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Wacky Formats!
If you’ve found yourself bored of the traditional formats, I’d like to open this week's roundup with the "What’s your favorite casual format?" thread. There are some interesting ideas there, so if your group has been a little dull lately, check it out for some inspiration.
The most popular new format at the moment seems to be Type 4/Infinity. I went searching for some rules on that format, but couldn’t get a link. If someone who knows the format could post it in the forums, that would help boost this interesting new style of play.
(Note to Dan: You obviously didn't use the StarCityGames.com Search Engine. A quick search for Type 4 brought up two articles with relevant links. – The Ferrett)
Reactor? I Hardly Know 'Er!
Has anyone successfully used Darksteel Reactor as a win condition? RealTimShady wants to, and has asked for help with his Emperor format deck. It’s a three-color deck, which he’s hoping to refine into something that works, but he’s very inexperienced in the Emperor format. Hopefully, he’s reading Laura Mills’ series on Emperor for more tips — but if you have suggestions for him, go to it.
Affinity, We Hardly Knew Ye
Shadowfury is looking for some advice on building a deck that's legal in both Standard and Magic. Does anyone have a suggestion that isn’t Affinity?
Everyone’s said how powerful Affinity decks are, but until recently I’d never played one. Wow. Even in a format like Peasant, I can see how brutal this deck is, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see a shift to a lot of red decks to help stem the tide. The March bannings might help (Just mmmmmaybe – The Ferrett), but the floor is open to make suggestions, so go to it!
Fighting The Other Colors, As Usual
Blue mages who love multiplayer, but just get hammered, Slipstream07 feels your pain. He’s posted a deck that wants to use Quicksilver Behemoth to win, and is hoping to keep it mono-U. It’s an admirable attempt, and one worthy of consideration, demonstrating one of the great things about being a casual player: just trying new ideas out. If you’re a blue mage, take a look at the deck; you’ll probably see something that’s been missed.
Also making the multiplayer rounds is Revel’s Shrine deck. It’s only running twenty lands, which is always a problem for control decks (or, in fact, any deck that isn’t Stompy or Sligh) — but he’s made a start. Dearnhardt4ever8 has a Shrine deck of his own which I think fits the theme better, using Ghostly Prison instead of Peacekeeper to keep the creature attacks going elsewhere, and has some better mana fixers in there — but since he only has twenty lands, I question how successful it will be.
Hey - do you like to whine? Well knock it off. The Casual Forum Ninjas are stealthy and smart, but none of us like people who don’t want to post decklists but love to complain. Remember, help us help you: give us a decklist — either one you want to beat, or one you want to improve — so we can actually tech it out. You usually see complaints about how unoriginal a deck is coming from someone who just doesn’t want to work to beat it. We got no time for that. There are Magical Issues and General Discussion areas for a reason.
Solidninja provides a fine example of how to do it; sick of losing to his friends’ elf decks, he’s posted a mono-Blue list and asked for improvements.
Mormeguil came up with a great suggestion here: Pestilence. Coupled with Flypaper’s suggestion of Death’s-Head Buzzard and Belzebozo’s Cabal Shrine, I’d bet Solidninja’s Elf troubles will soon be a thing of the past — and he might even be able to beat other decks, too. But has he gotten advice that makes his deck too focused on just killing tiny green men? Let him know!
