Win a Booster Box - Monthly Raffle
Whenever my friends ask me for deckbuilding advice, I tell them to start by telling me which format the deck is being designed for. Is it for duels, multiplayer, or (rarely) two-headed giant? This informs every later decision, as duel decks will generally have to be tighter and faster, while multiplayer decks will need to be more resilient, and have ways to deal with a greater number of threats and answers. Honestly, I don’t really know all that much about building 2HG decks, and I’ve only really built one of my own, an evil Limited Resources land destruction deck that isn’t that much fun to play.
The second thing I ask is to describe the deck’s theme or focus in one sentence. If you can sum your deck plan in one sentence, you’ll be able to keep that theme in mind while selecting your cards, and, hopefully, rule out cards which fail to meet the theme.
Thirdly, which deck constructing rules are you using to build your deck? Is it Standard or Extended? Is it just a plain old casual deck (play what you have), or is it Elder Dragon Highlander?
Today, I’ll be telling the story of a few days’ worth of extreme deckbuilding. Two are casual decks,one aimed at Duels, the other at multiplayer, and, to cap it all off, I’ll tell the tales of my two standard decks (now played in over ten! Games combined).
Deck The First: “I want to combine Wort the Raidmother and Seedborn Muse to conspire some powerful spells and still have blockers.”
4 Wort, the Raidmother
4 Seedborn Muse
Following this simple plan I started piling up cards from my overly large collection, aiming at playing duels, rather than multiplayer (as I though the synergy would be rather easily disrupted, and likely not have enough gas to take down multiple opponents). Wort is from Eventide and Seedborne Muse 10th Edition, so the deck will have to use at least an Extended card selection…but no one plays Extended outside of PTQ’s, so I’ll just use whatever the heck I feel like.
I want to put a bunch of tokens into play, that I may conspire with them and have them inspired by a Muse’s pretty green scarf, so I dig up some token-creating cards, focusing also on instants and sorceries:
4 Dragon Fodder (creates 2 tokens for 1 sorcery)
2 Empty the Warrens (creates 2 tokens with storm)
2 Mogg War Marshal (creates 1 token when he enters the battlefield, and 1 more when he dies)
1 Hunting Pack (creates a 4/4 token with storm)
1 Spitting Image (creates a clone token)
1 Call the Skybreaker (creates a 5/5 flying token, with retrace)
That’s a full eleven token generators, only two of which are permanents, plus the four Wort, the Raidmother, who makes two tokens herself.
Then, I peppered in a few powerful sorceries and instants, with a special focus on “X” spells. I really want to burn stuff!
2 Hull Breach
2 Rolling Thunder (X damage, divided any way you choose, sorcery)
2 Ghitu Fire (X damage, can be cast as an Instant for 2 colorless more)
2 Squall Line (X damage to each flier and each player, Instant)
1 Wrap in Vigor (save your little guys from an Earthquake)
1 Echoing Courage (alternate win condition: alpha strike with some 3/3 goblins)
To round off the deck, a little more utility, and another alternate win condition.
1 Nullmage Shepherd
3 Greater Gargadon
1 Boartusk Liege
2 Fire-Lit Thicket
2 Gruul Turf
11 Mountains
9 Forests
For my next deck, I decided to make a defensive, multiplayer deck centered upon the amazing Silklash Spider, and combine it with Sailmonger and “The Best Fattie Ever Printed” Verdant Force. I wanted something slow and powerful, with some recursion and card drawing. I decided to make the deck heavily green, with a splash of blue and black.
4 Silklash Spider
4 Verdant Force
2 Sailmonger (obscure Mercadian Masques uncommon)
I might be running 3 colors, but I don’t really need to get my Blue or Black mana sources until late game, so I don’t need too much land fixing.
2 Kodama’s Reach (buy these! They’re well worth the $0.50 or so they cost)
1 Rampant Growth
2 Khalni Heart Expedition (hey, Zendikar just came out, and I want to play my new cards)
For defense, I wanted a bit of Rattlesnake, and quite a bit of Reach, and to stay only in Green.
