We now have the Simic guild’s keyword spoiled: Evolve.
It’s a nice twist on the old one: Graft (from Dissension). This card rewards us for playing bigger and bigger creatures. Also, you can combine it with other things like Mikaeus, the Lunarch’s ability or things like Scavenge from the Golgari guild to get some nice card drawing.
It looks a tad on the week side, but most of the set is yet to be spoiled. Who knows what the future has in store for Fathom Mage?
While Boros seems to have gotten the ‘quicker’ creature spoiled, the Gruul guild does indeed bring the beef. The Bloodrush keyword is reminiscent of the Channel ability from the Kamigawa block. This guy just gets better the more you ramp, only that he is smaller if you accelerate via mana dorks. Fair enough, but does this mean that there is another Rampant Growth-style spell in Gatecrash?
Stay tuned…
Staying true to their more aggressive archetype, the Boros guild receives an ultra-aggressive 3/3 flyer for 4. You can always swing with it and a couple of friends n turn 5 by probably dropping a little guy on turn 5 and activating Slayer’s Stronghold to haste it. It will definitely be a staple to watch. Only time will tell if this deck will be fast enough to compete.
What are everyone else’s thought on this?
by Steve ‘DDT’ Giannopoulos
I was looking over a few bulk rares and my mind wandered off. What makes these cards unplayable? Some are over-costed, inefficient, require other cards to work or just plain don’t do much. One such card I came across was:
Wasn’t Volatile Rig bad enough DDT?
It made me wonder what would allow me to trigger its extra turn ability. You would definitely need 4 of almost everything in your deck while generating some kind of card advantage or advancing your board position. Now creatures were good since they attack and stuff, but I wanted this deck to be a little quirky. Then it hit me:
What if indeed?
The only thing more discouraging about a bad card is when it requires another bad card to work. I originally thought of trying to make a more stable version of the Laboratory Maniac/Mirror-Mad Phantasm/Seance build.
It was going to be Bant-colored and be able to win without the ‘combo’.
For those of you that are unfamiliar with the combo:
1) Resolve a Seance
2) You get a Mirror-Mad Phantasm in the grave
3) On your opponent’s upkeep: make a copy of Mirror-Mad with Seance and mill yourself. Of course, you only play 1 copy of the card and the original is now exiled. You will flip card after card until you have none left in your library.
4) On your upkeep exile a Laboratory Maniac from your graveyard to put a Spirit copy of him in play.
5) On your draw step … Win the game!
Obviously the Moon and the stars need to properly align with your Zodiac sign and… well, you get the point! Tough to come up with a consistent decklist.
Obviously there is a step 6
6) If your opponent responds by bouncing/destroying the Maniac, simply Flashback a Think Twice (just like in the good old Innistrad draft days!)
I long thought of the possibilities, one of which involved the deck being a UWG dek with a Lingering Souls and Jarad’s Orders black splash. I know, I know… daydreaming again!
The deck took a new direction keeping the maniac element with another self-mill concept. You don’t want to play cards that just randomly mill with no other benefit as they clearly do nothing (aside from their specific function). You probably want cantrips (cards that draw you other cards) while having a minimal effect on the board/game state (ie: Thought Scour).
One such card that I wanted to try was Ground Seal. There is some graveyard abuse in this format and this card stops some of it. It won’t prevent Gravecrawlers from being recast. it definitely won’t stop reanimator decks from simply casting their creatures. It also will not do anything versus Flashback. That’s ok.
It does however stop Snapcaster Mage/Angel of Serenity shenanigans, reanimation tricks and Deathrite Shaman from potentially screwing you over. That’s actually kind of nice bonus considering the current meta.
Obviously, the deck was going towards the enchantment route and it needed to contain the aggressive decks. I then included this little gem:
Ghostly Prison’s descendant?
Then it just piled on:
Abundant Growth
Oblivion Ring
Detention Sphere
Nice little elements of control and mana-fixing.
I needed a better way to win than just rely on chaining Search the Cities or Oblivion Ring’ing my Search the City to then Detention Sphere them or vice-versa. I did a quick gatherer search:
Standard cards that are enchantments
You will probably notice something interesting on this list. If you are rather impatient you can just scroll down
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I think we’ve all been the victims of ‘Chronic Flooding’ at one point in our Magic the Gathering experience.
I think you know where that’s going: you will be enchanting your own lands. What?
That’s right! You need to mill yourself and it’s actually a card that boosts the rest of your other cards in a way. Multiples on the same land are fine since they will stack. It’s something you can get with Search the City and get an almost immediate effect. It’s a repeatable effect and technically costs nothing to activate ( note: having thought about splashing nephalia drownyards in an awkward way to mill oneself. It also bolsters our Sphere of Safety.
Another way to look at it is that your Search the City is like a Verduran/Argothian Enchantress only slower and clunkier with a potentially insane ‘Time Walk‘ upside. It’s definitely an odd comparison but not an unreasonable one at all. You do get great value off of each cantrip once it’s in play. You almost guarantee that if you have a Sphere of Safety under it and play another Sphere, your opponent will almost never be attacking you. Well that’s the plan at least.
Without further ado, here’s the list!
Enchanted Laboratory
Creatures:
Other Spells:
4 Abundant Growth
4 Search the City
4 Sphere of Safety
4 Ground Seal
4 Oblivion Ring
4 Detention Sphere
4 Think Twice
4 Chronic Flooding
Lands:
4 Sunpetal Grove
4 Temple Garden
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Hallowed Fountain
Sideboard:
3 Supreme Verdict
3 Geist of St Traft
3 Centaur Healer
3 Rhox Faithmender
3 Etheral Armor
The sideboard was rather difficult to properly construct. In the end, I wanted a ‘aggro’ Geist plan with Etheral Armor and something like invisible stalker. I settled for just Geist of St Traft because I wanted more help versus red decks that could just burn you without necessarily attacking too much. I concluded that some lifegain was in order. In comes Rhox Faithmender and Centaur Healer!
Making sideboards everywhere!
Our little rhinoceros friend started making some sideboard appearance a month or so ago in the Blue/White Flash deck. He became rather insane with a Runechanter’s Pike on him and multiple copies of him made aggro decks cry a little. For those of you that are not 100% sure: Yes, the double lifegain stacks.
So you start off by gaining say 1 life when he deals damage, then it’s multiplied by two then doubled again if you have another copy. He is rather insane in decks that run Sphinx’s Revelation as well ( and no, you don’t draw twice the number of cards). His 5 toughness is rather good, making him a great ‘wall’ against things like Loxodon Smiter, Geralf’s Messenger,Ravager of the Fells, Centaur Healer sand the like. It’s sometimes pretty wrong if comboed with Thragtusk (like it really needed other cards to make it good, LOL).
The Invisible Stalkers were dropped when Supreme Verdict went from making the maindeck to a maybe 3-4 of in the side. The reason being that the sideboard also had a full set of Rancors and was purely a full aggressive side in plan. (Although some further playtesting may cause the deck to revert back to that state). It basically would grab the best elements from the bant aura deck and make it into the 15 cards sideboard.
3 Rancor
Well, something like that. It was more random brainstorming until we saw that the numbers didn’t exactly seem right and maybe Rancor could just be another creature like Wolfir Avenger or the like. Most control decks will usually side out their sorcery speed removal against you since you probably won’t cast Laboratory Maniac until the last or before last possible second. With the # of early cantrips it is not unreasonable for us to find an early game Geist of St Traft and simply blow them out of the water early on before they can draw an answer (that they probably sided out).
Against the even more controlish decks we can play the long game and get our maniacs in multiples via Search the City. They only need to be cast and not actually resolve (ie: successfully cast) for you to grab the other card under Search the City. It kind of makes their counterspells less effective (as if the multiple aggressive decks playing Cavern of Souls didn’t already do that). If you are playing versus an Esper Control deck and they are trying to mill you out with Nephalia Drownyard when nothing is happening, try not to thank them too soon.You should also hope that they don’t make you mill a Laboratory Maniac since that will probably cause them to reconsider that plan. You should also try to max out your Detention Spheres on their Lingering Souls tokens and hope they flashback it so that you can achieve full value with you Spheres.
Sphere of Safety is the card you will always want to get against all the non-red aggressive decks as it will prevent you from getting swarmed and allow you to put your O Rings and Spheres on the creatures that will deal you the most damage instead of actually having to deal with everything. Your opponent will probably suspect that you run maindeck Supreme Verdicts, so you should try and use that to your advantage as much as possible. It will be especially suspicious when you do not commit any creatures to the battlefield. I think my favorite part of Sphere is that it renders heavyweight Thundermaw Hellkite slightly less impressive. It pretty much almost takes away his haste ability, giving you an actual turn of respite. It also allows you to slow things down and take care of him at sorcery speed (read: Oblivion Ring/Detention Sphere).
Your opponents may also try and play around counters you don’t have. Make sure to ask them what creature type their Cavern of Souls are set to and act disappointed regardless of their answer. It’s sometimes useless when playing a known deck, but this thing is anything but run of the mill. Also try to hold off on playing the Chronic Floodings until you actually have a Laboratory Maniac in hand or you can get more via Search the City.
Fun fact: Search the City triggers on you playing a land which is why there are 4 of each land and no random number of Plains. Every non-basic gives you white mana, so you should be ok. There is no Blood Moon or Magus of the Moon effect in Standard after all.
Well, not yet anyhow
Whew! Imagine those things in Standard! Although you might be seeing them at your local FNM’s when Modern becomes a sanctionable format, you needn’t worry about that otherwise.
The Endgame
The basic strategy here is to cast Laboratory Maniac at the very last possible second only when you really need him. It is not uncommon to be able to cast 2 of them and the win by flashing back a Think Twice on an empty library. Against counterspells you can simply cast the Think Twice from your graveyard and even if it’s countered you will grave one from Search the City and cast that one to win! You will also note that Chronic Flooding will probably dump a Think Twice in your ‘yard which gives you another possible way to dig for your Think Twice.
Against decks which most likely don’t have an instant answer, you don’t really need Think Twice (but probably will have some in your graveyard). You can just cast Lab Maniac and then a cantrip like Ground Seal to ‘Seal the Deal’. Worst/best scenario: you don’t even need to resolve a draw spell. Just pop a Search the City to take an extra turn and win on your draw step! Well, one can dream right?
Oh snap! It’s Magical Christmas Land! I knew it!
The cards seem to flow well together and like I stated earlier, cutting Supreme Verdict may end up being my biggest regret. It’s just that super Propaganda/Ghostly Prison promises sooo much more. Most current deck usually win by turning their dudes sideways and if we can prevent that from happening, well we’re half way there.
Search the City also ‘slow mills’ you for 5. It’s likely you will want to spam as many of these as possible to get the ball rolling. If you have any in hand, try to play it before you play something that’s under one that’s already in play. You might end up getting double value!
Disclaimer: You probably won’t…
I think I could have used this paper for something less silly.
You can notice that I considered splashing red for Huntmaster of the Fells when I was considering playing Farseek. It’s probably possible if this list ever gets properly tweaked but it seemed really rough to include in the deck. It’s more ideal than a Thragtusk since it comes down a turn earlier and allows you to properly play out your fifth turn. It allows you to cast either Search the City or Sphere of Safety.
You need to be careful about decks that are packing Oblivion Rings and Detention Spheres of their own sometimes, since your only real answers to those are your Oblivion Rings. Remember : you can’t Detention Sphere a Detention Sphere. You probably want to keep that in mind if you don’t have an Oblivion Ring in hand. It can suck if they can double up removal especially on Chronic Flooding. It’s probably their best target. Anything else, like Search the City can be good for you since it can later on still allow you to ‘mill 5’ if you exile their Sphere/Ring. In doing so, it also allows you to see 5 more cards. Don’t play cantrips later on when you don’t really need to if you think you can bring back an exile City (you might be rewarded for your patience).
During the holiday season yoou may be ‘searching the city’ for gifts for your loved ones, but I urge you to Search the City for a little bit of Magic. You may be pleasantly surprised.
by Steve ‘DDT’ Giannopoulos
Every now and then I like to harken back to the old days when one tried to build somewhat of an original Magic: the Gathering deck. Then I come to the realization that it would require me to invest a lot of time and testing to make something even remotely solid. I usually remember snipets of certain deck ideas/combos discussed at the local game shops and ponder about their Type 2 feasibility (usually when utterly bored, most likely on the bus or the subway).
We were at a local sports bar watching randomness on the TVs when one of my friends started trying to brew a deck from scratch. He was somewhat stumped and then exclaimed that it was ‘much easier back in the old days of Magic’. He mentioned something about there being a lot of cards in Standard right now.Then I corrected him by pointing out that it’s quite the opposite. It’s the smallest Standard format for now:
M13, Innistrad Block and Return to Ravnica.
5 sets out of a possible 7.
We bounced random ideas off of each other. He seemed to be especially fond of Creepy Doll, but I dissuaded him from such a venture. His being a student of finance lead to a discussion on the similarities between MTG and the stock market. He discussed risk-taking among other things which led me to joke about coin flipping… and this card:
That’s right! We went there!
I recalled back to when one of the local players here had mentionned something about it comboing with…
This!
And…
That!
