In my last article, I briefly mentioned Keeper and how it had evolved over
the course of the past year or so. Fetchlands have strengthened mana bases.
Stifle, coupled with the classics, Gorilla Shaman, Wasteland, and Strip Mine, have given control decks the tools expand their repertoire of mana denial, helping to slow the game to a point where they can effectively answer everything the opponent throws at them. Psychatog emerged as one the best kill cards ever, while Decree of Justice provided a virtually uncounterable and, thanks to cycling, never dead win condition.
To replace the gap that had been plaguing control since the restriction of Fact or Fiction, Steve O'Connell, the powerful supercomputer behind TheManaDrain.com, popularized the use of Skeletal Scrying, a powerful and versatile card drawer. Hulk Smash brought renewed interest to the Accumulated Knowledge/Intuition card drawing powerhouse, which was complimented further by adding as many as three copies of Deep Analysis to give an added edge against control. With Mirrodin came Isochron Scepter and Chalice of the Void to help lock down games. While Chalice fell out of favor with the demise of the original incarnations of Long.dec, Isochron Scepter still remains a popular card in many control decks.
Since I’d prefer to get this out of the way first, and also since it’s one of the more widely used card/deck, we’ll start with Isochron Scepter control decks. The Paragon list had been buzzing with the release of the Mirrodin spoilers, trying their best to break Isochron Scepter and Chalice while, as usual, I pretty much ignored the postings until I actually saw the cards and thought I was terribly clever by adding them to my decks. While we eventually dismissed Scepter, based on my continuous bashing of the poor card, others, such as Team Hadley based in Hadley, MA, continued development of the deck.
TheChronic
By Team Hadley
Provided by David Lawrence,
Eastman on TheManaDrain
2 Underground Sea
4 Volcanic Island
3 Tundra
4 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
1 Strip Mine
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Sol Ring
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
2 Decree of Justice
2 Gorilla Shaman
1 Swords to Plowshares
3 Fire / Ice
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
2 Cunning Wish
4 Brainstorm
4 Isochron Scepter
4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will
2 Future Sight
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
Sideboard:
3 Red Elemental Blast
1 Gush
1 Hurkyl’s Recall
1 Swords to Plowshares
2 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Rack and Ruin
1 Coffin Purge
1 Skeletal Scrying
2 Disenchant
1 Blue Elemental Blast
The main aim of the deck is to get out a Scepter imprinting a draw spell, then going nuts, countering or killing anything the other deck tries to do. The concept is good on paper, but in my experience, difficult to execute. The Scepter, as I’ve mentioned before, is really only good imprinting a Brainstorm, Fire / Ice, or Accumulated Knowledge. Anything else, such as a Mana Drain or the like, can be too easily played around, leaving the Scepter essentially a dead card, costing you some tempo, and letting your opponent know a card in your”hand.”
The strength of Workshop based decks, such as Welder Mud, TNT, and most recently, Slavery, have brought about a large amount of artifact hate in nearly every top deck’s sideboard, ranging from the basic Naturalize and Disenchant, all the way up to Energy Flux and Artifact Mutation, with the former making the Scepter much more clunky to handle. Most versions of Welder Mud and Slavery are playing with Chalice of the Void which can shut down a Scepter very easily, and Mud also plays Sphere of Resistance which adds to the cost of the spells cast. TnT, along with many of the new Red Deck Wins variants picking up in popularity, is playing Pyrostatic Pillar, which can be devastating to a deck that requires multiple activations of the Scepter to keep up with the opponent.
Here is where one would expect me to discuss Blue/Red Phid, but with the release of Isochron Scepter, I feel Ophidian really isn’t the drawing engine you’d like to use, though I’ve never been a heavy advocate of either. It’s only advantage is it’s a control deck that can use and function under a Blood Moon with ease. Other than that, nothing too spectacular.
