Those who forget history are doomed to repeat the eighth grade.

Ha, bet you thought I was going to say something else, didn't you. The truth is, Magic is a game with such a deep, complicated history, it takes a person with amazing memory who has been playing the game for almost ten years to get it all right. Anyone who started playing in the past year remember qualifying for Pro Tour '99? How about getting passed an Erratic Portal in Rath Block Limited? What was it like to open up a Juzam Djinn and say,"Sheesh, this card is crap?"

The fantastic thing about Magic is, you don't have to know all that. The present is so closely linked to the past that you've already felt the echoes from those ages. Even if you've never met a player who knows any of the above, you've no doubt met its descendants along the way. R&D has to remember that far back. They're the ones managing the game. You, just be happy with your Crystal Shards and your Grinning Demons. The past isn't yours to improve upon.

Rather, as a player, you must improve upon the present. You have to beat the player across the table from you. You're not likely to have played against U/G Madness and said to yourself,"You know, when I stop to think about it, I can see a number of similarities between this deck and CounterSliver! Now, what would be the best way to beat CounterSliver..." Well, I hope you're not doing that. First off, you're probably going to get warned for slow play. Secondly, you're going to get your face smashed in if you start pondering strategies against long-dead decks. Unless your name is Mike Flores, you probably shouldn't take it upon yourself to wrack your brains (or anyone else's brains) on such a matter. It's harder to play with a headache.

So why does history matter?

Well, CounterSliver isn't going to teach you how to build your U/G Madness deck. But it certainly can teach you how to play it and what to play it against.

On the list of all-time most important Magic articles to read, Mike Flores's Finding the Tinker Deck. Mike Flores is the Magic historian. If you're going to discover anything about the past that might possibly be useful (or even interesting), there's probably a link to Mike. I'm sure you've all seen those articles that look like they're just wanting to waste your time by saying,"Well, you really need to read this article beforehand and then you can read this article you were intending to read in the first place." Unless you're particularly patient, I doubt you actually ever clicked on the link to the first article. I'm going to try to write this article as independent from Finding the Tinker Deck as I can. Consider what I'm saying to not be plagiarism, if I decide to sound a bit like good ol' Mike. I'm taking this time to say I have a big fat source and that source is Finding the Tinker Deck. Even if you don't really have the time right now, read it some day. Save it in your favorite links. And if you've read it already, then please forgive me for retreading a certain amount of Mike's ground.

Sorry. I was forced at gunpoint from a very early age to cite my sources, so forgive that little idiosyncrasy. Now let's get on with the soul of this article!

Standard's the name of the game today. To take some information from some competing website (for shame, I know!), the site has forums set up to discuss various Standard decks. Some are expected classics (Affinity, Goblins) and some are outliers more likely to show up in Food for Thought (The Rock, Proteus Oath). Here's the list:

Affinity
Astroglide
Goblins
White Weenie
MBC
U/W Control
The Rock
B/W Control
Land D
Proteus Oath

I'm terribly unfamiliar with Proteus Oath builds (and until I just copied this list, I didn't even know anyone was trying to recreate Rock in Standard), so with your leave we'll just ignore those two decks today. The rest of the decks have (or had) strong enough proponents that, if not now, at least at some point were they considered viable and might actually show up at a Standard tournament. The fact of the matter is, they're all covered by Flores. There are no new decks, and the current Standard can't say anything against that fact. Let's take a look at the various decks and how they want to win.

Affinity
This deck rotates around making a few overcosted spells undercosted and then beating you with them. Seriously, where was the last time you saw a ten-mana creature in a lot of winning decks without ever seeing him in the graveyard first? The win condition is a huge Broodstar flying in for the kill, though Myr Enforcers and Frogmites usually get the job started and are threats themselves. An Affinity player wants to put down a load of cheap artifacts, use the extra mana and Affinity for Artifacts assistance from the artifacts to draw cards, counter spells, and play creatures, and attack with the creatures for the win. Fernando Rosal wrote an article on the statistically-perfect Affinity build, which looks a little something like this:

4 Seat of the Synod
4 Great Furnace
4 Ancient Den / Vault of Whispers
4 Glimmervoid
4 Chrome Mox
4 Mana Leak
2 Override
4 Talisman of Progress / Talisman of Dominance
4 Pyrite Spellbomb
4 Aether Spellbomb
2 Lightning Greaves
4 Thoughtcast
3 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Rush of Knowledge
4 Frogmite
4 Myr Enforcer
4 Broodstar

Blue might have been neutered a bit in the latest sets, but she's up to all her usual antics: card drawing, countering, flying, artifact love. Beyond the last one, I basically just described every single bloody Blue permission deck in the history of the game.

