How to Use Magic Workstation Part 2 - Using The Interface

Hi everyone, and welcome to part 2 of How To Use Magic Workstation! Today we'll be covering how to use the interface: i.e, building decks.

Now that you've gotten all 173 million cards in Magic, how do you sort them into formats? To do that, first press Ctrl + F2. You will then be in the Deckbuilding screen. Now, notice the row of pictures below the menu (the bar with File and Edit in it.) Click on the fourth one. You can then select Classic, Extended, Standard, or Custom. Standard or Extended may not be updated, so if so, trim the sets that are no longer legal, then you're ready to build decks.

The deck building interface is so ridiculously simple that I almost feel guilty for writing a guide about it. It seems...cheap somehow. Anyway, here's the ridiculously complicated way to add a card to your deck:

Select the card.
Click the blue arrow.

To remove the card, select it from the deck menu, and press the red arrow. To put a card in your sideboard, select the card from the left, and click the green arrow. Simple as that.

To make this post last longer than 200 words, let's talk about connecting.

Either press Ctrl + I, or go to Game -> Connect to Opponent to bring up the connection window. Choose mwsplay.net (the default one) and press Connect. From there, you can join a game by clicking Join, or start your own, and Accept players who enter it. Next time we'll cover how to play the game in MWS and go over some shortcuts you'll use very often.

See you next time!

Zendikar Decks Part I: Vampire Aggro

Welcome to the first article in my series on Zendikar decks. Polls will be running through the week to determine the next deck in the series, and the first one you guys picked was Vampire Aggro. Don't forget to vote for tomorrow's article!

Here's the deck I ended up using:

Lands (24)

24 Swamp

Creatures (26)

4 Bloodghast
4 Gatekeeper of Malakir
4 Guul Draz Vampire
2 Malakir Bloodwitch
4 Vampire Lacerator
4 Vampire Nighthawk
4 Vampire Nocturnus

Spells (10)

4 Doom Blade
2 Duress
4 Sign in Blood

Sideboard:

4 Vampire Hexmage
2 Malakir Bloodwitch
3 Bloodchief Ascension
4 Deathmark
2 Duress

I hopped on MWS to do battle.

Round 1 vs. Mono-Red Burn

He wins the die roll, and we both mulligan to 6.

He plays a land and passes. I play Guul Draz Vampire. At EOT, he Burst Lightnings me. (18, 20) He plays Hellspark Elemental and swings. I take it. (15, 20). I untap, and swing. (15, 19). I play Bloodghast.

He passes, and I swing for 3. (15, 16). I play Vampire Nighthawk. He Bolts it. He plays Hell's Thunder and attacks. (11, 16). I swing back. (11, 13). I play another Bloodghast. He plays a second Hellspark and swings. (8, 13).

I attack with everything. (8, 8) and then play a Vampire Lacerator. He untaps, and unearths both Hellsparks. I Doom Blade one, and take 3. (5, 8). I attack with my Bloodghasts. (5, 4). He plays Goblin Ruinblaster and passes. I untap, and swing for the win.


Game 2 he elects to play. He keeps, and I mulligan to 6. He plays a land and passes, I play Guul Draz Vampire. Turn 2, he plays a land and passes. I Duress. I take Fallout, and attack. (20, 19). I then play a second Guul Draz Vampire.

He untaps, and Earthquakes for 1. (19, 18). He passes. I play Vampire Nighthawk. He plays double Burst Lightning to kill it. I untap, and play Bloodchief Ascension. He plays Hell's Thunder, and swings. (15, 18). I pass. He unearths Hell's Thunder and attacks. I Doom Blade it.

I untap and play another Bloodchief Ascension. Not the best topdecks. He plays Elemental Appeal and attacks. I Doom Blade it. I pass. Another land. He plays Quest for Pure Flame and Elemental Appeal. He swings. (8, 18). I draw nothing but lands for the next two turns and he plays and unearths Hell's Thunder to kill me.

Game 3 I choose to play, and we both mulligan to 6. Turn 1 I play Guul Draz Vampire. He plays a land and passes. I play Turn 2 Duress, and he aims a Bolt at me in response. (17, 20). I take Elemental Appeal, and swing. (17, 19). He plays a land and passes. I swing (17, 18) and play Vampire Lacerator.

He plays a land and passes. I swing (16, 15) and pass. He passes yet again. I swing, and he plays Fallout (13, 13).  I play Guul Draz Vampire and Bloodghast. He lays a land and passes. I swing, he plays another Fallout. (11, 11). I play another Bloodghast. He plays Elemental Appeal and swings. (4, 11).

