Article -- "The Deck" for July 2003

[Rakso]

Presenting the new Academy deck: R&D Got Hit By a Bus aka BangBus

PART ONE

PART TWO

Quote 19:55:14 - It is now turn 8.
19:55:18 - Rakso draws a card.
19:55:20 - Rakso plays Flooded Strand.
19:55:21 - Flooded Strand is tapped.
19:55:22 - Rakso's life is now 18. (-1)
19:55:23 - Rakso buries Flooded Strand.
19:55:26 - Rakso moves Volcanic Island from Rakso's library to tabletop.
19:55:28 - Volcanic Island is tapped.
19:55:30 - Rakso plays Gorilla Shaman.

The pressure is on, with the Shaman poised to munch that Chromatic Sphere next turn, and with just one counter left on his Gemstone Mine.

19:55:33 - It is now turn 9.
19:55:43 - RolandB draws a card.
19:55:52 - Underground Sea is tapped.
19:55:55 - RolandB plays Dark Ritual.
19:55:57 - Rakso says:'k'

He's going for something...

19:56:08 - RolandB plays Dark Ritual.

Damn!

Okay, stop reading right now and think.

I have a Mana Drain and two dead cards in my hand, and two blue open. Do I counter the Ritual?

Discuss it here.\n\n

[Zharradan]

The end of the article got cut off, I left a note in the SGC forums as well.

edit: ferrett fixed it.

[MoreFling]

In case you are interested, Duelmen's metagame (at least what I saw on the top tables) was almost strictly combo, with tendrils, trix and the shining also running rampant. In the mix were 2 stax decks and 1 urphid, and perhaps 1 hulk deck, although they got their asses kicked all day
These numbers might be off until womprax finishes the complete deck breakdown, but this is what I saw.