(Note that Affinity decks usually go for a color splash in the sideboard to increase the range of card types in the deck. Red brings in Shrapnel Blast for some cheap, direct damage or Atog/Megatog for an additional win condition. Black provides removal to make sure the deck's win conditions get through.)

Affinity itself straddles the CounterSliver-Weissman line. CounterSliver creates small threats too quick to be stopped by control, and protects them at all costs, usually with permission. Weissman is all about defense, holding back his opponent and winning in a war of attrition with good ol' card advantage. The modern-day Blue would have trouble supporting a true Weissman. The card advantage is still there in card drawing, one of the purest forms of card advantage, but Blue lacks enough permission (or removal) to play a long waiting game, especially with decks like Goblins coming out quicker than Blue can deal with on a case-by-case basis.

Weissman does love the advantage that Affinity creates with undercosted spells. The name of the game for Weissman is outmaneuvering, and nothing says outmaneuvering like casting an 8/8 for two while your opponent's paying two for a Goblin.

On the other hand, Affinity doesn't have a pure CounterSliver feel to it. The small threats are there (Frogmites and Myr Enforcers), the protection for those threats is there, but you're not going to win the game with the little threats. You're going to get to the end with big threats and straight-out outplaying. So Affinity has the card advantage and specific threats of Weissman but the small threats and less control of CounterSliver. Games can go either Weissman or CounterSliver depending upon the draw, but in the end, you want to see all those threats out, small or large. The feel is more CounterSliver than Weissman, but the contribution of Weissman is there.

Affinity: CounterSliver (with some Weissman)

Astroglide
Or just call it Astral Slide. In the end, this is a one-trick deck, and that trick is cycling. Onslaught block brought a number of very effective cycling cards and a couple cards to use with cycling, Astral Slide and Lightning Rift most notable among them. The cards that technically win the game are generally Eternal Dragon, Exalted Angel, and Decree of Justice, but an Astroglide player is going to have plenty of trouble without Astral Slide or Lightning Rift to abuse.

The deck is a little slow, building up a big mana base with land-searching cards (fetchlands, slided Solemn Simulacrums, and Eternal Dragons) and maintaining a large hand with cyclers. If the opponent is developing a bit too quickly, big splashy removal takes care of that (Wrath of God against creature development, Akroma's Vengeance against artifacts). Finally, in the late game, Astroglide abuses the built-up mana base with expensive, mana-intensive spells that kill in a quick burst. An example from States:

2 Forest
4 Forgotten Cave
3 Mountain
7 Plains
4 Secluded Steppe
4 Tranquil Thicket
2 Wooded Foothills
2 Windswept Heath
3 Eternal Dragon
4 Exalted Angel
2 Gempalm Incinerator
3 Solemn Simulacrum
3 Akroma's Vengeance
3 Astral Slide
2 Decree of Justice
4 Lightning Rift
4 Renewed Faith
4 Wrath of God

(The Gempalm Incinerator is in the deck for the Goblins match-up, in case you were wondering.)

It's a one-trick deck, but cycling plays lot of duties. Astral Slide is removal, mana accelerator (a morphed Exalted Angel comes back into play face-up), and land-searcher (with Solemn Simulacrum); Lightning Rift is burn against creatures and players alike. Cycling itself keeps the hand full, thin the deck (in the case of landcycling), and helps look for needed cards.

Astroglide is always R/W to use both Astral Glide and Lightning Rift, with an occasional Green splash in the sideboard. This deck follows the R/W/g mentality. In the days after pain lands, Astroglide can manage three colors easily, thanks to deck thinning and land-searching effects.

Astroglide is the descendant of Necro decks the most. Astral Slide is the central engine by which the deck maximizes mana and card advantage. Cycling both draws cards and creates spell-type effects. Sure, Astral Slide isn't exactly as strong as The Skull, but it's still a cheap card with a very strong effect. Once it starts going, Astroglide keeps its hand full and doesn't miss a land drop. With every spell, the deck is getting the most for its mana. It may seem a bit unusual that a White card should follow so closely in the footsteps of a classic Black card, but it is honestly a card-carrying member of the Necro family.

Astroglide: Necro

Goblins
Well, it doesn't get much more straightforward than Goblins. Play lots of cheap creatures, smash face, and finish the game off with larger threats. The point of Goblins is to start off explosive and ruin in the early game the opponent's chances of winning. If the onslaught is held off for long enough, then the Goblins player tends to run out of answers.

The real synergy of the deck comes from the goblins tribal effects. Goblins are generally cheap little creatures, but they really become dangerous with cards especially benefiting the player who has more goblins. The player needs a cheap, quick opening hand (accelerated by Skirk Prospector and Goblin Warchief) followed by lots of smashing face with little goblins and goblins who would be little without any other goblins. Sulfuric Vortex helps by getting in some of that much-needed damage.

In the end, big creatures like Rorix Bladewing and Clickslither fly or trample over for the last bit of damage, or Siege-Gang Commander flings a few extraneous goblins for the final points. Here is the list from the deck which won first place in Nottingham Champs, a rather typical decklist as far as Goblins goes:

4 Pyrite Spellbomb
4 Goblin Sledder
4 Goblin Prospector
4 Goblin Piledriver
2 Terror
2 Gempalm Incinerator
2 Sulfuric Vortex
2 Goblin Sharpshooter
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Clickslither
4 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Rorix Bladewing
2 Forgotten Cave
3 Swamp
4 Bloodstained Mire
13 Mountain
1 Urborg Volcano

Goblins typifies the Red attitude: give up resources to win as quickly as possible. Either the early rush does enough damage or the player runs out of answers. The last thing the player wants is to be forced to play for the long term, as patience isn't one of Red's virtues.

Black is very commonly splashed in Goblins for two main spells: Terror and Patriarch's Bidding. Terror is added assurance against creatures (as removal doesn't get much more effective or inexpensive than Terror). Patriarch's Bidding is late-game insurance, but, with its double Black casting cost, requires a fairly extensive Black investment. When Goblins has Patriarch's Bidding, it's usually called, appropriately enough, Goblin Bidding.

The most blatantly obvious categorization is, of course, Sligh. Mono-Red Goblins is frequently known as Goblin Sligh. And, of course, the comparison can't be denied. The deck plays a number of suboptimal cards that, when put together in a properly-constructed deck, are deadly. Goblin Piledriver isn't going to do much damage without any other goblins, but with an army of the little Red men, it's absolute murder, especially if you're the person playing Blue.

The classic Sligh finisher, burn, has been replaced by Clickslither and Siege-Gang Commander, synergistic with the substandard cards, Sulfuric Vortex, small automatic burn to the head, and Rorix Bladewing, which, with flying and haste, is pretty burn-like for a creature. Without effective burn, however, Goblins can't really kill creatures with the same spells used to kill players. Hence the need for a Black splash in a creature-centered environment. In the end, it all comes back to the core of Sligh, even if it lacks the purity of classic mono-Red Sligh.

Patriarch's Bidding throws a wrench into the Sligh lovefest, though. It's an utterly un-Sligh card, no matter how you look at it. It's more of a Tinker touch, pumping out a big investment in mana (goblins in the graveyard) for a lesser cost (Patriarch's Bidding). Goblin Bidding therefore has the soul of Sligh and a Tinker twist.

Goblins: Sligh

Goblin Bidding: Sligh (with a little Tinker)

White Weenie
Another rather straightforward deck. Cheap creatures (weenies) come out in droves supported by power-boosting spells. In olden days White Weenie used inexpensive global boosting enchantments like Crusade and Glorious Anthem (which competed against each other in the polls for selection for 8^th Edition) in combination with creature enchantments to turn the weenies into fatties. Armageddon was also a popular addition, as your creatures are cheap, so mana isn't a problem, but having little mana tends to be a problem for opponents.

Of course, now that I actually bothered to look at some recent decklists and stop waxing about the way things used to be, I realized White Weenie isn't exactly the deck I remembered. Though we all know R&D has made a conscious effort lately to make sure that the color pie stays balanced, and that White gets the weenies the pie says it should, there still isn't the solid weenie base needed for a classic White Weenie deck to be able to survive in the current environment.

