by Forrest M. Lee (Implode)

I want to talk about some of the decks that are going to be big with states this season. Everyone is excited with the chance to to make new and innovative decks, and I'm no exception. I see many playing shadowmage control as it is a seamingly dominating deck. However their is no reason we can't look at all the other decks of the format to be better prepared.

Holistic Wisdom Decks
R/G Ponza: recuring land destruction for the win, uses pillage and stone rain in addition to new land kill cards from OD.
R/U/W: Recurs chant for a lock down, then uses a kickered rage for the win, other ovious choice for this deck are viviy, and muscle burst.
B/U/G: This varient uses undermine, and mystic snake to counter lock and win with snakes and damage

Permission Decks
U/B Control: Uses undermines, and shadownages to dominate the board
U/W Control: Uses global removal cards like WOG and Kirtars Wrath to control board, and uses a flyer as finisher. Iridecent angel may make a cameo or 2.
U/G Control: Drops snakes and squirrels, then drops opposition for the lock down win.

Creature Decks
GOmar: Counter everything, drop a big dromar for the win
R Firecat--thunder cat revenge: Heavy land destruction with a firecat for the win.
G/B Spiritmonger: Heavy creature with ebony treefolk, pernicious deed control, and great mana curve
RW Clerics Deck: Master apothecary, pro R/B clerics--kirtar, new crusade, removal--and a suprise powerstone minefield.
B Patriarch Control: played similiar to old plaguelord decks
GW enforcer/panther control: you play a tempo game that drops really good threats, and great mana curve
U Thought Devourer Decks: this deck plays like skies, you can win, and counter threats
B Mortivore wins: weenie rush taking 1:1s when necassary--then mortive for strong finish

Millstone Decks
U/B Millstone: Haunting echos, traumatize and millstone, and defensive creatures
B Agressive Echos: Lots and lots of discard, tempo creatures, and haunting echos.

Other Decks
R/G Mirrari/Duplicate creatures: this deck doubles good green creatures and red burn spells for a win. Call of herd, fire and ice, and ghitu fire are strong candidates.
UGr Time Stretch: this deck uses new frontiers and taking turns, you will always be able to get your R mana because new frontiers you choose the land.
GR Sieze the day: Turbo mana, then a suprise attack 3 times for the win. This deck uses BOP, and shivan wurm. You may see this combo in fires.
Squirrel win: This deck uses chatter of squirrel, nut collector and squirrel mob to win in fun style.
G Bearscape/Titan decks: A cheap gorilla beating deck that has bears to back it up
R Sligh: tight mana curve, many cheap creatures and burn, turn 6 wins consistantly
BW Arena: uses discard like verdict, vindicate--powered by rage/arena to draw quickly, and lynx for control. Usually uses dessolation angel for win.

Other than that, you're probably more or less right with your guesses.

Yes I also cover some casual looking decks..
A lot of those decks look more like casual than any serious tournament.

My metagame include is because its a sleeper deck style...
Holistic Wisdom deck?

I never said you couldn't include call of herd, or even it wasn't a solid slot.
U/G Prison is proven to work better with Call of the Herd etc. than with wimpy squirrels.

I was simply suggesting global removal, not that that was most optimal
Why would anyone play Kirtar's Wrath when Rout and Wrath of God are still T2 legal? Both of them are superior to the overcosted kiddy card.

An honest mistake...
Why isn't Go-Mar listed in Permission decks? It's not a creature deck (which is rather silly name, you should say "aggressive" since most decks play creatures).

How the hell is morphling legal in type II at states? Good players play with trefolk beats, but don't use ability unless haveing overabundance of mana.
G/B Spiritmonger isn't a decktype. You might have G/B beats, but Spiritmonger alone isn't a reason good enough to name a deck. You never see any "U Morphling decks" either, yet Morphling is clearly more played than Monger. I seriously doubt the deck would play Ebony Treefolks.

Locally people play minefield decks....
Your RW Clerics Deck sounds really something one might think of after smoking too much forbidden substances.

Thats not true early plaguelord decks didn't use hermits....
Basically one could think that Patriarch is the new Plaguelord, but there are few "but"s. First of all, Plaguelord worked best with Deranged Hermit, and it was powered very much by Gaea's Cradle. The fact that Cradle is no longer T2 legal, the fact that Patriarch costs 1 colored mana more and the fact (the most important one) that you have to spend mana to activate Patriarch's abilities make it quite unplayable outside limited.

