After last week looking at the Red, Blue, and Black rare Chroma cards, we start off this week finishing off the set with the Green and the White. And then on to Warp World, the CCCP, and what’s to come!
Chroma 2: Electric Boogaloo
Light from Within is… well, it’s less than exciting. It would be too easy to just plop it into a standard Kithkin list or White Weenie list, letting it give a small bonus to the creatures that already come in the deck. It would probably prove VERY beneficial to especially Wizened Cenn, who can’t always rely on having anyone watch his back. 2/2 Wizened Cenns are trouble enough; could you imagine having to deal with 4/4 Cenns? No thanks. But that’s not where this deck idea is going to go.
In the interest of maximizing the benefit from Light from Within, I think we have to focus on the WWW-casting-cost creatures. Between Shadowmoor and Eventide, we’ve got four to play with: Wilt-Leaf Cavaliers, Plumeveil, Restless Apparition, and Hearthfire Hobgoblin. Plumeveil’s not overly helpful in killing our opponent, even as a 7/7 wall, but the other three are decent guys with decent abilities on top of their stats and their affordable mana cost.
Creatures (26)
- 4 Skyhunter Skirmisher
- 4 Defiant Vanguard
- 4 Order of Whiteclay
- 4 Wilt-Leaf Cavaliers
- 4 Hearthfire Hobgoblin
- 2 Nobilis of War
- 4 Restless Apparition
Lands (23)
- 23 Plains
Spells (11)
Rare Cost Summary:
Light from Within ($3.00 x 4 = $12.00)
Order of Whiteclay ($1.50 x 4 = $6.00)
Mangara of Corondor ($1.25 x 4 = $5.00)
Nobilis of War ($1.50 x 2 = $3.00)
Making a 5/5 double-striking Goblin Soldier sounds like the best combo you can pull off, but I think it’s actually with Order of Whiteclay. Generally speaking, a 1/4 Order of Whiteclay isn’t exactly going to strike fear into the hearts of your opponents – but a 3/6 Order of Whiteclay, that’s a different story. His ability to fetch back almost every creature in the deck is certainly no slouch either. To round out the creature base, I went with Defiant Vanguard, who can take down creatures bigger than himself and keep coming back; Skyhunter Skirmisher, who takes to the air as a 3/3 double-striker with Light from Within; and Nobilis of War, who not only is huge under Light from Within (8/9 flying!) but also continues the “pump all my guys” theme of the deck.
Rares You Could Add, If You Have Them: Paladin en-Vec ($5) is a 4/4 pro-Red-pro-Black first-striker here, which is excellent. And while this isn’t in Standard, you could play around in Extended with Dawn Elemental ($2.50) — 7/7 flyer for four mana that you prevent all damage to? Where do I sign up?
Primalcrux: A Name You Can’t Joke About
(Because, seriously, there’s no really good puns about Primalcrux.)
Ah, Primalcrux. This guy succeeds in so many ways where Umbra Stalker fails. For one, he starts out with trample, which gives us something good to do with him once we get him supersized. Second, he starts out big just by himself, even with nothing else on the board, whereas if you could manage to get Umbra Stalker into play without casting any other spells, he’s just a puny 0/0.
(What? It could happen. Maybe your opponent went Mox Emerald – Swamp – Dark Ritual – Hunted Wumpus or something?)
I went through a number of possibilities when I was driving back this afternoon. I could always just go with the “maximize mana symbols” route, but that’s sort of played out. Groundbreaker was a lot of fun, but I’m looking for something with a little more panache. I thought about Muraganda Petroglyphs (because guys like Elvish Warrior and Nessian Courser pump up Primalcrux while still being able – if boring – bodies), but scrapped that once I remembered that Primalcrux had trample (and still wouldn’t benefit from the Petroglyphs if he DIDN’T have trample, thanks to his “characteristic-defining ability” … grumble). It wasn’t until I got home and started looking at multi-G creatures that I stumbled upon what I think is the best card to pair with Primalcrux:
Go ahead, click the link. You probably will remember this Future Sight uncommon as being decently powerful in Limited, if nothing else. In my estimation, he was made to roll with Primalcrux, and here’s why: His tokens, who are copies of himself, copy the mana cost as part of their generation. So that means that, whenever a Primalcrux and a War-Pride attack, you’re getting a War-Pride token for each creature on the other side of the board, and Primalcrux gets another +3/+3.
Zounds.
