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As for todays article I thought I might just jump on the bandwagon and throw in something about the upcoming regionals. You know, the boring old talk about the archetypes and tell the tech. But I thought I might throw in some general words of wisdom as well. In the run up to regionals this year there is one thing you should definitely look at. The field. So many times I have seen someone bring a deck to a tournament because it is a famous deck that beats the archetypes at PT's and GP's. But your local area is not a PT or a GP so you have to look around. If I was playing at the Pro Tour i would probably have chosen to play Goblins,but as is I chose to play a G/R Tooth and Nail in an attempt to break Fireball as well as the Abunas/Angel combo. I did this because the area I play in has a whole heap on white control with savage anti-goblin sideboard.

So look around and check your area to see what is the smartest deck to be playing :).

Now for the common archetypes:

Goblin Bidding:

Goblin Bidding, in my opinion is the best deck in this format if there was no such thing as a sideboard. Its explosive attack power and its late game bidding makes it very hard to combat. Unfortunately for this deck most control variants are sideboarding in Damping Matrix and COP Red make things hard for goblins to win after the board. If I was going to play this deck at regionals I would make sure I had plenty of anti-artifact hate in the board for the Matrix as well as affinity. But there is no doubt that this deck has huge potential to win a few regionals around the country.

Mono-White Control:

In my opinion this deck is terrible, but showings around the world say otherwise. With the power of wrath and Vengeance they have plenty of hate for affinity and goblins, with the all powerful Pulse of the Fields making them nearly invulnerable against those small creature decks. Unfortunately Mono-White lacks ways to deal with the other slow decks. Tooth and Nail crushes them with a Darksteel Collossus and Twiddle/Desire sends them to the sideboard for any chance to win. I would say if I was going to play mono-white at regionals I would pack my board with Gilded Lights and Wing Shards (if they weren't already in the main) as to have any chance to win against those 2 archetypes.

White-Blue Control:

I am so surprised to see less and less of this archetype in my area (I'm not sure about other areas) because this deck can definitely win. Basically has the same wins and losses as mono-white except with a far better chance against Tooth and Nail because of it's counterspells for Tooth's high costing win conditions. I can only really see this deck losing to Desire or maybe Mono-white with some bad luck. It has all the power of mono- white plus some. If I was going to play it I would probably throw in an extra way to beat other white decks (perhaps Blinkmouth Nexus, Proteus Staff, Collossus?) as well as some maindeck artifact hatred (Annul?) to have a better chance against desire and skullclamp/bidding.

Tooth and Nail:

This is the deck I have chosen for my personal regionals. The deck seems to be all around solid. The power of Fireball puts me slightly ahead of goblins before board although I can easily lose if the hands go his way. I beat white control in every game even after board and find this to be an easy matchup. Althought I do tend to lose to the rogue "Rock" variant with Greater Harvester. I also have a very tough game before board with Twiddle/Desire. After the Chalices come in from the board though Desire becomes much easier. This deck is strong but can lose to the aggressive deck so I wouldn't recommend it if your environment is chock full of them :).

Ravager Affinity:

This deck is hailed as the best deck in the format by a lot of people but I highly disagree. Although it is quick and explosive there is far too much hate in the format to make this a viable deck choice in my opinion. Although it is a fairly skill intensive deck (I played it for a few weeks on mtgo) the deck just lacks the answers to opposing hate. With cards like Vengeance, Oxidize, Echoing Ruin, Shatter, Detonate, Furnace Dragon and so on sitting in the maindeck or board of just about every other deck in the format I don't see this deck being powerful. Although if I was going to take it to the regionals I would pack the board with artifact hate for Damping Matrix as well as maindecking some counterspells in the form of Mana Leak and stuff because this deck straight up can't win without stopping the hate.

The Rock:

For anyone who doesent know "The Rock" it is a deck based around graveyard manipulation and gaining the ability to bring back hate creatures every turn (Nekrataal, Viridian Shaman, etc). This deck has it's merits, especially the version running Greater Harvester and Lightning Greaves. Because there are truly not a lot of decks in the format that can deal with a harvester on turn 4 equipped with greaves. I can safely say that outside of Twiddle/Desire this deck is truly the best of the rest. If I was going to take it to regionals I would be sure to have 4 Naturalize and 2-4 Choke hanging around if there is u/w control in my area. Other than that I wouldn't be surprised if this deck gets some surprise wins around the globe.

Mono-Black Control:

I am barely going to bring this deck up because the merits of it are few and far between. It seems to lose to everything in the format except for goblins. So if you have an uber amount of goblins in your area then you can bring it. But even goblins is not an automatic win. The deck just doesn't seem strong to me in any particular matchups. If I was ever going to consider playing this it would be entirely based on my local format.

Ponza:

This deck I just dont understand. It looks like such a powerful deck and in some matchups, with a good hand, it can beat any deck in the format with ease. Unfortunately the deck is too inconsistent to rely on a good placing with it. Land destruction tends to come all at once (with no threats) or not at all. Which makes the deck terrible in most matchups. If I was going to bring this to the regionals I would very much consider playing less creatures (maybe drop 1 Slogger and 1 Avarax) and play the maximum number of LD spells. In the board, artifact hate is a must as well as Pyroclasms for goblins.

Wizard Bidding:

Hehehe. This is, as many of you might have guessed, not even a real archetype. I just made it up because I think it would be funny to see someone play it. If I was going to play it at regionals I would e-mail the author of the article right now with a deck list and note from your TO saying you played Wizard Bidding for your free prize :).

Thanks for your time everybody

P.S- Wizard Bidding can beat Monowhite :):):)

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