// Lands
    4  Kjeldoran Outpost
    18  Plains

// Creatures
    4  Field Marshal
    4  Jotun Grunt
    4  Martyr of Sands
    4  Order of the White Shield
    4  White Shield Crusader
    4  Ronom Unicorn
    3  Kjeldoran Outrider

// Spells
    4  Swords to Plowshares
    3  Cold Snap
    4  Call to Arms

// Sideboard
SB: 3  Disenchant
SB: 4  Royal Decree
SB: 4  Circle of Protection: Red
SB: 4  Circle of Protection: Black

If I had time to actually test this, I would go:

+1 Cold Snap
-4 Call to Arms
+4 Kjeldoran War Cry
-1 White Shield Crusader
-1 Ronom Unicorn
+1 Plains

18 land were too few, since I severely screwed up and counted Outposts towards my land total.  I forgot about Scrying Sheets and really should've added the 4th Cold Snap; it was golden every round.  Call to Arms was downright awful, since so few decks ran very many colored permanents.

I built my SB against Necrodecks, which was a tremendous error, since there was one in the entire tournament.  If I were to play this again, I'd definitely prepare more for G/x anything and the mirror, and less against Necro.

I won 2-0.  So far my MVPs been the card that I very nearly cut.

Wow, thanks for that link!  I missed the article/thread the first time around (no interest in Nats), but it taught me three hugely important things about the format:

-Some actual, codified rules (whenever I played Mental before it often felt like rules were being made up on the spot)
-Some examples of combo finishes (although it seems like a quick Stabilizer/aggressive Leyline mulliganing would jam most of the combo kills dead?)
-How awful I am at Mental. 

I love playing Mental, but the stack we had was made up of old Kamigawa draft junk, so it had some really terrible casting costs (nonsense like XBB and 6U), plus we used the Legacy B/R list to keep the power down.  That and the rules we used were so ill-defined that nobody really knew how the specifics worked (peeking at land, search effects, land types, etc).

That being said, my favorite card for the format was probably Sea Drake, since its CIP ability in Mental is pretty damn close to Gush.

Sounds like fun!  Ill PM my decklist later.

BTW, this may be the only format in existence where 4x Consultation + 4x Ritual + 4x Necro != wacky brokeness.   

Some friends of mine decided to start playing MtG, so after teaching them the ropes, I quickly found myself really wishing to play.  Since the only deck I have anymore is Legacy stuff (and playing against PC precons with Faerie Stompy isn't terribly exciting), I hashed together a quick decklist for a multiplayer deck.

//Lands
10 Forest
10 Plains

//Creatures
4 Kavu Predator
4 Wall of Shards
4 Skyshroud Cutter

//Spells
4 Invigorate
4 Reverent Silence
4 Reward the Faithful
4 Congregate
4 Condemn*
3 Congregation at Dawn*
3 Harmonize

*This is only in here because I don't own a playset of Swords/Calls/Tutors anymore, and really don't want to double the cost of the deck.

The idea of the deck is to lay down an early Predator, play a lot of lifegain spells for the opponents, and beat down with a giant Kavu.  Ideally, I'd get off a turn two Wall, turn three Predator, turn four play some free spells + Congregate, and go from there.

The only cards I worry about in our playgroup are that card that takes something with counters on it from Dissension, and any targeted removal.  I thought about adding in Shielding Plax, but can't really find room for it, although if needed I'd cut the Harmonizes.

Any thoughts/comments?

Thanks!  I'm emerging VMWare right now, and will give Shandalar a shot under it later tonight.

Has anyone had any luck installing this under Linux via Wine?  I tried it last night (running the u.exe command found in Setup.bat), but it ran for ~10 minutes before I Ctrl-C'ed it due to the searing air blowing out the fans.

Today was my birthday, so I had some great cake in lieu of pies.  Surely that spares me from the anti-cake wrath.

Keep in mind that Twilight Princess was originally a Gamecube-only title, and was in development for the Wii a surprisingly short amount of time.  It's a fantastic game (a friend of mine has done nothing but play it in his free time, and from what I've seen of it, it may be the best Zelda yet), but the graphics show its unusual development.

I did manage to snag a PS3, but I'm reselling it (damn you, market forces, for having the price halve in six hours!) no matter what.  The system's worth less than a box of bricks to me (actually, I'd -much- rather have the bricks), so even if I have to break even on it, I'll be placated.

Wow.  This is easily the best news I've heard in weeks.  I get out of school a week before this, so I'll be able to avoid the trains and take my junker station wagon down the entirety of the PA Turnpike. 

Nothing to get oneself ready for a major tournament like hours of driving through Amish country and miscellaenous farmland.

I'm still somewhat miffed that my favorite creature in the game, Uncle Istvan, is no longer an Uncle-Istvan but a boring ol' Human.  Ah well, at least El-Hajjaj still 1-for-1s Tsabo's Decree .

To be honest, I'm astonished that Island-Fish has yet to recieve the axe.  Looks like tribal Fish decks can still get techy and evade E-Plague with everyone's second favorite Island.

You're right about Krosan Grip; it changes the dynamics of one-shot artifacts and enchantments (Crypt, Jitte, Sterling Grove) by forcing the player with the artifact to guess if they have to use it before priority gets passed, or if they can play the old game of waiting until Naturalize/Disenchant/Needle/Deed gets cast.


Sounds like a certain white sorcery that's been banned for the past decade.  A pity it's not instant speed, or Smallpox-on-a-stick would probably crack the format right in half.

Still, history has shown that Balanceqsue effects are still damn powerful; Pox saw play in past formats, there was that Balancing Act deck in Extended, and now there's Smallpox.  Seems like the only loser out of the bunch is, ironically, Restore Balance. 

Congrats on making T8, and awesome writeup!

The UWB Fish build looks really solid, and held up against a somewhat unusual metagame (2 Faerie Stompy matches?  Most tournaments that size have half that number of total FS decks); I wouldn't be surprised if it rises to Tier 1 in time.

Again, congrats on making top 8, and best of luck in the PT!

No problem about the Lavamancer; I don't do very much trading, and I'll probably build Red Death before Fish anyway.

I'd submit a report myself, but my match notes are terrible.  I just remember completely misplaying against the Reanimator deck, but getting bailed out when his deck sputtered out on him.  I was pretty surprised I won the first game against you, to be honest; I haven't had the chance to test much versus IGGy and was counting on getting the Chalice at 2 down ASAP in order to not get steamrolled.

The only thing I'm grateful for is not having to go against either of the 43Land players.