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Blog Elemental – Side-Dreaming

I think I’ve been pretty clear all along in this experiment that I never intended the deck to be played in tournaments. That said, several people have been inspired to bring either my version or their own cog deck to FNM or even Pro Tour Qualifiers. Crazy. Even crazier, some of the results have been encouraging, and enough people have e-mailed me asking my thoughts concerning a sideboard that it feels unavoidable to chime in on the topic.

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Blog Elemental – Side-Dreaming

August 5, 2004


Game 84: Black/Blue Discard

This was a frustrating game because I feel like my deck just wasn’t performing like I knew it should. My opponent does some early disruption with three Ravenous Rats and two Chittering Rats, while I’m gaining life via two Leonin Elders. I play Auriok Salvagers on turn 4, but it sees Dark Banishing and after that I’m pretty much out of cards in hand. Mask of Memory comes out on an Abyssal Specter and all I can do is play Zur’s Weirding for a turn to deny him some draws, take six damage, and then banish the Weirding with my Tel-Jilad Stylus. I cycle a few cogs, but no answers come and I end the game with ten land on the table.


Game 85: Mono-Green

I’m proud of myself in the next game. I keep a hand with two Plains, no cogs, two Leonin Elder, two Leonin Squire, and an Auriok Salvagers. I’m hesitant about keeping it because of the lack of cogs, but it looks like an aggressive hand, so I decide to play aggressively. This strategy is reinforced when my opponent plays a Forest and a Cloudpost. I play weenies with abandon, he doesn’t find a third land, and by the time he Rampant Growths for a Forest, I’ve won. His comment:”Perfect. I get manascrewed against a White Weenie deck.” Heh.


Game 86: Door to Nothingness deck

He has a pretty scary Door deck because it’s pretty focused, with Fabricates and tons of five-color mana like Pentad Prism. Early I get a Leonin Elder to go along with Engineered Explosives for two, which kills his Vedalken Engineers, two Sun Droplets, a Prism, and something else I can’t remember that costs two. After that, he is trying to rebuild slowly while I get a second Elder to go along with a Trinket Mage. The Mage allows me to set up the Totem-Stylus thing to nab his third Sun Droplet while it has three counters on it. I drop Zur’s Weirding and Salvaging Station while my life is in the forties, denying him his draws while he can’t afford to deny me my recycling cogs. Just for insurance, I put the Totem-Stylus combo back on the table and he concedes.


Game 87: 5-Color Slivers

This is easily the longest and most tiring game I’ve played with this deck. ukmuggles challenges me with his”Bringer deck” in honor of me adding Bringer of the White Dawn. It turns out that it’s actually more of a Sliver deck, with three Bringers thrown, in since the deck generates five colors so reliably. There’s no way I can summarize the back-and-forthness of the game, but at one point he has Slivers of the Quick, Ward (Blue), Synapse, and Essence varieties to go along with Bringer of the Green Dawn, three Beast tokens, and Sliver Overlord. I, meanwhile, had a Leonin Elder, a Leonin Squire, and Salvaging Station. That was the low point for me, and I drop to single digits in life.


I’m not exactly sure how I climb back from that position, but I know it involved a lot of Engineered Explosives and Sunbeam Spellbomb recycling, eventually getting my second Station. Madness ensues, I get Elders two and three on the board, finally find Aether Spellbomb and Pyrite Spellbomb, and slowly start to take him apart. Just to give you an idea of the craziness, at one point I nab his Sliver Overlord with Avarice Totem, only to have him Peer Pressure it back. In the end, I’m able to cycle Pyrite Spellbomb like mad and win with my life in the eighties. I held two Zur’s Weirding most of the game, unhappily so.


Game 90: White/Green Kaldra deck

Not much to say here. He gets a Skyhunter Prowler to go along with two pieces of Kaldra (Helm and Shield). But he can never keep the Prowler on the table because of an Auriok Salvagers and a recycling Aether Spellbomb. Two Leonin Elder let my life climb into the stratosphere. There are two turns in which I really expose myself to a possible Wrath of God, but he either isn’t playing it or doesn’t draw it, and once I can bounce the Prowler and protect my Salvagers on the same turn, my two 1/1s and my 2/4 go all the way.