2 Deadly Recluse (Reach, Deathtouch)
2 Thornweald Archer (Reach, Deathtouch)
2 Grazing Gladeheart (Landfall, Gain 2 life)
2 Indrik Stomphowler (another all-star utility creature, destroys an Artifact or Enchantment)
2 Hurricane (The Grazing Gladeheart should gain me enough life to add in some self-damaging flier hate)
To finish out my deck, I added some Blue and Black late-game cards.
1 Rise From the Grave
2 Disturbed Burial (Tempest common, a Raise Dead with buyback)
2 Dregs of Sorrow (kill creatures, draw cards, laugh and laugh)
2 Negate
1 Fool’s Demise (make one of your elves or spiders virtually unkillable)
1 Mystic Remora (Draw cards)
1 Mask of Riddles (give Verdant Force Fear, draw cards)
1 Necrogenesis (empty your opponents’ graveyards to prevent reanimation)
This deck got a rather budget mana base:
11 Forests
4 Swamp
4 Islands
2 Soaring Seacliff (give someone flying for free, shoot them with a Silklash Spider)
2 Jwar Isle Refuge
1 Swarmyard (I so want 4 more of these for a dedicated spider deck)
I haven’t played at a Standard FNM in over a year, which makes me sad. The DCI just doesn’t have that many tournaments in Baghdad. Our FLGS here in Manhattan, Kansas is more focused on draft right now, so soon after the release of Zendikar, and I keep getting outvoted every week when suggest we try Standard instead of a draft. They’re a pretty casual bunch of guys, and we play a few games of Planechase every week before the FNM draft.
They are, however, hosting a Game Day on Halloween, and I mean to prove that I’m as good at Standard as I am at Draft and Sealed.
More on that topic first. The very day after my airplane landed in the states after my year in Hell (often pronounced Eye-wreck, an Iraqi vulgarity), was the Zendikar Release Party. As soon as I sobered up from the previous afternoon’s games of beer pong (I am of legal drinking age) I had a bacon omelette with extra bacon on the side at our Friendly Local IHOP, and rolled back into the shop I had missed so much. I’d drafted there 3 times before, coming in second each and every time. That day, I played 5 rounds of sealed, and came in second again! The next week, I went to a PTQ in Kansas City, went 5-2, and missed Top 8 based on tiebreakers, but at least 15th isn't 2nd. The following week, I drafted a brutal R/G deck with 8 freakin’ burn spells, losing to my buddy DK (his first draft victory) and his 2 Hedron Crab and 1 Lorthos the Tidemaker in the finals…another 2nd place. Four days ago, I drafted B/G to my first ever victory at this particular store! The curse was broken! Exclamation points were overused! My wife said “You’re the dorkiest dork of them all.” [Editor's note: Hey!]
So, I’ve been following the tournament reports online pretty steadily for the last few weeks (Soldiers do do other things than drink and play Magic). During deployment, I’d developed a Jund deck that was, for lack of some rares, 50/60ths the same as nearly every Jund deck on the market, but if you want to read about Jund decks, you can go elsewhere, and read it from qualified people. I’ve cooked up a few rogue-ish decks, complete with sideboards.
Tomorrow, my pals Mike and DK are going to playtest them with me, using my Jund Deck, my Budget Boros Bushwhacker, Mike's Vampires, and DK’s Mill Deck (which is hatefully annoying to play against).
It seems to me that the older I get, the more I like to play control. So, seeing the aggressive bent of Jund and Boros Bushwhacker and Vampires, I started brewing up a controlling deck which, I hope, can slow down and beat up on the dominant three Aggro decks.
A word of warning, this deck is far from budget, and most of the rares don’t have cheaper analogues. In fact, this deck plays Planeswalkers like they’re creatures, and creatures as if they were planeswalkers, sporting ten Planeswalkers and only 3 creatures. The tiny number of creatures makes opposing Doom Blades, Bituminous Blasts, and Paths to Exile useless. I like that idea. I like it almost as much as I like the idea of using Ajani Vengeant’s Limit Break and tittering evilly (an act I accomplished thrice now with this deck).
