'Lo, all...

Guess it's time for me to write again, seeing how I'm a Featured Writer or something of that sort. When I Write, I'm Featured. Therefore, I am a Featured Writer.

See, anyone can write!

Just not very well.

There's an opening for a joke there. Go ahead. I'll wait on you. Shouldn't take that long.

Done? Fair enough.

The strangest things tend to lodge in my head in between articles sometimes, so I figured I'll address a couple of them real quick-like in something entitled Questions and Answers About Topics That No One Really Cares About, or more accurately, One Question and One Answer, Then Some Random Thought That No One Really Cares About:

Some Guy at States:"You really look nothing like your Star City pic. Why do you use that thing?"

Some Other Guy at States:"You need to do something about your Featured Writer pic."

Dude On The Couch Who Happened to Be At States:"Wow. Never would've guessed that was you. That picture is horrid."

Okay, okay - I can take a hint as well as anyone, just ask any one of my ex's! (This would be the part where Some Partially Literate Guy inserts something like"LIES" and then makes an ass joke) I figured I'd use a bad DMV pic from three years ago as an attempt to be funny, but apparently: 1) People didn't pick up on the whole blue background thingamajig, and; 2) I probably shouldn't try to be funny again, ever.

I probably shouldn't ever use the word"thingamajig" again, either.

So as soon as I find something to appease the legions of female fans that load up Star City every day and then scream to the heavens,"No Carl Jarrell article again!?" and click the back button in disgust, I'll throw it up there. Okay? Okay.

Random Movie Theater Patron Person-Type:"You look just like John Cusack."

CJ, scanning brain and then remembering"Serendipity":"I'm hoping that's a compliment...?"

Last thing before I actually talk about Magic (and seeing how this is a Magic website, that would probably be necessary), doesn't it absolutely suck when you find a new CD from a band no-one's heard of, you dig the crap out of it, and then one day it randomly ends up on TRL at #3?

I'm looking at you, Hoobastank.

Say it with me. Hooooo-bastank. At least it's still fun to say. Still a good band, and all, but...

Blech.

Onwards...

How about some high-level Extended deck technology?

Oh, yeah, season's practically over. That'll help.

Play Raisin Bran with Infinite Pirate Tech? Oh yeah, everyone plays Miracle-Gro, which tends to do some drive-by hatin' on that deck also.

Bah. Humbug. Oh, yeah, Christmas is over too. Damn.

Here's a decklist anyways, if I had a chance to play it:

Raisin Bran w/Captain Morgan Parrot Bay

4 Aluren
4 Cavern Harpy
4 Raven Familiar
4 Wall of Roots
3 Wall of Blossoms
2 Man o' War
2 Spike Feeder
1 Rishadan Cutpurse ("We shall set sail at Happy Hour, but you're going to be hung over in the mornin', matey! Arrrr!")
1 Stroke of Genius
4 Brainstorm
3 Vampiric Tutor
4 Duress
4 Force of Will
4 Land Grant
4 Tropical Island
4 Bayou
4 Underground Sea
4 Yavimaya Coast

So the Pirate might be unnecessary, since people generally scoop when you gain infinite life so that you can even infinitely bounce anything at all. He might be better as the third Man o' War, or the fourth Tutor.

C'mon, though, we're talking Infinite Pirate Tech. How can you pass that up?

CJ:"All your permanents belong over there in the graveyard, please. And don't ever play one again the rest of the game, thanks. Why didn't you just scoop when the Feeder showed up?"

I'm a dirty combo player at heart, but still this was the only deck I could really bring myself to play this season without getting physically nauseous. It's not a bad deck at all... Bran has put a few people in Top Eights here and there (and a friend of mine took the Captain Morgan version to a decent 5-2 finish in Pittsburgh)...

The problem I've found with Extended (and it may or may not be a problem at all, depending on your view) is that you can't necessarily pick a blatantly bad deck to play moreso than you can pick a blatantly bad day to play it.

Ben Visnic (the guy who officially Gets Way Too Much Free Publicity From This Guy), for example, makes top four one week with Counter-Sliver (and no, it doesn't outright suck, although it has issues for sure), and then just a couple short weeks later does the ol' 0-2-drink routine. Weeks are like light years in this game... Just look at all the environment shifts this season alone:

• Donate is the best deck in the format.
• The Rock and his Millions is the best deck in the format.
• Junk is the best deck in the format.
• Miracle-Gro is the best deck in the format.
• Hey look, I'll add white to shore up any weaknesses Gro had before, and now Super-Gro is the best deck in the format.
• Hey look, people start making Top Eights with Sligh again.