You would sacrifice the Rig to Trading Post potentially dealing damage, if you haven’t already dealt Trample damage with the Rig itself that is. It would then meet the requirement to cast Rakdos, which in turn would maybe allow to cast artifact creatures (ie: another Rig) on the cheap. Then you would have this odd recursion going where you could potentially ‘wrath’ the board save Rakdos. Well, potentially… It seemed ok.
Then we browsed some artifact creatures:
Oooook… nothing too great!
Of course the best of the bunch is Stuffy Doll. He does combo with the random 4 damage ‘drawback’ of Volatile Rig. That’s kind of cool right there! He can end the game quicker than expected. However, he can also be cast for next to nothing as well with Rakdos‘ second ability. Not too shabby!
Finally, he can allow us to actually cast Rakdos via his own pinging ability. It also meant that you did not require to actually ‘maybe combo’ to make decent things happen.
Stuffy is after all a good answer to an opposing Thragtusk. Volatile Rig will kill a Thragtusk if it blocks it and deal a point of trample damage. This will cause its ability to trigger a first time. If it dies, it will result in a second coin flip, potentially dealing 4 damage to everything.
However, if it survives the first coin flip, both it and Thragtusk will die. The Rig’s controller’s trigger will go on the stack first followed by the Thragtusk’s controller. This means that the Beast token will be on the battlefield at the time the coin is flipped to check if the Rig deals 4 to all.
Now, I know what you are all thinking: “This is going to be some dumb coin flip deck with zany combos and whatnot”
That’s actually where most of the weird stuff ends. You see, we decided the rest of the deck should kind of well, make sense.
Being in Rakdos colors, we decided to basically be aggro and have this Volatile Rig ‘engine’ be somewhat of a mid to late game plan. We opted to borrow a lot of elements from the established RB Aggro list.
+
Manabase
Seems legit…
You can do a few neat things by sacrificing your Gravecrawlers or Messengers to bring back Volatile Rig and maybe blow stuff up. It felt like it was maybe lacking zombie fodder. I then suggested to maybe play Highborn Ghoul over Knight of Infamy.
Eeeeesh!!!
It does seem very questionable at first but you gain a few benefits from it. It can actually negate Thragtusk lifegain over time and still attacks through Centaur Healer (as did Knight of Infamy). It’s a Zombie that allows us to buyback our Gravecrawler if need be. We can then sac the Crawler to Trading Post and recover another Post, Stuffy Doll or Volatile Rig (seeing as how some of those might be in our graveyard on account of having been countered or died). More importantly, it can be a constant source of damage due to its intimidate ability. This can allow us to cast Rakdos if we draw him later on or if he got bounced back to our hand and we need to cast him again.
We needed to be a bit more old school Suicide Black so we found this little guy:
Did someone crack open a window? It feels a little drafty in here.
You should probably be having the same reaction as most people right about now: Huh? I do so love having cards in my decks that require my opponents to pick them up and read them and still scratch their heads. It turns me onnnnnn! Just kidding!
He is an aggressive little guy and his inclusion is quite logical I assure you. On turn 3 you are probably casting Geralf’s Messenger, but in case you aren’t – this will do. It’s nothing amazing but he does setup a turn 4 Rakdos quite nicely. Block or no block. Not many little red-colored guys can do that. The constant potential damage output is what motivated us to go with black as the main color in this deck.
Also, he shares a creature type with Rakdos, so it makes Cavern of Souls less awkward. Both Stuffy and Rig require NO color, so they are not really affected by Caverns negatively.
In fact:
Well, this is interesting …
It appears these two share some lineage. Not too shabby! It’s nice to know that Cavern choices will not be all over the place. It will be nice knowing that Stuffy Doll can go uncountered in certain matchups.
We also probably want to play some burn spells as removal and/or ways of being able to cast Rakdos. Pillar of Flame can be very lackluster in a lot of matchups, so I opted for Searing Spear. Neither will be killing off Restoration Angels anyhow, but Spear wins out on versatility. We are usually the aggressive deck, so the chance that Pillar will be good maindeck are not great. I say maindeck because I did in fact include a few in the final sideboard.
Rigsk Management version 1.0
Creatures
4 Diregraf Ghoul
4 Gravecrawler
4 Highborn Ghoul
4 Geralf’s Messenger
3 Soulcage Fiend
4 Volatile Rig
2 Rakdos, Lord of Riots
2 Stuffy Doll
Other Spells
4 Searing Spear
3 Trading Post
1 Rakdos Keyrune
2 Bonfire of the Damned
Lands
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Blood Crypt
4 Rakdos Guildgate
4 Dragonskull Summit
Sideboard
3 Pillar of Flame
2 Underworld Connections
2 Zealous Conscripts
4 Vampire Nighthawk
1 Blasphemous Act
1 Stuffy Doll
2 Appetite for Brains
The sideboard may seem a bit uninspired with the whole Trading Post/Volatile Rig thing going, but I opted for something more similar to an RB Aggro one. Pillars in the side are nice versus the other weenie decks (zombies,humans,etc). Just don’t try to get a Volatile Rig to pop by hitting it with Pillar of Flame. It won’t work since it will end up getting exiled due to Pillar’s wording.
I maxed out on Vampire Nighthawks because we might actually lose a little too much life in certain matchups and it might come in instead of the Soulcage Fiends. While the deck tends to play out a bit like an old school ‘Suicide Black’ deck from back in the day, Standard is still a creature-filled format. The Nighthawks can keep bigger guys at bay or dive in to widen the gap between life totals.
Stuffy Doll is there if you face more Green/White or Jund Style decks. The lone Blasphemous Act is something I wanted to try out with the maindeck Stuffy Dolls and all. There is also the slight possibility the board will get clogged and you’ll need to clean it up. You can also cause massive damage with a Rig and a stuffy doll.
Warning: May cause draws
Volatile Rig might indeed cause the game to end in a draw, much like Earthquake before it. You may need to be careful…unless it gets you out of a situation where you would have lost anyway. It’s actually even more of a draw when Soulcage Fiend gets involved. So if you’re both at like 7 life and you don’t see yourself surviving the next turn, just take a gamble.
A ‘maybe draw’ is still better than a ‘for sure loss’. It may just be kind of bad if your local game store’s rounds are less than the usual 50 minutes.
You can even try to ‘Miracle’ a Bonfire of the Damned with Trading Post‘s last ability:
I would love to go on about the decks other ‘strategies’ but I don’t think that’s really necessary. It will usually play out more like a Red/Black Aggro deck with a few tricks/twists. I will be giving this deck a whirl at a few local card shops around Montreal. Wish me luck! Judging by the potential coin flips to come, I’ll need it! I’ll be able to post some tweaks and revisions based on what worked and what didn’t.
