Mike Lanigan discusses the impact of the cards of New Phyrexia on Standard’s Vampire archetype.
Mike Lanigan
Mike Lanigan is high school math teacher by day and a shop owner by night. His tournament grinding may have slowed a little, but his love of the game has not. Mike's goal is to bring you a mix of perspectives from shop-owner insights to finance tips to metagame shifts and everything in between.
It was not until the entire top eight had four copies of Jace the Mind Sculptor in their main deck that the talks became serious. We all knew nothing would happen then because New Phyrexia was yet to be released, in printed form at least. But now, the release has come and gone, players have adopted some new cards into their decks, and a new deck or two have made tournament appearances. So, what’s changed since then?
My quest led me down past Mirrodin, into the evil depths of Darksteel, and out along the treacherous path of Fifth Dawn. As I pressed onward, I looked back through the Scars of Mirrodin. Looking back from that perspective, it didn’t seem quite as bad. Nightmares of the Ravager long since overcome, only to be replaced over and over again. With the [card Jace, the Mind Sculptor]evil demon[/card] lurking everywhere, sometimes it’s hard to remember clearly what it was like in the past.
This time around, things are different. The story is not the same. We have [card Jace, the Mind Sculptor]the villan[/card] but no clear path to victory. In that regard the present is like the past.
Seeing the results from the National Qualifiers and thinking back on the article I wrote on Vampires, I was led back to that deck. I really love this Vampire deck and what it is capable of, I play it well, and I have had more success with it than any other deck this season. With all those things being true, how could I not play it again?
