Nothing to See Here

by Sebastien Owens

Killing your opponent by bringing his life points to zero is sooooo mainstream!

I mean there are so many other ways to do it!

Ok, hipster glasses off! Defeating our opponent by bringing him/her to zero is a fine way to win the game, but frankly we’ve done it so many times it just isn’t that special anymore. Am I right? Ok maybe not.. Taking down an opponent is always great no matter what. But it is always cool to win by other means! That’s why some people are drawn to infect or stuff like High Tide or combo such as Hive Mind.

Alternate win conditions are fun and will always be. Be it by dealing 10 poison or by having more than 200 cards in your library. Thing is: most of those alternate win conditions exept for infect (but frankly to me it just feels the same as punching him right in the Hit Points) are out of Standard. Also, Battle of Wits is already beeing explored by many pro players. Strangely enough, Battle of Wits isn’t the only alternate win condition M13 brought along with it.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: Door to Nothingness!

This card is so cool, it doesn’t just win you the game… It makes your opponent LOSE IT! BLAM! Right in the self-esteem!

Thing is, Door to Nothingness isn’t as easy to win with as Battle of Wits. It doesn’t win on its own.You need to get 2 of each color of mana in order to activate it AND you must be able to untap with it!

So in order to win with this card you have to work for it… Hell! I’m a control player if I didn’t like to work for my wins I don’t know why I would ever play that archetype! So I set on a quest to build a deck that can reliably open the Door to Nothingness! (Epic quest music playing in the background … maybe something from the Lord of the Rings)

– Flavor text from door to nothingness

Oh,ok so I’m an imbecile too ? That was uncalled for Wizards!

The first requirement to open the Door to Nothingness : Lands!

And how do we get such lands into play? Ramp spells!

… And other stuff that fetches us lands. So here is what I was thinking:
4x Farseek
4x Rampant Growth
4x Mycosynth Wellspring
4x Sphere of the Suns
4x Primeval Titan
4x Solemn Simulacrum

Phew! that is a lot of ramp spells! Thing is : you want this if you want to be able to have the right mana consistently. Plus these spells let us have the core of a Wolf Run deck which is good. Also, I like having the Wellsprings because while not ramping you it does at least assure you a land drop so you can be sure that you at least play a land per turn. The Sphere of the Suns are great here because even though someone would destroy one of your lands you know you have the Spheres as backup. Solemn Simulacrums are great because they provide defence and card drawing until you can find your Door.

Ok so what is next?

I don’t like to have the whole deck based on drawing and winning with the door. I wanted to be able to tutor it up and have other ways to win, so I splashed black for tutors and Grave Titans and added a Kessig Wolf Run. That way, we could use our lands for damage.

2x Diabolic Tutor
4x Ichor Wellspring
2x Grave Titan
1x Kessig Wolf Run

As I said in my previous articles I think Grave Titan is the best titan because he can take over a game on his own, giving you an army to block and attack with. Even if they get rid of the titan his remains are still very powerful (Hehe, remains) . Ichor Wellspring just draws you cards, which is usually good. With all of this said I ended up with something like this:

Door to Nothingness deck wins!

2x Grave Titan
4x Primeval Titan
4x Solemn Simulacrum

2x Diabolic Tutor
4x Farseek
4x Rampant Growth

4x Door to Nothingness
4x Ichor Wellspring
4x Mycosynth Wellspring
4x Sphere of the Suns

10x Forest
2x Island
1x Kessig Wolf Run
2x Mountain
3x Phyrexia’s Core
2x Plains
4x Swamp

Notice the absence of Standard dual lands. The thing is that I wanted all my lands to be fetchable, so that I don’t have any problems with my colors to activate the door. The sideboard is still a work in progress, but feel free to add anything from any color.

The mana configuration is so good that you won’t ever have any problem casting anything. This deck has been performing very well for me thus far and I am sometimes able to activate door to nothingness’ ability on turn 6! With all that said, I don’t think this deck will ever be a serious contender but it is a hell of a lot of fun to play!

Alright folks, thats it for now! Before I go, next FNM I will be playing a deck that I have been itching to play for a while:

Stuffy Doll !