Gifts Ungiven

Over at the Evolution blog, Ruben Gonzalez asks "Que fue de Battle of Wits?"

Or, in English, "What happened to Battle of Wits?"

In the article, Ruben looks at Battle circa 2005, with Sam Gomersall's list, then looks at how the list was updated for 2008 by Alex Yatsenko of Russia, who bravely piloted it to a 5-3 finish (including one win over Steve Sadin, who picked an even worse deck to try and win a Pro Tour with).

Ruben has some interesting commentary in his article, including a discussion about how the 2008 deck has focused even more on actually finding a copy of Battle, along with other changes to try and make the deck more effective. Once again, you'll need to be able to read Spanish (or enjoy the quirks of machine translation) to read the article, with the added bonus this time around that the deck lists are also in Spanish. Still, if you can swing it, it's a good read, even if you (like me) don't relish the idea of showing up to a tournament with four decks instead of the requisite one.

(Sorry about the lack of correct diacriticals. I'm trying to figure that out.)