Wrong in platesting it was really powerful.
GW enforcer/panther control is another just really stupid concept. How are you going to "control" the game with few moderate sized creatures? How is GW supposed to get Threshold in time for Enforcer? This deck would fall to a lot of things.

Your just plain wrong...spellbook is nice, but not even really neccasary.
Thought Snack deck will NOT work like skies; skies was fueled by alternative casting cost spells. Since we don't have them now, and considering that you have to play 4 Spellbooks in the archetype (taking card slots from other stuff) make this deck a lot less viable than what Skies was.

Reminicent of old goyf decks, where you load up with early creatures and goyf beats later.
Mortivore deck sounds somewhat silly as well, as there are tons of ways to deal with Mortivore, and it's really not the best finisher there is.

About your UB Millstone: why would you play Traumatize in it? What does it do that Millstone and time wouldn't do otherwise? Mirari is WAY too expensive for the future T2 scene.

Wrong, mirari is late game finisher.
If you wait three extra turns just to get more out of your Call of the Herd, you're in some trouble, and if you later on draw Mirari when you have one on table you'll not be happy. Nut Collector is 1/1 for 6 mana. If you still don't see what's wrong with it, I don't think it's worth explaining more.

Other than that, you're probably more or less right with your guesses.

I was NOT saying Holistic Wisdom was a bad card, but to make four coloured contraption around it seems pushing it far too much. Not to mention your "obvious choices" being Vivify (not good outside limited) and Muscle Burst (this is in no way obvious choice, as boost in general is the staple of AGGRESSIVE decks, not controllish ones, and Holistic Wisdom is more controllish/comboish).

The U/G Prison I mentioned doesn't use squirrels at all. I got the impression that you wanted 3-4 chatters and 3-4 nests in it, which takes 6-8 slots away from other cards. Squirrel Opposition might be good too, but I'd rather metagame against the better UG Prison.

You completely missed my point about the deckname B/G pile. It was about deck names, not formats. How many Morphling decks have you seen that are called "Morphling decks"? Applying the same logic, calling a deck "Spiritmonger deck" is just plain stupid because Spiritmonger is not the core of the deck. Core of the deck is to drop overcosted fatties with mana acceleration from Birds and Elves.

If people there play Minefield decks, more power to you. Shouldn't be too hard to beat. Still, you shouldn't go listing that as "expected metagame" because decks like that probably won't be seen in the victorious side of round 3+.

Mayhaps the earlier Plaguelord didn't use Hermits, but the best ones did. And the second and third problems I listed still exist.

In my playtesting, GW sucked.

SPELLBOOK NOT NECESSARY??? Implode, THINK really hard. Here's a straight quote:

quote:

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U Thought Devourer Decks: this deck plays like skies, you can win, and counter threats

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Old Lhurgoyf didn't have to worry about the current metagame, which is full of Oppositions, effective Countermagic, Terminates and Wrath of Gods. You can't possibly think that because Lhurgoyf was good or so-so in T2 over 5 years ago, it would be just as good now.

Mirari might be lategame finisher against decks like... like... Uhm. Only so many ways to destroy it when your deck has no other targets for disenchant effects, you know? And if you draw it early on, it'll be a dead card which might be bad, ya know?

Sigh, how can you be so wrong so many times and do it twice? (Thrice if you count the point where you said I was wrong "so many times").

I did NOT flame you. I was pointing out weaknesses. And you're right, I don't like you. You're "blowing your own horn" way too much... amongst other things. But that did not have anything to do with my previous post, I would have said the same things to anyone who made so many stupid mistakes.

Unless all of this was a clever plan to get people prepare their sideboard and maindecks against decks that aren't all that good so that YOU will have a better chance with a deck that's actually playable and has chances to win. In that case, I congratulate you for your cynical and manipulative nature.

I was NOT saying Holistic Wisdom was a bad card, but to make four coloured contraption around it seems pushing it far too much. Not to mention your "obvious choices" being Vivify (not good outside limited) and Muscle Burst (this is in no way obvious choice, as boost in general is the staple of AGGRESSIVE decks, not controllish ones, and Holistic Wisdom is more controllish/comboish).

