ICE AGE PRE-CON FINALISTS
By Michael Howell.

If you are reading this, you have likely read the original article presenting this competition. If you haven't, here's a quick overview.

Entrants had to submit an Ice Age only deck that followed some deck construction criteria and guidelines. As per normal pre-con decks, the decks had to have exactly 2 rares, 13 uncommons, and the remainder of the 60 card deck to be made up of basic lands and commons. 4 decks would then be selected for the finals, and go to a public vote.

The Selection Dilemma

After analysing the decks, a few of them stood out as highlights. Unfortunately, white went a little unrepresented. Of the decks that had white, “Wind Chill” by Danny Smith was the best.

Now, the dilemma comes from the following two criteria:

• While entrants could enter multiple times, only one deck per entrant could be selected for the final 4.
• I wanted all 5 colours to be represented in the final 4, as though they may have been 4 pre-cons you might have seen during the reign of Ice Age.

Danny also entered another deck which both Ian and I really liked. After expressing my concern about this situation to Ian, he came up with an excellent suggestion. While “Wind Chill” does not make it into our final 4, it receives an Honourable Mention, so that a White deck can still be represented.

I think Danny has chosen 2 great rares here. Now when I say great, I don't mean super powerful cards. I mean cards that are interesting, seem ‘cool', and are the sort of rares you would expect to see in a pre-con. Sibilant Spirit is not a great card in that it generates card advantage for your opponent every time it attacks, but those types of cards have their place in pre-cons for learning purposes. The deck also has a clear path to victory. It controls things in the early game, then has its flying creatures start swinging in the mid game.

So now, on to the finalists. These are listed in no particular order. I will not heavily discuss the decks here; we'll leave that to the message boards!

Norritts Talisman – Michael Burke

Woolly Stampede – Alan Lee

Frost-Bite – Danny Smith

Karplusan Fury – Joe Tobin

There is one slight problem with “Norritt's Talisman” that even I didn't pick up until Ian mentioned it to me. While Michael did not submit a synopsis of his deck, I would assume the Soldevi Machinists were intended for use with the Talismans. The Talismans in printed form look like activated abilities; in fact, they are triggered abilities with the current official wording. Despite this (probable) oversight by Michael, the rest of the deck meets all of our criteria and was the best of the blue/black decks (and there were a few!).

Green/Red was also popular, with two solid decks in the finalists; while I preferred to avoid this (I wanted all 4 finalists to be different colours), both decks were excellent while being different enough to warrant inclusion in the final 4.

A few of the decks were really strong on flavour, but fell slightly short when it came to synergy and intuitive paths to victory. I think this may be indicative of the way blocks and sets are approached these days in the design and development process, making mechanical and flavour themes more closely tied. I'll give Alan Aldridge a special mention, because his “Demonic Flames” deck oozed flavour.

Time To Choose

Now it's up to you guys to select which ones is your favourite deck. You can either use armchair theory, or perhaps whack the decks together (in paper if you've got them or in MWS or your application of choice) and give them a whirl.

From the previous article, here are the criteria you should be looking at.

• Would I give this deck to a new player if I wanted to teach them the game?
• Does this deck have an intuitive path to victory?
• Do the cards all fit an easily identified central theme? Do any of the cards stray from this theme to the detriment of the deck?
• Does the deck have subtle ways of teaching players about the game? My definition of a ‘subtle' card is one that does not share all its information straight away; it usually requires several games to decipher how good (or bad) it is or how much it helps you. These are excellent teaching tools. Orcish Lumberjack is an excellent Ice Age example of a subtle card.
• Are there enough mana sources? There should be a minimum of 23 lands in the 60 card deck. Your deck must have very good reason to go under this number and must still function well if it will be considered.

Remember, we are looking for the best designed deck, not necessarily the most powerful! I encourage you to discuss the decks on the message boards. I thank everyone for their entries, and also Ian Seet for assisting in the selection process.

The poll will run until 10.12.05

Michael Howell

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