Rinse, repeat, ad nauseam, insert some other Greek or Latin word here.

Of course, the best tech to bring to a PTQ is to, um, actually bring yourself to a PTQ, something I haven't been able to do much if at all this season. I think when I look back and try to analyze why I'm not on the Tour, you know, glaring play errors, playing bad decks... Oh yeah, I think you actually have to go to a PTQ in order to qualify.

You have to be in attendance and competing in a PTQ in order to have a chance to qualify for the Pro Tour. You heard it here first. Attendance is good tech.

CJ:"Well, it's the third round and I haven't won a game yet. Wonder what I'm doing wrong, I'm not complete poo..."

Random Passerby:"Well, what are you playing?"

CJ:"Oh. I'm not playing. That could explain a lot. Although theoretically if I had played, they would've mised like a champion and I would've gotten manaflooded, then manascrewed, then failed to see a single sideboard card in my first thirty cards. Possibly even gotten inhalation Anthrax."

Random Passerby:"Dude, inhalation Anthrax is like sooo three months ago. German Measles is where it's at. Scrub. And never say 'poo' again either, please, thanks."

Pre-emptive cop-outs are good tech as well. Mise well have an excuse to have an excuse. Infinitely large mising excuses if you will. Doesn't matter, I'll qualify within the next year, whether I actually play or not, just because Jay Moldenhauer-Salazar said so.

You know, The Guy That Alex Shvartsman Left Out Of His Week In Review. He writes for magicthegathering.com too, y'know, and he's quite good. Quite insane, mind you, but quite good.

*grumble*

Want to hear my opinion on Magic Online?

Didn't think so.

Want it anyways?

*awkward silence followed by crickets chirping*

So, on a related topic (much in the same way that circus midgets and gangsta rap are related), does anyone else honestly believe that mono-black is going to be good when Torment hits the shelves? There's still quite a few cards that we haven't seen, I'll give them that, but c'mon guys, we're talking about hearing"Mono-black will be good again" from the same people who brought you"Bargain and Academy Rector go right into White Weenie,""Tolarian Academy will single-handedly bring back prison decks," and another hundred examples of bad judgment that everyone and their third uncle has quoted somewhere else before.

Mutilate? Damned cool. Okay, that's one.

Chainer's Edict? Decently cool, however brought to you by the minds that cranked out such original names as Yavimaya Coast, Shivan Reef, and Llanowar Wastes. (Okay, I'll give you Battlefield Forge and Caves of Koilos, but who in the blue hell is Koilos and why should we care about his caves? Daniel Crane, hello!)

Mind Sludge? Eh, we'll see.

Nantuko Shade: The Best Shade Ever Printed still isn't saying much. Certainly decent, but Repulse and Recoil tend to be good against people making unwise mana investments, without which mana investment this guy tends to be Silent Assassin.

Trust me, if anyone wants to play with nothing but The Best Basic Land Ever Printed (In Any Format With Necropotence, Maybe), This Guy does. I have forty-plus lucky foils collecting dust. I've played with the black spells in every big Standard tournament for years, mostly for better, sometimes for worse. This Guy wants Black to be Good Again.

I just severely doubt it for the time being.

Prove me wrong, please. I want to be wrong. Wouldn't be the first time.

Just don't give us Minotaur Explorer and say that Sligh is back again, please, thanks.

I say"please" and"thanks" like it will matter.

Finally, some thoughts on Type Two (we don't need no stinkin' segues, that's called"creative liberty" or something), however premature they may be... Torment is obviously going to affect it somehow, although to what extent few if any of us truly know yet (see, make obvious statements! Anyone can write!). I still believe Hot Garbage is one of the top decks of the format, although clearly not the top deck, if there really is one. It has a better matchup against stuff like Upheaval than people tend to give it credit for (although a lot of people don't play Duress in the sideboard for some godforsaken reason *insert winks and friendly nudges here*), but it probably dies a horrible and miserable death to BalancingVore, as do most things aggro (and I'll get to that shortly).