Modern-day constructions include at least a couple larger creatures, frequently Exalted Angel (savior of White Standard players everywhere) and Dawn Elemental. Creature enchantments have been generally replaced by a new type of creature enhancements, Equipment. An extra element not seen in the classic White Weenie build is creature removal, namely, Wing Shards and Arrest. Ok, so Swords to Plowshares saw play, but come on! It's the best removal ever. I can't imagine not putting it into a White deck that isn't already fantastic at destroying large threats. But you didn't see much other removal.

As a lover of classic decks, such additions seemed at first to me a bit odd, if not outright sacrilegious. Exalted Angel isn't a weenie! Wing Shards doesn't directly involve me beating you with lots of little guys! How dare they! Then I stop to think reasonably and I see it's all part of the dance we call the metagame. A classic White Weenie deck simply isn't viable. Exalted Angel and Dawn Elemental work great against Goblins (Exalted Angel making up for lost life and Dawn Elemental basically invincible); Equipment is far more versatile (not to mention reusable!) than creature enchantments; Wing Shards stops the Goblin hordes and Arrest stops... well, just about anything. So it may not be the good ol' White Weenie I know and love, but it's still following in the same vein.

White Weenie is another fairly straightforward deck, strategy-wise. Play out efficient creatures early, boost them, and swing.

Chris Romeo built a rareless White Weenie deck worth showing. Picture a few rare White creatures you could add and there's the Standard White Weenie deck.

2 Daru Encampment
15 Plains
4 Ancient Den
4 Tundra Wolves
4 Suntail Hawk
4 White Knight
4 Silver Knight
4 Whipcorder
4 Leonin Skyhunter
4 Bonesplitter
3 Mask of Memory
4 Arrest
4 Raise the Alarm

As White should be able to, White Weenie gets out high-quality, low-cost creatures and makes them even more high-quality.

White Weenie in its most classic form is a Stompy deck. Cheap creatures and creature enhancement is the earmark of Stompy, whether they be green or White. The modern version offers a finisher creature and removal. Both the finisher and removal are Sligh sort of features, as seen above; though Goblins and White Weenie both lack burn, they have a big creature with evasion to do the last damage and direct removal to deal with creatures.

White Weenie: Stompy/Sligh

MBC
Oh how the mighty hath fallen. Anyone remember when Mono-Black Control was half the metagame and U/G Madness was the other half? Those were good days.

Er, sorry. I'm waxing fond about days past again. The word between Mono and Control is generally Blue, but thanks to a plethora of nice, Black cards of all varieties from Torment, Black finally gets its chance to play the game. MBC is a little less proactive than MUC, but they follow along similar lines. Removal and discard beat away at the opponent's card choices while Mirari and Cabal Coffers make already pretty good spells ridiculous by Forking them. All of them. If things get out of hand, play Mutilate and restart things on your own terms. We're talking enough removal to destroy the decent Odyssey Block threats five different ways.

Unfortunately, someone forgot to tell MBC players that Torment and 7^th Edition already rotated out, so the deck is a bit lacking from its old form. Out went Duress, out went Cabal Coffers, out went Innocent Blood and Chainer's Edict and Mirari. Mono-Black Control evolved, but perhaps not for the better. Efficient discard has been replaced by Coercion. Mana acceleration comes from Chrome Mox and Extraplanar Lens. The new reset, Oblivion Stone, is a bit more expensive. When it comes down to it, Mono-Black Control shares two things with its predecessor: Black and control.

Ok, so throw out everything I just said. If you're trying to play Mono-Black Control like in days of yore, you're going to lose. The new deck wins with undercosted creatures supported by lots of removal, some card drawing (in exchange for life), and maybe a smattering of discard (i.e. Coercion) and mana acceleration (i.e. Chrome Mox or Extraplanar Lens). It's not fantastic, but it's a strategy. Unfortunately, with so much creature removal and so little discard, the deck is worthless against another control deck. We're talking major amounts of dead cards. The answers to control? Oblivion Stone and Coercion.

Control is control, whether you're Black, Blue, or both. Get rid of threats early, develop your position, and finish strong. Black uses creature removal for the threats, tutors, minor mana acceleration, and card-drawing (again, with loss of life) for development, and usually Grid Monitor to finish it all off.

An example deck by Nathan Saunders, Oregon Champion. See, MBC isn't completely worthless!