As always, if you have any comments, questions or concerns, just reply to this blog post or me up on Carte Blanche Hobbies Facebook page.
by Jackson Haime
We couldn’t really decide on a deck name. It is filled with spiders and want to avoid a ‘cheesy’ names, so we went with a geeky one. Not sure how many of you were playing in the arcades back in the day, but there was a game that revolutionized things quite a bit after the Street Fighter sequels: Marvel Superheroes.
It featured gorgeous artwork and familiar controls and gave us insane super moves to use when we maxed out our ‘Super’ bar. Also, you got to see how the different Infinity Gems affected your character. One of the character’s Super Moves (Spider-Man, of course) was named: Maximum Spider!
Now back to Magic Land:
Sometimes in Magic there are -for lack of a better word- ‘magic moments’. These are the moments where you stare down at a card and realize a combo or figure out the way to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Alternatively, it can be the moment when you decide that you are going to build a deck. A ridiculous deck, the kind of deck that makes decent players scoff, good players laugh, and dare I say it: something that sometimes actually works.
I feel like this article will only be interesting if I feature one of those last moments. Nobody wants to read about me winning a draft when I pulled three Pack Rats.
God those things are annoying!
Of course, sometimes in Magic you do have an idea that is so ridiculous that you need to keep it a secret when the cards are in the mail. Then one day walk up to your play group with your shiny new cards and ask : “Anyone want to play my Spider Deck?”
No, that isn’t a typo! A spider deck, a deck entirely made of spiders.
60 cards all consisting of those creepy, crawly, eight-legged hell spawns (Not literally Hell Spawn, those are Devils and Demons). When I pitched this deck to one of my friends, he gave me a decklist in a heart beat: it consisted entirely of Changelings. I mean, they are all technically spiders. Right?
No.
I was going to go legitimate! If it wasn’t a spider creature I was not going to put it in the deck.
This quest started a while back during my Magic debut , which actually wasn’t that long ago. I finally had my own collection. It was at this time that I found a card while looking through my friend’s collection : Arachnus Spinner.
Tap an untapped spider you control to put an Arachnus Web onto the field?
Very flavorful! Yum!
You get to lock down creatures at instant speed for relatively free. As long as you have Arachnus Spinner and other spiders in play. That being said, in the recent sets the spiders haven’t exactly made themselves prevalent enough to be a tribe. With only 5 spider creatures being in standard, there isn’t enough ‘meat’ here to make it a flexible deck. Not only that, but Arachnus Spinner didn’t get reprinted in Magic 2013 (which is a travesty, at least in my mind).
So we aren’t aiming for a Standard deck, that much is true.
Still, how do you pull off a strong enough spider deck? They all have reach (good luck flyers), and both of the Recluses have deathtouch. They suffer from some serious problems as a tribe. Spiders as a whole are sinfully expensive, even the final deck has a curve that starts at 2 mana . The rest are 4-5 drops on average. This is because of the classic Magic adage that abilities add to the overall mana cost. Every single spider has the ability of reach causing their mana cost to go up. How often would you look at a 2/4 for 4 and throw that into the deck?
Even the great Garruk does not seem enthusiastic that Giant Spider beat out Giant Growth in M12 as the most recurring card.
The second problem with the spiders is that they are strapped when it comes to attack. Until you cast the fearsome Arachnus Spinner, you aren’t seeing much above 2 power. You aren’t going to be trading creatures, you are going to be blocking again and again until they can break the dam (Or web if you will). Doesn’t that sound like control? This is mono-green folks, control isn’t really an option.
“So what, just whip out a spider lord!” I hear you sscream loudly at your computer screen. To which I will respond: “There isn’t any!”
“Go home, Adaptive Automaton, you are not a spider!”
“What? How dare you?” – Arachnus Automaton
Really expensive to cast, mosquito bite-ized power, eight creepy-crawly legs. I’ve really built up this spider tribal idea haven’t I? Well, sometimes you have to take on a challenge.
24 Creatures
16 Other Spells
20 Land
8 Forest
4 Vesuva
Rise my spiders, rise! It’s ALIVE!
Sorry about that, but there it is. A fully built, working, and actually powerful spider deck. The majority of the cards are perfectly on theme.(I took some leeway for the mana ramp and Descendant’s Path) and somehow, someway this deck wins. Sure, when playing modern the stars are going to have to align for it to take down any sort of web (internet, not as in spider web) deck, but it can win and here is how it does it:
Some of the components are more obvious than others. Of course, I’m speaking of how I remedied the entire “expensive” problem. That is what all of the spells in the deck are for. Working with the mana ramp in order to gain an advantage is one of the biggest factors for this deck. Sure, you’re not going to be using mana dorks to summon Craterhoof. If you are willing to forgo some of the showmanship, the deck would be improved by a few of the little guys, but the point is that you are working with completely spiders and able to drop down your biggest creatures by turn 5. Which is good, because in an all spiders deck the Spinner being dropped before the opponent can get a lot of big creatures out is game.
The second component of this deck is the Descendants’ Path. Of course this is going to be somewhat broken in a tribal deck. There is a reason that it has a 3.9 rating on the Wizards’ website. In this deck though? Oh god is it fun. As it was said before, the Spiders are all really expensive, but there is a reason for that. Sure you aren’t using Eldrazi spawn to summon an Emrakul, but using a Deadly Recluse to fetch a free 2/7 Silklash Spider? Only to follow it by having open mana to cast another spider? Well, that’s just fantastic. Getting this card out as fast as possible is the KEY to winning with this deck, it simply isn’t happening through hard casting.
By the way, looking at the top four cards of your deck and popping out every spider that shows up? That’s fun. (It’s happened with this deck before).
The creatures in the deck are overall pretty unsurprising. The recluses come in for the sake of the deathtouch, the Penumbra Spider can die twice (first time it goes to the graveyard and you get a token), the Silklash gives you some offence for once, Sentinel is a versatile attacker or defender and the Spinner is the leader of the group. The only creature that is somewhat out of place is the Blightwidow, as it is an infect creature.
It’s there because it basically has wither, I’m not playing infect because… well, everyone hates infect.
Meanwhile the lands of this deck are pretty staple as well as long as you are playing spiders. In reality the decklist should just say “8 Swarmyards. (Though if you are really strapped for forests you can clone one with the Vesuva. What does Swarmyard do? It allows you to tap it to regenerate a spider, insect, rat, or squirrel.
Just when you thought the little guys were down and out
I have played some weird casual decks, but squirrel tribal is not one of them. I have played against a standard birds deck though.
Of course, overall Swarmyard is a pretty niche card, there is a reason it’s a mere 2.99. This deck is the definition of that niche. Unless they are taking down your spiders 2-3 at a time, you can give them immortality as long as you are willing to leave some land untapped.
