From: rsh9395@is.nyu.edu (Robert S. Hahn) Subject: Re: Type II after July 1st Date: 18 Jun 1997 07:33:24 GMT Also sprach Elliot Fertik (efertik@netaxs.com): : The changes to the Type II scene on July 1st will have the most impact on : Type II since December 31, when Ice Age, Fallen Empires, and Homelands : left the scene. In addition, Weatherlight becomes legal on July 1st, and : this set is probalby filled with more tourney worthy cards than anything : since Alliances. Obviously things will change, but how? Here are some my : thoughts on the new Type II. : : 1. The return of White. In the old type II, white was probably one of : the weakest colors. Now, with the return of Swords to Plowshares, and the : printing of great Weatherlight cards such as Abeyance and Cone of Silence, : white has become once again perhaps the best color in Type II, because it : can handle ANYTHING. This will have several effects on the play : environment: : : a. the return of Marogeddon. With swords baack, theese decks will once : again become a threat. Abeyance gives them another "must counter" spell, : and Serenity gives them a new disk that could be killer vs. Prison decks. : With green having so many good creatures now, Marogeddon will bcome : prominent in tournies again. But I still don't think Marogeddon will win : tourneys - it's still too dependant on the 'geddon. Not sure on this one. New Black could tear it to pieces, particuarly with splashes of other colors for power cards (e.g., Dense Foliage, Fervor, Serenity, Serra's Blessing, Ancestral Knowledge, etc.). The problem is the same with the old Ernie-geddon: except for Mr. MArk ROsewater, who bites the dust when Mr. Nek Rataal comes calling, G/W doesn't have that many ways to deal with an Order or Black Knight or whatever. The black creatures are certainly on par with green and superior to white, especially if the formerly look-and-i-die become unlookable via Dense Foliage. A couple of Bad Moons and Dystopia could make life very difficult. It remains a strong design, though, but I expect to see either red or blue or both splashed with it, and work along the 5CG concept with Swords replacing Terror. : b. the return of prison. This is perhaps the most obvious. Even without : Balance, Zuron Orb, and the tower, the prison now has all of the tools it : needs to be recreated. I've made a test version, with a splash of blue : for Arcane Denial and Ancestral Knowledge (a truly obscene card) and it : rocks. Cone of Silence works wonderfully in this deck, serving as a both : a disenchant and a mini-gloom on the opponent's artifacts and : enchantments. Finally, you can try Dream Tides and/or Pendril Mists; I : am going to give both a try. In addition, the return of Serrated Arrow is : great as well. I don't think this is going to last. There are too many Prison-killer cards in post-July 1 environment. Specific anti-Prison cards: Null Rod, Touchstone, Serenity, Shatterstorm, Seeds of Innocence, Disenchant, Dust to Dust, Divine Offering, Hurkyl's Recall, Energy Flux, artifact mana of any kind, Uktabi Orangutan, Shatter, Pillage, Primitive Justice, Disk... what am I leaving out? I know that I am.... Dense Foliage makes tapping creatures with Icy rather difficult (impossible, actually :) ), Fervor speeds things up way too much for R/X/x/x decks.... I think Prisonesque decks reached their height with a combination resource-denial turbo-balance decks, and that was without half of the cards above in the game then. Even then, Prison lost a lot if it didn't get the right draw. It remains to be seen, however... : c. White wiennie - some people still love to run this deck, and Empyrial : Armour certainly will help. Still a good deck after all these years. Definitely true. But might have trouble with R/W removal decks, splashing all kinds of colors for more control. : 2. Red decks gain by the return of one card - Anarchy. Red regains a way : of killing the COP:Red, and it is not nealry as risky as the disk. I don't think any post July 1 deck is going to be mono-red; it's just so easy to drop in a second or third color for Disenchants, Abeyance, Mind Bend, City of Solitude, whatever. : 3. Splashability. With City of Brass, Undiscovered Paraside, and now : Gemstone Mine, it becomes rediculously easy to splash different colors : into a deck. The 5gc deck was only the beginning; and now, there are a : lot of good, cheap spells with only one color requirement which can slip : into a deck very easily. Ancestral Knowledge, Abeyance, and Serenity are : only some of the examples. I'm not sure it will be like Type I was before : the introduction of Blood Moon (where everyone played with every color), : but keep those Dwarven Miners handy; they may have a busy summer. It isn't even splash -- double primary colors are easy in this environment. R/U/W/G is even possible, with RR4 for Jokulhaups, UU2 for Abduction, WW2 for Wrath, and GG2 for Maro or something along those lines. : So what will be the dominent deck? As much as I hate to say it, this : could be the "White summer", just like the black summer of '96. Prison is : such a strong design, because it completely shuts down creature decks and : also gives counterspell and other creatureless decks fits as well. Look : for lots of Uktabi Uranutang, Serenity, possibly even Seeds of Innocence : Standard (!). Look for Ancestral Knowledge to become the hot card out of : Weatherlight. Look for someone to figure out some ingenous deck that will : come out of nowhere and completely upset my predictions. :) I see a lot of potential in R/U/w base time-control decks with fast damage, removal, and time control via counters, Abeyance, maybe Winter Orb, or whatever. Also, don't count out HowlingBind from that environment. Features more removal than blue-based Prison and more damage dealing power, and all the cards that make other Prison decks unhappy. -The Sophist -- Robert S. Hahn rsh9395@is.nyu.edu NYU Law School, '97 http://pages.nyu.edu/~rsh9395/index.html "Politics is a gun. Finance is knowing when to pull the trigger." -- The Godfather, Part III