Sample U/R Phid/Scepter deck
4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Leak
2 Misdirection
2 Stifle
4 Isochron Scepter
4 Brainstorm
3 Impulse
3 Cunning Wish
3 Fire / Ice
1 Morphling
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Strip Mine
3 Wasteland
3 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
4 Volcanic Island
5 Island (Basic lands rule!)
Sideboard
4 Blood Moon
1 Fire / Ice
3 Red Elemental Blast
1 Boomerang
1 Fact or Fiction
2 Rack and Ruin
3 Blue Elemental Blast
We now come to one of the more controversial decks of the past year, Keeper. The main debate has been over whether the draw engine should be Intuition/Accumulated Knowledge coupled with Isochron Scepter, Isochron Scepter on it’s own, Skeletal Scrying, or Skeletal Scrying with Isochron Scepter. It may not seem like much, but each has it’s own strengths and weaknesses, and each dramatically influences the way the deck executes it’s game plan.
The builds with Isochron Scepter are usually the ones I dismiss, but no one can deny the power of a Fire / Ice imprinted on an Isochron Scepter, not even myself. However, it’s just not fast enough for the metagame today if you want to have a shot against the upper tier decks, and while it’s a backbreaker against Sligh, it merely slows down the more powerful aggro decks such as Mask, TnT, and the latest, unveiled at the last Waterbury tournament only a few weeks ago, Green Power Ranger: The Next Generation (a.k.a. The Big O).
The ones most worth taking a second look at, are the builds based around Accumulated Knowledge/Intuition and Skeletal Scrying. The Accumulated Knowledge/Intuition engine is extremely powerful and provides a huge boost of cards for a very low investment of mana. The problem myself and others have with this is mostly the matchup against Hulk Smash, which also runs the Accumulated Knowledge/Intuition engine. It can lead to some very sticky situations, and also creates the”AK Wars,” which ran wild during Standard seasons of the past where the debate also centered around”AK or No?” in the top control decks.
Skeletal Scrying, however, is quite strong against not only Hulk, but the mirror, though not as good as the Accumulated Knowledge/Intuition engine. The mirror is something you won’t run into nearly as much as you will the much more popular and powerful Hulk. Skeletal Scrying is extremely versatile, allowing for an early game use of two to three cards, and is also a late game powerhouse, bringing back fond memories of Braingeysering for a new hand and more. Only this spell can be used at the end of your opponent’s turn. Joy!
The other beef I have with using Accumulated Knowledge in Keeper is that you aren’t able to abuse it nearly as much as Hulk can and will. Hulk aims to force through its draw so that it can win over the next turn or two. Keeper, on the other hand, wants to get it’s own card drawers through so that it can keep control of the game and eventually get around to winning. This is much harder than just winning, and running four copies of Accumulated Knowledge and the base number of two Intuitions is a very large chunk of a deck that needs to pack a large number of cards into a very small space. Cutting removal for draw is usually good, but not for Keeper.
Keeper boasts a vast arsenal of removal including such platinum hits as Swords to Plowshares, Fire / Ice, Rack and Ruin, a variety of Disenchant effects, Coffin Purge, Tormod’s Crypt and one of the most powerful and undercosted spells ever printed, Balance. These combined with multiple copies of Cunning Wish to fetch the needed answer at the proper time provide Keeper with the tools to deal with any situations that may arise, giving it a chance against literally every deck in the field. The problem lies in first finding the correct answer, an issue that’s been plaguing control decks since the late 60’s, and second, lasting long enough to deploy it’s weaponry.
Keeper employs one of the best kill cards ever hatched in Decree of Justice. This little saucer from the Type 2 hall of fame was originally introduced to me by Jason Stapels, the man partially responsible for the rebirth of TheManaDrain, soon after the release of Scourge. During those days, I was having a grand time playing my Keep-A-Tog, a crazy combo deck that tried to be more broken than Grow-A-Tog’s mama could ever hope to be. While Keep-A-Tog eventually faded away with the restriction of Gush, Decree gained more and more attention over the next few months, eventually becoming a staple of all Keeper decks, with the only debate being the correct number to play.
