Subject: Re: [STRAT]The Metagame 2 (What follows) Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 18:57:42 +0200 From: allon pilberg Nestor Rodriguez wrote: [snip] > The question is: What can we learn from this? Well it is very simple, if > your deck manages to get enviromental control in the early stages, and you > have late in the game weapons, it will be very hard to loose. > It looks like a bit strange to me, that this startegies are still > dominant, if you look at the card choice we have at the moment, after > tempest. On the one hand, whe have massive creature control spells to get > rid of each creature separately( Incinerate, edict, dark banishing, > kindle, Necrataal...) and on the other hand we have a lot of creature > neutralizers that can prevent your opponent from playing any creature (I > could name lots of examples, but I`d like to concentrate on Propaganda). > Now let`s take into account the influence Extended make in the T2 > enviroment. There you have a simmilar enviroment to the T2, where people > empty their hands quickly (no the best strategy in my opinion) in order to > abuse from cursed scroll, a card that cost 3 mana to activate. Well this > basic influence of extended in T2 will IMHO make the creature deck turn > even crazier willing to empty their hand ASAP, to either scroll you to > death or swarm you. Lets take a t2/ext. deck (quite similar other then the duals). As you said, most decks are based on swarming with creatures and killing with the scroll. how can you stop both? The first is pretty simple. I'd recommend using both: a.mass removal (WoG). b.an engine that stops creatures from damaging you (mainly attacking). something like humility-prayer, propaganda-hand to hand or propaganda with some mana denial. Now, how do we stop cursed scroll? Since it requires 3 mana per turn, mana denial would work well. Combining both, i think a U (or U/w in extended) propa-orb deck is the way to go. Here is my t2 version. notice it is not a classic propa-orb at all - it uses quite alot of creatures. I won an on-line tourney with this, losing only to 5cg (after that i added the floodgate). 12 islands 4 adarkar wastes 4 sky diamond 4 plains 4 counterspell 4 dissipate 2 dismiss 4 propaganda 3 orb 3 MoW 4 ophidian 3 air elemental 3 floodgate 3 tradewind rider 3 suq'ata firewalker SB: 1 dismiss 3 power sink 1 winter orb 3 dream tides 4 disenchant 1 floodgate 2 armageddon