Alternatively we can take another usually poor card and turn it into a powerhouse. I am taking about the Urban Burgeonings that are in the deck. If we attach this to one of our Swarmyards, we are suddenly able to regenerate a spider both on our turn and the opponent’s turn. Hello immortal-deathouch-reach blocker nice to meet you!
The most recent addition to the deck in terms of land: Oran-rief the Vastwood is pretty cool. It can make our Spider Spawning a little more impressive by making our little guys into 2/3’s instead of measly 1/2’s. It also just beefs up all our creatures and works really well in multiples. It’s not like you will be casting many spiders on turn 1 or 2, so why not just drop in some lands that come into play tapped. It costs nothing to activate either. Think of it as a small ‘kicker’ cost for all your eight-legged friends.
Well worth it in any casual green-based deck.
Its affordable price tag is another reason for its inclusion.
So, I’m sitting behind a wall of spiders that can keep aggro creatures at bay for a few turns and I’m fairly resilient to burn ( Anything past the Deadly Recluse is going to take more than one Searing Spear to take down), but you can’t win a game by sitting back and waiting for your opponent to win. You are eventually going to have to move in for the kill. It’s not easy seeing as you are paying 5 mana for creatures with a measly 2 power, but if you ever have watched the Discovery Channel, you know something about spiders:
They kill their prey once they have them caught in their web.
A nice little suggestion for the deck is Wolfhunter’s Quiver.
We’ll be killing more than just Werewolves with this little bad boy!
As you probably already guess it: it works wonders with Deathtouch and Infect. While sitting back on our spider wall, we can ping away poison counters at the opponent or allow our spiders to take down creature after creature so we can eventually let our swarm through. A great thing to do if you have the extra mana is to ping something with Recluse then equip to another Deadly Recluse or Kessig Recluse to ping again. Don’t forget to swap this thing from spider to spider. If anything it will allow you to just Shock the opponent each turn to slowly grind him out. I would maybe cut 2 Descendant’s Path for it.
The end game always looks very similar with this deck, it’s not a matter of sitting back and slowly chipping away at their life, it’s a matter of locking down their creatures suddenly upon getting out the Spinner (You tap other spiders, no summoning sickness on fetch) and sinking your fangs into a suddenly defenceless opponents.
Let Descendants’ Path keep bringing in the forces as you tap the weaker spiders and strike. Maybe drop a Spider Spawning for good measure. The lack of good spiders within any given set is what made Arachnus Spinner into a mediocre card, but in a dedicated spider deck he has granted you something that the opponent never expected: monogreen removal. At 6 mana,in a tribal deck this 5/7 with a game winning ability is comically undercosted.
If you can use Descendants’ Path to get him out for free? Well then it is just a joke.
So go forth, use the spider deck and crush your opponents. Sure, even with all of the work that went into the deck and the synergy that makes the Spinner a game ender, it’s not going to win every time. The battleground that is modern, or even casual, is fraught with dangers. That being said, when you do win (and it won’t be as rare as you think) you can say this:
“I won, with a spider deck.”
by Cameron Pryde
In my circle of friends, the thing that counts for the most isn’t winning – it’s how you win. We play with casual restrictions, but the dangers an aspiring player can face are far from modest; a turn-six Day of Judgement paves the way for a Silverblade Paladins, two Knight Exemplars and a Knight of the White Orchid smacking you in the face for lethal damage.
Alternatively, a lucky turn seven Primal Surge into two Worldspine Worms, a Gaea’s Revenge and an Akroma’s Memorial can put an abrupt end to match. So what does one do when the most spectacular win is the most prized?
Unleash the dragons, of course!
The story behind this deck begins the night of the release of Return to Ravnica. Myself and two other friends each bought a booster box and opened them simultaneously. As the post-trading dust settled, I was left with three Utvara Hellkites and no idea what to do with them.
Fast forward two weeks. >>>
I’d just taken apart a few decks in favour of building new ones. With enough sleeves for a final deck, I decided to put the Hellkites to use. I decided to build (surprise surprise) a dragon deck. I went looking online for anything with “dragon” in its name (original, I know) and happened upon an unexpected sorcery – Dragonstorm.
For nine mana (what a price tag!), Dragonstorm allows you to search your library for a dragon card and put it into play. A little expensive for a tutor, but not unmanageable. What turns Dragonstorm into the foundation of a tournament-winning deck (2006 world championships, to be precise) is the keyword Storm.
For those unfamiliar with the mechanic, a card with Storm gets copied for each spell anyone cast before it on a particular turn. Back in the Time Spiral block, Storm was generally used with th Suspend mechanic. This allowed you to cast multiple spells for little mana on a single turn. Let’s take a look at one of the top decks from the 2007 world championships courtesy of Patrick Chapin, for a little demonstration of storm’s power:
Land:
Creatures:
Other spells:
4 Shock
2 Tarfire
The aim of the deck, which is listed here without sideboard, was to Dragonstorm into enough Bogardan Hellkites to instantly kill the opponent. Backed by suspended cards that were set-up prior to the Dragonstorm itself, like Lotus Bloom and Rift Bolt, and the mana-ramping Rite of Flame, the deck exploded in a mass of scalding Lava Axes to win the match.
Lacking many of the cards that make up the deck and wanting a certain amount of originality, I chose a different route than suspend: Mono-red Ramp. While red doesn’t focus quite as much on mana acceleration, falling far behind green, there is still enough to comfortably ramp into a Dragonstorm. After several hours of fiddling around with my collection and adding in few cards that I traded for, I had the core of the deck:
Lands:
22 Mountain
Creatures:
Other Spells:
4 Geosurge
A 50-card skeleton of a deck. I settled on 22 Mountains, since the deck will need plenty of land in case of dire straits (i.e. actually hard-casting one of the dragons) and to get the Dragonstorm going. Splashing another colour might seem tempting (oh hello there, Day of the Dragons),
but due to the very red-intensive costs involved in the ramp, I decided against it.
In terms of racking up the storm count, M11’s Pyretic Ritual makes a fine starting point, turning two red mana into three. This leads into the original Mirrodin’s Seething Song, which brings it up to five. A Geosurge, so generously printed in New Phyrexia, deducts four but adds seven, bringing the grand total to eight, just one short of a Dragonstorm. Not to worry – the versatile Simian Spirit Guide from Planar Chaos can be exiled from your hand to get that final push. Once you hit the requisite nine red, it’s time for a Dragonstorm.
But why have the Return to Ravnica mythic dragon as the win condition? Well, unlike its direct-damage cousin, the Utvara Hellkite has the neat ability that plops out a 6/6 Dragon token each time a dragon of your attacks. Doesn’t matter if it’s a 0/1 flier or a 10/6 double-striker (Dragon Tyrant) – you get the token either way. Even the tokens themselves make more dragons!
