>> UPDATES

9/20/99  Added Draw-Go to the decks. Traded away my last Gaea's Cradle (thanks, Priya in Tucson, it got here in perfect shape). Want list is updated on the trades page. Mercadian Masques comes out next month and I have already budgeted for two boxes, which my girlfriend has not approved.

8/28/99  Went 3-1 at the Saturday tournament at the card shop with the red deck. Lost to a guy playing a green deck with so many Rancors I started to think he had five. (He had four. I counted.)

7/10/99  Finally bought a box of Urza's Destiny and opened a Masticore in my second pack. I'm trying to be cool about it and failing.

How it works: throw cheap guys at them on turns one and two, then point everything else at their face. Jackal Pup is a 2/1 for one mana that hurts you when it gets hurt, which is fine because you're going to win before it matters. Ball Lightning is six damage out of nowhere. Cursed Scroll is how you finish when your hand is down to one card, because with one card in hand you always name the right one.

Yes, the Shivans aren't burn. They're here because I've owned them since Revised and they've earned their spot. And yes, it's only 3 Bolts. I own 3 Bolts. See the want list.

Plays badly against: anybody with lifegain, and that green Rancor guy.

This deck is the opposite of the red deck and I love it for totally different reasons. You play nothing on your own turn. You leave your Islands up and you counter whatever matters. Everything else you let through and deal with later. Once you've got a big pile of lands, Capsize with buyback bounces their best thing every turn, or Whispers with buyback draws you an extra card every turn, and later on both, and they slowly realize the game is over and they're still playing it.

27 lands sounds crazy but this deck wants to hit every land drop all game long. Morphling is the win condition. He's a 3/3 that can be a 5/1 flier, untap himself, and turn untargetable, and at my table nobody has ever gotten rid of one that had mana behind it.

Plays badly against: my own red deck, if it gets a fast start. Also against people who get up and walk away while I think.

>> RANT OF THE MONTH: ABOUT THE NEW RULES

OK, it's been five months since Sixth Edition and the new rules, and I'm ready to admit it. I was wrong. When they got rid of interrupts and brought in the stack I wrote a long angry post about it and told everybody at the shop the game was ruined. Turns out the game is fine. Better, even. You put a spell on the stack, the other guy responds, you respond to that, and then it all resolves last in, first out. No more arguing about whether something is an interrupt or an instant or what "batch" means. The only people who miss the old way are people who liked winning arguments, which, fine, was me.

I still miss the damage prevention step a little. Nobody else does.