I’m going to start today with something a bit different. You see today is my dad’s birthday and while he never really learned Magic (and you better believe I tried to teach him), without him I don’t think I’d be, well, here. Before Magic there were books, and there were so many. My father was (and remains) a voracious reader and growing up our basement was a library of dime store pulp in the vein of John Carter. My first exposure to the world of comic books was with one of his collections of Dr. Strange, shrunk down to a paperback. His collection was where I first found Dune, Foundation, and The Chronicles of Amber.
But then there was Magic. Dad was always there to pick me up from Friday Night Magic at Neutral Ground, often parking and coming up to sit in the corner to read while I finished the last round (unless he had finished a book and instead browsed the shelves). He became such a common sight that to this day BDM still asks me how he’s doing.
My favorite story about my dad and Magic is from when he took me to the Junior Super Series open at Walt Disney World during the Spring Semester of my first year of High School. I did terribly but was playing pick up games with a new friend. Dad walks up to me with a representative from Wizards of the Coast and asks me if I’d like to have a picture taken with someone; intense in battle I wave Dad off and tell him I’m in a game, and he goes back to that someone. Richard Garfield apparently just nodded his head and said something to the effect of “I understand.”
I love you Dad, happy birthday.
Here are some of the decks from this week’s league results I want to highlight today.
It’s always cool to see Tireless Tribe combo pop up in the results. The core conceit of the deck is to get the eponymous creature into play, have enough cards in hand to give it a huge butt, and then use Inside Out to crack in for lethal damage. Whiteout provides a way to convert land drops into damage which has helped to keep the strategy afloat after Gush‘s ban.The deck may benefit from running Birthday Escape in some number as a way to keep the cards flowing while also making Tireless Tribe more difficult to block in certain metagames.
Faeries is always going to be a viable strategy in Pauper. While it is not currently a top deck in the Challenges the result here demonstrates that it can still win. I wanted to highlight his list because it opted to include Snaremaster Sprite as another Faerie that has utility in the latter stages of the game.
I love a good black based midrange deck and Orzhov Ephemerate fits the bill. This one seems to go hard on the Wilds of Eldraine cards but is only using Candy Grapple as a way to Bargain. Given the cheap enchantments in the build I think this style of deck has room for Rowan’s Grim Search as a way to reload, but then it would probably want more ways to bring creatures back from the dead, and rewards for doing the same.
There were a lot of Heroic builds in today’s results but I wanted to talk about this one because of some of the choices made. Ornithopter over Vault Skirge is certainly a choice and the complete absence of Akroan Skyguard tells me that this is less a traditional Heroic deck and more one built around trying to spike a victory with Ethereal Armor. There is nothing wrong with this approach but it takes an already fragile deck and removes some of its staying power. Maybe Slumbering Keepguard is a enough to games competitive, but I’m not convinced.
Which deck from this week is your favorite? Did I miss any sweet tech? Let me know in the comments below.
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NerdtotheCore 