The Kitchen Table #350 - The Big Three-Five-Oh

Hello friends! Welcome back to the column dedicated to the casual side of Magic. Today is my 350th weekly article for StarCityGames.com. In celebration, I was trying to brainstorm a good idea.

I realized that I like big decks. Why not build a deck of 350 cards? That’s sounds like a good article. However, we should institute a few rules, to make this an interesting deck challenge:

1) The deck should not follow any format’s rules, except for maybe Vintage or Legacy. No Five Color, Highlander, EDH, Pauper, etc. Let’s try something a little different from my normal fare.

2) The deck cannot abuse or use Battle of Wits. That’s too cheap.

3) Finally, the deck cannot use any card (other than basic land) which is found in Abe’s Deck of Happiness and Joy. This severely cuts down on what I can use. Gone are all of the mana makers, card drawers, and other usual suspects. Gone are cards that I regularly rely on from Swords to Plowshares and Orim’s Thunder to Harmonize and Silklash Spider and Commander Eesha. It will be like acrobatics without a net.

If I can pull that off, then that seems like an interesting anniversary article!

The first step is to sit down and try to come up with an idea for a deck. Here are some ideas that I can think of:

1) Kamigawa block spirit deck. I’m not playing cards like Thief of Hope and Hana Kami in H&J. On the other hand, I am playing stuff like Rend Flesh and Terashi’s Grasp. Due to the lack of mana smoothing, any deck would likely need to be one or two colors, tops.

2) Slivers! I’m not playing a single sliver in my Deck of Happiness and Joy beyond Plague Sliver (which I wouldn’t want to play anyway) and some changelings. This seems like it would easily work.

3) Let it snow! Beyond the occasional card like Chill to the Bone, I really am not playing any snow cards (of course, it’s not really a snow card, just an in-flavor snow card, but you get the point). I could easily roll with things like Skred, Rime Dragon, and Mouth of Ronom.

4) Control. I could try to rock the next level of control cards, and see what I could build with lesser cards. I lose cards like good countermagic, good defensive creatures, and most Wrath effects. I’m sure I can find some good stuff somewhere.

5) Aggro City. An obvious way to build my 350 deck is by playing a bunch of great aggressive creatures. My current deck is not rocking cards like Elite Vanguard and Kird Ape. The early, powerful drops are missing from Abe’s Deck of Happiness and Joy because it’s not that style of deck. This could be.

6) Combo McGee. There are many classic combo cards that are missing from Abe’s Deck of Happiness and Joy. Specifically, cards that are artifact-happy, like Forge[/author]“]Darksteel [author name="Forge"]Forge[/author] and Mycosynth Lattice, make good examples. However, the infrastructure for a combo deck — tutors and good card sifting/drawing – is missing.

The first and third options would certainly work well, I think. The problem is that I’ve already done both. My Snow 250 is here. I also had a Spirit 250 for a while, but I never wrote an article on it. I don’t want to build a deck I’ve already built.

I think an Aggro 350 would be fun and really work well. The problem is that it would resemble my EDH decks from two weeks ago a little too much. I just don’t see the interest there.

I think a synthesis of aggro plus slivers would be interesting. In a deck with Green/White, I could rock Muscle Sliver and Sinew Sliver; Watchwolf and Savannah Lions; Gaea’s Anthem and Glorious Anthem. I could build the aggro deck around the Sliver-y core. You have some good ones in these colors — Watcher Sliver, Ward Sliver, Brood Sliver, Reflex Sliver, Essence Sliver, Might Sliver, Pulmonic Sliver, and so on.

But… It still seems like an overemphasis on aggro creatures, with much the same feel as the Jacques le Vert and Tolsimir Wolfblood EDH/Commander decks from two weeks ago.

That leaves control or combo. The control cards left are just awful. The handful of counters not getting played are jank, the card drawing spells are weak, etc. I think you can find some interesting pinpoint removal cards here or there that are not in my deck. Mass removal is hurting.

So, here we go:

The Big Three-Five-Oh

Abe Sargent

Test deck on 08-15-2010

Casual

Creatures (126)

Lands (118)

59 Forest
59 Swamp

Spells (106)

350!

Why these two colors? I felt that Black’s depth of creature removal meant that even though I had been mining it for cards for H&J over the years, there would still be some quality removal cards available. Similarly, I felt that Green would still have the goods, creature-wise. I figured I could lean heavily on Green for creatures of quality that were not in H&J but could still produce results in the red zone. I believe this deck list shows those were correct assumptions.

Blue’s unused draw spells would likely be poor, and would its unused creatures of even poorer quality, while its unused counters would be the poorest of all. I still have great cards like Dark Banishing, Woodfall Primus, Liliana’s Specter, Desert Twister, and Penumbra Wurm in my colors. What would I have added from Blue? Remand? I’m playing counters as bad as Spell Blast in H&J. There’s not much left.

