2001)

Every once in a while, Wizard's R&D will hear the frutstrations of the players for stronger cards and act appropriately. They put on their thinking caps and come up with an extremely powerful set that will rival some of the famed ´´broken´´ early cards of the game. Since invasion we have seen some very fast, efficient and powerful cards - card's like Skizzik that was supposed to mirror the capabilities of Ball Lightning or new cards that get around the weaknesses inherent in a color. Red was always at the mercy of a counterspell until the introduction of Urza's Rage. Urza's Rage is just an overcosted burn spell though; without the kicker the speed of green or a misdirection will kick it's butt. Phyrexian Scuta is the new Juzam Djinn, it just costs the three life up front. Even with these apparent drawbacks, these cards are some of the most efficient and powerful we have seen for a while.

Now with mutli-colored gold spells so heavy in play, the type II environment has slowed down to the point that running multiple colors is not only possible, but probably necessary. This is true for 2 reasons. First being that the available card pool is mostly composed of gold cards or cards that have other colors for special abilities. The second reason is that many of the gold cards abilities are amazing and rival the days of Urza's Saga which is the last time R&D hit us with some real powerhouse cards (Gaea's Cradle anyone?).

With the introduction of Apocalypse (which is Type II legal on July 1st), we see opposing colors added to the mix. To make up for the mana difficulities inherent in casting these cards, we see a whole new set of opposing color pain lands and also spells like Vindicate, Death Grasp, Spectral Lynx, Spiritmonger and a host of others that are very powerful as a result of the opposing mana costs required to use them.

The result is that it is now possible to build an extremely fast, efficient and deadly multi-color deck that will kick your opponent in the head. I have been developing the following idea for just such a deck. The original deck concept started out as a B/G beatdown deck offered by a friend. It has since morphed by over 50% of it's cards and seen the addition of white for some serious powerhouse cards. All in all it is a very solid deck that I feel can give any of the other type II archtypes serious contention for the ´´Deck to beat´´ in type II.

To start, it's obvious that everyone is looking at Spiritmonger as a solid card to play. Why not build a deck around black/green and see what else there is in that color scheme. So, that's what I did to start... the idea isn't too fresh as everyone will be trying to use Spiritmonger, but hopefully the application and the unique cards chosen will provide some great ideas. A deck isn't great with Spiritmonger alone. This deck hasn't been playtested enough, so I am sure it will see some permutations yet, but all in all it has a solid mana curve, excellent spells and lots of control/utility for B/G/W deck.

The Decklist for ´´macrocide´´:

Creature block:
4: Spiritmonger
4: Phyrexian Scuta
2: Ebony Treefolk
2: Spectral Lynx

Control block:
4: Vindicate
4: Pernicious Deed
4: Death Grasp

Utility block:
4: Life or Death
4: Eladamri's Call

Mana acceleration:
4: Birds of Paradise
4: Dark Ritual

Land:
4: City of Brass
4: Llanowar Wastes
4: Forest
4: Swamp
4: Plains

Deck Analysis:

The core of the deck is it's creatures. It is running 16 creatures and 4 tutors (Eladamri's call) to fetch creatures. Spiritmonger is a beast of a creature at 6/6 for 5 mana. He grows when he damages creatures and has regeneration and color changing making him hard to deal with. I am not sure why they didn't just add trample for good measure. Anyways, he is good and an obvious target for things like Slay, Terminate, Wrath of God, etc... I kind of see him as the trojan rabit of the deck. Put him out there as a target and see if anyone bites the bait. If they do, you have plenty of other good creatures to back him up, but if they put up no resistance, beat them to a pulp.

The other creatures in the deck are quite beefy still. Phyrexian Scuta should always be cast with the kicker if possible (accept against counterspell decks) and is a 5/5 for 4 mana and 3 life. Ebony Treefolk is an undercosted card as well coming in at 3/3 for 1BG (3 mana) and has the ability to pump it by +1/+1 for BG. Spectral Lynx (2/1 for 1W) is great against Fires, the mirror match or any other green decks with it's protection from Green. It also has regeneration which makes it great to stop a Spiritmonger, Blastoderm or whatever. Finally we see the Birds of Paradise that is used for mana acceleration, color balancing and chump blocking of flyer heavy decks.

The control block is super fast and efficient in this deck and really makes adding white a worthwhile choice. First we have the every popular vindicate. This card will see a lot of play. It's great for targeted revomal of a permanent. The key here is that you can remove ANY permanent. My favorite trick is to use it on a Land card - especially against a counterspell deck that rarely has any early game permanents. Most blue decks will sit around countering all your spells while building mana, so this is a way to slow that down and also to control non-basic lands like Ports or City of Brass.

