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Song title: G8mer Boi

Vocal: Any Magic Player

Lyrics: Ben Seck, Minga Wong

Originally from Avril Lavigne's "Sk8tor Boi"

"He was a boi, she was a girl

[x2]

The lives of Sydney MTG Paradise writers seems to be rather perilous in the past few months as none of us have managed to qualify for the Australian Nationals on points even though we claim to be experts on the game. Scott Hunstad has developed a new love for the LoTR card game and therefore neglected what is truly important, while Dan Turner has been struggling with Onslaught/Legions drafts even though he reviewed the sets. I on the other hand, made the mistake of taking a rogue deck to a major constructed event and ended up losing 60 points before I realized that the deck is absolute shaft. Therefore, even though I have top 8 in more premium events in 2002 than most people I know, I still have to suffer the indignity of playing 7 grueling rounds of Magic at the Sydney Regional (no offense to people who also have to play to qualify).

The thing I dislike most about major constructed tournaments is the amount of research and hours upon hours of play testing you have to put in to prepare for the tournament. Being a chronically lazy person, I have managed to prevent such tedium by playing different versions of Braids deck in all my constructed tournaments in 2002. My theory was that if I play the deck enough during tournaments, I wouldn't have to practice the deck in my spare time and with a 2nd place at last year's Regionals and a 4th place at States the theory appears to be sound enough.

However, since the introduction of Onslaught the Braids strategy seems to have lost the competitive edge that it once had. In the new type 2, Braids tends to lose to U/G deck's bigger and faster creatures, Sligh deck's burn, Astro Glide deck's Lightning Rift, Psychatog deck's Counterspell and Mono Black deck's removal. With so many tier 1 and tier 2 decks wrecking havoc on Braids, I thought it is perhaps time for me to move on.

So what should I play if I am not running Braids? Psychatog has too much math involved and I don't fancy playing mirror match ups all day with U/G. I tried playing Canu's Opposition deck in Masters but it has this tendency to lose to fast aggro decks in the first game. Sligh is perhaps the tier 1 deck I favor the most at the moment except my draws from it were far from optimal during play testing with manly draws that are comprise of lands, spells and no creatures. Ialso tried Wake, MBC and Slide but playing control decks makes me want to weep.

After complaining about every single decent deck out there, I began to wonder if mono-black agro was a playable archetype after all. With the new cards from Legions, we get the new Negator in the form of Drinker of Sorrows, a great meta-game answer in the form of Withered Wretch and the card-drawing machine that is Graveborn Muse. With previous MVPs like Nantuko Shade, Smother and Duress, surely it is a tier 1 deck in the making right? Here is what I was going to play in the Regionals:

Creatures

4 x Nantuko Shade

4 x of Drinker of Sorrows

3 x of Bane of the Living

4 xGraveborn Muse

4 x Wretched Anurid

4 x Festering Goblin

= 23 cards

Others

3 x Duress

4 x Smother

4 x Chainer's Edict

2 x Dirge of Dread

= 13 cards

When the deck was fist conceptualized, I thought that it was the hottest thing since Tatu's lesbian schoolgirl MTV clip. It has decent removal, fast fat creatures and above all, the Drinker of Sorrows+Festering Goblin combo is so good that it can turn a disadvantage into gain right?

Wrong.

Following much play testing with all sorts of aggro Black/suicide Black and all other fast Black deck affiliates, it is my opinion that the deck is an absolute pile of junk. For starters, Drinker of Sorrows is such a piece of crap that it defies the domain of human conception. For a 3 drop, he can get blocked AND killed by a Wild Mongrel (but who plays those these days eh?) get Smothered and worst of all, he can't block. In fact the card's ability seem to contradiction itself. As an early game creature, you really can't afford to sacrifice permanents because it will stunt your attack or your mana, yet if he comes out late game, there are literally hundreds of ways to block and remove it. So what good is this card when it is bad early game AND late game?

Ever since the release of Legions, people have been raving and ranting on about how good Graveborn Muse is and try to break it with cards like Words of Worship and Words of War. This card in my opinion definitely has potential yet it may not be as powerful as some people imagine. Against more aggro decks like Sligh and U/G, the Muses' ability is often a drawback, as you cannot afford to have her out for long while your opponent molests you with their creatures. Against control decks, the Muse is too slow and can easily be countered/killed.

The problem with the new aggro/suicide Black deck strategies in type 2 is that most of them try to emulate an old version of a deck with much poorer cards. The reason why old Suicide Black deck is good is because most of the decks creatures have evasion (especially shadow), allowing you to nibble your opponents' life away even though they have creatures in play. Unfortunately, in the current type 2 card pool, only Foul Imp and Hollow Specter can be considered as "good" evasion creatures but as long as Wonder is still legal in the format, the flying ability really isn't that crash hot.

So what am I going to play at Regionals? I don't know yet but I do have a deck in mind. Hopefully some play testing this Thursday will help me to make my final decision.

Until Dan clogs up the article section again.

Minga

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