Similarly, I felt White’s overwhelming power in multiplayer is due in part to its top-heavy nature. There would still be a few removal spells here and there, like Path of Peace. I could find some creatures that had value. It just wouldn’t have the same power you expect from the color unless I went aggro.

Red was really close. I think part of this is because I play the fewest Red cards in H&J compared to the other colors. I thought about a Red/Green with burn and creatures, giving it an Aggro-Control feel. I came close. I ultimately decided that Black would likely give me more access to card drawing spells, like Necrologia, and better removal for casual circles. Dark Banishing trounces Shock.

This deck took me a few hours to build. One of the problems with it is that I would have to check cards against the list for H&J. Sometimes I would find a card that I already had on H&J, and had just forgotten about. For example, I thought I could put Troll Ascetic in this deck, but nope, it’s in H&J. Another one is Creakwood Liege, who I doubted was in my deck, until I remembered that I tried to add all of the Lieges to it a few months ago.

I didn’t want this deck to be any old deck. I took the time to look at creature removal spells, artifact and enchantment destruction spells, answers to planeswalkers, what mana smoothing was available, and so forth. Despite the fact that none of these made the cut in my 2000+ card highlander deck, they all have something valuable to add here.

Sometimes there is a good card that is more playable here than in my five-color deck. Take Cloudthresher, for example. It’s a great card, and if its cost were 4GG it would easily be in my H&J deck. In this two-color deck, it’s just a lot more feasible. Other examples of this are Ebony Treefolk and Promise of Power.

The deck suffers from a surfeit of the classics in these two colors. If you were to dial up this color combination in multiplayer and kitchen table Magic, you could draw from some real winners. Pernicious Deed, Spiritmonger, Vulturous Zombie, Maelstrom Pulse, Putrefy, Regrowth, Demonic Tutor, Silklash Spider, Avatar of Woe, Silvos, Visara, Damnation, Whirlwind, Tooth and Nail, The Abyss, Hibernation’s End, Shriekmaw, and more. You also fail to have access to great artifacts from Sol Ring to Darksteel Colossus, and from Sword of Fire and Ice to Journeyer’s Kite.

Despite this lack of the power cards, I wanted this deck to look like you could win with it.

With little in the way of card drawing, I emphasized where I could. The deck has enters-the-battlefield creatures that draw cards, a few Necropotence-style card drawing spells, cycling, and more. There is a reason I included cards like Death’s Duet and Gloomwidow’s Feast, beyond the normal need for recursion and removal. They gave me something else — a token creature here, an extra card there, and more.

Cards that resemble Citunal Woodreaders, Dregs of Sorrow, Urborg Uprising, and Garruk’s Packleader are included because they can produce some cards. Urza’s Blueprints is a great way to draw cards, and I even included the rarely seen but always good Jayemdae Tome. Let’s not get fancy about our card drawing — let’s just draw cards.

There are many cards here that could make the cut in Abe’s Deck of Happiness and Joy. Edge of Autumn isn’t really a reliable Rampant Growth, so I don’t play it by choice. Yet cards such as Woodfall Primus, Necrogenesis, Gloomwidow’s Feast, Penumbra Wurm, Scuttlemutt and a ton more make sense in my deck.

In fact, there is a strong contingent of cards here that one were in H&J, but got pulled — Chimeric Sphere, Necrologia, Death Mutation, Darksteel Gargoyle, Betrayal of Flesh, Break Asunder, Undead Gladiator, and Dregs of Sorrow. This gives me an opportunity to give them another chance.

I definitely took advantage of the lack of quality flyers left in these two colors. Everything from Kokusho to Sengir Vampire was gone. That meant I could look at cards like Cloudthresher. I have flying hosers in cards like Aerie Ouphes and Venomspout Brackus.

The deck features lots of pinpoint removal. Taking out an errant permanent of any sort should not be too hard. I have removal that draws you cards (Mystic Melting), gains you life (Sever Soul), cycles (Swat), and destroys anything you need destroyed. From lands to planeswalkers — this deck has it covered, from a pinpoint removal standpoint.

Where it lacks some extra power is in sweeping removal. I added Mutilate and two Reiver Demons. Along with Cloudthresher, that’s about it. Anything more, like Infest, would hurt the deck too much. This deck simply lacks the ability to gain significant card advantage from the playing of a mass removal spell.

As a result, I’d recommend being careful of when you play cards. Never use pinpoint removal unless you have too, and never try to play too many creatures at once; you can’t afford to walk into a Wrath of God.

I tried to find creatures that I thought worked in the deck. Take the two level up creatures as an example (Null Champion, Kazandu Tuskcaller). There are only seven level up creatures in these two colors, and H&J grabbed two of them (Guul Draz Assassin and Nirkana Cutthroat). I thought the mechanic was good for this deck, and I grabbed the two I thought would be playable. The other three I didn’t feel were good for this deck. (Or just not good at all, in the case of Zulaport Enforcer.)