I play a land, returning Bloodghast, then play Vampire Nocturnus. I swing with a 4/2 flying Bloodghast. (4, 7). I pass. He draws, plays Earthquake for 2 (2, 5) then Burst Lightnings me for the win.

0-1

Round 2 vs. Vampire Aggro

Note: My computer crashed while writing these, so the rest of the post will be fairly short.


Game 1 I keep a slow hand. He curves out basically perfectly and beats me before I put up much resistance.

Game 2 we trade for a while until I manage to get out multiple Bloodwitches and win that way.

Game 3 he gets the advantage, then I play Nocturnus. Unfortunately I then draw 3 swamps in a row and die.

0-2

Round 3 vs. Bant

Game 1 he plays Great Sable Stag with Rafiq of the Many. I die about as horribly as you'd expect.

Game 2 I play lots of guys, and by the time he stabilises I have 3/2's with fear to seal the deal.

Game 3 we play a long game. I eventually stick a Gatekeeper of Malakir with FOUR removal spells in hand. I then bash him to death over six turns killing everything he plays.

1-2

Round 4 vs. B/R Bloodchief

Game 1 his deck works perfectly, getting 3 counters on Bloodchief Ascension and Blightninging me to death.

Game 2 he stalls for a bit and I end up winning with Vampire Nocturnus's buff.

Game 3 we race. He eventually sticks an Ascension and Earthquakes my guys to activate it, but he's at 2 and I manage to kill him even with his active Ascension.

2-2

My Ranking: 2/5
Matches Won x2: 4/8

The ranking system will work as follows. I will rank the deck by consistency and power out of 5, then the amount of matches out of 4 won, x2, will be the rest of the score. At the end, I'll rank them all up.

Frankly, I don't think Vampire Aggro is that great, and B/R hate will keep it down. I rate it Tier 2.

See you soon with the next deck!

Zendikar Decks Part II

I promised in my original Zendikar Decks article here that I'd eventually flesh out these decks. Now is the time for me to do that. I'll propose 7 decks, and I intend to test them, one per day, (except for Saturday) for a week. I'll allow people to vote on their choice. Here are the decks:

W/B/R Control.

Lands (26)

4 Arid Mesa
4 Dragonskull Summit
4 Marsh Flats
4 Mountain
5 Plains
5 Swamp

Creatures (4)

4 Baneslayer Angel

Spells (30)

3 Ajani Vengeant
3 Chandra Nalaar
4 Day of Judgement
3 Lightning Bolt
3 Luminarch Ascension
3 Martial Coup
4 Path to Exile
4 Sign in Blood
3 Terminate

Sideboard:

4 Celestial Purge
4 Oblivion Ring
3 Solemn Offering
4 Volcanic Fallout

The deck has 7 Wraths, and ample finishers. It can finish from several angles. It has card draw in Sign in Blood, and plenty of spot removal. It's a rough draft, but could turn into quite a deck.

New Time Sieve

Lands (18)

7 Island
5 Plains
6 Swamp

Creatures (0)

Spells ()

4 Day of Judgement
4 Fieldmist Borderpost
3 Font of Mythos
4 Howling Mine
4 Kaleidoscope
4 Mistvein Borderpost
4 Obelisk of Esper
4 Open the Vaults
3 Tezzeret the Seeker
4 Time Sieve
4 Time Warp

Sideboard:

4 Celestial Purge
4 Ethersworn Canonist
3 Meddling Mage
4 Path to Exile

The deck loses a bit, and doesn't gain much, but the deck still has Tier 1 potential. An extra Tezzeret has been added for the non-combo finish. Obelisk of Esper acts as Borderposts 9-12, and the Day of Judgement is there to stop Vampires.

Vampire Aggro

Lands (24)

24 Swamp

Creatures (26)

4 Bloodghast
4 Gatekeeper of Malakir
4 Guul Draz Vampire
2 Malakir Bloodwitch
4 Vampire Lacerator
4 Vampire Nighthawk
4 Vampire Nocturnus

Spells (10)

4 Doom Blade
2 Duress
4 Sign in Blood

Sideboard:

2 Bloodchief Ascension
4 Deathmark
2 Duress
2 Malakir Bloodwitch
3 Ravenous Trap

The deck is fast, has some late-game plans, light disruption, removal and card draw, and it's VAMPIRES. Who doesn't like Vampires? The Ravenous Trap in the sideboard is against Time Sieve. Absolutely destroys them.