In Waterbury, I piloted Steve O'Connell Damping Matrix Keeper to a spectacular 5-2-1 finish, losing mostly to the Magic Online shuffler and most likely savage cheating from my opponents. (I’m not serious by the way. It’s only healthy to blame anything bad that happens, such as a scoop of ice cream falling off your cone, on the Magic Online shuffler, because it is likely the responsible party and must pay for its crimes.) This list is also what you can most likely expect to see for a good portion of this year:
Keeper Feat. Damping Matrix and Pals
By Steve O'Connell with input from Team Paragons and Team Mean Deck
4 Flooded Strand
3 Volcanic Island
3 Tundra
3 Underground Sea
4 Wasteland
1 Island
1 Strip Mine
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Sol Ring
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
4 Brainstorm
2 Cunning Wish
2 Stifle
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
2 Skeletal Scrying
1 Mind Twist
2 Swords to Plowshares
1 Fire / Ice
1 Balance
3 Decree of Justice
2 Gorilla Shaman
Sideboard:
3 Red Elemental Blast
2 Deep Analysis
1 Swords to Plowshares
2 Coffin Purge
2 Rack and Ruin
1 Disenchant
1 Vampiric Tutor
2 Damping Matrix
1 Blue Elemental Blast
For some time, two Decrees was seen as the optimal number to play, and in many cases this is correct. This particular build is built with a heavy control metagame in mind. TheManaDrain’s resident crazy Frenchman, Matthieu Durand, A.K.A. Toad, suggested a third Decree in place of the third Cunning Wish, a card I’ve become less and less fond of as time progresses, due to the fairly harsh loss of tempo gleaned from casting it. There is no real”correct” number of anything to play in Keeper. Keeper is a highly versatile and flexible deck that’s build is completely based on the expected metagame and the proper measures to take against them. This requires a great deal of thought and a little bit of luck, that can pay off in spades if your expectations are correct. It remains a strong competitor, and a deck that should have game this year.
Standstill-based decks have been building up steam the past few months and have emerged as strong choices for many different metagames. The core of the deck is based around the synergy of Standstill and Mishra’s Factories and either Faerie Conclaves or Decree of Justice, depending on the build of your deck. The most popular versions so far are those that are straight Blue/Red, depending on Fire / Ice and Lightning Bolt not only serve as removal, but if necessary, but also to throw the last few points to your opponent’s dome. Versions featuring White have also sprung up, with the best performing recently being Keith Johnson’s version, piloted to the top 8 of The Mana Drain Open in Waterbury, Connecticut a few weeks ago.
U/W LandStill
By: Keith Johnson,
5th Place TMD Open
4 Standstill
4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will
3 Mana Leak
3 Misdirection
3 Stifle
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
2 Decree of Justice
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Nevinyrral’s Disk
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Black Lotus
2 Flooded Strand
1 Plains
2 Islands
4 Tundra
4 Mishra’s Factory
4 Faerie Conclave
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
1 Petrified Field
Sideboard:
3 Blue Elemental Blast
3 Tormod’s Crypt
3 Disenchant
3 Energy Flux
3 Chalice of the Void
You might think that the loss of Red Elemental Blast would mean a weakened game against control, but this is far from the truth. Against most of the control decks in the current metagame, Stifle is amazing when combined with Wastelands and Strip Mine to disrupt your opponent while they struggle to deal with your Mishra’s Factories and Faerie Conclaves. Add to that a respectable amount of removal and Nevinyrral’s Disks (which are also great against aggro) to reset things should the board get too scary for your liking.
Standstill is also a great card drawer, and with the large number of counters, it shouldn’t be too hard to force it through and to out-counter them on their own spells. Then there is Decree of Justice, as I mentioned, an amazing card against most of the control decks in the metagame, and the card that gives you an edge in the mirror, because in order to Stifle it, the other player will be forced to break the Standstill(clever, no?).
