Subject: Preparing for Regionals...Part II Date: Thu, 14 May 1998 15:53:50 -0700 From: "Chris" To: "'fkusumot@ix.netcom.com'" Last time I talked about 6 decks that you'll probably see at your regionals. Here are a few more. Archtype #7 - Prosbloom or "How I decided to play with myself for 40 minutes a round" 4 Cadaverous Bloom 4 Squandared Resources 4 Natural Balence 4 Infernal Contract 4 Meditiate 3 Prosperity 4 Impulse 3 Mana Leak 2 City of Solitude 3 Wall of Blossoms 2 Drain Life 1 Vampiric Tutor 4 City of Brass 4 Gemstone Mine 5 Island 5 Swamp 4 Forest Hearlding back to the day of PT Paris, Prospo-Bloom is one of the strongest combo decks out there now that can just win. I'm not really going to talk about how to play this deck since it involves dropping a squandared, natural balencing, dropping a cadaverous bloom, drawing cards through contract/meditate/prosperity, and then draining them to death. All the while dropping a city and some walls while countering some stuff. Variations include Wall of Roots for more mana, more vampiric tutors, for less of a hassle in searching for materials, more counterspells for protection, and abeyances straight up. Sideboard usually contains pyroblasts, abeyance, and some more cities. Disenchants or tranquil domains are handy for those people who whip out aura of silence. Beating the Prosbloom deck means either disrupting their hand or to deny them their key enchantments (being squandared resources and cadaverous bloom) A blue deck can easily take on the prosbloom deck and win, while white weenie can give it fits with multiple disenchants and aura of silence. Black needs to disrupt the hand or it can just lose, while sligh has a chance of simply killing the deck before it as a chance to go off. Probability of Top 8: 25% Archtype #8 - 5cg or "I poke you" 4 Bird of Paradise 3 Qurioin Ranger 3 Granger Guildmage 4 Wall of Blossoms 2 Uktabi Orangutan 4 Spike feeder 1 Lhurgoyf 1 Disenchant 4 Incinerate 3 Armageddon 3 Diabolic Edict 4 Tradewind Rider 2 Man o War 2 Mana Leak 11 Forest 4 Undiscovered Paradise 3 Gemstone Mine 2 City of Brass 5cg has changed rapidly since last year's regionals. Although it does contain similar elements like birds, rangers, and centaurs. It has changed from a do a point here and there, to a psuedo-control deck. With tradewind riders, man o wars, orangutans, and walls, it controls permenents on the table before locking you down with the eventual armageddon. The deck is simple. Poke them with a point here and there. Lock down the board with the tradewind rider, and slowly kill them. Diabolic Edicts and Incinerates help control creatures with guildmages and man' o war as secondary removals. Spike Feeders help gain life against sligh and mana leaks help control the board in the early game as well as after a timely armageddon. Variations of this deck include more controlish elements with more man o wars and counterspells. A more beatdown version exists with derelors and maros. There is also a super bounce version that uses just blue and green with capsizes. Winter orbs and wall or roots also add more control to another varient of the 5cg. Sideboard can include pyroblasts, hydroblasts, disenchants, and various color hosers like dread of night, honorable passage, and light of day. Scragnoth is a useful creature while more counters like disrupt and power sink might also be advisable. The 5cg is very beatable. Many players now emphasize the tradewind rider. However, they toss out too many creatures and are easily wrecked by a wrath or multiple creature removal. Cards like firestorm can wreak the 5cg. Elimination of early creatures such as the birds and the ranger are key in beating this deck. Without the bird or ranger, they cannot produce a solid base of color to start moving their creatures out, in turn allowing you to rush the 5cg or to take control of the game. Probability of top 8: 45% Archtype #9 - 5cu or "How I made sure I played full 70 minute rounds" 4 Impulse 4 Whisper of the Muse 4 Counterspell 4 Dismiss 3 Dissipate 2 Fireball 4 Wrath of God 1 Disenchant 3 Gerrard's Wisdom 4 Wall of Blossoms 3 Gaea's Blessing 2 Uktabi Orangutang 4 Reflecting Pools 2 Wasteland 3 Adakar Waste 3 Undiscovered Paradise 2 City of Brass 2 Gemstone Mine 6 Island The 5cu relies heavily on