Creatures (30)
- 4 Llanowar Elves
- 2 Craw Giant
- 4 Kavu Climber
- 4 Nacatl War-Pride
- 4 Boggart Ram-Gang
- 4 Wilt-Leaf Cavaliers
- 4 Primalcrux
- 4 Wistful Selkie
Lands (22)
- 22 Forest
Rare Cost Summary:
Primalcrux ($1.25 x 4 = $5.00)
The triple-hybrid guys come back to play in this deck because they’re so worthwhile. All three of these guys here (Cavalier, Ram-Gang, and Selkie) are decent bodies with decent abilities, and just “happen” to boost Primalcrux at the same time. The Climber and the Harmonize are in to help refill your hand, and the Recollects bring back dead Primalcruxes. The Craw Giant just seemed like a fun way to throw in a four-Chroma guy, but he’s also a handful once he’s on the attack.
Rares You Could Add, If You Had Them: Troll Ascetic is a solid creature to replace Kavu Climber in the two-Chroma slot, and is much more resilient, meaning he lends his strength to your Primalcrux for much longer – he’s also a great guy to hold the fort while you’re searching for a big ‘Crux.
A Little Bit Warped
“And now, for something COMPLETELY different.”
I’m possibly obsessed with this Warp World deck. I talked about the original decklist in my article here, and pointed to Bennie’s original list here. And since then, I’ve taken it to two Friday Night Magics and made Top 8 in both. But … I’m unimpressed, and here’s why …
I can’t beat Faeries.
The first week, playing the Green/Red deck list that you see in those articles, I went 3-2 in the Swiss rounds, made Top 8, and then lost in the Top 8. All of my actual losses were to Faeries. I had Firespouts in the sideboard, and was able to side into a full complement of Magi of the Moon, to no avail. They would kill the Magus, survive the Firespout, and never let me actually resolve an eight-casting-cost sorcery. Yeegads.
I came home and resolved to tinker with it. At this point, I was willing to devote, oh, let’s say, fifteen sideboard slots to beating the Faerie menace. I started thinking about what would be available to me to beat them. I could put Cloudthreshers in, but… well, it certainly makes casting Warp World with a limited life total a real adventure. I have enough Red to run Flame Javelins, which would give me an answer for opposing Mistbind Cliques, who truly are the real threat in that matchup – they are hard-to-manage and speed up the Faerie clock so you can’t even get a shot for Warp World. You know, I could practically side into Skred Red or something and surprise them in games 2 and 3!
So I’m sitting in the Girl Room in my house (the missus had a deadline and I was keeping her company), trying to figure out how to fit Demigods and Incinerates and twenty other cards into a fifteen-card sideboard, when I remember that I had listed a Red and Black version of the deck back in my previous article. I thought I could potentially put the Demigods in the main deck – they’d certainly make a nice attack coming in off of a Warp World – and so I started pulling together a Black/Red version.
Creatures (30)
- 3 Avalanche Riders
- 3 Ravenous Rats
- 4 Siege-Gang Commander
- 4 Bogardan Hellkite
- 2 Magus of the Moon
- 4 Demigod of Revenge
- 1 Furystoke Giant
- 3 Murderous Redcap
- 2 Puppeteer Clique
- 3 Vexing Shusher
- 1 Wort, the Raidmother
Lands (23)
Spells (8)
Sideboard
As you can see, I’ve totally made a mess of the manabase. I decided that, without the mana acceleration of Wall of Roots or Farhaven Elf, I had to accelerate into Warp World a different way. Having some small experience with a deck that wanted to resolve a different 8+cc Sorcery, I decided to put in chunks of the Dragonstorm manabase and see how that worked. In theory, it worked great, as I could cast Warp World on turn 5 or so – but the flip side of the “success” is that I was required to sacrifice the Lotus Bloom to get there, giving me one less permanent for the Warp World. Each time I cast it in the most recent FNM, I had less permanents than my opponent. (Of course, that didn’t necessarily last long.)
I think that, while it’s an interesting adaptation of the deck, it still doesn’t solve its fundamental problem, which is that it can’t beat Faeries. I lost to Faeries yet again, and it still wasn’t even a close match.
My plan is to go back to Red/Green and really assess what I can do to fight the Faerie menace.
CCCP
Let’s take another week to assess the Blue spells. And yes, Fact or Fiction is missing, although it obviously shouldn’t be; what else is missing? The suggested starting point is in last week’s article.
Until next week…
Dave