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Since this is my first article on the site, I suppose I should give you some kind of introduction. I could toot my own horn a little, and tell you about my accomplishments (or lack thereof), but I assume most of you know me already in some capacity if you're reading this article in the first place. That statement always comes out funny, doesn't it?

Who am I to say that you should know who I am? I considered following up with some kind of self-deprecating comment, to fill in for Josh Ravitz now that he's moved on to bigger things, but that's not really my style. So you can think whatever you want about my cockiness. Presuming that I'm some kind of celebrity... how very arrogant.

(I'm not, of course.)

Now that the introduction is out of the way, let's get to the real meat and potatoes of the article... and how I'm unsure about exactly what that should be. I'm feeling a little lost right now. Having wrote for other websites for a while, and knowing what people liked to read there, I really don't know if that's exactly the same for a different audience. Since I'm going to be a regular over here from now on, I figured that it'd be cool if people actually looked forward to my articles and enjoyed them. Since I'm not on Jeff Cunningham or Tim Aten's level of talent as far as writing goes, and I'm not really a comedic genius like PTR or Osyp, that kind of entertainment seems out of the question. I was enjoying my niche as the dude that just tells you all about what I found out that week: chats I've had with my friends that I got me thinking (shameless namedropping), goings on, and random anecdotes all rolled into each article. I think I'll stick with that format for the time being. As an introduction to my article style, I'll hit you with that kind of flavor today.

As a matter of fact, let me back up for a minute. I said I wasn't going to introduce myself, but I think I might take that opportunity after all. I'm not going to tell you my stats or anything of that nature... I always hated intros that said “I'm 27 years old, I live in California, I'm a Level 3 Pro, I finished 4th at this tournament and 7th at that one, blah blah blah, check out how awesome I am!”

I'm not going to do that. I'll tell you about me.

I love gaming.

I love to win at games that I play.

I'm the type of guy that tries to enjoy the social aspect of Magic and have fun on these cool trips with my friends. I try not to get too obsessive over every little mistake I make, or each bad beat that has cost me some money.

And I love combo decks.

I always play combo decks when they were viable. Although I didn't play (competitively) during Combo Winter, or during the old ProsBloom days, I wish I did. There's nothing I like more than totally ignoring what my opponent is doing, and figuring out how to win the game as soon as possible. Why? It's just one less thing for me to worry about, pretty much. I don't have to worry if I'm making the right attacks, or if I should block, or if my opponent has a trick, etc... All I have to worry about is:

1. Figuring out how many turns do I realistically think I can survive.
2. Trying to figure out how many turns it's going to take me to win the game.
3. Giving myself the best possible chance to go off as quickly as needed, playing around whatever disruption they could have.

Combo decks are basically the nuts. If they weren't the nuts they'd just be a turn too slow and, in turn, not viable. If you see a lot of good players playing them, something is up. While most people are, in fact, awful, they can't all be wrong. The only thing that makes combo decks bad is if they can't win fast enough. If they're too fragile. If they can win a race against the most aggressive deck in the format at least half the time, they're probably good enough to show up. Desire Combo — or TEPS - is the type of deck that does that now. At this present moment, it's the king of the combo decks.

Since I've been doing a little testing for Grand Prix: Dallas, and since the PTQ format is Extended, I thought I'd share some of the things I've learned so far. The first deck I picked up was Desire (of course), and I think the lists I'm seeing are a few cards off, but they're still really good. I was using a list that won a local PTQ out here in San Diego. It seemed really solid and super explosive. The only problem was, in my opinion, that the deck wasn't really robust enough for me. I got some really bad draws without a lot of action, and figured that it needed very little to really get it there. I think the best plan is to add either Tainted Pact or Night's Whisper to the deck, to give it a little more card drawing and help out some of those no-action hands. Sure, they're going to be pretty bad against the beatdown decks, but I think those matchups are generally favorable for you... and 3 life for a win a turn earlier is a small price to pay. I tried to add a few more cyclers, since I was having trouble with colored mana and cycling through enough cards. Here's my current list, for you guys out there that want to give it a whirl.