B/R Bloodchief Blightning

Lands (24)

4 Akoum Refuge
4 Dragonskull Summit
8 Mountain
8 Swamp

Creatures (18)
2 Ball Lightning
4 Goblin Guide
4 Hellspark Elemental
4 Goblin Outlander
4 Vampire Lacerator

Spells (18)

4 Blightning
4 Bloodchief Ascension
4 Burst Lightning
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Volcanic Fallout

Sideboard:

3 Banefire
4 Deathmark
4 Duress
2 Terminate
2 Volcanic Fallout


This deck is a fairly simple B/R deck. The idea is to beat the opponent to death, either with or without a Bloodchief Ascension.

New Jund

Lands (25)

4 Dragonskull Summit
3 Forest
3 Mountain
4 Rootbound Crag
4 Savage Lands
3 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacombs

Creatures (16)

4 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Lotus Cobra
4 Putrid Leech
4 Vampire Nighthawk

Spells (19)

4 Bituminous Blast
4 Jund Charm
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Sign in Blood

Sideboard:

4 Deathmark
4 Great Sable Stag
3 Jund Hackblade
4 Volcanic Fallout

A Jund list with many of the same traits as pre-Zendikar Jund: the ability to play as aggro or control, a malleable sideboard, and a lot of sheer power, and Cascade.

New Warp World

Lands (23)

7 Forest
9 Mountain
3 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacombs

Creatures (29)

4 Birds of Paradise
2 Bogardan Hellkite
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Keeper of Progenitus
4 Lotus Cobra
4 Noble Hierarch
3 Ob Nixilis, the Fallen
4 Siege-Gang Commander

Spells (8)

4 Trace of Abundance
4 Warp World

Sideboard:

4 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Thought Hemorrhage
4 Vithian Renegades
3 Volcanic Fallout

Most of the deck remains the same. The main additions are Ob Nixilis, who is a BEATING if you get 3-4 lands off Warp World, and Lotus Cobra to power out more fast starts.

Soldiers

Lands (24)

23 Plains

Creatures ()

4 Captain of the Watch

4 Elite Vanguard

4 Kazandu Blademaster

4 Kor Aeronaut

4 Veteran Armorsmith

4 Veteran Swordsmith

Spells ()

2 Conqueror's Pledge

4 Honor of the Pure

4 Path to Exile

3 Brave the Elements

Sideboard:

3 Baneslayer Angel

1 Brave the Elements

4 Celestial Purge

3 Devout Lightcaster

4 Harm's Way

This is an archetypal White Weenie deck: plenty of guys, some modern token-producers, and the Anthem of choice, Honor of the Pure. Also features the anti-removal Brave the Elements as a new addition.

So those are our seven. Be sure to vote for which one should be tested first in the poll!

How To Do Better At Your Next PTQ - Part 2

Hello, and welcome back to my series of How To Do Better At Your Next PTQ. We've covered testing your deck here, so now it's time to move on to analysing the metagame. The list which inspired this series can be found here.

The Three Types of Metagame

There are generally three different types of metagame that you'll face in a particular format in a particular year. These modes are about more than decks: they're about how the whole metagame interacts, and understanding it is crucial to victory.

The Deck vs. The Anti-Deck

This type of metagame is when there is one particular 'best' deck that makes up about a third of the field, and generally beats most of the minor decks. The second most popular deck is the anti-deck, which beats the best deck, and generally has passable matchups against the minor decks.

An example here would be Affinity. Affinity was THE deck, and anti-affinity was THE anti-deck. This is a greatly exaggerated example of how it usually is, but it's ideal for our purposes. If you couldn't beat Affinity, you basically couldn't show up.

How this matters: In this case, you need to make a choice: The Deck, which is strong but everyone will pack hate for, the Anti-Deck, which beats The Deck but can lose to minor decks, or a minor deck with a good matchup vs. The Deck and the Anti-Deck. I would generally recommend playing a minor deck if it's strong enough to get a 55-60% win chance against The Deck and the Anti-Deck, because people are less likely to sideboard against and test against it. The Deck, unless ridiculously powerful, is often not a good place to be at if the players have figured out how to beat it.

Rock-Paper-Scissors Metagame

Generally the most common, the rock-paper-scissors metagame features three major decks with favourable matches vs. one, and unfavourable vs. the other. The three major decks all perform well against the minor decks almot all of the time.

An example of this would be last year's metagame, where Faeries beat Five-Color Control, Five-Color Control beat Kithkin, and Kithkin beat Faeries. All three decks performed well against random decks (except Faeries vs. Mono-Red) and all of them were good vs. one deck and bad vs. another.

