Hey everyone, Set Roulette is back! I'm Paul Green, I won the first ever Set Roulette back in April and ever since been hooked on to the format. Everyone’s favorite format rolled some absurd powerful sets this month:
- Mirrodin - Tempest - Journey into Nyx - Saviors of Kamigawa - Coldsnap - Magic 2013
The last handful of Set Roulettes have had an obvious single deck or interaction, but this format has no Flash or Valakut to lean on. Instead, we have two of the strongest sets in the history of the game to build around, Tempest and Mirrodin.
This is my first choice for level zero. Affinity is explosive and resilient, with some broken openers and plenty of reach to grind out the endgame. Glimmervoid also lets Affinity be the only deck in the format with enough mana fixing to play three colors safely. This is an aggro deck with a strong history, and you should come prepared for it.
The format’s expected premier combo deck. Charbelcher + Mana Severance was a powerful Extended deck two decades ago, and it’s going to make a comeback in Set Roulette. This build of the deck packs the supporting slots with the best card selection and protection, but the shell is compact and very flexible, so I can’t wait to see the versions other players come up with!
The blue protection suite can also be built around a control shell. Counterbalance and Scroll Rack could be a way to attack the format if you don’t mind it being blanked by Myr Enforcers.
This type of deck doesn’t do anything obviously broken, but it always seems to end up much better than it looks. The grindy midrange options are great, but I’m worried about folding to fast combo.
So what should you play? I’m betting on either Belcher or some Belcher/control hybrid as the top deck, but as long as you have a plan to either kill early or deal with common early kills you’ll be competitive. This format is much deeper than it looks, and the list of things I’m still trying to explore includes Erayo, Red Wasteland decks, Monoblue Affinity, UR control/Belcher, Owling Mine, and plenty more. This is shaping up to be a great format, enjoy!