Sure, it doesn’t have the raw instant power of Bogardan Hellkites. But there’s something to be said for getting nine flying beatsticks just for swinging with three creatures.
However, this deck has a pretty big weakness: it’s extremely fragile.
A well-placed Negate or Silence after several ramp spells can mean a pretty embarrassing loss. The solution? More dragons! If you can’t pull off a Dragonstorm, then you need other stuff to play.If two of the Hellkites are in your hand when you have to search your library, you’re out of luck.
I settled on three dragons more to put into the deck. The first, armed with a prohibitive mana cost and some awesome flavour text, is Ancient Hellkite.
You have to shell out seven mana to get it onto the battlefield, where it sits around with a 6/6 flying body.
Its value, however, comes from the ability to deal one damage to a creature when it attacks for one red mana. This clears the skies of spiders, spirits and – though I wish I was kidding, birds. There are some strange tribal decks in out playgroup.
As a note, I’d ideally throw a playset of Thundermaw Hellkites into the deck to serve much the same purpose. However, since I wasn’t willing to spend $116 on four cards, I gave it a pass.
Anyway, the second dragon serves much the same use: to wipe out any creatures they may have on the board. Introducing more fantastic flavour text in the form of Balefire Dragon, another flying 6/6.
While the Ancient Hellkite’s ability was pinpoint and would ideally be used against creatures that would get in the way, Balefire Dragon, if it connects, generally incinerates all their creatures.
Balefire Dragon is even better with the third dragon I chose to add to the deck, Moonveil Dragon.
Another standard-legal scaled scourge, the Moonveil adds a generous twist to your typical Firebreathing. Instead of simply pumping itself, it pumps everything you control. Sort of like a Super Shivan Dragon.
Oh noes!
Even if your opponent has managed to get a couple Wall of Denials out on the field, or other big reach/flying blockers, the Moonveil turns even the smallest of dragons into a huge threat. As for the bigger dragons, it gives them the final boost they need to finish off your opponent. At the absolute worse, it’s a 5/5 flier that you can hit your opponent with repeatedly.
At the time I built it, I threw in four Iron Myr and called it a day. More mana accel and chump blockers against aggro couldn’t hurt right? I then proceeded to test the deck out.
One of the most memorable games I had was against a good friend who happened to be running an Izzet deck. I managed to Dragonstorm, putting three Utvara Hellkites and a Balefire onto the field.
My victory was assured…. Right?
The bugger miracled a Devastation Tide.
This leads me to one of the bigger flaws with the deck:
After the huge combo has been pulled off, your opponent gets a turn to react. A friend of mine playing mono-black vampires tossed out two Hideous Ends and effectively neutralized my board. A Planar Cleansing left me with nothing but a couple of Geosurges in the graveyard.
If only there was some way of attacking with the dragons the turn they came into play.
Hmmmm…. Maybe a keyword associated with red?
I quickly took out the Iron Myr and replaced them with three copies of Mass Hysteria.
Though it’s a bit of double-edged sword, giving haste to all creatures for one mana is too good a deal to pass up. The advantage of such a low cost is that you don’t even need to play it turn one – if you have a tenth red mana floating around turn five, you can ramp the storm count even higher, swinging for a sudden but lethal swarm of dragons. As Balefire Dragon says, “Die boldly or die swiftly – for die you will.”
Those of you who have been keeping track may have noticed that I took out four creatures and added three enchantments. The 60th card?
What’s not to like?
His +1 gives you a creature that can serves as an attacker or the last little bit of ramp you need.
His -2 can easily give you enough to cast a dragon (or a storm of them), even potentially paying for himself to rack up the storm count.
Finally, his emblem allows you to put extra mana to good use, killing their creatures and burning the opponent until they’re extra-crispy.
The final decklist, with some tweaking:
A Dance of Dragons
Lands:
22 Mountain
Creatures:
Other Spells:
4 Geosurge
This deck is certainly not invulnerable. A Counterspell, a Duress, a boardwipe, a Riders of Gavony and a Levitation – the deck is extremely fragile. A lack of Dragonstorms or even dragons can easily lead to defeat, as can a hand with no acceleration. However, though it may not always win, the deck provides a memorable, fun, and impressive victory when it does.
It’s not how many times you win that matters in casual. After all – it’s the stories that you get to tell later and the memories of crazy combos and bizarre beatdowns that make it all worthwhile. So leave the lightning and legends, the counterspells and changelings, the fireballs and faeries, the elementals and Eldrazi to your opponents. You’re winning with dragons!
by Steve ‘DDT’ Giannopoulos
The Standard metagame seems to be slowly stabilizing and fortunately for those of you who held onto your Zombie cards: You are
somewhat rewarded.
At the recent Grand Prix San Antonio, Red/Black Zombies was the winning deck. It was triumphant in the Finals against the mirror.
A lot of people wrote off Red/Black aggressive decks due to the insane popularity of Thragtusk. How this creature only requires 1 green mana instead of 2 in its casting cost is beyond me!
Really? 1 Green? no color commitment at all?
Also, a lot of Green/White or Reanimator decks also tend to play cards like Centaur Healer which further impeded RB decks. The life gain added to a body that is hard to attack through without trading is rather frustrating.
The Standard default aggro creature type in Black has been Zombies and they are out in full force in this deck:
4 Blood Crypt
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Dragonskull Summit
1 Mountain
4 Rakdos Guildgate
7 Swamp
24 lands
4 Diregraf Ghoul
4 Falkenrath Aristocrat
4 Geralf’s Messenger
4 Gravecrawler
3 Hellrider
4 Knight of Infamy
3 Thundermaw Hellkite
26 creatures
4 Searing Spear
2 Victim of Night
10 other spells
Sideboard
2 Appetite for Brains
3 Bonfire of the Damned
2 Cremate
2 Underworld Connections
4 Vampire Nighthawk
2 Zealous Conscripts
15 sideboard cards
It’s somewaht odd from what we are accustomed to,but Red provides the ‘fatter’ creatures. Hasty fellows like Thundermaw Hellkite, Falkenrath Aristocrats and Hellrider. Each able to almost single-handedly end the game on their own (especially Hellrider). Two of which have evasion, one of which taps down all opposing would-be blockers.
The MVP?
Well, remember Black Knight?
Think of this little guy as a Black Knight v 2.0.
He is very much improved in the sense that he can render a somewhat harmless 2/1 or 2/2 into a 3/1 or 3/2 and have him crashing into your opponent’s 3 toughness or less defenses.
