When Theron"Master T" Martin was recently suspended, no one was more upset than I. Throughout my competitive Magic: the Gathering career (which spans nearly an entire year), I had relied heavily on Master T's Metagame Madness articles to prepare for tournaments. Without Master T, how would I know what decks everyone would be playing? How would I know what to playtest against? My life was over.

Then, I had an epiphany. I could write my own Metagame Madness articles. What a brilliant idea! Not only would I get all the Top 8 statistics that I got before, but I would now have the fame and fortune that comes with being an internet Magic: the Gathering writer. (Oh yeah, and the chicks! The chicks just never stop! - The Ferrett, formerly famous internet writer)

Despite all my dreams of living large, I knew that writing Metagame Madness would be very difficult. I also knew that I had no experience, so I needed some help. I started by e-mailing Master T himself, and asking him for some advice. He suggested that I start by writing an article introducing myself and asking the readers for their help. That is why I am writing this article. I plan to write a Type 2 Metagame Madness article after State Championships, but I need your help. If you see a tournament report, just e-mail me at billwaite@billwaite.com and tell me where you saw it. If you are at your Championship and you manage to make Top 8, or just stick around to see the final standings, write down what decks are in the Top 8. I don't need entire decklists, just short descriptions (such as"Red/Green Beatdown"). It shouldn't be too much trouble, and any help you can give me would be greatly appreciated.

I would also like to take this opportunity to give a quick overview of the predicted metagame. This should give you some idea of what decks you can expect to play against, and, hopefully, it will show you that I am qualified to write this article. I will start with the decks that I expect to be the most popular, and work my way down.

1. Red/Green and Red/Green/x Beatdown

Red/Green beatdown combines the mana acceleration of Birds of Paradise and Llanowar Elves with the power of cards like Call of the Herd, Beast Attack, and Flametongue Kavu. After that, the deck can go in many different directions. I have seen some decks with tons of two casting-cost creatures, such as Wild Mongrel and Kavu Titan. I have seen some that skip the two-drops altogether and are loaded with five casting-cost creatures like Skizzik and Shivan Wurm. Some even splash a third color for cards like Thornscape Apprentice or Spiritmonger. No matter how the rest of the deck is built, the combination of mana acceleration and power cards will make Red/Green beatdown very difficult to beat.

I think that red/green beatdown will be the biggest part of the metagame for one simple reason: It wins. I still haven't been able to find a deck that beats Red/Green in the first game. Blue decks should have a better chance against Red/Green after sideboarding in four Hibernations, but it's still not an easy win by any stretch of the imagination. Any deck that's not running blue will have a terrible time trying to beat Red/Green. If you don't plan to play Red/Green beatdown, make sure your deck can beat it. If you do plan on playing Red/Green beatdown, make sure your deck can win the mirror match. I would suggest a deck something like this:

1 Keldon Necropolis
4 Karplusan Forest
2 City of Brass
2 Mossfire Valley
5 Mountain
9 Forest
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Call of the Herd
4 Spellbane Centaur
4 Beast Attack
4 Shivan Wurm
4 Flametongue Kavu
1 Horned Kavu
4 Urza's Rage
4 Firebolt

This deck is not the fastest Red/Green beatdown deck, and it has a terrible mana curve, but it is tuned to win the mirror match. Four Shivan Wurms and one Horned Kavu gives you five ways to bounce your Flametongue Kavus. Shivan Wurm also gives you a huge creature that will be very hard to deal with. Firebolt can kill two of your opponent's Flametongues as soon as they hit the board, so you won't have to worry about your opponent bouncing her Flametongues. Spellbane Centaur and Urza's Rage aren't that important in the mirror, but can be amazing in other matchups.

2. Shadowmage Infiltrator decks

It seems that the control decks in the new environment have two things in common: Shadowmage Infiltrator and Counterspell. There are many different ways to fill out the rest of the deck. The most popular seems to be the U/W/B"Finkula" deck played by Dan Clegg and Jon Finkel at the Invitational. Finkula combines the card drawing of Infiltrator and Fact or Fiction with several counterspells, removal, and efficient creatures like Spectral Lynx and Meddling Mage. Most Finkula decks will look something like this:

4 Salt Marsh
4 Coastal Tower
4 Adarkar Wastes
4 Caves of Koilos
4 Underground River
3 Skycloud Expanse
1 Darkwater Catacombs
4 Meddling Mage
4 Shadowmage Infiltrator
4 Spectral Lynx
2 Dromar, the Banisher
4 Counterspell
4 Dromar's Charm
2 Absorb
4 Recoil
4 Fact or Fiction
4 Vindicate

Finkula is one of the best alternatives to Red/Green. Spectral Lynx and Meddling Mage are both excellent, and Fact or Fiction and Shadowmage Infiltrator are the best card drawers in the format. Spectral Lynx, Meddling Mage, and Hibernation in the sideboard make Finkula one of the few decks that can beat Red/Green with any kind of consistency.

