2001)

Once I saw this card, I thought it had a chance in type 2, but it really doesn’t stand a very good one. Lately though, I have been playtesting it, and it does seem to work well. It beat fires 2-0 and B/W Control 2-0. Although 2 games don’t count for much, you never know.

Unnatural Selection
1U – Enchantment – Rare
1:choose a creature type other than wall. Target
creature becomes that type until end of turn.

The two different types I use with the selection are mercenary and Legend. Also, when I played a rouge merfolk/goblin deck I ended up making some of my own creatures merfolk. But anyways, that just goes to show it can some in handy.

I opted to go with Blue/White, rather than blue/black for a couple reasons. Galina’s Knight, in my opinion, is more useful than the Volardian Zombie. Pro-red can be useful against shocks, rages, and other instants. Pro-green is nice against Blastoderms, but green is going out of style a little bit (the fatties at least). Spiritmonger changes colors so we can’t do much there. Also, I found Absorb better than undermine for this deck. I’d rather stall them an extra turn then lose with them having 17 life. Finally, Mercenary Informer is better than Rebel Informer. The only reason I say this is because he can’t be targeted by black spells and abilities. That means Dark Banishing, Terminate, Vindicate and all of the black creature removal does nothing. Rebel informer may be able to take some rebel decks to death quickly, but the activation of the selection is only 1 mana. Who needs 1 mana anyway!

Here is the decklist I cam up with for now

Creatures:
4:Galina’s Knight
3:Empress Galina
4:Mercenary Informer

Enchantments:
4:Unnatural Selection

Instants:
4:Accumulated Knowledge
3:Fact or Fiction
2:Disenchant
1:Dismantling Blow
4:Absorb
4:Counterspell
3:Thwart

Land:
12:Island
8:Plains
4:Adarkar Wastes

Sideboard:
2: Spiritual Asylum
3: Dodecapod
4: Gainsday
3: Spectral Lynx
3: Ivory Mask

The nice thing about this deck is that it is very versatile. If you are playing against a fires deck, you can slow down and counter a couple of spells before you get going. When you are playing a less aggressive deck, you can play your Unnatural Selection and Mercenary Informer by turn 3, and ready to get rid of creatures turn 4. That is pretty fast in my opinion.

I have included 4 Accumulated Knowledge and 3 Fact or Fiction because when your key permanents are destroyed, you can’t do much. Also, Fact or Fiction helps to fetch Ms. Galina.

Running 11 counters is plenty! Usually you will have 12-15 after sideboarding against blue decks - and there are a lot of blue decks right now. Disenchants and Dismantling Blows should be used against every decent deck, whether its story circle, fires, opposition, static orb, you know the deal.

My sideboard is kinda weird, but I made it to play the major t2 archtypes right now. The Ivory Mask is against any deck that runs a lot of burn and rages, possibly even discard, but it’s a little too slow for that

The Spectral Lynx are for decks that run Blastoderms, and other big creatures without trample.

Asylum is there for a deck that targets a lot of my creatures. I can wait till I gain control of some fatties then attack all at once.

Dodecapod goes in against discard (even though the other article on here says not to run them). It’s not so much how many different discard cards your adding, its how many are in the deck you are playing against. Some decks run 4 Blazing Specters, 4 Gerrard’s Verdict and some Bog Downs.

At first, you might think they are bad, Gainsays are amazing! For any two color deck they can really come in handy against blue.

Although this deck is rotating out pretty soon, it is fun to play with it for now. Maybe Odyssey will bring some better anti-kavu cards too!

Thanks, I’ll probably come up with another rouge article next week.

~Londe

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