Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 21:49:00 +0100 From: "Ir. J.C. van den Broek" Subject: War College: Good Initiative (+ Control/Aggro start) Hi Rob, I wanted to start on something you touched already: the Type II environment. Just this weekend there were the PS Masters in the Netherlands (the top 64 players were competing). This is a very fierce tournament (I think Holland is one of the best Magic countries in Europe) and the three players coming from Eindhoven were playing heavy control decks. I was playing a classic counterburn deck and the other ones a capsize deck and a postless counterpost deck. Those three players are all good players (I'm going to Mainz, one won a Dutch National Qualifier and the last one a local type II tourney). I played 9 points out of 21, the capsize one 10 out of 21 and the post one 6 out of 21. This will propably show that the classic control deck is dead. However the majority of the decks seen were control decks. About one third of the decks seen were those blue decks with Ophidians, ManoWars, Suqata Firewalker and Tradewind Riders. I could be wrong in my assumption that these are control decks but since it can control the entire game by just leaving some mana untapped I suppose its a control deck. However these decks were seen throughout the field. At the top there were two Sligh decks, some splashed White Weenies and a Black Weenie deck (as far as I know the only one). From this tournament I can conclude that the classic control deck is dead but the "standard" aggressive deck is as well. The trend will propably be a way inbetween. With more and more weenie decks running Man O Wars and Tradewind Riders and more and more control decks running those same cards, I think all the deck types begin to melt into one form. Of course no ideal deck will be formed but with all the rainbow lands around I predict a lot of cards will be splashed in for both their aggressive as well as their defensive character. (i.e. Man O War, Tradewind Rider, the Black and Green Guildmages, Incinerate, Propaganda, Uktabi Urangetang, Cloudchaser Eagle etc). After this weekend I've prepared two Type II decks ( one WU Propageddon deck and one WUR Weenie deck). Both deck share about a quarter of the cards (Tradewind, Ophidian, ManOwar and armageddon) even though the Propageddon deck is defenitly a more control stressed deck than the Wur weenie deck which is a far more aggressive deck. Of course this article is based upon only one tournament of this radical changing environment and it's based on the Dutch Tournament scene but still I'd like to know if the same thing is happening elsewhere. With all respects, Victor van den Broek (vic.brk@club.tip.nl) BTW Blue was the most seen color in the tournament. Is this trend evrywhere or is it just here in Europe where the Metagame seems to be far more control oriented?