card advantage. With over half it's cards being cantrips, the 5cu usually draws better quality cards to control the board. It uses wall of blossoms to combat the inital creature rush, then uses wrath of god to clear away those creatures. Gerrard's wisdom then put's it's life back at a high level, and then takes control of the game using whispers of the muse to outdraw cards and gaea's blessing to recycle used cards. Wastelands are there to ward off volrath stronghold while a high base of counters help it ward off threats with fireball usually being the key kill card. Variations of the 5cu include using shard phoenix for kill and creature control, diabolic edicts and incinerates for better creature control, more basic lands for a steadier mana supply, and more disenchants for threat removal. Sideboard can include phyrexian furnance for graveyard removal (gaea's blessing threats). Null rod to stop cursed scroll, disks for more board control, and pyroblasts and hydroblasts for color specific threats. Lobotomies are especially useful in this deck to remove key threats or gaea's blessings while tranquil domains and hurkyl's recall are actually better in some respects to teferi's realm for mass removal of enchantment and artifact threats. The 5cu is fine if you want to play in apprentice where you'll always get good shuffing and an even mana distribution. However, in the real world that doesn't happen and the 5cu usually will fall to any kind of creature rush with mana deprivation. A lone winter orb can wreak the 5cu, while a timely armageddon will simply kill it. A good 5cu blue player needs to play this deck for a while before realizing what to do when and when to do it. Without a wasteland, a volrath's stronghold runs rampant over the 5cu. Simply countering whipsers leaves the 5cu helpless in the mid-game after it has depleated its resources combating the rush that you've already employed. Probability of top 8: 35% Archtype #10 - 5cb or "187 ver 2.0" 4 Black Knight 4 Dauthi Slayer 3 Nekrataal 1 Shadow Guildmage 2 Granger Guildmage 3 Diabolic Edict 4 Incinerate 1 Firestorm 4 Man o War 3 Mana Leak 2 Tradewind Rider 2 Uktabi Orangutang 2 Disenchant 3 Cursed Scrolls 1 Volrath Stronghold 2 Wasteland 4 Reflecting Pools 3 Gemstone Mine 2 Undiscovered Paradise 2 City of Brass 2 Underground River 6 Swamps The 5cb is a bit different than the 5cg. The 5cb relies more on a beatdown type element than a control element that the 5cg employs. Card advantage is still key in this deck and borrow a lot of the philosophy of the "187" deck that showed up at last years regionals. Drawing from quality black creatures, it employs an early beatdown combined with a lot of creature removal to ensure the kill. A lot of stall elements are availble through the man o war and tradewind rider. Varients include going back to the 187 philosophy with winter orbs and more counterspells. There is also a more fired up version with much more creatures, less control, and a lot more firepower. Sideboard includes pyroblasts, disenchants, and more threat removal. Perish is useful to remove nasty walls and helps kill 5cg. Scragnoth and boil are useful against blue players, while honorable passage and hydroblasts are especially useful against sligh. Wastelands and choking sands are especially useful against the multilands and opposing volrath's stronghold. Beating the 5cb deck usually involves slowing down the initial creature rush. There isn't as much late game cards in the 5cb deck as there in the the 5cg deck. If you can slow down the rush and slowly take control, you're usually okay against this deck. Removing the key threats of the deck like the volrath's stronghold and nekrataal is important to make sure you have control over the deck. So there are 10 archtype decks. As a note, I didn't put as many combo decks together. They are usually fragile and cards like aura of slience and disenchant or any kind of mana disruption or hand disruption can ruin them. I believe that white weenie is the strongest deck out there right now that you can play in regionals. It is increadibly versitile and multifaced. As a result, make sure that you're ready against it, as it will dominate the field. Christopher Wong Computer Specialist UCI Health System http://members.tripod.com/~Obiah