Yes indeed, today I shall offer you all some Valuable States Tech.

Just not from this year.

For this year I can offer only two bits of advice of dubious value. The savvy reader will no doubt have already read Seth Burn's article on Mindripper and possibly even Zvi's article on Brainburst. Between them, Seth and Zvi have suggested six decks, all of which have red and five of which have four Flametongue Kavu.

Sounds to me like it might be time to break out the old Crimson Acolytes. Just a hunch.

My more substantial piece of advice is to play something rogue. Not Merfolk-Opposition, nor Force-Fed White Weenie, nor any of the thirty-seven Red/Green things floating about the ‘Net, nor anything that looks like an Invasion Block deck with four Finkels in it... But a genuine rogue deck. There are decks waiting to be built that can compete with all of the net decks (imagine showing up at last year's States with NetherHaups!*), and you have a chance to find one.

Will playing a rogue deck help you win States? Well, let's take a look at last year's results, courtesy of the late Theron Martin.

12(4) R/G Fires
10(4) White Weenie
8(3) W/G Blastogeddon (one splashed blue for FoFs)
6(1) R/G beatdown (no Fires)
6(4) U/W Control, a.k.a. Counter-Wrath
5(2) B/R non-LD
4(1) Nether-Go
3(1) Waters (2 Skies-based, one not; one had Waters sideboarded)
2 B/R land destruction
2(1) B/U non-Nether control
1 Draw-Go
1 U/W Pirate-'Geddon (Rogue!)
1 U/W Counter-Rebels
1 W/G/R Blastogeddon
1 W/G/R Beatdown (no 'Geddon)
1 R/B/U control (used Nether Spirits and recursion)

(The numbers in parenthesis are the results from 7+ round tournaments.)

One rogue win out of fifty-eight. Not so encouraging. So why do I still advocate going rogue?

Because rogue decks are fun, and States is your best chance to play one. During the qualifier season and even at Regionals, the stakes are high, thoroughly tested netdecks are readily available, and it takes a lot of confidence to throw them out for something you built yourself. But States is the amateur's Invitational - a well-publicized tournament with little more than pride on the line. If there's any weekend to just plain enjoy yourself or get renown for winning with a deck nobody else has thought of, States is that weekend.

One in fifty-eight isn't zero. There's a story behind that one rogue win, and I'm in it.

About this time last year I was frantically testing a Nether-Go deck in an attempt to learn how to play control (still my biggest flaw as a player). Thanks to our over-testing of blue/white control, and under-testing of Rebels and Fires, key elements such as Recoil and the elusive Kill Card That Isn't A Nether Spirit were missing from our deck. My Nether-Go was already scooping our Merfolk deck... And when Sean McKeown's last-minute Grizzly Rebels decklist hit the net and I started losing to that too, I was not in a happy spot.

Then Ian McDonald, Team Chub Toad's deckbuilder, showed up on IRC with this bizarre thing he called"Son-of-Snuff."** I took it to an online tournament and went something like 3-2. Not so exciting. But it was beatdown and it was fun to play, and the next thing I know I'm showing up in Columbia with it.

Two weeks after the event when I wrote my report (which has long since been cleansed from the StarCity archives) (but I understand), I still couldn't remember key details, and my memory hasn't gotten any better since. In four rounds of Swiss I played in, people seemed to like their Birds and Elves an awful lot, and my Plague Spitters and Thrashing Wumpi did them in.

Top eight I have to play against a proper Nether-Go. Unmask lands my Thrashing Wumpus. His Nether Spirit is worthless now, I'm dealing five points a turn, and he has no Recoil. Game two it's Trench Wurm instead, and I get busy with his Dust Bowls, Underground Rivers and Salt Marshes. Pow. Into the top four.

Now I'm playing against Rebels. He plays a searcher. I Snuff it. He gets a couple more rebels and my Vine Trellis slows the beats. Thrashing Wumpus clears the board. I go to the side, bring in more Earthquakes, and sweep again. He tells me afterwards that I'm"the first deck he's played all day that's ready for a weenie rush." I thank Ian for preparing me for a weenie rush and ready myself for the last match.

Thus it was that the finals of 2000 Missouri States contained no Rebels, no Blinding Angels, no Fires of Yavimaya and no Nether Spirits. In the Blue corner…Brian Johnson!

4 Galina's Knight
4 Drake Hatchling
4 Ribbon Snake
4 Rishadan Cutpurse
3 Rishadan Footpad
4 Angelic Shield
4 Withdraw
2 Seal of Removal
2 Armageddon
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Misdirection
1 Disenchant
2 Gush
4 Adarkar Wastes
6 Plains
14 Island

And in the Green corner… Well, modesty forbids.

4 Rampant Growth
3 Vine Trellis
4 Chimeric Idol
3 Plague Spitter
4 Hunted Wumpus
4 Blastoderm
2 Thrashing Wumpus
1 Vendetta
1 Earthquake
2 Addle
4 Unmask
4 Snuff Out
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Tsabo's Web
9 Swamp
5 Forest
4 Shivan Oasis
4 Karplusan Forest

I take game one easily on the strength of discard and huge creatures and we start game two. I forget what threat my opening hand sported, but I know there was a Rampant Growth, an Unmask, another black card, and no swamps. By turn two Brian had two Adarkar Wastes in play. Assuming he would be loath to take two damage to Counterspell a land-fetcher, I cast Rampant Growth without Unmasking first. But Brian did indeed Counterspell it, my swamp came too late, and I dropped the game and later the match. Nothing else in Brian's hand was an immediate problem, and I am fairly sure I would be State Champion now had I Unmasked first to protect my Rampant Growth against Brian's sided-in Counterspell.

That's not a claim you hear every day.

So you just might want to take that strange, fun deck in the back of your closet to States. You never know where it's going to take you, and you honestly don't have that much to lose.

"Angry Hermit was devised for the PA States last November. My brother, Neil, who never plays constructed Magic because he hates it, wanted to come hang out for the weekend but didn't want to play any 'normal' deck."
- Aaron Forsythe's 2000 Nationals Report

-Darth Hauptmann
Team Chub Toad
"Beatdown Meathead"

Extra Feature:"Ian's Expansion"
Ian McDonald, Team Chub Toad's aforementioned deckbuilder, has some ideas for cards.

More accurately, replace"some" with"a lot of," and"cards" with"an expansion set." He began work on it more than two years ago, back when the sets were not appropriately balanced in his eyes. Starting with Invasion Block, however, WoTC has given Ian less cause to complain, so the set's development has slowed as its focus changed from"See how much better designed the sets could be?" to"Um…I have some neat ideas for cards."

His ideas are pretty nifty, though, so I will present some of them in my articles for my readers' edification. Prepare to be…er…edified?

Paranoia
1B
Sorcery
Target player chooses and reveals two cards from his or her hand.
You may choose one of those cards. If you do, that player discards that card. Otherwise, look at the remaining cards in that player's hand and choose a nonland card from them. That player discards that card.

This idea was adapted from an Alien Power (think Vanguard card) in a board/card game called Cosmic Encounter, one of the games that inspired Magic. Instead of having a normal hand, the Doppelganger steals cards from other players' hands in a similar matter. To paraphrase Ian, Coercion costs about half a mana too much, and this is one way to whittle the effect down to a two-mana size without making it as luck-based and randomly useless as Addle.

* - Upon further reflection, someone on the North Island of New Zealand did show up with NetherHaups, and he won. Belated kudos to Darryn Ying, fellow rogue!

** - For the impatient, the decklist is below. But bear with me as I build up a little suspense here, okay?