Pernicious Deed is the MVP of the deck. It's just amazing. I can't believe they made the card, but it is rapidly becoming my favorite green card ever. It costs 1BG, and for the privalege you get an enchantment that sits in play and reads, pay X and sacrifice Pernicious Deed - Destroy each artifact, creature and enchantment with converted mana cost X or less. Wow. You can play this thing early game, then wait for your opponent to put some threats down while you drop in a Spiritmonger or a Scuta. After that blow up the deed for 3 and clear the board of all chump blockers (goodbye Chimeric Idol) and start beating. This is a great card against most of the non-fires decks because they all run spells that are less than 4 in casting cost. It's easy to wipe out an entire army of rebels for instance. An even better use for the spell is against Fires though. If you cast it for 3 and blow it up for 0, you can even kill all of your opponents Saproling Burst tokens immediately (and as an instant effect). If you sac it up for one, you also get rid of any Elves and Birds keeping mana accelerated on the other side of the table.

Finally we have Death Grasp. Another great card that is XBW and does X damage to target creature or player and you gain X life. This deck uses cards like Llanowar Wastes, City of Brass, Life/Death and Phyrexian Scuta to accelerate mana and pay kickers, so it's not unheard of to be at 10-13 life by turn 5 all due to your own spells. To counteract this and provide some good creature and player direct damage, Death Grasp fills the bill. I only wish this spell was an instant!!

Life or Death - and what a choice it is. If you are sweeping the board of permanents with Pernicious Deed, Vindicate and Death Grasp and wailing on your opponent, then you should choose the Life side of this card. For 1 green, you can make all your lands 1/1 creatures (as a sorcery) and attack with them. This is usually a great way to turn up the pressure on your opponent and accelerate your win by a turn or two. The Death side of the card is equally useful in that it lets you pay life to return a creature card from your graveyard to play. Someone casts Wrath of God? No problem, cast Death for 1B and pay 5 life and bring your Spiritmonger back in for another few rounds of beatdown. Hopefully you can see the huge potential of this very cheap card. Another cool thing is that you do not have to name a target until resolution of the spell, so make sure to ask for effects after announcing the spell (such as counterspells). You also do not lose life unless the creature actually makes it into play. Be careful of bounce decks though as they will quickly make you wish you didn't lose all that life just to have a creature returned to your hand. Another nice trick is to discard a Spiritmonger first turn, then playa swamp/dark ritual death and bring the Spiritmonger into play turn 2 (set up a regeneration shield with the other black mana to avoid burn)

Eladamri's Call is probably one of the best tutor's left in the type II block. With the rotation of 7th edition, we have lost almost all of the good tutor cards and see them replaced by slower cards or sometimes not at all. This little gem costs GW and as an instant lets you search your library for a creature and put it in your hand. This is a great play at the end of your opponents turn if you do not have anything to do or have extra mana. In maindeck, you can use it to search for your huge creatures. Let's say you have 3 mana and are holding a land and an Eladamri's Call. At the end of your opponents turn you could search for a Scuta (4 casting cost), then play your land and cast it on your turn. If you had 4 mana in play instead why not go for the Spiritmonger. Maybe you are holding all your big creatures and need mana to support it, then search for a birds of Paradise (you may even want to do it on your turn to cast the birds in the same turn since it is so cheap). For sideboard tech, this spell will prove even more useful. Playing a counterspell deck? Sideboard in Kavu Chameleon and search for that instead.

For mana we have Dark Ritual for acceleration and City of Brass / Llanowar Wastes for mana balancing. We also have 4 of each of our colors as basic lands.

Phew! That's a lot to digest, but hopefully you will see that the deck has a lot of potential and can be played in many ways. The ideal draw is to get an opening hand containing: Birds, Dark Ritual, Swamp, Forest, Spiritmonger, Eladamri's Call, Plains. First turn, drop a forest, birds. Second turn drop a Swamp / Dark Ritual / Spiritmonger (YIKES!) Third turn drop a plains and if you don't have anything else to do use the call to get some more goodies (like an Ebony Treefolk or another birds to accelerate mana further).

Sideboard Tech:

3: Kavu Chameleon
2: Obsidian Acolyte
2: Crimson Acolyte
2: Hurricane
3: Slay
2: Blastoderm
1: Dodecapod

The sideboard for this deck will probably change a lot, but it is one of the best features of the deck. Since you are running four maindeck Eladamri's calls, you have some really good chances of getting any creatures you sideboard in. One of the obvious type II threats will be counterspell or counterburn, so running 4 Kavu Chameleon in the sideboard is a good idea. Also running 2 Obsidian Acolytes and 2 Crimson Acolytes is good for proc red and black. 2 Hurricane will give you flyer control and 3 Slay will give you non-regenerating control for green creatures (against fires and mirror match up). 1 Dodecapod is included against heavy discard deacks. Finally 2 Blastoderm are good for heavy burn or bounce decks. Feel free to substitute in any creatures you want to go fetch in either the sideboard or maindeck. The call's are great at pulling out the perfect creature at the right time.

Enjoy.

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