2 Stalking Stones
21 Swamp
1 Visara the Dreadful
3 Grid Monitor
2 Chrome Mox
4 Phyrexian Arena
2 Coercion
2 Promise of Power
3 Smother
2 Infest
3 Oblivion Stone
1 Extraplanar Lens
3 Diabolic Tutor
4 Consume Spirit
1 Scrabbling Claws
4 Terror

MBC is a closer descendant of Weissman than Affinity is. Aggression is one thing MBC is not known for. Every card, outside of Grid Monitor, is meant to react or find a card that can react. Even Grid Monitor has a defensive element to it with a larger toughness than power. All this is rather unusual, considering cards like the Nim that show off black's love for power over toughness. Just like the classic Weissman School philosophy, MBC doesn't mind giving up nineteen points of life as long as the twentieth is denied. Unfortunately, in the Affinity, Goblins, and U/W Control-strong environment, Black simply doesn't have enough defense to win.

MBC: Weissman

U/W Control
Exalted Angel strikes again! And again... and again... and again. Poor Serra Angel. She finally gets reprinted and Flametongue Kavu keeps her out of the skies. Then she gets reprinted again and it's all Exalted Angel this, Exalted Angel that. Maybe next year, dear. Maybe next year.

Anyhow, Blue's no longer quite the powerhouse it used to be, but White's getting better and better. As a result, the classic control combination of Blue and White is actually tier 1. Classically the deck takes the control elements of White and Blue and combines them, resulting in a control type neither could quite achieve without the other. In the most recent example of U/W control, Blue provides counterspells and card drawing (two elements it's been getting steadily weaker at) and White provides mass removal and a few finishers (two things White has been getting better at). Exalted Angel, Eternal Dragon, and Decree of Justice once again show up, like in Astroglide, to win the game. Little wonder all three cards cost over $10 a piece.

U/W Control benefits from a number of different mana accelerators that ramp up the deck even more than it already is. Eternal Dragon is a nice recurring way to pick out Plains and, once there are enough lands out, Temple of the False God provides a great mana boost. Because of this, the deck can run a pretty high mana curve: no one-mana spells and four two-mana spells.

There's really not a lot of aggro to this deck's control. The early turns are generally"Land, go," which can feel a bit disconcerting when Goblins starts to go"Land, creature, creature, attack, go" (thanks to Goblin Warchief's cheapening and haste). The idea is to hold back just long enough to take control and win. Mana Leak and Rewind will get rid of single immediate threats while Wing Shards, Wrath of God, and Akroma's Vengeance sweep the board clean of creatures (and artifacts in the case of Akroma's Vengeance). Once the control player is ready (and has things under control), the three finishers can go to work and end the game post-haste. Your typical U/W build is exemplified in Eric Holzbaugh's deck that won 1st place at South Dakota Champs:

4 Coastal Tower
4 Flooded Strand
7 Island
9 Plains
3 Temple of the False God
4 Eternal Dragon
4 Exalted Angel
4 Concentrate
3 Akroma's Vengeance
3 Decree of Justice
4 Mana Leak
3 Rewind
4 Wing Shards
4 Wrath of God

U/W is Weissman with Weissman-appropriate colors. White and Blue are defensive colors by nature, unlike black. Every card in the deck plays at least some non-offensive role, and many of the cards (mass removal and counterspells) are purely defensive.

U/W Control: Weissman

B/W Control
What happens when you take U/W Control and MBC and smash them together? Well, if you're playing Extended, you just created Dump Truck. But if you're playing Standard, you just made a mess of a control deck that doesn't know quite what to do with itself. The solution? Take out Blue. The best of black and White come together to form yet another control variant, B/W Control.

Forgoing the counterspells of Blue, B/W Control takes the same control elements we saw in MBC and U/W Control and makes a new deck altogether. Black is still providing spot removal, card drawing at the cost of life, and discard, while White donates the mass removal and finishers from U/W Control. For the millionth time, Exalted Angel, Eternal Dragon, and Decree of Justice show up. Man, White's really going to be hurting once Onslaught block rotates out. Wrath of God will be left, but take a look at all these decklists: nothing else will be left outside of White's weenies.

B/W Control does a little more early than U/W Control (so Goblins is a little less threatening)."Land, go" is still the choice of early turns, but"Terror" and"Smother" should be common on the opponent's turn. Mana development is still important, but disruption in the form of discard is even more important. B/W Control is proactive; as soon as it's ready to start taking away opposing cards, it should. Better to get rid of a threat while it's in the hand than having to worry about dealing with it on the board.

