From: andy@mcnish.demon.co.uk (andy mcnish) Subject: deck types ? Date: Sat, 02 Aug 1997 00:34:43 GMT review of the type 2 deck types around from the look of recent tournies - it's so good to see so many different ones around - even though blue is perhaps a little over-represented at the moment (still a lot better than last year's necro-hell:) additional comments/postings from everyone welcome - i only see the northern circuit so i've no idea what's being played down south. marked out of ten for fun :):) add your own ratings... Weenie Mono-green - very fast indeed with ghazbans,rogues,devishes and boas and lots of enhancers.Very solid - esp now carl has confirmed that contagion CAN'T be used on dervishes :) Often seen in the last eight. 8/10 Mono-black - with a bit of disruption - sometimes with a little off colour - sometimes based around winter orbs , often with necro-disk. Still ok but nowhere near as nasty as it was last year.Can still give blue/white a headache though...but skulkers more fragile than ever and doesn't like empyrical armors or the dervishes in mono-green.pox and the 4/4 discard critter give it some bite though 7/10 White - haven't really seen a great one of these in the new T2 - paul watson took one to the finals last week at oldham but got green weenied...has swords back , tutors for artifacts and crusades and still has geddon - also got the prot. falcons and enp. armor - can't quite see how abeyances fit in - but it sure looks an evil card .a speculative 7/10 ? thoughts anyone Red - 'sligh' never really caught on over here - if i hear one more american describe common sense deck-building as 'using a good mana-curve' i think i'll scream ! With the loss of the bolt there's been a falling off in red generally - is anyone using it out there ? 5/10 (mainly for watching the dwarven miner go to work :) Blue - only joking ! (although someone did try a blue weenie on me last week - i had to explain why weenie/counter doesn't really work:) 2/10 - shock value - go merfolk go !! Red/green weenie - often with binds ,grangers and rates for DD.Orbs often in too :) (have seen geddons and swords squeezed in too but query how consistent).not quite as fast as the monos but has slightly more control.if it can avoid lock decks it performs well 7/10 'we have a theme' LD - plenty of LD cards in now IA is back - the R/G is nastier than the B/R (according to chris muryn who has extensivley tested both) well of knowledge is the lock card that LD has been waiting for - so why aren't they appearing in the finals?? is the meta-game is so dominated by weenies , counter and orb that the LD decks just keep on finding themselves in the wrong environment - or perhaps they're still lacking that consistency ? (although the black ones can run tutors). still got to give a good LD deck 7/10 though.. Centaur/Maro-geddon. Ouch - the swords being back really help this deck archetype.Only problem is no tutor to find the geddons and those damn river boas - geddon is also no use unless you can acheive creature superiority and as a one card lock is vulnerable to countering.I always fear meeting this deck but no-one seems to be playing it - any geddon players out there want to update us on how it's going ? 7/10 Prosperous Bloom another truly nasty deck that keeps running into it's worst nightmare - counter decks ! my respect for this deck increased imensely last weekend when i finally played a good one -or rather ( i suspect) one that was being played properly.i managed to 2-0 it with mono-green but felt extremely fortunate -it's that 'every turn could be your last' feeling ' i think :) . he also went down to fox's mono-blue in the finals but otherwise swept all before him (and made it to the finals at birmingham the previous week).prosp bloom like most combo decks suffers vs blue and really fast decks with enchantment removal but causes real grief to anything else.it has a harder time after sideboarding. the new turb-stasis really - except mercifully quick ... 7.5/10 Stasis classic TS is hardly ever seen - even with equipoises ;) too much mass artifact removal makes it a bit suspect and the blue decks just kill it -counter the boomers ! squandered stasis has a buzz about it in the states but hasn't made it over here either - it would have to avoid green weenie (quirion rangers :) to have a hope - haven't seen one - can't really mark it -any thoughts - 6/10 for nostalgia ? Prison prison is another US deck that didn't get played here - lots of icies , orbs , geddon ,wraths and swords - a real lockdown deck.i can't quite remember but i assume the original had a dozen counters in and was Blue/white.misers cage kills certainly pendrell mists and betrayals (icy/betrayal/island sanctuary is a total lockout against groundbased critters and you can tutor for each part) together with the return of icies and stp make this look really nasty - i guess disks and serenity would worry a prison player and they need to survive a weenie rush to set up - but once set up this deck is going to cause grief - i'm sticking my