Also quite popular are U/B/R control decks that use Urza's Rage to kill opposing Infiltrators, and U/B Opposition, which I will cover in the next section. U/B/R, like Finkula, is one of the better decks in the format. U/B/R does not have access to Spectral Lynx or Meddling Mage, which hurts its chances against Red/Green - but it does have access to Urza's Rage, other burn spells, and possibly even Flametongue Kavu. Urza's Rage makes U/B/R excellent against Finkula and other Shadowmage Infiltrator decks.

3. Opposition decks

There are basically two different types of Opposition decks that I expect to be a major part of the new metagame. The first is U/G Opposition, which uses the mana acceleration of Birds of Paradise and Llanowar elves and the token generators, Call of the Herd and Beast Attack. It uses a lot of the same power cards that R/G uses, and backs them up with Opposition and counterspells. One of its biggest flaws is that it has no way to deal with opposing creatures aside from tapping them. That means that Meddling Mage will give this deck fits, and Opposition is the only way to deal with Shadowmage Infiltrator. Also, because it uses the token-making spells, it will be crushed by Hibernation after sideboarding. Because of all this, U/G Opposition is crushed by decks like Finkula, and doesn't really have any great matchups.

The second is U/B Opposition/Static Orb, which I believe is better than U/G Opposition, but I don't think it will be as popular. U/B Opposition uses the card drawing of Shadowmage Infiltrator and Thieving Magpie along with disruption such as Duress, Counterspell, and Memory Lapse, and lots of cheap, efficient creatures. Here is the decklist that Kai Budde used at the Invitational:

4 Salt Marsh
4 Underground River
9 Island
5 Swamp
4 Nightscape Familiar
3 Vodalian Zombie
4 Shadowmage Infiltrator
2 Thieving Magpie
4 Merfolk Looter
4 Sleight of Hand
4 Duress
4 Opposition
3 Static Orb
3 Memory Lapse
3 Counterspell

Nightscape Familiar, Duress, and Memory Lapse make this deck excellent against opposing control decks, as it can often force down a Magpie, Infiltrator, or Opposition, before the opponent gets a chance to set up. Merfolk Looter is also quite good, as it is a cheap way to improve your hand quality, and will help you force through your spells later in the game. U/B Opposition/Orb also is very good against many types of beatdown decks, because with all of its card drawing, it can set up a lock very quickly. This deck does have some trouble with R/G, however, because R/G can often kill all of the important card drawers and still have plenty of creatures to beat down before it can get any kind of lock. It does have access to Hibernation in the sideboard, but R/G is still a tough matchup. It also has a lot of trouble with Juntu Stakes and Spellbane Centaur, which may prove to be popular sideboard cards in this environment.

4. Sligh

Sligh uses cheap red creatures and direct damage to kill opposing creatures or to deal the final few points of damage to the opponent. Unfortunately, Sligh just isn't very good in this environment. It is somewhat like R/G beatdown, but it gives up a lot of power cards for a modest increase in speed (and this is only goldfish speed; if you are trying to kill a real opponent, R/G will often do it faster). Sligh even uses garbage like Goblin Raider and Firebrand Ranger, when it could easily play Wild Mongrel and Kavu Titan with minimal harm to the mana base. I can see no reason to play Sligh in this environment.

5. Stompy

Stompy uses cheap green creatures and Giant Growth effects to save its creatures or finish off the opponent. Some Stompy decks also use Overrun to finish off the opponent. Like Sligh, Stompy just seems like a less powerful version of R/G beatdown. In goldfishing, it is a bit faster than R/G; but in actual play, it is too easily shut down by creatures like Spectral Lynx and Vodalian Zombie. It also has the problem of being green, so Hibernation can wreck it. I would not recommend playing Stompy at States.

