Subject: The Return of Type 1 Date: Sat, 11 Jul 1998 20:17:25 -0500 From: "Gregory B. Harter II" To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com ISSUE gmharter@ix.netcom.com Gregory B. Harter II The Return of Type 1 This essay has been some time coming, though at no time more true to life than now. Type 1 tournament play is coming back from the dead, and coming back now. However, it is not here yet, and there are a few things we can do to ensure its safe return. There are exactly two factors which govern the landscape of Magic: the Gathering. The first, and most important in the eyes of the Powers That Be, is money. This was never more evident than at Grand Prix Indianapolis. The advertisement for GP-Indy that I received stated there would be "hundreds of sanctioned side tournaments." I assumed that this meant at least a few would be Type 1, so I brought my T1 deck. I arrived late for the Grand Prix, so instead hung out with my two compatriots. (Our hometown is Columbus, where the GP was held!) Our Type 1 decks were burning a whole in our pockets, so we tried to sign up for a Type 1 tournament. Alas, they didn't have a signup for a Type 1, but they did have multiple signups for ongoing booster drafting ($10 to enter). The coordinators did let us make our own signup sheet ($5 to enter), but they would not post even a sheet of paper announcing the T1 tournament, not even by the announcements for the Booster Drafts! Needless to say, nobody signed up for an unadvertised tournament, and we got our money back. None of the above is an indication to any sane person to that Type 1 is coming back, not at first glance. The general thought process of WotC is that Type 1 decks make the Wizards no money. This is not the case, and they will see this soon enough. The Booster Draft had 8 people at $10 a pop ($80 total). Thats 24 packs to draft with, and 12 sealed packs to the winner, for 36 in all (Wizards make $2.22 per pack). Our T1 was $40 total, and the winner got 12 packs (Thats $3.33 per pack). The Wizards make 50% more per T1 tournament versus the booster draft, and let's not forget how little time a single elimination T1 tournament takes. Money is also an important part on the gamer's side of life, and Type 1 helps on this end as well. Limited, Sealed Deck, Booster Draft, and Type 2 tournaments have one thing in common: an incredible drain on the financial reserves as the player tries to remain competitive. Sealed and Booster Draft have the obvious cost prohibition of buying packs every time you want to play. Competitive Type 2 play requires buying enormous amounts of cards to keep up with the cycling rotation of tournament legal expansions. Type 1 has none of these restrictions. The initial cost of purchasing single cards is high, definitely higher than when buying Type 2 cards, but once you have them, you don't need to buy them all again (figuratively) in 9 months. Plus, you will have the luxury of buying single cards that will help your deck, leisure buying of new expansion packs, and trading for cards you want to tinker with without the doom clock of leaving legal play ticking away. This leads us to that most pure reason for playing Magic, of any format: fun. Many people, too many in fact, have been brainwashed into believing that T1 Magic is for Joe Power Nine Suitcase. Not true, not true. The first tournament I entered, I played only the Mox Pearl and the Ancestral Recall (I didn't play any counters) while beating an Abyss deck, a Juzam deck (in the finals, he had all Power Nine), a Stompy deck, a red Burn deck, and one more I don't remember, and I won the whole darn thing. Don't forget, the Wizards are so narrowly focused on the Type 2 card environment that they don't see the evening effect on Type 1 some of their creations are. Cards like Wastelands, Dwarven Miner, Gorilla Shaman, Primal Order, Ruination, and Corrosion (to name a paltry few) are evenly powered in Type 2, yet devastating in Type 1 to anyone playing a $2,000 deck. A straight color deck (especially red or green), tuned just right, will beat the suitcase deck 8 out of 10 times. There is no real need to get the Power Nine, or any of the other cards deemed powerful enough to be restricted in Type 1, to have fun playing against them competitively in a tournament (and winning). Let's not forget the unbelieveable variety in the T1 environment, allowing for truely limitless deck construction and fluid play. I just played a guy who would use elemental augury to look through my top three cards of my library, put the best two on top, and milled them away to my graveyard. It was one of the more beautiful combinations I had seen...He ended up decking me, even though I had the Library of Alexandria out (maybe because of that...). Either way, the point to be driven home here is that Type 2 is devoid of artistry, as only a handful of deckstyles will be able to dominate the tournament scene, while the uncharted terrain of Type 1 deck construction awaits. It's up to you, of course. Play Type 1 competitively. Spend the money you were funneling into Type 2 cards, just for a while, into original Type 1 deck construction. See where the game leads you, and in turn, see how we lead the game back to its roots, where dual lands and Mahamoti Djinns and Serra Angels and Sol Rings and Lightning Bolts and Hypnotic Spectres and Eureka and Sol'Kanar, the Swamp King rule Dominaria. gbh2