neck out and going 8/10 on this on. Buried alive - well this is the latest of the graveyard recycling decks - there were two at oldham last weekend but neither made the finals (and with that 'you can contagion prot. black critter ' ruling in effect they were never going to find a better environment - kennett should ask for his ranking points back btw).this deck causes grief to certain deck types (eg the prison mentioned above ) but the ashen ghouls and nether shadows really aren't the most threatening of things to try to get past a white knight or dervish (or any first striker for that matter).it's possible you could just add 10 cards into a standard black weenie - 2 BA's 4 shadows,4 ghouls (with tutors already in the core) and run it as a sub-theme. it's in it's early stages of development though so we'll give it a 7/10 for effort. Counter-bolt - solid - but it lost the bolt and hasn't gained anything to deal with the increased weenie speed or the freewind falcon. 6/10 much as i love frenetics -sorry liz :( Counter-post - the front-runner - super solid - always keeps that mana in reserve for counters until your discard phase when 'pop' -another damn token (ok so i admit i played it at doncaster two weeks ago and took it to the finals but at least i was running juxtaposes for a laugh :).sometimes a couple of rainbow e's are added and they're really annoying too. i think it won the final in oldham last weekend too.the stuff that hoses it tends to be susceptible to disenchants - so you'd better have plenty of 'must-counter' stuff in the bord - halls of gem . cities of sol , dwarven miners hit those glaciers early ,aetherflash,webs,orbs. if you run with the above in your core for any reason then so much the better. a good player can make counterpost sing like a stradivarius - the only problem is that however exquisite and pure the artistry the tune gets a little repetitive after a while.some versions now pack gerard's wisdom for +14 life. great! 9/10 Mono-blue - big flyers - talking of a little boring but very good results wise leads us onto the mono-blue or (as we know it the 'gething' deck).fox also plays a variant (using waterspouts).they both usually get there or thereabouts for the finals and never play anything else. A couple of years ago these decks always failed - the age of mishra's factories and strips and pre-political trickery and desertion .with the rainbow e they finally have a good kill card as well - biggest weakness is counterpost , mono-black stupor/sleight-knight and green if it happens to be packing an karoo meerkat/tsunami bord. 8/10 Sleight-knight white or black (usually using mind bends these days) can really hurt any mono-deck - becomes worse at dealing with any deck with multiple color removal/damage.black often has discard as a sub-theme to key in vs blue. haven't seen many but should still work 7/10 Blue/white - defense - the classic B/w defense - strengthened by the return of stp and icy (to force more creatures down for the wrath) - sometimes with peacekeepers - now that really can give weenie decks a hard time if you can protect them.kill with rainbow's / ivories . a very playable deck but why not just use counterpost instead ?? or as well - obviously an overlap ... 8/10 Abyance decks - ok so it's a powerful card but it's two most obvious uses are to force a counter vs blue (for which you need a threat that blue has to be scared of in hand with the mana untapped) or to get an extra turn's attacking when you have critter superiority (and in a weenie deck wouldn't you just have another weenie or a geddon?) i'll join in the crowd saying 'they have to errata it ' (or more accurately change the rule that tapping a land for mana is an activation cost) when i see it used abusively - i think you need about 6 mana to start to abuse it which is way too uch to worry about - it's the celestial dawn of weatherlite :) -though i'm open to be convinced otherwise. i don't know if this deck exists so i can't mark it :) R/G bigger creature deck.one of the funniest losses i saw a counterpost deck take was to a kid's r/g big creature deck. you know forces,shivs,craw giants - everything seemed to trample or fly - he'd even put karvek's torches in !!! the post deck has run out of counters/removal but the kid has no cards and a post is just starting to kick in. so he draws a craw giant and casts it - priceless :) . this deck also deals well with green weenie - esp if it uses wall of roots ( even for that naff wildebeest combo)and gets the draw . of course it dies to LD very badly and also to any and all of the lock type decks. 5/10 but funny to watch good players going down to it :) well that's all i can think of at the moment - feel free to add any decks/marks or coments:) oh yes - vogue weatherlight card for each color (so far) black -buried alive white - abeyance (though i like tariff too) red -aetherflash blue -betrayal - used to discourage weenies early and then with icies for free cards later:) green -the rogue (although dense foliage has possibilities) happy fraggling !