Its back boys and girls. 1st Magic League Season of 2011 kicked off today. Some of you know of my last League deck, The A-Team.
League Play is sort of like a 6 Week Magic Season, where players buy in for the weekly tournament and accumulate points as the weeks go by. However, instead of using their normal, all-ready-made decks, all players put up additional money the first week, to buy 5 booster packs, from any standard set (Zendikar, Worldwake, Rise, M11, Scars, and by next week, Mirrodin Besieged) and create a minimum of 40 cards from the cards pulled from the assortment of booster packs.
This is where it gets intense. Not only can you NOT use cards not pulled from the 5 original packs (meaning no, you can't order 4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor & 4
Vengevine
online, unless you pulled it]], you must document EVERY SINGLE CARD (with the exception of basic land & token/tip cards) you get from the booster packs. You must also write out your entire deck list. Now, you must be thinking, "Damn, i can only use those 75 cards pulled from those booster packs?! WACK!" That's when the Magic Player inside of you comes out. See, its not just about actually playing, its about deck-building and choices.
Every week, you are allowed to purchase one booster pack to put in with your other League Cards. Every other week, you can purchase up to two booster packs. Another way you can get the cards you want, is to trade with players who are also in league. The rules for trade are: One for one, (meaning you can't trade 3
Bloodthrone Vampire
for 1 Lightning Bolt) and rarity for rarity (uncommon for uncommon, mythic for mythic etc)
For the first 3 weeks of the 6 week League Play, your deck can be a minimum of 40 cards, with EVERY card you pulled from the booster packs you put up for League Play as your Sideboard. After the halfway mark in the season, the format goes to Type 2, meaning you have to have a min. of 60 cards, and a 15 card sideboard, all documented in your deck list.
The point system, as mentioned before, accumulates as people play games. The winner of a match (best 2 out of 3) gets 2 points, while the loser gets 1 point. During the weekly tournament, whoever is the winner of that tournament receives an additional 5 points to go along with however many wins he had. 2nd place in the weekly tournament gets an additional 2 points for placing, and 3rd place gets an additional 1 point for placing.
Here's the cool part, you can also play for points outside of the weekly tournaments. You can have casual games with friends who are also in your league (if they are also playing with their League deck, of course) and the same rules apply, whoever wins gets 2 points, loser gets 1 point. After a match, call into your local shop or write down who won how many matches and how many points a player won.
The kicker is, you can only play with the same player, twice a week (a week according to League Rules is Sunday-Saturday). And not in a row. Timmy can play Johnny but he has to play Melvin, then he can go back to playing Johnny after he gets his ass kicked by Melvin's U/W Control. Basically, the more you play, the more points you get. The more points you get, the better chance you have of winning the huge prize at the end of the season. Fun stuff with the points are, every 10 points you get, you receive a special foil promo card, and every 20 points you get another foil promo and the chance to buy a booster pack, regardless of whether or not you bought one for the week, or two for every other week.
This season I am running a B/G infect deck with some incredibly bombs, especially in this limited format (for the first 3 weeks at least). I drafted all Scars of Mirrodin packs, and you can see from my decklist the rares I'm using.
Since its green, I've been able to ramp easily into a
Carnifex Demon
on turn 5, sometimes even turn 6!
Platinum Emperion is more of distraction, my opponents worry about it and they don't realize i'll be holding a Tainted Strike in my hand.
Painful Quandary is another bomb in this deck, giving me another win option via the lose life route, along with the poison counters.
