2010)

Control is a very powerful thing. It doesn't play games with other formats of deck design if done correctly. It doesn't guess. It makes itself consistent and locks down the board. The rush player must either try to go so quickly that control can't get started or waste card slots on an anti-control tactic. The control deck, on the other hand, simply uses a slot it had planned for all along to clear away the rush and establish board supremacy. The combo deck? Unless it's using some little mechanic out there like storm, a single counterspell or lock trick can send it reeling, so, of course, there's going to be tactics to fight off control or allow for a second shot at the combo. In short, the other decks tend to diverge from their basic strategy slightly or purchase really expensive cards to go faster in order to try to deal with control.

This means control's already winning, or, at the very least, contributing to the next foreclosure on the block.

If you're nodding, then I believe you're my audience.

Now, blue really isn't my thing, sad to say, so control tends to be a little harder to pull off in a way that I can philosophically agree with. Counterspells, bluntly put, are boring. They're one-shot packages that stop other one-shot packages and just turn it into a game of pointing your Patriot missile batteries skyward in the hopes of intercepting their ICBM before it hits. Still, that sounds fine when there's an ICBM coming toward you in this extended metaphor. I mean, nobody wants their own stuff to blow up, right?

Wrong.

I have here a stupidly silly idea, a nearly masochistic idea; I'd go as far as to say it's pretty goblin in its sheer mindless destructiveness.

Today, we destroy our own lands, drop almost no permanents, win the day, look around at the devastation around us, and take up cross-stitching as there's nothing else to do!*

*cross-stitching optional

THIS IS SPARTAN! (60 cards)

Lands:
4x Barbarian Ring
12x Mountain
*A total of 8 copies of any combination of the following four*
Dormant Volcano
Gruul Turf
Sandstone Needle
Boros Garrison

Spells:
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Shard Volley
4x Chain Lightning
4x Fireblast
4x Gamble
4x Browbeat

Artifacts:
4x Lotus Petal
4x Damping Engine

Creatures:
4x Simian Spirit Guide

The idea of this deck is really quite simple. Use Gamble to find and power out a Damping Engine as quickly as possible, then use Fireblast and Shard Volley to reduce your permanent count so that your opponent can't do anything permanent because he's probably got a good four lands down and here you are with an Engine and maybe two lands at most. Lotus Petal and Simian Spirit Guide can either accelerate out a quick Damping Engine or power more burn spells in a pinch. There's no lack of pain in this deck. If a creature must be offed by a burn spell, go ahead. You have all day to gloat over the fact that mono-red just locked down the board.

Share, and enjoy!

Rate Article

5 (best) 4 3 2 1

Discuss Article

Click here to discuss this article in forum or leave comments for the author.

RSS Feed

This article is provided to you by CardShark.com - A Better Way to Buy and Sell Collectable Games Online. Please check out the rest of our site - you won't be disappointed.

View More Articles