In the case of creatures (and artifacts, to a lesser degree), the deck has plenty of answers; but any other form of spell needs to get discarded. The end is your classic U/W Control finish: Exalted Angel, Eternal Dragon, and Decree of Justice beat down for the win.

Justin Swierzak
1st place at States/Champs in USA: Nebraska
11 Plains
3 Grand Coliseum
9 Swamp
3 Temple of the False God
4 Exalted Angel
3 Eternal Dragon
3 Akroma's Vengeance
2 Decree of Justice
4 Coercion
3 Phyrexian Arena
3 Persecute
3 Renewed Faith
3 Terror
3 Smother
4 Wrath of God

When MBC and U/W Control, two Weissman varieties, meet, the combination is, logically, a Weissman deck. Both parents share very similar cardlists to their bastard child, so all the defense is still there.

B/W Control: Weissman

Land D
Land Destruction got a huge boost from Kai Budde, who promoted the deck before States. When Kai speaks, metagames change. [Though Brian David Marshall did the most to build a good version of the deck. - Knut] Who wouldn't listen to Magic's far and away best player? Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time, anyway. Land Destruction hasn't quite lived up to the German Juggernaut's promotion of it, but the deck is still kicking around. Yet another classic archetype: deny mana then beat down.

As a rather mana-costly deck, Land Destruction hopes to accelerate its mana and then get rid of the opponent's. Once that's done, the big beaters come in and get rid of the opponent's life total. To suit the metagame (i.e. Goblins, generally the deck to beat), Starstorm gets rid of little Red armies and Ravenous Baloth makes up for any life lost early. Unfortunately, the deck relies upon the rather fragile mana acceleration and land destruction strategy. In the current metagame, if one or both fails, there's very little backup strategy. An excellent example of the deck by Curtis Goolsby, who won 1st place at States in Arkansas:

4 Birds of Paradise
1 Gigapede
4 Ravenous Baloth
1 Rorix Bladewing
1 Silvos, Rogue Elemental
3 Troll Ascetic
2 Vine Trellis
4 Creeping Mold
1 Decree of Annihilation
4 Molten Rain
4 Plow Under
4 Starstorm
4 Stone Rain
10 Forest
10 Mountain
3 Wooded Foothills

There's also a mono-Red variant, but the combination of acceleration and fatties from Green make the deck much more stable.

Land D is, by virtue of its entire point, a Prison-style deck. Prison hates mana first and creatures second, and modern Land Destruction hates both. A pretty straightforward conclusion.

Land D: Prison

Now, the bigger question is, what relevance does any of this have to the current metagame? Basically, Mike Flores figured out the metagame several years before anyone else did. That's how good Finding the Tinker Deck really is.

The field has a very heavy Weissman element with U/W, B/W, and just plain B Control. CounterSliver has the right combination of control and cheap threats to stop the slower Weissman, so Affinity (primarily CounterSliver with some Weissman) has become one of the big decks to beat. The other is, of course, Goblins, a Sligh deck, since Sligh is fantastic at punishing slow control decks. The remaining decks of the metagame, Astroglide, White Weenie, and Land Destruction have generally fallen to the wayside.

Astroglide is too slow to overwhelm Goblin Sligh first and the Weissman variants all pack enough disruption to keep the key card, Astral Slide, from doing as much damage as it would like. White Weenie is not up to its classic form because it tries to play both Stompy and Sligh. Cheap creatures are features of both archetypes, but the devotion to a specific addition to that form (creature enhancement or burn) gives both a consistency the modern White Weenie lacks. Land Destruction, and Prison in general, loses to Weissman with its focus on creature control. On top of that, Goblin Sligh is so fast that the expensive elements of Land Destruction never have a chance to see play.

What do I conclude from all this? Keep playing Goblins. As the saying goes, sometimes Sligh just wins, and Goblins can definitely do that. If the rest of Mirrodin block provides the good burn the deck would really benefit from, Goblins is going to be right on top. But in such an artifact-focused block, I wouldn't worry about that happening any time soon, so expect the metagame to be as diverse for a while as it is currently.

Hope this little history lesson was intriguing, if not educational.

~M.W. Gribbin
insanerest AT aol DOT com