Barring that, he can simply attack himself past annoying creatures, which aside from Thragtusk are usually white. The other good news is that he does indeed block things like Silverblade Paladin and one of my personal favorite creatures (Loxodon Smiter) pretty well (barring Rancors, of course) . He’s also immune to everybody’s 2 favorite Angels as of late: Serenity and Restoration.
You have your Shocks and Lightning Bolts in the shape of Pillar of Flame and Searing Spear.
Spear, despite being a strict downgrade to cards like Lighting Bolt and Incinerate is still the best Instant burn option available for its cost.
You’ll note that Brimstone Volley is absent from this deck. That’s how tight it is! We need to be casting Geralf’s Messenger on turn 3 or laying down a Rakdos Guildgate in anticipation for a Turn 4 Hellrider or Aristocrat.
While the decisions this deck needs to make may seem obvious to most, they are at times anything but. Also, we notice a certain resurgence of Victim of Night as the ‘heir apparent’ to Doom Blade.
Somewhere DoombladeGuy is doing a little dance!
It seems bad in the mirror but it his the bigger dudes just fine. The concerned creature types being Dragon and Devil last time I verified.
Normally I would not be half excited about a deck such as this. It does seem to bring about change and that is almost certainly a good thing. The Thragtusk dominance was becoming somewhat worrisome. Yes, there is that Blue and white flash deck, but that thing is basically another Delver deck.
The manabase seems super stable. The deck plays 12 ‘dual’ lands as well as a singleton Mountain. The 4 Caverns are very nice. They allow us to cover our bases for when we need the red mana for Hellriders or Thundermaws. By default however, they are usually set to the creature type most commonly referred to in the Walking Dead…
For those of you who don’t watch the show or read the comic, that creature type is Zombie.
Yep! Those guys.
Featuring 8 aggressive 1-drops almost guarantees us this deck won’t be blocking much (ie: almost never). I Also think that Zombies has finally found their 2-drop of choice. Another thing I didn’t mention earlier about the Knight,but he does also attack profitably through Augur of Bolas. A fact that cannot go unnoticed versus more controlling decks. Augur is rather annoying to a lot of the aggro decks that attack with 2-power creatures early on, this being one of them. Knight of Infamy circumvents that and allows your deck to keep moving forward.
The ‘burn’ itself is intensified via Falkenrath Aristocrat. If you ever need to do that extra damage you can sacrifice Geralf’s Messenger into it. Those 2 creatures also provide this deck with great resilience to sweepers such as Supreme Verdict. Will this force more copies of Terminus in control decks?
Only time will tell…
A small little on the side note:
You can indeed attack with Falkenrath Aristocrat on its own to get the benefit of Knight of Infamy‘s Exalted trigger then sacrifice the Knight to the Vampire. He’s only human after all! This is sometimes a key play to factor in if it seems that you would come up short to close out a game.
Sideboard Options
The deck’s sideboard is somewhat not what we are accustomed to.
Well … it seems to be more of a control card than an aggressive one.
However, he does not die to opposing Pillars and does gain us enough life to race the other aggro decks. It is after all a 4-point life swing. He can also finish off some troublesome planeswalkers if nee be. But that’s almost never really our primary concern.
Finally a deck that plays it!
I personally have always wanted to play this card for a while now. I envisioned it being in a kind of blue-black zombie-based aggressive deck that would allow you to flash it back with Snapcaster Mage of course. Not sure if that deck is ever going to see the light of day though.
Underworld Connections is a fun one.
It allows us to simply build up our hands up as control decks remain more passive. The loss of life on this could not be any more inconsequential. You can drop more creatures than need be (ie: overcommit) and still be able to refuel later on.
Cremate is a cool little card here.
Decent in the Mirror and pretty nice versus reanimator decks. They don’t ‘need’ to reanimate, we don’t ‘need’ to remove guys from the graveayrd. It’s just an upside. Something will end up hitting a gaveyard. We’ll just draw off of it. Seems fine!
Bonfire of the damned is back?
Really? Why didn’t I get the memo?
I know this card has gone somewhat unnoticed up until recently. It’s still one of the best ways to ‘blowout’ your opponent’s side of the board. It remains great versus the GW aggressive decks or human builds and heck, even versus mono red. It’s also probably the only miracle you would expect to see in this kind of deck. Although, personally I could never get used to performing top deck Miracle checks in black-based decks. (Black being the color of despair and thus why they can never really Miracle).
Because, well, why not?
Use it to grab a reanimated fatty for the final points of lethal or even an Angel of Serenity to attack with and sacrifice into your Falkenrath Aristocrat (depending what’s removed from the game under it). It gets even better when used on opposing Thragtusks as you will get that beat token if he dies.
In Conclusion …
Sure this list is not 100% perfect but it was the right call for that anticipated metagame. You can get turns such as:
Turn 1 : Gravecrawler
Turn 2: Swing, 2 x Diregraph Ghoul
Turn 3: Swing,cast Geralf’s Messenger
Turn 4 :Hellrider, swing, multiple Hellrider triggers and win!
Good times! For you, at least.
I prefer this to a monored build since the creature quality is really improved and the burn is often times utility than burn to the face. Overall the deck is more ‘resilient’ to a lot of hate and has that extra reach in that it can win out of seemingly nowhere.
The instant speed removal is nice against annoyances such as Sublime Archangel, which can sometimes allow the GW decks to race us. The Angel being another reason we may want to side in Vampire Nighthawk or Zealous Conscripts against, but it’s usually taken care of by Searing Spear of Victim of Night.
It’s also amazing how Thudermaw Hellkite was ill-received in the beginning since it had a 30$+ price tag attached to it. Now it seems to have legitimately reached those heights once again. Your opponent thinks he stabilized with a few Lingering Souls tokens?
Think again! here comes mini-Hurricane Dragon to clear the way!
If you have grown tired of seeing the same old cards being cast for about 1-2 months now, I recommend you give this deck a try. You will be pleasantly surprised.
Be good and don’t forget your triggers!
by Jackson Haime
I don’t know about everyone, but I have personally been noticing a disturbing trend along within Magic. No, I’m not talking about the fact that Craterhoof Behemoth has gotten his time in the spotlight. Nor am I talking about the fact that with the combination of Thragtusk and Da Hoof, I have to splash green or just pour my tournament entry fees down the drain.
I’m talking about how damn expensive it is getting to beat the cards in each block as they come along.
Let’s take a count shall we?
The Bant Control deck that was run by Jacob Thiessen at the Starcitygames Standard open ran 9 creatures.
Each of those creatures is within the 23.00- 23.99 dollar range. At lowest that is going to run you 207$ of cold hard cash to just fill up the creature slots. That’s a hefty price to pay for less than 1/6th of a full deck. I digress, let’s look further into the list.