Firstly, I saw my playset of Prerelease Ajani Vengeant. He’s a controlling dream, either locking down a creature turn after turn until he Armageddon’s my opponent, or Lightening Helix-ing a creature and soaking up some damage that would be going to my face before dying. I chose to play four because he’s a single-handed game-winner.
Next up, three Jace Beleren for card-drawing, and damage-soaking. I felt four might be too much. To go with Jace, two Chandra Nalaar, for creature-elimination and a possible late-game win condition. My final planeswalker is a lonely Elspeth, Knight-Errant (how did a naughty knight, a job with a short life expectancy end up as a planeswalker anyway?). She’s wonderful at making them chumps and drawing attention away from my (usually low) life total. If I find her a mate, it will likely replace one of the Chandras.
I need to stop the creature rush. Isn’t this kind of a “duh” moment, this far into the article? To do that, I’ve got four Day of Judgment and one Martial Coup. They have my second favorite sentence to ever appear on a Magic card on them “Destroy all creatures” (second to “draw a card”). To blast away Geopedes, Lynxes, Scute Mobs, Bloodletters, Lacerators, and more. A pair of Earthquakes (usually for only 2) will net me a fair amount more time alive than the creatures would. All seven of these cards will also net me card advantage, a crucial goal in a deck with so little card-drawing.
For targeted removal, a set of Lightning Bolts is a great start. A pair of Path to Exiles started as four, but then I ran into a second card which combined Path with Bolt, and replaced two of them: Intimidation Bolt. This is one of my rather few “techy” additions beyond cards universally renowned as being great. In practice, so far, it has been outstanding, and if it only cost two, would have already replaced the other two Paths.
I did mention only having three creatures, right? One of them is the Baneslayer “I should not be mythic” Angel, and the other, a pair of Sphinx of Jwar Isle. I only have one Baneslayer, and I’ve fought off more attempts to get me to trade her than any card I’ve ever owned.
A pair of Negates (can I find room for more?) is there to defend my non-creatures, which are usually only stopped by other non-creatures (I’m looking at you, Vampire Hexmage). Another pair of Armillary Spheres will aid my Fetch Lands in smoothing my mana base, as well as getting me up to the “obscene” level of mana. The final cards in the deck are a trio of Luminarch Ascensions, which have proven to be lethal against DK’s mill deck as well as any other control strategy.
Lets see the replay of that, only in a regular decklist format, no?
4 Ajani Vengeant
3 Jace Beleren
2 Chandra Nalaar
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
4 Day of Judgment
1 Martial Coup
2 Earthquake
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Path to Exile
2 Intimidation Bolt
2 Sphinx of Jwar Isle
1 Baneslayer Angel
2 Negate
2 Armillary Sphere
3 Luminarch Ascension
6 Plains
6 Islands
4 Mountains
1 Glacial Fortress
2 Sejiri Refuge (would like to be Glacial Fortresses)
2 Rupture Spires (might end up as a Plains and a fetchland)
1 Arid Mesa
3 Scalding Tarn
My final deck for the day is a 3-color, Standard, duel-oriented deck which I whipped up after running across the combo of Realm Razer and Landfall…sure, I might have to bolt my own guy and have seven mana to get its effect, but I think it’s a rather swingy way to finish a game off.
Having hammered my way through over two thousand words today, I’ll spare you paragraph-style card explanations, and settle for parentheticals after each card. A final caveat: I haven’t played this deck yet, but can’t wait for tomorrow.
2 Realm Razer
2 Ranger of Eos
4 Scute Mob (for the long game)
4 Steppe Lynx (for the short game)
1 Goblin Bushwhacker (he’s whackin’ it in a bush)
4 Plated Geopede (one of the best commons in Zendikar)
1 Lotus Cobra (he’s so lonely…)
4 Bloodbraid Elf (too powerful to not play)
1 Rampaging Baloths (might get a second, to replace the cobra)
4 Harrow (two Landfall triggers, plus mana-fixing and deck-thinning)
1 Naya Charm (to start the removal suite)
2 Path to Exile
2 Burst Lightning
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Arid Mesa (see Harrow)
3 Misty Rainforest
5 Plains
6 Forests
6 Mountains
That’s all for now. I'm Ineech Qanaftek on the forums.
Jason Poupard
| |
|