6. White Weenie and White/x Weenie

White Weenie uses cheap white creatures, with several different options to fill out the rest of the deck. Some use Disenchants and Glorious Anthem or Divine Sacrament, some splash blue for counterspells, Meddling Mage, and sideboard Hibernation - and some splash red for burn, Goblin Legionnaire, and Flametongue Kavu. In many matchups, White Weenie is a pretty solid deck (especially W/r Weenie). However, it gets completely crushed by R/G, and there are no matchups in which it is amazing. I would not recommend playing White Weenie at States.

7. Combo decks

There has been a lot of buzz on the internet lately about combo decks in the new Standard environment. I don't think any of these decks will have a huge impact on the environment, but I think that at least a few people will try to play them. I won't really go into the matchups too much, because they often have more to do with how good the combo deck's hand is than anything else. The first is"Rice Snack," which was played by Tsuyoshi Fujita at the Invitational:

11 Forest
6 Island
3 Plains
1 Swamp
1 Mountain
4 Rampant Growth
4 Harrow
4 Fertile Ground
4 Allied Strategies
3 Concentrate
1 Fact or Fiction
4 Worldly Counsel
4 Orim's Chant
4 Restock
4 Early Harvest
1 Ghitu Fire
1 Time Stretch

It combines Fertile Ground, Rampant Growth, Harrow, and Early Harvest to produce tons of mana, Allied Strategies, Concentrate, and Restock to draw tons of cards, and Orim's Chant so that it can"go off" without worrying about counterspells. It also includes one Ghitu Fire to kill the opponent. This is a pretty solid deck, and easily the best of the combo decks. It can go off pretty quickly, out-racing beatdown decks reasonably often, and a control deck can rarely counter an Orim's Chant and another important spell. That said, it still isn't all that great, and it can sometimes just lose to a second turn Meddling Mage naming"Ghitu Fire." (Assuming, of course, they are using Ghitu Fire as the kill card. I would probably recommend naming"Early Harvest" before you know what their kill card is, as it would be very difficult to go off without using Early Harvest.)

Another deck that has seen some hype is a Traumatize/Haunting Echoes combo deck. This seems to me like a terrible deck that has no chance of winning any games, but some people think that it is very good.

Finally, there is the Nefarious Lich/Confessor combo deck. This deck uses Nefarious Lich, Confessor, and either Zombie Infestation or Psychatog to create infinite tokens (unless the deck has a finite number of cards, strangely enough) or attack with a 20/21 Psychatog. The rest of the deck is made up of tutors to find the parts of the combo and ways to protect the combo, such as Orim's Chant.

Of course, those aren't all of the decks that will be played. Other decks to look at include land destruction (which is always played by a few people), discard (again, a few people play discard in every format), and Braids decks. Of course, it is impossible to prepare for every deck, but if you are prepared for the decks listed above, you should be able to do well at your State Championship.

Now, if you would like to know a little more about me, please continue reading. If not, I have said all I need to say. I am 19 years old, 6' 3" tall (that's about 1.9 meters, for all of the metric system users in the house), and I weigh 200 pounds (about 91 kg). I am currently working as an intern at Nuclear Management Company in Minneapolis, but I will be going back to school at Purdue University in the spring. My major is Nuclear Engineering. All of you ladies out there will be happy to hear that I am single. My hobbies include Magic: the Gathering and writing Magic: the Gathering articles on the internet.

I started playing Magic when I was in 8th grade. I continued to play casually for three or four years. Around the time Urza's Saga came out, I gradually got tired of playing Magic and quit the game. After I graduated high school (just after Prophecy came out), I found out that my local store held weekly booster drafts. I had heard about booster drafting, and it sounded like a lot of fun. I started playing every week, then started playing in PTQs. One thing led to another, and I am now a competitive Magic player. If you would like to learn more about me, feel free to visit http://www.billwaite.com, the internet's primary source of Bill Waite-related information. (And the secondary sources are...? - The Ferrett)

Good luck at States!

Bill Waite
billwaite@billwaite.com
BillWaite on IRC

Master B's Anime Pick of the Week

Ranma 1/2

Ranma 1/2 is about a guy who turns into a girl when cold water is poured on him. He turns back into a guy when hot water is poured on him. His father is similar, but he turns into a panda instead of a girl. I watched it in 9th grade, and I thought it was pretty funny at the time. Because Ranma 1/2 is the only anime I have ever seen, this will be the final installment of Master B's Anime Pick of the Week.

Don't forget to visit my website at http://www.billwaite.com