Everyone knows Brian Selden is the new World Champion, and most realize his
deck was at least a little different from the other Living Death decks in
the field, but few people realize that he is really Michael Loconto in
disguise.  I know cause I saw him sneaking sips from his flask.  Anyone can
do that?  No.  "Sneaking alcohol during Pro-Tours" is a trademark of M.
Loconto.  I know this.

Anyway, in this, the first issue of my new weekly column, I'm going to
outline the differences between Selden's deck and the other "similar" decks
in the top 8.  I'm also going to take every opportunity to make fun of him
and anyone else I think of.

First, a listing of Selden's deck.

2 Nekrataal
1 Thrull Surgeon
1 Spirit of the Night
1 Man-o'-War
1 Tradewind Rider
1 Cloudchaser Eagle
1 Orcish Settler
1 Verdant Force
1 Spike Weaver
2 Spike Feeder
2 Uktabi Orangutan
4 Wall of Blossoms
4 Birds of Paradise
2 Wall of Roots
2 Firestorm
2 Lobotomy
4 Recurring Nightmare
2 Scroll Rack
4 Survival of the Fittest

3 City of Brass
8 Forest
1 Gemstone Mine
2 Karplusan Forest
2 Reflecting Pool
1 Swamp
2 Underground River
2 Undiscovered Paradise
1 Volrath's Stronghold

Sideboard
4 Boil
2 Dread of Night
3 Emerald Charm
1 Hall of Gemstones
1 Staunch Defenders
2 Phyrexian Furnace
2 Pyroblast

The most apparent difference in Selden's deck to the others is, well, the
lack of a certain card usually found in a Living Death deck.  This card
happens to be... Living Death.  Is this a good choice?  Well damn, he won
the World title, so it can't be bad, but that's not what I asked.  I think
it's a great idea, in fact, I made the point to Andy Wolf, Rudy Edwards and
the Deadguys on a few occasions before and during Worlds that Living Death
is not as important or devastating than Recurring Nightmare.  There are a
few reasons for this.  Any of you who attend tournaments on a regular basis
(and even those of you who only attend a few) know that Living Death is one
of the most popular cards in Magic right now.  Every LDD is based around
getting things in the graveyard via Survival of the Fittest, Firestorm,
whatever.  But if everyone else is doing the same thing with their
graveyards, is it really going to be such a bomb when YOU do it?  Not
really.  In fact, it'll often be a bad idea.    When LDD was a younger deck
concept, maybe, but not anymore.  The field has developed around itself.
Basically, one of the most powerful cards in the set is now not so powerful
because of the metagame.  This all boils down to Recurring Nightmare being
more potent and much harder to deal with.  Here's the proof.  There were 4
decks in the Final 8 at Worlds that featured Living Death and/or Recurring
Nightmare.

Player               # of Living Deaths     # of Recurring Nightmares
------               ------------------     -------------------------
Brian Selden                 0                         4
Raphael Levy                 2                         4
Scott Johns                  2                         4
Alan Comer                   3                         3

The funny thing is that most of their opponents were probably sitting there
waiting and worrying about when the Living Death was gonna hit them in the
ass.  In the case of Selden's opponents, they waited right up until the
Spirit of the Night jumped out of the graveyard and took a dump on their
heads.  How amazing is it that four decks in the top 8 had a Spirit of the
Night AND a Verdant Force.  It's good to see that Wizards has built an
environment that encourages the use of single fatties.  Of course, many
Magic players out there *are* "Single Fatties."

Magic: The Gathering.  A game about Single Fatties for Single Fatties.

All four players used four Survival of the Fittest, it's the card that makes
the whole deck run about 10 times better.  If you don't own four,
something's wrong with you.  If Recurring Nightmare is the crack rock,
Survival is the pipe.  The opposite is true in the case of plumbers.
Recurring Nightmare is the pipes, and Survival is his crack.

Another topic of interest is single creatures.  Let's do another comparison
of the four decks.  Once again, Survival allows the use of these "ones."

Creature              Selden     Levy     Johns      Comer
--------              ------     ----     -----      -----
Cloudchaser Eagle       1         1         1          1
Thrull Surgeon          1         4         1          1 in SB
Spirit of the Night     1         1         1          1
Verdant Force           1         1         1          1
Orcish Settler          1         0         1          1
Spike Weaver            1         1         2          2
Shard Phoenix           0         0         1          1
Uktabi Orangutan        1         3         1(1 in SB) 1

Also:
Volrath's Stronghold    1         1         1          1
Firestorm               2         0         2          1
Land                   22        23        22         21

It's no surprise that Comer had the least land.  :)

Obviously, these players all agree on some cards, like the Eagle, Spirit,
Force, and Weaver.  Levy didn't use certain cards like Firestorm because his
deck had only one non black or green mana source in it.

For more information on these decks, they're all here on the Dojo (as they
always are).  To purchase exact copies of these or other decks, email
efreet@mindspring.com or call New Wave Mail Order at (770) 753-0606.

Aziz Al-Doory