Lots of good content in this article.  Whiffy's obviously a master of threshold, but I have to disagree with him on the topic of Fire/Ice.  Personally I find Fire/Ice to be better than Lightning Bolt four times out of five, and if you're going to cut one I think it should be Lightning Bolt.  Fire/Ice can be pitched to Force of Will, it cycles, it's a timewalk vs an active Phyrexian Dreadnought, and it's a superstar against random creature decks like the elves deck that won the PE a while back.  There are very few 3 toughness creatures in the format right now other than the untargettable Nimble Mongoose, so the extra point doesn't matter as often as the ability to choose two targets does.  The main advantage of lightning bolt is the one mana cost vs the vastly greater power and flexibility of Fire/Ice.

As an aside, it's "archetype", not "arch-type". 

Thanks for the article, i appreciate the walkthroughs.

 My initial build was G/R, as it provides you with the best creatuer base.....

 1cc:  Fyndhorn Elves, Ashnod's Transmogrant

2cc: Dwarven Soldier, Goblin Piker, Incenerate, Naturalize

3cc: Pincer Beetles, Bogardan Firefiend, Brothers of Fire, Granite Gargoyle, Dragon Engine, Forcefield, Phryxian Vualt, Wispersilk Cloak, Wanderlust(agreed this is underrated)

4cc: Giant Spider, Stone Giant, Abundance

5cc: Spined Wurm

6+cc: Craw Wurn, Shambling Strider, SoulBlast(excellent finisher-if they don't have FOW ;-p  )

x1 Quicksand

x9 Mountains

x8 Forests

Poor Luck.  Tthis pool is in no way an 0-5 pool.  Better luck next time.

Regards,

___helper_monkey on MODO

.... was reprinted in Xth which is part of MED leagues (3x MED 2x Xth per league).

Raphael of course! (I have all the seasons of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.)

The problem is not how it's supposed to be pronounced, but how it should be pronounced. Attacking someone and screaming "JIT-TY!!!" just don't strike as much fear as screaming "JEIGHT!". The former just sounds like something a three year old girl who's just learning the english language would mutter, the latter is strong, solid, and requires one to use the whole of one's breath in a forceful manner. It encompasses the word, and that is the most important aspect of pronunciation for me. 

 As for one week leagues. I'm torn. On the one hand prize payout is actually much better considering you don't need to add another three packs. Leagues turn out to be a fantastic deal. For a little more than a draft, you can be guaranteed two packs if you join something like Mirage or CSP and even MED (Im only going to wind up getting a single pack for this MED league, but that's because I went 0-5, and not the league itself). But on the other hand, leagues where you wouldn't normally win like Lorwyn lose out. Since the odds of earning packs for a LRW league are much lower, you usually play them for fun- so you'd want them to be four weeks/ I'd be happy with CSP and MIR being pernamently only one week long.

Hamtastic, I tried your GWB build and the results were very promising. It fared much better than my last builds. It still struggles, but the deck is much more synergetic. 

I'm not sure I agree with taking black instead of white. You said that white lacked bombs, but I cannot find any bombs in black either so that argument kind of went down the drain. I think I would go with white mainly because of the evasion granted through bombardiers, avian and ploverknights. I would still splash for red (the same cards as you chose). I might get a little bit higher manacurve, but the deck would be more powerful mid- to late-game.

entertaining

Nice article .

Of course after reading it and playing a MED league match I am alseep .

Don't worry I blame the match and the fact that I am old enough that I am getting mail from the AARP and not your article .

... Wanderlust.

As you stated, games last forever in MED sealed.  Wanderlust keeps that from happening.  Or, it can become removal if you put it on a guy that you know that you can kill without losing a guy when they attack.

Looking over your pool though, you were pretty hosed for creatures.  The only actual threats were in G/W (flyers are really good here).  You'd still have to run Black to have some removal, but my build with the deck would be G/W/b (using Sylvan Scrying to pull a swamp).

Lastly, I'd run Ashnod's Transmogrant over any of the other marginal cards that you had in the deck like Hydroblast and possibly Juxtapose.  I've never been a fan of that Juxtapose.  The only time it's really good is when your in a much worse position, which probably won't be turned around with this one card.  In fact I've often come out ahead on my opp's juxtapose's.

But the lack of any real 'bombs' certainly doesn't help you here, but I think G/W/b would probably have worked out a bit better as your white creatures are better than your blue ones as far as I can tell... 

Really nice summary. My only suggestion is to consider including a few more links to highlights from the official coverage if you can identify more gems in there (like the kithkin video).

Great article!..

 I'm glad my  approach to things is the "prefered" method (getting multi lands .. going after cool little casual cards.. getting cards that mean the most "extended then casual then classic then standard" .. )

First of all, I never have, and never will, call any person crap. As humans and fellow magic players, I feel that reducing me to personal attacks would be absolutely degrading myself, and the reputation of this site. I understand you were “trying”. But understand that part of writing involves acknowledging criticism.  Don’t get me wrong, unlike a lot of people, I actually read through every article before I comment on them. What I am saying is not that that you as a person is bad, but that the article was terrible. No offense to you as a magic player and classic enthusiast: I’ve been around classic long enough to know you’re not bad in that regard. I’m saying that your article is lacking in a lot of aspects. Let’s address Ace of Drafts. I’ve played with the guy a bunch of times, and I can tell you he’s an amazing player. No doubt there. I’m saying that the decklist he gave you is suboptimal. That too can be contested, but I believe Ace of Drafts may say the same thing. I digress, what does me knowing you have to do with offering criticism? All of my criticism should be taken with a grain of salt. Data or not, the article itself needs have more content as well as more analysis. I know it’s hard trying to write a weekly article, so my advice would be to switch it into a monthly thing if the article comes out too short or lacking information. I believe that although I wasn’t positive, my previous post contained and pointed out all the problems.

And I’m sure many would agree with my analysis.