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On a boring Sunday evening at my in-laws' house, my wife and I were seriously in need of entertainment. My son was quietly playing with his grandmother and I suggested maybe we could playtest some of my spare Magic decks. My spouse usually finds my hobby of the addictive card game to be totally abhorrent. I got a rare break through for sure. She agreed to play one game against me for the heck of it. I allowed her to use my Cat Scratch Fever deck that I had from the article I wrote a while back. I used a pure white Peacekeeper deck that still needs some serious tuning. My wife is only comfortable playing green so she used the Cat deck well. It was a seriously long game involving Peacekeeper and Mother of Runes vs. Elvish Farmer and Vexing Arcanix. The white deck created ultimate lockup and immunity to damage while the Cat deck ended up with one milling effect artifact that killed the white deck in the end. No more cards in the deck. Puh. Needless to say, my wife was thrilled and wanted to whomp me again.
I gave her access to my considerable collection of green which goes back to Alpha and she made herself a brand-spanking new green deck which looks promising. She enjoys creatures with trample and tends to make fairly functional beatdown decks.
Twisting Dance of Destruction
Alpha Status
Ancestral Mask
Armageddon Clock
Carnivorous Plant
Darksteel Reactor
Defiant Elf
Desert
Desert Twister*4
Druid Lyrist*3
Elven Cache*2
Elvish Archers
Elvish Farmer
Elvish Ranger
Elvish Warrior*3
Fruition
Gleeful Sabotage
Hidden Path
Killer Bees
Krosan Drover
Lowland Basilisk*2
Millstone
Mtenda Lion*2
Norwood Ranger
Regrowth
Roughshod Mentor
Sol Ring
Stream of Life*2
Thicket Basilisk*4
Venomous Dragonfly*2
Vexing Arcanix
War Mammoth
Whip Vine
Forest*23
My wife drafted a deck that has many elements of classical green. The Basilisk ability has been known as deathtouch in one of the most recent expansions. [Editor's note: Sort of.] This deck packs Thicket Basilisks, Lowland Basilisks, and Venomous Dragonflies to round out the deathtouch-ish portion. Another costly but effective part of the deck, four Desert Twisters with some companion combo cards to keep the winds of sand scouring your enemy. Two Elven Caches and a Regrowth allow the green mage to bring any kind of card back from the graveyard back to her hand. Many utility monsters and spells allow her to deal with various enchantments and artifacts.
Finishing cards are sprinkled liberally through the deck. Armageddon Clock is a good slow kill to begin the party with its increasing amount of counters. Darksteel Reactor allows another win condition in case of a big old game lockup. Millstone and Vexing Arcanix allow for some milling from the opponent's library. This article helped me analyze her deck and hopefully helped some budding green wizards appreciate green, the original color of crush.
Criticizing my wife's gameplay would not be complete without analyzing my own strategies as well. I found it might work well in multi-player considering I quickly ramped up to prevent lots of damage and stop creatures from attacking dead in their tracks. It doesn't handle land and artifact destruction very well. Not to mention the milling that she used to whomp me.
Peacekeeper Deck (Work in Progress)
Ankh of Mishra*3
Balance
Blood of the Martyr*4
Castle*2
Circle of Protection:Artifacts
Combat Medic
Hallowed Healer
Healer's Headdress*2
Holy Day
Mishra's Factory*3
Mother of Runes*2
Peacekeeper*4
Reito Lantern
Repentance
Righteous Aura
Sanctum Custodian*4
Scars of the Veteran*2
Shadowbane
Strip Bare
Tempest of Light
Temple Elder
Wall of Swords*2
Windborn Muse
Wrath of God
Ancient Tomb
Plains*17
The strategy flaws are obvious once you weigh the cards. So many damage prevention and anti-attack cards without enough damage. Any truly effective offensive spells were zapped by Desert Twister because Mother of Runes can only protect creatures, not lands or artifacts. The damage combo of the Ankhs and COP: Artifacts is good but definitely not enough. Splashing in Serra Angels might be enough though. I think I might try that to stay competitive. Bottom line, this white deck is 100% stall without effective finishing cards. It still needs lots of work. =)
Bradley Simpson
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