Due to the Green influence, I have a lot of solid beaters for the deck. We have cards like Leatherback Baloth and Garruk’s Packleader and then Terra Stomper, Woodfall Primus, Cloudthresher, Penumbra Wurm, Plated Slagwurm, Goliath Spider and more. There is no question that this deck is bringing the beef. I wanted to ensure that the deck was doing what it needed to do in order to be successful. You need creatures that can break down defenses, especially since you cannot go to the air much.

I did include some interesting cards you might not have expected — such as Halo Hunter. There are a lot of Angels played in casual Magic, and if you are being threatened by one you can target (some cannot be targeted, like Akroma the First and Baneslayer Angel), then you can drop this and pick it off. It’s also a nice sized evasive threat, in a deck with few to choose from.

Our mana making is minimal. It’s just the Myr, the Diamonds, Scuttlemutt, Heart Warden, and Edge of Autumn. Feel free to use the Warden and Edge to cycle into more cards. The Scuttlemutt and Myrs can be used as attackers or blockers as well. Unfortunately, all of the cards you might want are gone. Everything from good lands to useful lands with cool abilities are gone. I can’t add Quicksand or Desert, Reliquary Tower or Boseiju, Yavimaya Hollow or Gaea’s Cradle. They are all used already in H&J.

If you were to build this deck in real life, you could easily add cards for the mana. Of course, if you were to build this deck in real life, you’d start adding all sorts of cards to make it better — cards from H&J. Then it would look largely like the Green and Black sections from my deck, pulled out, and used to make this smaller deck.

Until later…

Abe Sargent

APPENDIX — Today’s deck was built right after Future Sight came out, and it tries to abuse Linessa, Zephyr Mage with the right cards. It was published back in May 3, 2007. It is easily one of my favorite decks I made from 2007. (You can find it here, if interested.)

Linessa’s Hunt

4 Linessa, Zephyr Mage
4 Pack Hunt
4 Impulse
4 Mana Leak
4 Urborg Elf
4 ____________
4 Remand
4 Seton’s Scout
2 Scroll Rack
2 Wall of Blossoms
4 Terramorphic Expanse
10 Island
10 Forest

This is the first deck of the article that is not Magic: The Electronic legal. That’s largely because I use Pack Hunt as a way to abuse the grandeur keyword. This deck’s ideal play is to drop Linessa on turn 4, and then Pack Hunt on turn 5 to get three more Linessas, discarding them all to her ability, and essentially casting Upheaval on just your opponent.

After dropping your triple grandeur Linessa, the next thing to do is see if you can find Scout. Beat down with Linessa and your probably thresholded Scout. I wanted a beater that was cheap, and wouldn’t interfere with your countermagic. After thinking about and dismissing several creatures, I realized that you would likely have threshold very early in this deck. Once I hit upon that, I grabbed the Scouts. I chose them over Werebears because they can serve for two early, or if you get really close to Threshold but can’t cross over.

One cute trick in this deck is the ______________. Because you can change its name anywhere for one colorless mana, you can make it a Linessa in name, then discard it to the grandeur effect. This deck will really go to town if you draw two Pack Hunts and a __________ in addition to your Linessa. Then you can Pack Hunt Linessa for three more, and drop ___________, Pack Hunting for three more. That’s six Linessa grandeur activations. I think you might win that game.

The beauty of Linessa is that although her normal ability is a bit mana heavy, once you’ve set them back three turns, you’ll still be able to bounce the opponent’s stuff because you’ll have that extra mana. You can also use Linessa as your beatstick and rely on your countermagic.

This is one of the few times I’ve used Remand in a casual deck, but it fits marvelously here. Play it just before Pack Hunt Linessa, and what they played might not be playable again for three or more turns as their mana development goes away. Play it after you’ve triple grandeured, and you get a critical extra turn. You also have Mana Leak, which I am sure you can see is quality in this deck.

I wanted a way to find cards. This deck runs Scroll Rack and Impulse. Remember that Impulse will take the top four cards off the top of your library, so it works well with Scroll Rack. I also wanted a smidgen of defense, and Wall of Blossoms is both defense and the drawing of a card.

For mana acceleration, I chose Urborg Elf. The good of it is that you can add its attack to the Scouts and Linessa once you are good in the mana department, unlike a Sakura-Tribe Elder. It might be more vulnerable, but in this case, I thought the extra creatures were worth it.

Actually, in retrospect, maybe I should have gone with a defensive creature that can attack instead of the Wall. Bottle Gnomes, maybe. If you decide to build this deck, that’d be one of the first places I’d try out some new cards.

Pack Hunt will work well with all of the grandeur cards. However, I think this is the most abusive. Getting two Swamps is nice, but not uber-powerful. Making a 5/5 or 6/6 token creature is okay, but Wrathable. Orim’s Chanting for a turn is better, but feels more like a Spike Weaver that you really have to work to get. That leaves our Red dragon of love, Tarox Bladewing. Getting three of him in hand would bring him to lethal levels (32 power should kill most players). However, I already built a Red/Green deck, and it had large creatures in it, too. So I decided to go elsewhere.