2001)

I should not be playtesting Invasion Block Constructed. I am not qualified for Pro-Tour: Tokyo, and there are several important events that I need to prepare for that occur long before there will be an IBC qualifying season, such as Grand Prix: Detroit and Regionals. However, I did get involved in exploring IBC to help some playtest partners who are qualified for PT: Tokyo, and now I'm hopelessly hooked. Tweaking and tuning decklists for the upcoming T2 format for Regionals is important, but exploring this whole new IBC format is much more fun. If you are bored by the current lull in constructed activity for Magic, I encourage you to explore IBC. Even if you are not qualified for PT: Tokyo, exploring a new format for the first time is always an adventure.

I'd like to offer this article to help get you started on that adventure. Much of what is stated in this article you will eventually discover -- although maybe not so explicitly -- as you tune your IBC decks into highly-efficient killing machines. However, stating these ideas explicitly can serve as a valuable shortcut in creating your initial IBC decklists, allowing you to avoid potential pitfalls in your mana base before you begin construction, rather than having to tune these bugs out as you discover them at a later time. Without further ado, let's discuss some aspects of your mana base in IBC.

The first thing to notice is that most block constructed environments will require you to play with more mana than your average Type 2 deck. With less than half the number of cards in the available card pool, you will often need more spells in higher slots of the mana curve in order to complete your deck without the inclusion of sub-optimal cards. Also, block constructed formats tend to be a bit slower than Type 2, allowing slightly more expensive cards to sneak into decklists for their powerful effects, thus tipping the mana curve slightly farther towards the higher end. Often my Type 2 decklists begin with 23-24 land, whereas my IBC decklists thus far have started with a minimum of 25 land, and then I begin tuning from there.

A direct result of playing with more land is that you will draw more land. An obvious fact, I know, but a significant one worth considering. Remember pitching extra lands in the late game of Masques Block Constructed to Rath's Edge? What will you do with all of that extra land in the late game of IBC? If your opponent is able to make effective use of all of his lands throughout all phases of the game, while you are left with nothing useful to accomplish with your late-game flood of mana, you will likely lose to his superior power. However, don't go reaching for your Devouring Strossuses and Dracos just yet; having something to do with your late-game mana isn't particularly useful if you don't survive until the late game due to drawing dead early-game cards. Your goal is to find cards that are useful in all stages of the game, but increase in power as you gain additional mana. I offer as examples of this the Pyre Zombie, Cinder Shade, Ghitu Fire, and Keldon Necropolis from my Inhumane Society decklist.

Other uses for late game mana that are not necessarily dead cards early include Acolytes, Benalish Heralds, Nemata, Grove Guardian, Meteor Storm, and Natural Emergence. There are many other options - it is up to you to decide which options are powerful, and which are not.

One other note on the concept of utilizing your mana throughout all stages of the game; IBC does feature the new kicker mechanic, which is intended to alleviate the issue of what to do with late-game mana. However, it is important to realize that many cards with kicker are decidedly sub-optimal when the kicker cost is not paid. For this reason, cards such as the Battlemages really should be considered to be in the 4-5 CC slot, rather than in the 3CC slot with a late-game bonus.

A bigger question than how many lands to play in IBC is how may types of land to play. This is the multi-colored block, right? So how many colors can we play? Three, four, even five colors, right? The answer is, for the most part, you will want to play a two-color deck, despite all of the multi-color support available in the block. To see why, let's examine the characteristics of the multi-color mana sources. For the purpose of this discussion, they can be divided into three categories.

First, there are the mana sources that provide the colors you already have: Star Compass and Meteor Crater. These cards do nothing to help you to cast spells you wouldn't otherwise be able to cast due to color concerns. This does not mean that we have to dismiss them outright - Star Compass is good for decks that need to leave mana open in a variety of colors for instants and/or multiple activated creature abilities, and it is also non-green acceleration. However, for expanding our deck to play with more colors, these are pretty much useless.

Second, there are green multi-colored mana accelerators, such as Quirion Elves, Utopia Tree, and Harrow. These do provide multi-colored mana and allow for decks with three or more colors, but they must be based in green to utilize them. Also, efficient creature removal such as Terminate, Scorching Lava, Urza's Rage, Void, and Breath of Darigaaz will be very troublesome for a deck depending on a crew of elves to be able to cast it's multi-colored spells. I do not deny that a strong three, four, or five color green deck exists, but my playtest group has not yet discovered one that stands up to dedicated creature removal.

Finally, there are tempo-loss multi-colored mana sources. Some examples are CIT lands like Coastal Tower, Lair lands like Dromar's Cavern, and Terminal Moraine. These cards provide you with the multi-colored mana you need at the price of a loss of tempo to some degree. I consider Cameos in this category because a deck should become active at least when it gets to three mana if not sooner in order to avoid falling behind in tempo, and you have to tap three mana to cast the Cameo before it begins working for you. While CIT lands are nice to provide some stability for your two-color mana base, expanding into three or more colors without using green accelerators will drive you to play a large number of these tempo-loss cards. While a three-or-more-colored deck may feature more powerful cards, it will often find the tempo-loss to two-color decks to be fatal. Therefore, in order to make a strong deck utilizing these mana sources, you will need an efficient way to make up for lost tempo.

Luckily, IBC does provide us with some potential candidates: Void, Breath of Darigaaz, Obliterate, Wash Out, Rout, and Teferi's Moat. Void and Breath are conditional - they may or may not help you to catch up, depending on the creatures your opponent has in play. Obliterate, while an impressive reset button that does promise to see play in IBC, is not effective for this type of deck, as you will be back to rebuilding your multi-colored mana base once again after casting it. Wash Out may reset the board once your mana base is set up, but will you be able to stop all those cards from coming down a second time? It seems, then, that our best solutions for regaining lost tempo are Rout and Teferi's Moat, so it should come as no surprise that thus far in testing, the only three-color deck that has experienced any level of success features both of these cards. Here's my decklist for Uwb Control:

4:Absorb
4:Undermine
4:Dromar's Charm
4:Lobotomy
4:Voice of All
1:Dromar, the Banisher
4:Rout
4:Teferi's Moat
4:Fact or Fiction
4:Salt Marsh
4:Coastal Tower
2:Dromar's Cavern
4:Terminal Moraine
8:Island
2:Swamp
3:Plains

As you would expect, this deck will start out behind as it builds its mana base in the early game, but will attempt to stabilize with Rout or Teferi's Moat, after which it will hide from the flurry of Urza's Rage and Ghitu Fire that will likely follow using Dromar's Charm and Absorb. This deck is quite powerful once it is up and running, but with such a high mana-curve it has a much harder time than other decks do when plagued by a bad draw, so I wouldn't recommend it for a tournament with more than four or five rounds, as it inevitably will take a dive on you at some point.

Hopefully, these concepts will help to shorten your tuning time by giving you something to think about when concepting your decks for IBC. If you have any questions, comments, or criticisms, I'd be happy to receive them at crazy_monkey1@msn.com

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