How this matters: Generally, one deck will be the most popular. The deck it beats will be second, and the deck that the second deck beats will be third. Thus, we need to examine the pros and cons of Deck 1, Deck 2 and Deck 3.

Deck 1: Playing Deck 1 is often a good choice, especially if you're good with it. Most players won't play Deck 3, and plenty of them play Deck 2. Of course the problem with Deck 1 is that minor decks can do well against it if they sideboard heavily.

Deck 2: Playing Deck 2 is generally a bad choice. Losing to Deck 1 is never a good thing. I personally would not recommend it. People will sideboard against Deck 2 as well. Deck 2 = bad idea.

Deck 3: Playing Deck 3 is a good idea. If you can survive the first few rounds of a PTQ, Deck 2 will be mostly eliminated by Deck 1, and you're designed to prey on Deck 1. Most decks will only devote 3-4 sideboard slots to Deck 3 as well. Personally, this is the one I would pick unless I was quite skilled with Deck 1.

Minor deck: I wouldn't recommend it. It's basically impossible to build a minor deck with decent matchups against Deck 1, 2 and 3. In this case, the best move is to go with Deck 1 or Deck 3.

One Deck Many Decks Metagame

The rarest of the three, a one deck many deck metagame is when one deck or subset of decks makes up about 20-25% of the metagame, and the rest of it is spread among minor decks.

A perfect example of this is Legacy. CounterTop decks make up the One Deck, and the other decks (notably Dreadstill and Thresh) are mostly fairly minor, with a couple of 10-15% players. This metagame is hard to predict. It depends on how much hate is brought against the One Deck.

How this matters: In this scenario, it all depends on how new the One Deck is. If the One Deck has recently surfaced, play it. If it's been winning for a few weeks, I suggest playing a minor deck with a good matchup against the One Deck and passable matchups against most minor decks. It's hard to know how this kind of metagame will turn out, but a solid plan against the One Deck is never a bad thing.

The Role of Minor Decks

Minor decks, the ones that make up a small but appreciable segment of the metagame, generally 5-10% are an excellent, valuable addition to the metagame. For one, it keeps the major decks honest. They need to be able to defend against a wide variety of angles of attack to remain in their catbird seats. For another, it provides variety. Sometimes you don't want to play a major deck, and then you can always move to the Merfolks or Blightings of the world and try to strike from an unexpected angle.

I could include some information about how to collect statistics for the metagame, but I'm fairly sure that if you're at the level of seriously analysing it, you already know how to do that. My only tip I will give you is to check out the latest tournaments: StarCityGames.com is good for this. Other than that, it's up to you to ascertain what pattern of metagame you're in.

The best part about this advice is that it will still be applicable 5 or 10 years from now. I'm sure I'll write many articles about the metagame that will go out of date in mere months, but this content is timeless. Enjoy it, and use it wisely.

Until next time, may you see the pattern you've seen before.

Catching Up On Magic - Part 2

Shards of Alara is a multi-color set, focusing on the allied three-color shards. The shards are:

Bant: Green, white and blue.

Esper: White, blue and black.

Grixis: Blue, black and red.

Jund: Black, red and green.

Naya: Red, green and white.

The mechanics in Shards of Alara are: Exalted, colored artifacts, Unearth, Devour, Cycling

Exalted is an ability that gives any lone attacking creature a +1/+1 bonus. Exalted also stacks, so if you have 2 creatures with exalted, an attacking creature will gain +2/+2. This serves to make a giant creature that's difficult to deal with, in very short order.

Colored artifacts are in Shards of Alara. No more are artifacts strictly colorless: now they can be colored or even multi-colored, and are, as every Esper creature is an artifact.

Unearth is like flashback for creatures. You pay the unearth cost and it comes into play for one turn, with haste. If it would leave the battlefield, it's exiled.

Devour X is a sacrificial mechanic. When you play a Devour creature, you can sacrifice a number of creatures, and put X +1/+1 counters on the Devourer for each creature it devoured. Some creatures also have related abilities.

Shards of Alara also features the oldie but goodie cycling. No explanation needed here for Magic veterans.

Conflux is a five-color set. It has several cards that cost all five colors of mana, and features Domain, a mechanic from Invasion now keyworded, to reference effects that get stronger with each basic land type you control.

The mechanics are: Domain, basic landcycling.

Domain is a loose keyword that references any cards with an effect that scales based on the number of basic land types you control. The mechanic originated in Invasion, but without the Domain keyword itself.

Basic landcycling, as you may have guessed, is discarding a card to search for a basic land of your choice. Very useful in limited to smooth your draws and help Domain.