TEPS Featured by John Fiorillo on 2007-01-21 (Extended) As written about in http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/13547.html Print this deck!
Maindeck: Artifacts 4 Chromatic Star 4 Chrome Mox 4 Darkwater Egg 4 Lotus Bloom	Instants 4 Cabal Ritual 4 Seething Song Sorceries 4 Burning Wish 3 Duress 1 Empty the Warrens 3 Mind's Desire 2 Night's Whisper 4 Rite of Flame 3 Sins of the Past 1 Tendrils of Agony Lands 3 Gemstone Mine 4 Geothermal Crevice 4 Sulfur Vent 4 Tinder Farm	Sideboard: 3 Orim's Chant 2 Plunge Into Darkness 1 Channel The Suns 1 Duress 1 Empty the Warrens 1 Hull Breach 1 Mind's Desire 2 Night's Whisper 1 Pyroclasm 2 Tendrils of Agony
Download this deck in Apprentice format!		Download this deck in Magic Online Text format!

The other decks in the format that I like at the moment are Boros, U/W Tron, U/W/R Counterbalance, and some of the Green beatdown decks like Aggro Loam and Destructive Flow. Obviously, there are other viable decks so let's not have a bunch of flamers on the forums about how I left out their favorite deck. I haven't played with every deck out there, as there are too many and I have a real life to deal with on the side. I am increasingly enamored with the idea of Tooth and Nail as a deck choice, though. Mainly because I think the cards that hate out the other combo decks - such as Orim's Chant, Pyrostatic Pillar and Rule of Law - do absolutely nothing against that deck. I haven't played that much with it, but in theory you have a pretty good matchup against most decks in the format. Against the aggressive decks you have Moment's Peace, which accounts for a large number of matchups. Against the other decks you can assemble the Tron and out-mana your opponent. You can even top things off with a Boseiju, and really nail them to the wall.

If anyone has any experience with this deck, I'd love to see what you have to say, either in an email or on the forums here. I'm trying to come up with a good list to add to my gauntlet. I'm thinking Green/White (for better Wish targets, and better game against aggressive decks). This seems like the best way to go, but I could certainly see Blue (mainly for Stifle to give you a better shot against combo, and potentially Spell Burst or Condescend) being a good choice as well. Also, I was wondering if anyone had some concrete info on the Urzatron versus Cloudpost setup. I'm definitely going to be putting this together and giving it a run this week, so if you're interested in seeing how it goes let me know and I'll be sure to include it in my next article.

On to the next topic... I think the Boros decks out there seem a little loose at times. I'm seeing a lot of people either going too crazy to win the mirror, or not really having any idea how to do so. I see a lot of decks still playing Sudden Shock, which I think is just wrong. I'm sure I'll get a lot of flack for this too, but I figured why not start things off with a bang. I want to go on record saying Sudden Shock is just not what it's cracked up to be. Sure, there might be metagames in other times where the card shines, but that metagame is not this metagame, and that time is not now. Do yourselves a favor and leave the Sudden Shocks in the sideboard... or, preferably, at home. There aren't too many decks playing Sakura-Tribe Elder, and there certainly aren't too many people running Psychatogs out there... so what are your Sudden Shocks actually for? Do you really want a two damage for two mana burn spell in your deck? I would most likely either replace that card with Seal of Fire, Rift Bolt, or Pyrite Spellbomb, depending on what metagame you're expecting.

If you want to win the mirror, it's important to have eight pro-Red guys and Pyrite Spellbomb in your deck. Armadillo Cloak and Jitte only matter if you can win the fight over the pro-Red guys anyway. I have been trying lots of different sideboard plans, and right now I'm still undecided on the way to go I see way too many people just playing this match-up completely wrong, and it makes me want to play the deck more and more. I would go into a lot further detail here, but my co-worker and good friend Patrick Sullivan was saying that he was thinking about writing a primer on the Red Deck Mirror. I wouldn't want to spoil that for you guys, and I also don't want anything on record that contradicts anything he has to say about that topic. If I say something controversial now, I could end up looking foolish if Patrick says I'm wrong, and I can't take that kind of beat at this stage in my career on this website.

One little tidbit I will share with you, though, is that I hate a card like Orim's Chant in the board of a deck like that.

Even though that card will absolutely crush a combo deck if they try to go off without playing around it, and you can apply pressure to force them to go off, it's still not the ideal card. I would much rather have something like Blistering Firecat for those match-ups, since it also effectively makes them try to go off faster or die, but it doesn't have the drawback of being only good against one deck and slowing down your own draw. Pyrostatic Pillar is okay, but I'm less into that card since it's something they can just calculate and play around.

That's all I have for today. I know it was pretty tough to follow this time, but I feel more focused on some days than others. This time I figured I'd just vomit out a bunch of thoughts, and try to get a feel for what people like and dislike... I'll be refining my style over time.

It's a process, people.

John

PS: I don't know what to name my column. Any suggestions?