tournaments, the format at these gatherings are variations of the more familiar mid-90s Magic. This year, the arena of choice was Highlander-96.
BSK 2016
52 players, photos of 8/8 decks. Let the grunts commence! For once we actually had a dominance of The Deck in the top8; the original boogie man of constructed Magic claimed no less than four spots in the top8. Variations of UR CounterBurn (with and without Electric Eel) claimed an additional three spots, and it's clear why many see these two decks as the top tier when left unchecked. The last spot was grabbed by Danhor's Ernhnamgeddon, and just outside the top8 we saw Distress, Ponza, Zoo and many other archetypes.
Fishliver Oil Cup Ed. 0
34 players, photos of 8/8 decks. Lorenzo, Megu and the other guys in Camaiore organized a tournament taglined with "Italian rules, Swedish style" and the tech was aplenty. We have eight distinctly different decks in the top8, including stuff like TwiddleVault, Nether Void Ponza and BW Party Crasher. In the end, UR ended up on top after a fierce battle against UWR Skies/Control.
In other news, there's no lack of 93/94 content on the web these days. One of my favorite places to delve down is The Wizard's Tower blog. A couple of weeks back Dave Firth Bard (who recently contributed with a guest tournament report here) wrote a very nice post for The Wizard's Tower where he opened a Revised Gift Box his in-laws had saved away for the 22 years. Taylor, who runs the blog, shortly thereafter posted an opening of a The Dark booster. Some nostalgic product right there, I recommend checking it out.
On the other side of the web, the good people at The Library at Pendrell Vale held an original core set draft. Check out part one and part two here.
Loved the monogreen deck. that is much more likely a "real" 93 94 deck then power 9 decks. craw wurm was one of the first MTG cards designed, and back then everyone considered it so cool (powerfull and dragon-like). cool
SvaraRaderaDen här kommentaren har tagits bort av skribenten.
SvaraRaderaCan anyone see my first comment above? Some of this is in a language I can't speak and I must've hidden my comment or something. What does svara mean?
SvaraRaderaHi Ryan! Looks like your first comment was accidentally deleted ("Den här kommentaren har tagits bort av skribenten." = "This comment was deleted by the writer"). "Svara" means reply, and "radera" means delete.
RaderaThanks!
RaderaAbout restricting mishra's factory, does it make more sense to consider jayemdae tome instead? I can't be alone in that I would feel sheer disappointment if factory were restricted. It is so great and iconic and there are many, many ways of dealing with it that are already maindeckable cards, sideboard worthy at the very least. It's also brutal to have one of your own factories killed in action.
RaderaI wouldn't like the restriction of either. Just seems like the tome is a real card drawing problem. There's a reason it's ran as a 3-4 of in The Deck alongside P9 plus braingeyser, etc. there's simply just too much of it. Problem is blue... doesn't seem fair to even knock out time considering other colors need the card advantage, but could too much blue card draw really cause mishra's factory to be restricted? How about maybe restricting counterspell instead?
P.S. I am just a competitive house player who loves the format so could always play by our own rules with factory, but feel I can share my 2 cents on this great format, nonetheless. Maybe someone else has a better understanding than I to explain this.
Hi!
RaderaThanks for the 2 cents :)
Just Counterspell would probably have very limited effect, as they could easily be substituted for Power Sink without too much loss in card quality. In fact, Martin Lindström (who won BSK and placed second at last n00bcon) argued that he thought we should restrict all counterspells (Counterspell, Power Sink, Spell Blast at least, and possibly Force Spike, Flash Counter and Elemental Blasts). I personally think that's a little drastic, but I'm not the one winning 50+ player tournaments with The Deck ;)
Another idea which I think is pretty valid is to restrict Lightning Bolt. In the last 30+ player tournament top8s, it is as represented as Mishra's Factory, in some cases even more. Restricting Lightning Bolt would also make it easier to unrestrict Black Vise, which I think is a solid idea down the line (variants of Draw7 UR Burn with 4 vises might be a little much to handle with all the burn spells legal.)
Restricting Jayemdae Tome would probably have limited effect. You could e.g. replace #2-3 with something like Disrupting Scepter and Transmute Artifact, or maybe even just Jalum Tome.
Factory is a tough nut to crack, and many players agree that it would be very disappointing if it were to be restricted.
Thanks for the reply. I never even considered lightning bolt restriction, or other counterpell cards. Counterspell + power sink at most, spell. Last and the others would seem like a bit much to me.
RaderaI have yet to see the greatness behind disrupting scepter, especially when compared against jayemdae tome. There is an obvious card advantage to both, but scepter gives them options and you can only use on your own turn. This kills the card for me, but again have never played it because of this. I do like jalum tome a lot, but with enough mana, nothing seems to compare to the sheer card draw of jayemdae tome.
The mishra's factory ordeal is definitely a tough one to crack. I am not a real fan of errata, but I've heard some players suggest one on factory, making it so it cannot pump itself on defense, or at least does not deal its damage when tapped as a blocker. Apparently that's how the card was intended?
Yeah, I've talked with a few players who have suggested that errata. "How it was intended" is probably overinterpreting the developers btw, but with the old combat rules (before sixth edition) that was how it worked at least ;) The 93/94 legal cards most intended to take use of tapped blockers dealing no damage are probably Icy Manipulator an Twiddle, and later it was crucial for cards like Master of Arms.
RaderaBut I'm really no fan of special errata like adding Mana Burn damage to Mana Drain and Su-chi, or rewriting Factory. I think it's neccesary for Chaos Orb, but other than that I'm trying to keep my hands away.
I hear ya. Errata just seems screwy. But chaos or a was awesome!
Radera