The Garbage Demands Respect
by Carl Jarrell

4 Birds of Paradise
2 Llanowar Elves
4 Call of the Herd
4 Spellbane Centaur
4 Kavu Titan
4 Flametongue Kavu
4 Spiritmonger
2 Shivan Wurm
4 Urza's Rage
4 Pernicious Deed
8 Forest
4 Swamp
4 Cleverly Named B/G dual
4 Sulfurous Springs
2 Darigaaz's Caldera
2 Karplusan Forest

The deck obviously has to evolve somewhat from a metagame where I expected nothing but Rocket Shoes-style decks and was rewarded for it. People can say whatever about Hot Garbage, but the Stats Don't Lie: This deck, or a variant of this deck, put five of the six people playing it into the Top Eight or better (sorry, Bennie), including one top eight in New Jersey, which isn't exactly the easiest place to play. To duplicate that success, however, we have to look at it from today's standpoint, not November's. The Best Treefolk Ever Printed is still good at dishing out the Tree Beats, but I think they have to be shown the door for now, unfortunately. In this particular listing they've become Spellbane Centaurs, which I'm still kind of loathe to follow through with, but they can easily become something like Wild Mongrel (which is an unexpected beating against bad BalancingVore players) or if you feel comfortable with playing fewer men, then perhaps four Duress can go in the main if the field isn't as blatantly beatdown as it was back in November.

The thing that annoys me about the Centaurs is not that they're completely horrible, because they're not. The thing is, going into November, these guys were a lot of people's answer to Opposition, which is a really bad idea. This is an active deck for the most part, and in that matchup where you're simply worried about them tapping your creatures, the Spellbane is a bad green enchantment, since you can't possibly afford to swing with him into a random Beast Attack or whatnot - and if that's your answer to Opposition, you're going to end up chumpblocking with the Centaur in short order, when you should just be worried about Slaying, Raging, or Flametonguing everything on their side of the table and getting Deed for one to resolve, or even just Duressing the stupid Opposition, instead of sitting there like a dork and going,"Well, I'm losing anyways, but at least you can't tap my guys."

Thing is, Opposition is pretty much deader than Ted Demme, and that's not a concern you have to worry about. The matchups where you're worried about getting your guys actually bounced, the Centaur excels for the most part, even randomly wrecking games by themselves on occasion. Centaurs make the deck slightly worse against other Rocket Shoes decks - but I think the wise philosopher Kenny Rogers said it best (actually, sang it best), when he said,"You gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em."

Actually that really has nothing to do with Spellbane Centaur, but it does relate to cards, and I've always wanted to work a Kenny Rogers reference in there somewhere (hey, who else references G.G. Allin in a Magic article, eh?). (I did - The Ferrett, snickering) Now if I can just get Conway Twitty in there somewhere...

Guess I just did.

As far as BalancingVore... I'd like to think a lot of people would agree with me when I say that this deck wants to be good, it's just up in the air as to whether or not an optimal version will surface. There's too much synergy between sac lands, Balancing Act, and Terravore for it to be a thoroughly awful idea. The original versions certainly aren't completely bad, but there is definitely room for improvement - mostly in the fixing up of the land base and a few out-of-place cards. Should there be an optimal version of this deck somewhere, it might be a good idea to start worrying.

Here's a version of TerraBalance (sounds a little cooler, anyways, call it what you will) that"Yosh" of mIRC won an E-League Type Two Master with:

4 Orim's Chant
3 Obliterate
4 Fact or Fiction
4 Fire/Ice
2 Mystic Enforcer
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Terravore
4 Balancing Act
4 Chromatic Sphere
3 Tinder Farm
4 Ancient Spring
4 Geothermal Crevice
4 Irrigation Ditch
4 Archeological Dig
4 Seafloor Debris
4 Timberland Ruins

The most obvious improvement is the removal of the two superfluous Sulfur Vents, since lands in this deck should either tap for a color you can use or sac for a color you can use, so the Vents (especially just two copies) aren't as much help to you as some other land in that slot would be. The other thing I like about this are the two Mystic Enforcers, which improve your chances of having something massive to drop after floating mana and casting the Act - not to mention that if Torment is truly the"Black Set" then this guy suddenly becomes twice the beating he was to begin with (aside from the occasional Chainer's Edict, which could become a slight problem if you could cast it on your opponent's turn, or cast it on your turn after all your lands have been Balanced away... This would be Sarcasm, for the Sarcastically Challenged). I will throw in there that Wild Mongrel really beats up on bad BalancingVore players, though, if you don't mind Apocalypsing yourself and hoping you topdeck better, which is certainly a better option than dying to some big green trampling dork - and really, who wants to lose to that?

Ah well. Back into the darkness where I can go back to being a publicity whore and getting all giggly when someone name-drops me.

That's J-A-Double R-E-Double L.

Anyone else have a Jeff Jarrett flashback?

So I'm an anal-retentive publicity whore. Sue me.

Look, I just said"anal" and"whore" in the same sentence. I'm contributing to the Magic community!

Oh yeah, vote for me in the Writer's War.

Oh yeah, I'm not in it.

May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house,

Carl J.
carl_jarrell@hotmail.com
Zeke2517 on mIRC
The King of Greyhounds 0010101