Okay. Zur’s Weirding? I don’t like it. It’s pretty effective in the deck, but drawing it stresses me out, because it’s a timing card. Even worse, I seem to draw it when I’m low on life, my opponent has a lot of life, or I’m otherwise on the defensive. It was a cool experiment and I still think there’s something there, but I’m not in the mood to include it in my deck, nor do I feel like it fits my style. [Just for the record, Jay just said drawing a card in his casual deck stresses him out. – Knut, tracking this stuff]


OUT: 2 Zur’s Weirding


IN: 2 Thirst for Knowledge


Thirst for Knowledge is my cop-out filler card. It doesn’t hurt the strategy I’ve already set up, but it doesn’t do anything different or cool either. I thought about trying Lantern of Insight or Chimeric Coils, but the former is again something I won’t like stylistically, and the latter is something I’d rather use with Vedalken Engineers still in the deck. I figure that Thirst will never be a bad draw, and I’ll usually get the card back I discard.


v.2.8

Critters (18):

4 Leonin Elder

4 Leonin Squire

4 Trinket Mage

4 Auriok Salvagers

2 Bringer of the White Dawn


Non-Critters (19):

4 Aether Spellbomb

4 Chromatic Sphere

2 Thirst for Knowledge

2 Salvaging Station

1 Avarice Totem

1 Conjurer’s Bauble

1 Pyrite Spellbomb

1 Scrabbling Claws

1 Sunbeam Spellbomb

1 Tel-Jilad Stylus

1 Engineered Explosives


Land (23):

5 Plains

3 Island

4 Ancient Den

4 Seat of the Synod

2 Glimmervoid

2 Grand Coliseum

2 Great Furnace

1 Mirrodin’s Core


Now, for all of you Friday Night Magic folks…


I think I’ve been pretty clear all along in this experiment that I never intended the deck to be played in tournaments. That said, several people have been inspired to bring either my version or their own cog deck to FNM or even Pro Tour Qualifiers. Crazy. Even crazier, some of the results have been encouraging, such as Shadowcast’s recent fifth-place finish (out of twenty-four) with version 2.4, while having no experience playing the deck.


I’m not even going to try and tell you what you would have to change about the deck to turn it into something worthy of a tournament. I still think of what I’ve done here as a casual deck, something I enjoy playing on MTGO in idle time. Enough people have e-mailed me asking my thoughts concerning a sideboard, though, that it feels unavoidable to chime in on the topic.


What I’m about to say is theory-only, and I won’t go into the exhaustive detail with it as I have with the rest of the deck. Still, here are my thoughts based on the games I’ve played and what little I know of the current Standard metagame. If I were showing up to a random FNM tournament using the current version, I would probably bring this sideboard:


4 Second Sunrise

4 Viridian Shaman

2 Tree of Tales

2 Scrabbling Claws

2 Sunbeam Spellbomb

1 Engineered Explosives


Why? Well, I think about sideboards along two lines: First, you need to be able to add cards that shore up weaknesses against certain matchups. Second, you need to be able to get rid of the cards that don’t help you against those same matchups.


I actually developed a detailed sideboard plan against the major decks in Standard, but realized that’s probably overkill for something I’m never going to try. Suffice it to say, the Second Sunrise comes in against board-sweeping effects like Akroma’s Vengeance, the Shamans/Trees come in against Affinity and other artifact-heavy decks, as well as any deck with Damping Matrix, the Claws help against graveyard recursion of any kind like Eternal Witness and Patriarch’s Bidding, the Sunbeams put you out of burn range against Red decks, and Engineered Explosives help against creature swarms. Against land-destruction you even have some additional land to add in a pinch.


That’s what I would do. Then again, I wouldn’t bring this deck to a tournament. If you do and win a bunch of games, though, be sure to tell me about it.

Blog Elemental – What’s In A Name?

August 4, 2004


Never underestimate the importance of a good deck name. I have been sticking with”Nuts and Bolts” for a long time, but it seems to me that I’ve changed the deck so much that it is no longer really Nuts and Bolts. Besides, the StarCityGames.com Forums register”Nuts” as a naughty word, so the deck name tends to come out an annoying” and Bolts” there. It’s time for a new deck name.


I like my deck names to be short and catchy. Some examples of my decks from the past include Wood, Limey.dec, White Noise, The Marksman, Gray Sligh, and She-Hulk. I tell you this because I want you to come up with my deck name for me. That’s right: I am going to do no independent thinking of my own whatsoever. This experiment has generated a nice community vibe in the Forums, and it’s about time I take advantage of that vibe.