Alara Reborn is entirely, utterly, 100% multicolor. All 145 cards are gold: they need at least two colors of mana to cast. Most are also quite powerful. The Alara Reborn pack is like Christmas at the end of an Alara block draft.

The Alara Reborn mechanics are:

Plainscycling, Islandcycling, Swampcycling, Mountaincycling, Forestcycling. Like landcycling, but you can only search for the appropriate basic. All cards with this ability however, have two of them, so you can choose which ability to activate and thus which land to search for.

Hybrid: Hybrid appears in small numbers in this set. However, they come in an innovative form: an example is R/W G. The card can be played for RG or GW (and still requires two colors).

Cascade: The big one, this mechanic has powerful, powerful implications in Constructed and Limited alike. When you play a spell with Cascade, you reveal cards until you reveal a non-land with converted mana cost lower than the card you played (so a Cascade spell with CMC 4 would only Cascade into CMC 0, 1, 2 or 3).

Rulings: The Cascade spell resolves first, then the first spell.

Cascade can only be stopped with a Stifle or something similar. It activates before you can counter the card.

Many decks use Cascade to cascade into powerful removal or aggressive creatures. It's a great mechanic though: strong, but not broken.

Magic 2010 is unique. Since Alpha, it is the first set to have brand new cards in it! Half the cards in it are reprinted, and the other half are invented for Magic 2010 alone. You'll have to check out the Visual Spoiler: it's only unique mechanic is PURE AWESOMENESS. And you'll notice a little red spell there that should raise some eyebrows. You'll know it when you see it. (A link to the Visual Spoilers, and other resources will be posted at the end of this series. If you can't wait, go ahead and Google up 'Magic 2010 Visual Spoiler'.)

To be continued....

How Type 2 Really Works

There are a lot of factors involved in the Type 2 metagame and how 'solved' it is: i.e, how much room there is for innovation within the format so new Tier 1 decks can spring up. People will look at the most infinitesimal parts of the game to try and gain an advantage, but they don't look at one of the biggest factors.

What month is it?

What month it is can often tell you a lot about the format. Each Magic year, in my opinion, starts in October with the release of the large set, in this case, Zendikar. The format then slowly creeps up in power and complexity throughout the year, until October again. At the moment, we have 8 sets and about 1700 cards in Standard. Once October comes along, the Lorwyn cards that dominated the metagame: Spectral Procession, Bitterblossom, Reflecting Pool: they'll all go. Type 2 will be almost wiped clean, and we'll end up with about 1000 cards in the format.

At this point, you have far more options for innovation than you will in October. The format is definitely not solved. Elf Combo popped up, then Time Sieve, now the Mannequin decks. What's next? Who knows?

When Shards of Alara came out, and in fact, when Conflux joined them, innovations were made, but new decks were not. Five-Color Control got Broodmate Dragon and Cruel Ultimatum: but it was still Five-Color Control. Faeries got Agony Warp, but it was still Faeries. And so on, and so forth. Alara Reborn was really what gave birth to new archetypes: Jund and Elf Combo (however, Elf Combo doesn't HAVE Alara Reborn cards. Elf Combo could have been discovered back in Shards and it would have worked fine except for Elvish Archdruid, which powered up the deck but didn't make it exist based only on that card).

Now, with M10 being far more powerful than Tenth Edition, Standard is as powerful as it will get for a year. Innovation is in full swing: but it better be pretty damn good, because there's a pretty high standard on Type 2 right now.

When Zendikar comes out, there will be a rush to solve the format, but I believe the format will lie in the hands of the power cards from Alara block. The decks that survive will be Jund, Cascade decks, and R/G Aggro and Grixis Control may rise to reach Tier 1. Until Worldwake, I don't think Zendikar will be the focus of the metagame, but rather the support cards. The decks will be built around Alara cards. Of course, by the time the third set in Zendikar comes around, Zendikar archetypes will be produced, and the metagame will be shook up yet again as we enter the high-powered section.

The summary of this article is: Standard, more than any other format, is a format that ebbs and flows. From October to Febuary, it's a fairly low-powered format. It starts to rise in Febuary, and really hits it's stride around May. Essentially, there are three blocks: Oct-Feb, Feb-May, May-Oct. And they all play differently.

If I find more to say on the subject, I'll probably write a follow-up post detailing the exact differences, but at this point in time, I don't believe I'm qualified to go into that much detail about it. So in the meantime, enjoy this short article as a break from the monoliths I usually write, and I'll go back to testing tomorrow.

Until next time, may you be at full strength no matter where the metagame's at.