I see this as one of the big up-and-comer’s in the 2004 metagame, and it will be interesting to see how it develops.
I’ve been building up to this for a while, so I present the last control deck I’ll cover, the Incredible Hulk Smash. Ever since it’s breakout at GenCon last summer, it’s been very heavily played with few modifications until recently. The big changes occurred sometime last year, with the removal of Red and the addition of a mana denial component similar to Keeper’s, only without Gorilla Shaman and with Oscar Tan arch-enemy, Back to Basics.
Three Color Tog
By Sam Antill with input from Team Hadley
7th Place at TMD Open
4 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
4 Polluted Delta
5 Island
1 Swamp
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Sol Ring
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
4 Accumulated Knowledge
4 Brainstorm
2 Intuition
2 Cunning Wish
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
1 Time Walk
1 Gaea’s Blessing
3 Back to Basics
2 Null Rod
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
2 Duress
3 Psychatog
Sideboard:
3 Deep Analysis
2 Pernicious Deed
3 Ground Seal
1 Stifle
1 Berserk
1 Gush
1 Naturalize
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Null Rod
1 Chalice of the Void
The amazing thing about Sam is not only was he not fully powered, but he is also twelve years old! His lack of power may have turned out to be a boon, as Null Rod is a very powerful hoser against fully powered decks. Ground Seal is an amazing hoser against TnT and Dragon, not only providing a huge headache, but it cantrips at the same time! The main deck Gaea’s Blessing would have been great tech against Worldgorger Dragon combo… if any had been present at the tourney. It had dominated the last Waterbury Open, and this time so much hate was expected, no one even bothered to play it! Blessing is still fine though as it, of course, cantrips.
I have a very big problem with the mana denial component finding it’s way into many Hulk decks of late. Hulk is not Keeper. Hulk may want to pretend it’s Keeper, should the proper situation arise, but generally it wants to just kill the opponent. [Remember kids, Hulk is huge and green, while keeper is Filipino and wears fur hats! – Knut] Wastelands do not expedite this process, and sometimes can lead to the total screw, as they take up precious colored mana slots. This isn’t as much a problem in the three color versions, but in my eyes, they’re simply not as good as the versions running Red. Red Elemental Blast is one of the defining cards of the control mirror, and Rack and Ruin and Artifact Mutation are simply amazing. I can’t imagine not having access to either.
The other big issue is Back to Basics. Back to Basics sucks. Plain and simple. This is because many people play it incorrectly, dropping it at the first available opportunity, regardless of what stage of the game it is. Playing it when you’re opponent isn’t tapped down at least a little bit is just a waste, and isn’t working to it’s full potential. It should generally be deployed after an opponent is tapped out, though this obviously isn’t always how things work out. Red Elemental Blast is one of the most commonly used sideboard cards in any control deck that includes Red. Red Elemental Blast kills Back to Basics dead real good. Add to that the fact that it only costs one mana (making it fairly easy to force through), and you’ve got a pretty crappy hoser. If it continues to pick up in popularity, we may even see a resurgence in use of a former control superstar, Undiscovered Paradise…
The versions I see making waves are those that are more proactive, forcing the opponent to react. Stephen has been talking a great deal about”Who’s the Beatdown,” and after a lengthy conversation with him at Waterbury, we decided that we really liked Hulk’s ability to go beatdown, so to speak. I don’t think the Back to Basics versions pack the punch that the four color versions do, such as the list I played at GenCon. With this in mind, I’ve modified my version of Hulk to, hopefully, be more powerful and consistent.
