Boldo's - Pro Tour New York Preview

Pro Tour New York Preview

by Boldo

At first I did not even realize why everyone was congratulating me. Even when the invite arrived from WOTC I needed a friend to explain to me that I had just been invited to the Pro-Tour. Most people would have been trilled but I was only confused as I had not even played in a qualifier. It was not until almost 3 days later that I realized I had qualified on rating. NY PT was a constructed tournament so I had qualified to play Masques-Nemesis block by being good at type 2, even though I am not very smart at times.

Well I immediately set about building decks to try to determine what the environment would be like. I determined that there would be 5 dominant decks: Rebel, Pirate, Black Control, Black Triumph, and Green Beef that would look something like this:

Rebel

4 Defiant Falcon
4 Ramosian Leut.
2 Lightbringers
2 Lawbringers
4 Distorting Lens
2 Lin Sivvi
3 Last Breath
3 Disenchant
2 Nighwind Glider
2 Thermal Gliders
2 Pious Warriors
4 Defiant Vanguard
2 Ramosian Sky Marshal
18 Plains
4 Rishadan Port
2 Dust Bowl

Pirate

4 Rishadan Cutpurse
4 Rishadan Footpad
4 Rishadan Brigand
4 Tangle Wire
4 Parallax Tide
4 Seal of Removal
4 Counterspell
4 Thwart
4 Daze
20 Island
4 Rishadan Port

Black Control

4 Counterspell
4 Thwart
4 Daze
4 Massacre
4 Soothsaying
4 Nether Spirits
4 Thrash Wumpus
4 Dominate
2 Asc. Evincar
2 Gush
4 Rishadan Port
2 Dust Bowl
8 Swamp
10 Island

Black Triumph

4 Dark Ritual
4 Dark Triumph
4 Parallax Dementia
4 Snuff Out
2 Vendetta
4 Rampart Crawler
2 Molting Harpies
4 Cateran Persuader
2 Cackling Witch
4 Spinless Thug
4 Rathi Intimidator
2 Vicious Hunger
2 Ghoul’s Feast
18 Swamps

Green Beef

4 Vine Trellis
2 Land Grant
2 Skyshroud Claim
4 Groundkeeper
4 Stampede Driver
4 Natural Affinity
4 Seal of Strength
2 Invigorate
4 Blastoderm
2 Saporling Burst
2 Saporling Cluster
4 Rhox
4 Hunted Wumpus
2 Rushwood Elemental
16 Forests

These are all good decks and the finals should have a nice collection of these but I wanted to paly a different kind of deck...one that was a Boldo style locking deck with a heavy control element and lots of playability. It also had to beat all of these decks plus anything else that we could come up with. To do this, I sat down with the best minds at Boldo’s Armory and with the help of Steve McCarthy, Mike Ruff, Pat Albro, Dave Jacobowitz, Neal Calcote, Mike Dewey, Ray Placious, and Mark Bordenstiener I developed a different kind of deck. Now I only hope I have been smarter than I was about the qualifying.

Boldo’s Cowardice Deck

2 Scandalmonger
4 Tower of the Magistrate
3 Stinging Barrier
4 Counterspell
4 Thwart
2 Massacre
4 Force March
4 Soothsaying
4 Cowardice
2 Belbe’s Armor
4 Dark Ritual
3 Crenellated Wall
4 Highway Robber
12 Island
8 Swamps

This is very good against Rebel as by returning the cards to the hand of the player it renders them useless. It is tough against the Pirate deck as it has a high mana ratio and plenty of control. The Scandalmonger and Cowardice are both real good by themselves against the Pirate deck. Black control has too few threats and not enough counter superiority to beat this. The Black Triumph is the worst match up as without a Forcemarch and Ritual or a Massacre this deck will just lose. The Green Beef deck does a whole lot of casting of the big beefy creatures and as too few creatures trample in the set it is very tough on it with block and return my creature. So I figured this was the way to go. It is very powerful with an enchantment base which I prefer and lots of mana to get around problems. It is at best a very solid 3-4 deck. [an error occurred while processing this directive]