1. Excellent Article there Enderfall one of the best classic articles I have seen in a long time – I really like the series and look forward to the next deck-techs. I am super impressed that you picked up on Slash Panther (as this is so what still under the radar). In my mind you hit it spot on with the level of detail. Although it is not an option to vote on I would love to read a primer on Tezzerator strategies – A list recently went 4-0 in the DE – I guess a joint article on Classic Plansewalker (Ie JaceII and Tezz possible Tezz II) would be really sweet. Once again A star shop this is the first article series on this site to inspire me to bookmark the site and visit it.
    Perhaps you can reference your clan affiliation somewhere too ;-)

  2. Great article and resource. One thing you missed, and has been a little under the radar in Classic, is combo-Shop decks. You mentioned Forgemaster, but didn’t really get into how combo-Shops functions. I know, this deck hasn’t done much, but that has a lot to do with the limited amount of Classic we have seen.

    Also, imho, Chalice for 0 shuts off a lot of Lotus Petals out there in quite a few match ups.

    Lastly, I personally think Wurmcoil is the cat’s meow at the moment and ought to be a 4-of in all Shop decks. There is so much hate floating around vs. Shops that if I have a Wurmcoil or Hellkite, I would rather play the former, hands down. I am increasingly disenchanted with Hellkite in a non-Mox world. I find Wurmcoil also better than Duplicant who does nothing vs. Storm, not much vs. Oath (all gg at the moment), not much against Dredge, precious little vs. Tezzerator/Jacerator/Gush decks, and quite frankly, he’s too slow versus opposing 1st turn Metalworkers.

  3. Hammer, which deck went 4-0 with Planeswalker control? I checked the archives on CQ and couldn’t find anything, but maybe I missed it. I will certainly consider a dual Jace/Tezz primer if Jacerator ends up winning.

    MMogg, in my testing, Forgemaster is a little slow as in most cases it takes two full turns to reap his rewards (the exception being tutoring up the Vault Key combo, but that requires having on piece already in hand or in play). You need a commanding board presence in order for him to stick since he has a huge target on him before you can untap with him. Lightning Greaves would help in that regard, but then you are watering down your deck with equipment that has little value without the Forgemaster. My feeling is that if you have a commanding board presence then you shouldn’t be waiting a full turn to get some value of of a card when dropping Karn, or Precursor Golem (both sharing the 5 CC slot) offer up more immediate rewards.

    I also agree with your Wurmcoil vs Hellkite discussion to some extent. Hellkite has evasion and that is something that can not be discounted, especially when playing Fish decks packing Trygon Predator and the mirror match. I typically use a split of Hellkite and Wurmcoil in my 75.

  5. Ah-ha. CQ doesn’t have the July DE’s up and you had not published the list on YSO. Thanks for the link.

  6. I have secretly been buying classic decks. You can bet I was bummed when I realized the Homeward Path didn’t screw over oath–stupid ownership token update in m10!

    I will read over this and tweak my shop decks :]

  8. Thanks in3d, as ashamed as I am to say it I had forgot about that useful tool.

  9. Looks like the community has chosen G/W Hate. Look for that in my next primer!