Hulk 2K4
By Carl Winter and Stephen Menendian
4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will
2 Duress
1 Mind Twist
4 Brainstorm
4 Accumulated Knowledge
2 Deep Analysis
2 Intuition
1 Gush
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
2 Cunning Wish
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Merchant Scroll
3 Psychatog
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Sapphire
4 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
3 Tropical Island
3 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
2 Island
Sideboard:
4 Xantid Swarm
1 Deep Analysis
1 Fire / Ice
1 Lim Dul’s Vault
1 Berserk
1 Rack and Ruin
1 Naturalize
3 Red Elemental Blast
1 Blue Elemental Blast
Stephen came up with the idea of playing Mana Crypt during a conversation where he and I decided we hated Sol Ring, mainly because of having to actually pay mana to get a crack at a little bit of acceleration. Enter Mana Crypt. It’s essentially a Mox on ‘roids. It also enables the amazing turn 1 Intuition much more easily, whereas before you had to have a Mox or two to pull it off. The coinflipping draw-back is treated the same way it is in other combo decks; you’re going to win before the Crypt kills you.
Tog is an extremely powerful deck choice in the current metagame, though the four-color versions are, unfortunately, much more vulnerable to Keeper’s Wastelands and Shamans than before. Hopefully the Tog deck can win before this becomes an issue. After sideboarding, Xantid Swarm makes the control mirrors a virtual slaughter. They need to leave in otherwise dead creature removal, keeping them from bringing in the cards necessary to give them any possible edge in the mirror. The sideboard is not yet set for this build, but there will almost certainly be four Xantid Swarms in the ‘board.
To finish up this article, I will leave you with what may possibly be the most powerful control deck to emerge in 2004. First played on a New Year’s Type 1 in Syracuse, New York, this deck has suffered much ridicule (though not at first) for its eccentric card choices, and for having a mana base more shaky than a living room floor in the middle of a Dance Dance Revolution party. I present to you:
The Revenge of 1997
4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will
2 Cunning Wish
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Braingeyser
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Mind Twist
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
1 Balance
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Dismantling Blow
1 Holistic Wisdom
1 Regrowth
1 Sylvan Library
1 Gorilla Shaman
1 Kaervek’s Torch
1 Goblin Trenches
1 Decree of Justice
1 Zuran Orb
1 Future Sight
1 Fire / Ice
1 Exalted Angel
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Undiscovered Paradise (Back To Basics What!)
1 Strip Mine
2 Wasteland
3 Polluted Delta
3 City of Brass
1 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
2 Tropical Island
3 Tundra
Sideboard
1 Lim Dul’s Vault
1 Rack and Ruin
1 Fire / Ice
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Dismantling Blow
1 Artifact Mutation
1 Aura Fracture
2 Red Elemental Blast
1 Coffin Purge
1 Gaea’s Blessing
3 Exalted Angel
1 Stifle
Disclaimer: I do not in any way encourage any of you out there to play this deck. It is, in fact, quite awful. Many of its wins come from openings such as: Land, Ancestral, Sapphire, Random Mox, Time Walk; Walk turn, Land, Mox, Mind Twist for a lot, followed up by something else broken.
The fun part about this deck though, is morphing Exalted Angel. That’s really about it. Oh yeah, and you get to play with awesome cards like Sylvan Library and Kaervek’s Torch. The Torch is an amazing card against Misdirection, just FYI. The two mana thing comes up more often than any of you might think. But seriously, this deck almost always has an out in any given situation. Your odds of drawing that out may be as slim as the odds of JP Meyer being the physical manifestation of the beloved 19th century author, Mark Twain, but they’re there. You may not believe me, but they’re there. Oh yes.
Just to make everything clear, I am in fact, not crazy. And I’m certainly not working on building a Grow deck that incorporates Exalted Angel. No siree.
That’s all for today. The next time you’re looking for a deck to play in a local tourney, or even in a huge Mox tournament, don’t default to the inconsistent, broken combo deck that won last time. Pull out your Mana Drains and dual lands, and own people with your knowledge of the local metagame and crazy kill cards, whatever they may be.
Carl Winter
Moderator on TheManaDrain.com
Now Featured Writer for StarCityGames.com
Paragon of Vintage
Member, Team Mean-Deck
Hull to JP”Polluted” Meyer