I would use chatter of squirrel as a 1 drop, but not nests. Don't assume--it makes an *** out of u and me.

The U/G Prison I mentioned doesn't use squirrels at all. I got the impression that you wanted 3-4 chatters and 3-4 nests in it, which takes 6-8 slots away from other cards. Squirrel Opposition might be good too, but I'd rather metagame against the better UG Prison.

So you don't like my deck name--so what, no one likes all deck names. How is this even relevent?

You completely missed my point about the deckname B/G pile. It was about deck names, not formats. How many Morphling decks have you seen that are called "Morphling decks"? Applying the same logic, calling a deck "Spiritmonger deck" is just plain stupid because Spiritmonger is not the core of the deck. Core of the deck is to drop overcosted fatties with mana acceleration from Birds and Elves.

Minefield deck is a suboptimal combo deck, however I think some people will try and play it again--especially with all the new power white cards...

If people there play Minefield decks, more power to you. Shouldn't be too hard to beat. Still, you shouldn't go listing that as "expected metagame" because decks like that probably won't be seen in the victorious side of round 3+.

The good versions didn't need to use hermits, because they didn't need mana exceleration to cast this expesnive beasty. Some hermit decks put these in, but by plaguelord deck I mean not hermit decks wich included them.

Mayhaps the earlier Plaguelord didn't use Hermits, but the best ones did. And the second and third problems I listed still exist.

So you haven't seen the wisdom of 7-up, panther, enforcer--green white can really control things!

In my playtesting, GW sucked.

Absolutely, you wait till opponent deal with one threat before laying them all out on the line. Even with the biggest thought beast that is still 3 cards in hand--enough counters to win except against pure control.

SPELLBOOK NOT NECESSARY??? Implode, THINK really hard. Here's a straight quote:

quote:

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U Thought Devourer Decks: this deck plays like skies, you can win, and counter threats

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I didn't say it would be good, I merely said I exspect to see a few people playing it.

Old Lhurgoyf didn't have to worry about the current metagame, which is full of Oppositions, effective Countermagic, Terminates and Wrath of Gods. You can't possibly think that because Lhurgoyf was good or so-so in T2 over 5 years ago, it would be just as good now.

Mirari might be lategame finisher against decks like... like... Uhm. Only so many ways to destroy it when your deck has no other targets for disenchant effects, you know? And if you draw it early on, it'll be a dead card which might be bad, ya know?

Sigh, how can you be so wrong so many times and do it twice? (Thrice if you count the point where you said I was wrong "so many times").

Explaining the metagame does not make me stupid, I merely understand people will and always will play silly rogue decks. If no one plays a roguedeck at any prerelease, it would be the first tournament ever...I'm just saying I'm sick of you arguing for the point of arguing rather then hearing why am saying what I'm saying.

I did NOT flame you. I was pointing out weaknesses. And you're right, I don't like you. You're "blowing your own horn" way too much... amongst other things. But that did not have anything to do with my previous post, I would have said the same things to anyone who made so many stupid mistakes.

If your deck beats all these then fine--I guess your a better player then me. You have probably made 100,000 bucks on the pro tour because of your perfect knowledge of magic.

__________________
2nd in refs in SC
2nd ranked poster in SC

Also GUw control is good too

__________________
its crack...its crack, magic is crack

Milk is nice drink. I drink 3-4 pints most day.

quote:

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Originally posted by MAGIC is CARDBOARD crack:
I've seen a GREAT read it GREAT GW deck with enforcers- you play with enforcers, wild mongrels, and the GW atog, what you do is... get them out...play balancing act-sac lands to atog in response, discard hand to mongrel, and you instantaneously have threshold + they have no hand and 3 permanents to work with...

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I have seen this deck too, and it is NOT that great. r/g handles it without a problem as does any deck with at least one counterspell in it.

I also agree that CotH is suboptimal in g/u prison. It matters not how big the creatures are in the deck. It matters only how MANY creatures there are in play to induce the lock.

__________________
2nd in refs in SC
2nd ranked poster in SC

kevy dont give out my deck for states!!

i mean... um im playing FINKEL JUST LIKE EVRYONEELSE...

ok i think i covered that up pretty well...

(^____^)

__________________
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But, as effective as it may be, finkeling your opponents to death is an insane amount of fun.

~G

If you wish to win in States this year, play something that has been played before. It doesn't get simpler than that.