Tell me what you think my deck’s name should be (and don’t forget to say why if you want me to take you seriously) in the Forums. If you’ve recommended a name in the past, re-recommend it today because this is the Forum list I’ll be scanning. I’ll pick the one I like best and on Monday will christen the deck. There will even be a prize for the winner. Huzzah!


Back to the now-nameless deck…


The”finisher” discussion from yesterday, as expected, polarized some folks. Some love Bringer of the White Dawn, others hate him or love some other option. It happens.


In some ways, I wish I had more games than a hundred with this deck to try out more changes. A lot of suggestions have flown about the Forums that at this point would simply take too long to explore and then retract if I didn’t like them.


But right now I’m consistently winning my games in fun fashion. As a result, I feel pretty locked in to my current decklist through the end of this experiment, making only minor tweaks as I go. Oh well. A hundred games and a month of talking about one deck every day is probably enough. Even if I played two hundred games, I bet there would be tempting roads not taken.


For now, let’s see what we have…


Game 79: Mono-Black Death Cloud deck

I’m beginning to hate Grave Pact. My opponent gets two early Ravenous Rats to go along with Pact, Solemn Simulacrum, and two Chittering Rats. I have a first-turn Leonin Elder and a variety of cogs, including Aether Spellbomb and Engineered Explosives. I Explosives for two to kill the Rats, get a Squire to return it, then block-and-bounce with my Squire to slow the pain. He casts a morph creature, which turns out to be Bane of the Living, but I have recovered enough with Vedalken Engineers to play Salvaging Station and untap my Station a bunch when he clears the board with Bane. Then, amusingly enough, I play Avarice Totem and Tel-Jilad Stylus to steal his 4/3 critter.


He then uses Soul Foundry with another Bane on his way to casting Death Cloud for four. What is amazing is that I sac all artifact lands to the Cloud, and my Salvaging Station brings them all back within two turns. Also, I kept my Explosives as the one card in hand, so once I recover I play it with four counters to kill his Pact and Foundry. Trinket Mage comes down after that, searching for Scrabbling Claws, and my opponent concedes. I am only at two life, but have Sunbeam Spellbomb in the graveyard and I’m clearly going to win a topdecking war.


Game 80: Blue/Black Mindslaver

His deck is evil and cool. Basically it uses card-drawing and Blue to dump cards into the graveyard, including Mindslaver and Bringer of the White Dawn, then it uses Black to bring the Bringer into play a la Beacon of Unrest and Zombify. The good news is that I recognize what he’s up to pretty early. The bad news is that his two Condescends keep me from casting some early cards to stop him. I bounce his Thought Courier once before he can activate it, then I get Pyrite Spellbomb to deal with it permanently. He Mindslavers me once to bounce a newly-cast Auriok Salvagers back to my hand, then Beacon of Unrests it to recycle Stylus and banish my Salvagers. I cast another Salvagers and bounce his Zombified Bringer, then bounce my Trinket Mage for Scrabbling Claws. Thank goodness. I was playing one turn from combo death for a long time, but when he’s at four life I recycle Pyrite Spellbomb twice for the win.


Game 81: Ravager Affinity

He gets the lightning-quick start with Arcbound Worker, Ornithopter, two artifact lands and Cranial Plating. I’m able to hold off the onslaught thanks to a combination of Aether Spellbomb and Pyrite Spellbomb, but I still take a fair amount of damage. When he drops Arcbound Ravager I respond with Engineered Explosives for two, then bounce whoever gets the counters. On the fifth turn I’m able to play Bringer of the White Dawn (the Mana Gods have been kind to me since adding him, apparently), which grinds his assault to nothing. Unfortunately, two turns later while I’m tapped out he Shrapnel Blasts my Bringer, so I’m back on the clock, made worse by two Disciple of the Vault. An Auriok Salvagers joins the fray, frantically trying to recycle cogs faster than my opponent can play threats. His Thoughtcasts are a bit too much, though, and although I survive close to ten turns at three life (him at ten), he swarms me with Myr Enforcers and Frogmites for the win.


