Jitte and Artifact Disconnect

[Crackdown]

I have noticed a post-Ravager ban disconnect. More and more decks are playing the following cards: Vedalken Shackles, Umezawa's Jitte, Sword of Fire and Ice, Darksteel Colossus and Sundering Titan (T&N). Also, there are quite a few enchantments making their way, including Phyrexian Arena in MBC.

Yet, the number of cards with artifact or enchantment hate appears to be close to nil. At the last FNM, no one ran enough artifact removal to affect my Jitte. I saw precious few 187 destroyers or ability destroyers, or even instants/sorceries. It was almost as if everyone felt they could play what they wanted and ignore the artifacts and enchantments, at least maindeck.

I'm not a very good player. I make tons of mistakes, usually somewhere around two a turn on a good night. But with very little artifact or enchantment hate, I've been able to run around 50-50 in total games with budget and semi-budget decks (Under $75).

Imagine what I could do if I knew how to play this game!

The reason for the topic: What should one do now about artifacts and enchantments. Are they as powerful as they appear to me or should their removal be ignored in most aggro decks?

I'm thinking of running a quasi-turtle deck with Splinter and some removal cards.

 

[Oversoul]

That's a good question. I think that there is more than one viable answer. Aggro decks can push themselves more in the aggro-control direction and use disruption to ensure a kill, or they can risk it all and go for pure speed.

Now, if an aggro deck is going to try for the latter, it is going to need a speed boost of some sort. Fast mana helps here. And that is where Snowfall comes in. The mana boost from Snowfall is so powerful, unless your opponent can get rid of it right away, your overwhelming power will grant you an easy win...

 

[Mr_Pestilence]

This is because WotC #$%^'ed up when they killed off Affinity. When you make Aggro worse, you make control decks better, and that slows things down considerably.

This year's Regionals should take about 3 days to complete.

There was nothing wrong with Affinity, except that control players with their precious islands couldn't handle it. There are plenty of solutions to beat Affinity, but none so effective (apparently) as whining to their mommas at WotC.

As a result, expect a "Blue Summer" dominated by counterspells, Vedalken Shackles, Bribery and lots of slow, dull play.

Enjoy!

 

[DarthFerret]

If you are playing Control, it should be pretty easy to Steal whatever artifacts you want to, thus staying in command. Steal Artifact I believe is still in 8th ed. That along with Confinscates will go along way. Bribery will snag the artifact creatures for you. So in actuality (and for the first time I can remember since Hyrkuls recall) Blue has a pretty good advantage against artifacts...

As for enchantments....well...the only thing I know to do is to sideboard heavy against them. Plenty of cards will take care of them, but not sure if it is wise to main-deck those cards.

 

[Oversoul]

Want to take care of blue? Okay, here's the plan...

We'll infiltrate WotC, and change a couple of cards in the new set to some special reprints. They will be special because they will be Necropotence, Dark Ritual, Yawgmoth's Will, and maybe a couple of others. I'm not positive yet...

 

[Killer Joe]

Yes, MUC (Mono-blUe Control) WILL dominate the standard tournament scene this summer but will not repeat: will not dominate the casual scene this summer!

So "Go Casual!"

btw, no one should have to complain about the state of any tournament environment because although "Fun & Exciting" game play is one reason to play in tournaments it's not thee main reason to play in tournaments. To play in any tournament is to "win" by the best means possible; skill, deck choice or otherwise...

 

[Oversoul]

Is it really being called "MUC" now? A friend of mine used to try to call monoblue that, and I yelled at him for it...

MBC is used because monoblack was was often Suicide. So the two were distinguished that way.

Blue control has no need for such an abbreviation, because you can just call it "monoblue" or "blue control" if you want. There is only very rarely a monoblue aggro deck or monoblue combo deck, and they always get their own (rather specific) names. No one ever calls them "monoblue."

"MUC" doesn't make any sense. It actually looks more like it's derived from "MUD" although probably no one remembers that deck...

 

[DarthFerret]

Only thing I remember about MUD is Multi-User Dungeon. But that was way back in college.

 

[Oversoul]

The letters in the Magic deck didn't stand for everything. It was called MUD because it was a monobrown deck (artifacts).

 

[DarthFerret]

Ah...I learn something new everyday!