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Another Week Goes By...
It amazes me how things
can change in a week.
In the past week:
Many of you graduated high
school.
Many of you graduated
college.
The Lakers made the NBA
finals.
The Williams sisters lost
in the same round of a tournament for the first time
ever.
Oh, and the big news...
The DCI banned a card from
the Standard (Type 2) constructed environment for the
first time in nearly six years. That in and of it
itself is big news. It shows that even with all the
talent they have, things can sometimes get out of hand
and slip through. That's OK by me. They're only
human.
What doe sit mean for
tournaments though? Who knows. What I do know is
that you should get all the playing time in right now
with your Skullclamps that you can. Also, be aware
that this card is just banned from Standard and from
Mirrodin Block Constructed event. It is completely
legal to play with in Extended, 1.5, and Type 1. So,
don't be so quick to trade or sell away your
Skullclamps. There are still a lot of uses for them.
Also, casual players are unaffected by these bannings,
like most of them.
There is so much to look
at here with the new tournament environment. I have
to seriously say that I feel Darksteel was the best
middle set of a block to come around in a long while.
However, I think Fifth Dawn is equally as good as the
last set of the block. Truth be told, it might end up
being as good as Apocalypse was. I know that most
retailers should easily sell a lot of this set. Why?
Simple.
It has good casual player
cards like:
Look at this thing. I
mean REALLY look at this thing. It's very likely this
might even show up in some tournament decks. But I
know a LOT of casual players are going to want this
card. Imagine playing against a deck that's packing
Platinum Angel, Mindlsaver, AND Door to Nothingness.
That could get real annoying real fast. I'm sure it's
going to get done. If nothing else, it will be damn
interesting.
There are good serious
tournament cards like:
People griped and moaned
and complained about Blue not getting played. Well,
at the very least people will be willing to play
Islands again. Is this alone going to do it? No,
probably not. But the truth is simply that blue got a
big boost in this set. Spell countering control
players should have a field day when deck building
now. WotC is just doing their part to keep things
balanced.
Cards to mess with your
opponent:
There have been cards like
this for years. Remember how we were talking about
all those Platinum angels and Mindslavers being
played? Well, here's a way to get back at your buddy
if you don't like having to deal with those cards.
Just go get them out of his deck for him. To add
insult to injury, it goes right into play. This is
definitely a card that casual players should keep an
eye on.
Cards that everyone will
like:
There aren't a lot of bad
things I can say about this card. It's protection
from both red and black which is great. It lets you
gain life when a creature comes into play. This works
well with white weenie decks. It's also great with
something along the line of a cycled Decree of
Justice. It's a cleric, so it fits a popular theme.
Unfortunately, it's only a 1/1. For some reason, I
don't see her small size stopping her from seeing the
play.
There are even cards that
break the rules:
Even as an uncommon you
can expect to see this card selling for $3-6 with some
regularity. Both casual players and constructed
players will be trying to play this card. It has some
potential to be deadly. But, WotC giving us a card
that breaks the deck construction rules is definitely
interesting. What is needed? That's debatable. Will
it hurt anything? Probably not. Will it be fun to
play? You bet.
There are even some
interesting cards to build around such as:
 
 
Don't jump ahead of
yourself here. I'm not saying these all belong in the
deck a deck together. I'm just showing that there is
a large variety of cards in this set that can be
played or used in both casual play and serious
tournaments. The best part is that the cards in Fifth
Dawn are interesting. I like this set more than most
WotC have made. Just having the large variety of
abilities is good for me. There will be am emergence
of new deck types I'm sure. I love sets like this,
because they favor the creative deck builder. You can
openly reward creative deck building in a tournament.
However, sets like this let players build decks to
have fun with and still have the potential to win a
tournament and showcase his talents.
But all that aside, I want
you to notice something. All boxes of product from
Wizards of the Coast (WotC) will now have a second UPC
on them. It's usually a strange set of numbers and
letters. Also, the packs inside each have a new space
provided for the on the individual wrappers for a
special code. The codes on he wrappers and the UPC on
the box are directly linked to one another.
So what does this mean to
you? Well, a few things. First of all, anyone caught
selling product early can potentially have an issue on
their hands. WotC can now track the pack directly
back to its source. This is going to get some people
in trouble, but it will definitely stop the early
release of its materials.
More importantly though,
it will help keep your local card stores around. What
many of you don't know is that to get the best price
on booster boxes (which is only less than some online
discounters by a couple of dollars) from WotC
directly, you have to sign some paperwork that states
the majority of your business comes from a brick &
mortar store and not an online store. Well, it's been
obvious for some time now that many people selling
product online don't even have a store front and are
working solely from internet sales. WotC wants to
stop this. They aren't getting the product form
WotC...they are getting it from somewhere else.
I think this is a great
move. Let me say that I have no problem with people
discounting. People will discount. It's just a way
of business. I just have to hope that most customers
are willing to spend a couple of extra bucks to
support their local playing place. However, I do
think that online discounters should have to play by
the same rules as everyone else. If they get their
product at the normal prices, then someone should have
to fess up. Make everyone play by the same rules. It
not only adds integrity to the game, but also adds
integrity to the reputation of the company. I'm
behind WotC 100% on his project and I hope that they
bring many people down for this. If you get product
that is suspect or product that is sold early, save
your proof of purchase and mail it to WotC.
Since I gave you a lot of
cards to think over today, I'm not offering up a Card
of the Week...I mean, come on...I'm only one man. And
I'm only a HUMAN man at that.
But, not wanting to
disappoint my adoring public, I offer to you this Play
of the Week. This good play of the week comes from
Chad:
So I went to the 5th
Dawn Pre-release. My showing wasn't that great. I
went 0-2 for the first wave and lost two drafts, but I did go 3-1 in the last 4 round wave. I heard about the following play over the course of the day. I am not sure who had it though, but it was during sealed deck play. I really wish I could have seen the losing player's face when it dropped: So a guy drops a bringer of the white dawn on turn 8 or 9 with some tricky 5 color action. He allows his opponent to play, nothing spectacular happens. He starts his next turn and drops a mindslaver and activates it. He taps his opponent out and generally messes with him and then returns for his turn pulling the mindslaver from the graveyard during his upkeep and repeating the process. Not sure who won that wave but I am sure this guy placed with prizes.
As a side note, I find it
interesting that in some places these are called
flights and in others they are called waves. Around
here, we are flight folks.
Don't forget that Fifth
Dawn goes on sale tomorrow, Friday June 4th 2004. Get
your cards and start deck building. I also want to
remind you all that if you are in the area, we are
having a $5,000 Qualifier this Saturday June 5th 2004
at The Game Closet in Waco, TX. The event is $15 and
start time is 12:00PM (noon!). Feel free to e-mail me
for further details.
Well, that's it for me.
Until next time.
DeQuan Watson
PowrDragn on IRC
PowrDragn on City of
Heroes
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