Game 82: Blue/White March of the Indestructibles

What a horrible, horrible game. I have early Leonin Elders and Trinket Mages, but all of my land is artifact land and he is playing Darksteel Pendants and Darksteel Ingots. I know I’m screwed. I play it out anyway, getting an Explosives set to four with two mana always open, figuring I’ll at least kill the March after all of my land dies. I get him to eight life, but then he plays Akroma’s Vengeance. I sac all of my cogs in response to dig for cards, but I ironically find both Salvaging Stations and an Auriok Salvagers, none of which are ever going to see play. At over forty life, I concede with my tail between my legs.


A two-game losing streak looks bad, but Affinity is Affinity and there’s no way my deck is going to beat something with March, Vengeance, and counterspells. Egads.


Game 83: Red/Blue Words of War

His deck uses Words of War and lots of burn (Magma Jet, Beacon of Destruction, etc.) to go along with lots of Blue’s card-drawing. I get a first-turn Sunbeam Spellbomb and a third-turn Leonin Elder, though, which really puts a crimp in the idea of burning me out. A Trinket Mage searches for Engineered Explosives, which I use to kill his Words. Then Auriok Salvagers joins up to recycle the Explosives to kill his second Words. I Trinket Mage for Aether Spellbomb in case he draws a board-sweeper, and after that it’s pretty easy to run him over with weenies.


I’m pretty happy with the deck, except there are two pieces that I still question. The first is the three Vedalken Engineers, which have been spectacular sometimes and ho-hum the others. The second is the Avarice Totem/Tel-Jilad Stylus combo, which is cool when it works, but is mana-intensive and requires a lot of tutoring. Ironically, the two work better together, since if I keep the combo, it makes sense to keep the Engineers.


Ultimately, I think the deck is better off keeping the Totem-Stylus combo, and I’m not just saying that because Aaron Forsythe suggested it. The Totem really gives the deck a way to deal with permanents that cost more than five mana and can really swing the momentum in a game. I haven’t discussed the times I’ve used Avarice Totem in my game logs, but it’s happened several times already, always to my benefit. Basically I think of Totem-Stylus like I think of Sunbeam Spellbomb: they probably belong more in a sideboard than a maindeck, but since I’m playing non-sideboard casual games, they’re nice safety valves if I need them.


That leaves the Engineers as victims of my last deck experiment…


OUT: 3 Vedalken Engineers


The problem with the Engineers is that they are too often a 1/1 without a mana outlet. They are phenomenal with Salvaging Station – and if I had included four Stations, I almost certainly would have needed four Engineers – because they help bridge the mana-gap to cast them and can help with all of the colored activations necessary with recycled cogs. My deck is pretty susceptible to board-sweepers, though, and having the Engineers just makes the problem worse. As I’ve said before, Vedalken Engineers is also one of the few cards I can draw in a desperate situation that won’t immediately help me. They may come back into the deck if I don’t like their replacement, but for now I’m trying something else…


IN: 1 Mirrodin’s Core


I’ve previously poo-pooed the Core, but with no Engineers, the deck needs access to more mana and it needs access to colored mana. Some people have argued that twenty-four was too many and twenty-two too few, so I’ll take their advice and split the difference. Bringer of the White Dawn puts a burden on the five-color aspect of the deck, but it’s a burden I’m willing to bear since it’s so much fun to play. I thought about City of Brass in this spot, but I’d just as soon use an uncommon, and besides the Core is painless. If I’m too-often finding the counters to be a burden, I’ll switch over to City.


IN: 2 Zur’s Weirding


Whaa-aaa-aat? How random, right? After Mark Rosewater crowed about Zur’s Weirding, a conversation broke out in the Forums to include it as the deck’s finisher. Believe it or not, Zur’s Weirding has incredible synergy with my deck, since a) I tend to gain a lot of life, b) I can draw a lot of cards, and c) I have cards that recycle my graveyard. It, along with the Bringer, speeds up the deck’s damage ability and offers a lock to an opponent if I have multiple Leonin Elders on the table and a way to recycle cogs. I’m persuaded, and willing to give it a try.


Note that I dropped three two-cost cards for a land and two four-cost cards. I have a suspicion I’ll be just as mana-screwed as before, if not more so.