Alright, so 5 planeswalkers in a single deck. Garruk isn’t much of a price hog, (At only 9.50) meanwhile you are dropping 35-40 on a single Jace. Four of our little Architect is going to run you a cool 152$. 161 if you count Garruk.
Take note kids: we are paying 368$ for this deck so far. It’s not about to get cheaper any time soon. Onto one of the cheapest parts of Magic: the land! That’s how it works right? You can pick up 200 forests for 10$.
1 Cavern of Souls: 19.50$
Oh.
4 Hinterland Harbor: 40.00$
Wait… my wallet is already empty!
4 Hallowed Fountains: 62$
4 Temple Gardens: 60$
Total price for the land (Not counting the ones that cost 5$ or less): 181.50$
We are currently at 549$
Luckily, Jacob didn’t have a huge taste for expensive spells and is only going to cost us 105$ for all of the instants and sorceries. Just in case everyone has the money to buy a brand new booster box on hand.
654$ For the deck. That’s not even counting the sideboard, which will set you back: 188$ Meaning a total of 842$ for the entire deck, sideboard and all. That is only counting the more expensive cards. Seeing as you can buy 10,000 magic cards for less than that. [Link]http://www.ebay.com/itm/HUGE-MAGIC-GATHERING-LOT-OVER-10-000-CARDS-YARD-SALE-FIND-LOOK-/170937928758?pt=Trading_Card_Games_US&hash=item27ccb1cc36 [/link] (I wasn’t joking) I am starting to feel like decks are becoming a little expensive to play for the “average joe”.
Sure, I could copy a net deck and clean house at Friday Night Magic. Then again, I don’t think my girlfriend wants me to blow anymore pay cheques on Magic cards.
What can we, the common Planeswalkers do against this sort of cash having? Surely not everyone can buy their way into victory? Well, I welcome you all to the Izzet guild.
It’s time for some Izzet Ingenuity.
Lands:
10 Mountains
10 Islands
Creatures:
Spells:
4 Index
Okay, so this isn’t exactly the most conventional decklist that one expects to see in Standard play. In fact, I can confidently say that I have never played against anything close to this deck, but hell, it works. It just isn’t the easiest boy to steer.
Part 1: Take notes.
I’m not kidding when I say this, take notes. Or get really good at keeping numbers in your head, because this deck counts on being able to predict when a miracle is coming and not spoil it.
Take for example, Thunderous Wrath.
It dishes out 5 damage for 6 mana. Sure it can counter the Thragtusk life-gain, but for more mana than it took them to PLAY the Thragtusk. The opponent just got mana advantage and a 5/3 creature. Even if you are going first, hard casting this spell means that you are going to be a sitting duck while Thragtusk can take a swing at you. (Either this or you are going to be facing down a 3/3 and an opponent with more life.)
The other way to play this? Use your Index and keep notes. If you play an Index you should know exactly when you can smash the opponent with a “miracle” that you saw coming from 5 cards away. If you’re paying 1 mana for the sake of slashing the opponent’s life total down by 5, you just showed Lightning Bolt that thunder can beat it.
In case you hadn’t noticed, there is a lot of card draw in this deck as well as a lot of discarding. Between the Mercurial Chemister’s 2 draw, Niv-Mizzet’s free cards, Reforge the Soul, and the cute little Nivix Guildmage. You are bound to spoil a miracle aren’t you?
Not if you don’t keep track of those cards you won’t.
Let’s say a Thunderous Wrath is within the 5 cards you index and you place it 3rd. This turn you have to make sure that you aren’t going to spoil that miracle. You can use effects to draw up to 2 cards, but no more unless you want to spoil the surprise. The way that you win with this deck is by knowing that the miracles are coming. In fact, you win by not making them miracles at all, they are all just part of the grand plan that is the Izzet mind.
** A special note about the Devastation Tide.
In this deck there are actually 3 in my personal sideboard (I didn’t include this as it is simply made of cards that I happen to own.) They aren’t the best cards out there, but do include cards such as Cyclonic Rift’s that can shatter the opponent’s field and not your own. That being said, unless it is terribly late game and you have the biggest creatures your deck can muster out there, this deck doesn’t exactly use many permanents. Kicking everything that an aggressive deck is throwing at you back to their hand is often worth the cost in this deck, and dropping it against an army of tokens is simply hilarious.
Part 2: Why am I paying?
One of my favourite parts about this deck is that I never seem to be paying as much as my opponent in any given Arcane Melee. Of course, a great amount of this comes from the Goblin Electromancers that are in this deck.
Only having to pay 5 for an overloaded Devastation Tide can make it a game changer way earlier than it should be. That isn’t the only way that this deck avoids paying the costs that your opponents will have to. We already spoke about the fact that you are going to know when miracles are coming, and that you should be able to whip out your biggest spells without having to pay the biggest costs, but there are three ways of saving left:
Sure, this card is a gamble, I know.
I have both won and basically lost a match by whipping this thing out in order to bring down heavy hitters. That being said, with the combination of Goblin Electromancers and knowing what is coming (hopefully) most of the time, you should be able to destroy an opponent with a turn 6 Epic Experiment that allows you to play anything in your deck.
Turning up three Thunderous Wraths and rocking the opponent for 15?
Yes please!
Being able to combo that Brimstone Volley with the one in your hand?
Sure.
Emptying your hand and dropping a reforge the soul for free?
Gladly.
There is only one of this card in the deck because in a deck based around drawing you should be able to find it.Also, comboing Epic Experiment into itself is a really stupid idea. (X = 0)
2. I’ll take that back please
There are two things in this deck that allow you to snatch your powerful cards back from the graveyard and hit the opponent again.:
The most prominent of these is the Spelltwine, which allows you to raid you and your opponent’s graveyards. Whether that involves stealing a mana-ramp decks’ Farseek , or adding more burn spells to the might of your own to finish off a longer game.
The more chaotic of the two grave-saves is the Charmbreaker Devils.
At the beginning of each one of your upkeeps you can make your opponent grab one of the cards that hit them earlier in the round and hand it right back to you.
Almost more fun than it is useful, but a Thunderous Wrath at that point in the game is a way to end it.
3. Dual cast EVERYTHING:
This one is of course more obvious than the rest, but only having to pay a single Red mana to whip out a burn spell a second time is a game changer (especially for Miracles).
Alright, I am going to be honest, this deck could use some improving for those who are willing to drop a decent amount of money.It is more of a budget deck. The point of a budget deck is notto make it so that you replace the Snapcaster Mage, but making sure that you build a deck that doesn’t NEED him. The Izzet guild might be improved with him on their side, but they are doing fine on their own.
All for less than one tenth of the price!
Brother Of Runes 