This is an experimental change, folks. I may or may not retract it after a few games.


v.2.7

Critters (18):

4 Leonin Elder

4 Leonin Squire

4 Trinket Mage

4 Auriok Salvagers

2 Bringer of the White Dawn


Non-Critters (19):

4 Aether Spellbomb

4 Chromatic Sphere

2 Zur’s Weirding

2 Salvaging Station

1 Avarice Totem

1 Conjurer’s Bauble

1 Pyrite Spellbomb

1 Scrabbling Claws

1 Sunbeam Spellbomb

1 Tel-Jilad Stylus

1 Engineered Explosives


Land (23):

5 Plains

3 Island

4 Ancient Den

4 Seat of the Synod

2 Glimmervoid

2 Grand Coliseum

2 Great Furnace

1 Mirrodin’s Core

Blog Elemental – The Art of the Finisher

August 3, 2004


Qumulox has gotten a lot of negative attention in the Forums, but for interesting reasons. People don’t question that the deck needs a”finisher,” something to end games in a hurry once I have recycling cogs and control of the game (well, some have begun to, but I’m in the Finisher Needed camp). They don’t even question that Qumulox is a good finisher. After all, it’s immune to the artifact removal so common in today’s decks, a 5/4 flier is awfully beefy, and the UU cost late in the game has good synergy with the deck needing mana to continue recycling its cogs. It’s even an uncommon, for goodness’ sake!


No, what people don’t like about Qumulox is that it isn’t cool.”Feels too much like Affinity,” they say.”A 5/4 flier is pretty boring,” they grumble.”Can’t you find a finisher that’s more fun?” they plead. Apparently, Qumulox is very low on the style-points rating system.


Let me be clear and say that I think Qumulox is a good, solid finisher for my deck. He has won me countless games. The only times I have been unhappy to draw him is when I couldn’t find the UU in his cost, which said more about a problem with my mana base than anything else. If you have been following along with your own Nuts and Bolts experiment and want to keep the deck to budget-proportions, keep Qumulox right where he is.


For my own deck, however, I guess I’m going to try and up the style points.


A lot of suggestions have ricocheted around the Forums on the subject of finishers. Some suggestions I won’t pursue today include: Blinding Angel, Somber Hoverguard, Air Elemental, Dreamborn Muse, March of the Machines, Cranial Plating, Mahamoti Djinn, Pristine Angel, Atog, Plasma Elemental, Ageless Sentinels, Exalted Angel, Shrapnel Blast, Lodestone Myr, Fireball, Razormane Masticore, Jareth Leonin Titan, and Triskelion.


The reasons I’m not going in these directions are varied:


  • Some of them feel less fun than Qumulox or are overly-used in other decks

  • Some of them take the deck in a direction that requires a lot of support cards I don’t want

  • Some of them just aren’t my style

If you feel strongly one of these cards is The finisher for the deck, then by all means try it out and post your results in the Forums.


Personally, I’m tempted by five cards. I’ll list them in order of temptation, from least to most.


Rust Elemental

The idea behind Rust Elemental versus Qumulox is that it comes down sooner, only loses a point of power, and its drawback is negligible since you can recycle whatever you sacrifice. Heck, if you’ve included Disciple of the Vault or Arcbound Worker in your deck, then the drawback is actually a boon (we’re talking major style points here). I like this idea, except that I don’t want to add Disciple or Worker to my deck, and in that case it only costs me one additional mana for a 4/4 flier with no drawbacks a la Air Elemental.


Arcbound Crusher

It’s pretty clear to me that recycling cogs = a very, very big Arcbound Crusher. He has trample, too, so he meets the finisher-creatures-should-have-evasion test. What bugs me on principle is the modular ability, since my deck has no artifact creatures on which to place the counters if the Crusher dies. Should this matter? Not necessarily, since I can pretend the modular ability isn’t there. To me, though, it feels like I’m not optimizing the Crusher’s potential, which I think would annoy me each and ever time I played him.


Those are two ideas that tempt me, but ultimately I find lacking. These next three are so close as to be almost interchangable in my mind, and all are changes I like in the current deck.


Serra Angel

It’s in the deck’s base color of White, it can be as useful blocking as attacking, and it has a very vintage tres cool vibe going for it. In fact, I think the discussion in the Forum went along the lines of: If you want Rust Elemental, isn’t Air Elemental better, since you get the same stats for only one more mana and something that isn’t vulnerable to artifact hate? If you’re using Air Elemental, why not Serra Angel, which is White and doesn’t tap?


The only bad news, really, is that when you come down to it, Serra Angel isn’t a lot more tricky than Qumulox, it just feels cooler somehow.


Clone

No one took up my Clone rally cry when I mentioned it awhile ago, but it’s an idea I can’t get out of my head. Clone has the similar throwback panache of Serra Angel and is cheaper to cast. In the mid-game, Clone acts a duplicate Trinket Mage, Leonin Squire, or Leonin Elder, and then when an opponent puts down something truly scary I can just bounce the Clone to copy that scary beastie. Imagine the possibilities: Darksteel Colossus, Platinum Angel, Shivan Dragon… oh my! The downside, of course, is that it’s reliant on your opponent having a finisher of his own, otherwise it’s just an additional weenie for your deck.


Bringer of the White Dawn

It’s just so blatantly, obviously good in a cog deck, and I bet that I could often cast it for five mana. Oh sure, you win automatically if you have a Mindslaver too, but I always thought the existence of Mindslaver made people think too narrowly about the White Bringer’s potential. It’s like a third and fourth Salvaging Station, except these can smash face and return dead Stations to play. Of course – and I know people are tired of hearing this – Bringer of the White Dawn has the added bonus of being a card I named. What could be bad? Well, it’s expensive to find online.


So which to try? The straighforward Angel, the situational Shapeshifter, or the expensive Elk? I’ve tried to paint a balanced picture of the trade-offs, and I’m actually happy with the idea of all three. Today, though, I’m going with the Bringer.


OUT: 2 Qumulox


IN: 2 Bringer of the White Dawn


Yes, the price of this deck is rising, and since I’m throwing in rares willy-nilly I might as well pull the band-aid off:


OUT: 1 Plains


IN: 1 Glimmervoid


So far I haven’t seen the downside of Glimmervoid. It’s never been stuck in my hand and it has never died from a lack of artifacts on the table. That said, I think four is way too many for this deck and three is too many when you’re only running twenty-two land like me.


As I said: Stick with Qumulox in your deck and no one will think worse of you. You can also replace Glimmervoids with Mirrodin’s Core if needed and be fine. I’ll be sure to have a budget alternative to my deck by the time I wrap up this experiment.


It feels close, very close…


Nuts And Bolts v.2.6

Critters (21):

4 Leonin Elder

4 Leonin Squire

4 Trinket Mage

4 Auriok Salvagers

3 Vedalken Engineers

2 Bringer of the White Dawn


Non-Critters (17):

4 Aether Spellbomb

4 Chromatic Sphere

2 Salvaging Station

1 Avarice Totem

1 Conjurer’s Bauble

1 Pyrite Spellbomb

1 Scrabbling Claws

1 Sunbeam Spellbomb

1 Tel-Jilad Stylus

1 Engineered Explosives


Land (22):

5 Plains

3 Island

4 Ancient Den

4 Seat of the Synod

2 Glimmervoid

2 Grand Coliseum

2 Great Furnace


Game 75: Mono-Green Beats

Wow. That’s all I can say. Wow. I get a first-turn Leonin Elder, then a Chromatic Sphere, Leonin Squire, Chromatic Sphere, Aether Spellbomb and Pyrite Spellbomb. My opponent is laying some weenies, Cloudposts, and Forests but who cares, since on turn 5 I play Bringer of the White Dawn. My opponent has a very satisfying pause after I play him, too. Every turn an Aether Spellbomb comes into play, gains me a life and bounces a blocker, allowing my Squire and Bringer to get him within range to start recycling the Pyrite Spellbomb and keep the Bringer back for blocking duty.


That Bringer fellow… well, he’s pretty good.


Game 76: Nuts and Bolts

His deck is different than mine because he’s trying to splash both Red (Pyrite Spellbomb) and Black (Cranial Plating and, I’m guessing, Necrogen Spellbomb), which I personally think puts too much strain on his mana base. Indeed he gets a little color-screwed despite a Chromatic Sphere and Wayfarer’s Bauble, while I get an early Leonin Elder and Leonin Squire to recur my own Sphere and Aether Spellbomb. On turn 3 I draw my lone Scrabbling Claws, which is really the difference-maker in the mirror (never thought I’d say that phrase in this experiment). I start whittling away his graveyard, and an Auriok Salvagers means I can start eating his graveyard for cards with recycling Claws. His lone blocker gets bounced, and my weenies swarm him for the win with me at forty-nine life.


Game 77: White/Blue/Green Control

He uses all sorts of scry cards with Pristine Angel as a finisher, which makes for a long and pretty boring game. My weenies get in some early hits before the Angel comes in, then I force first an Auriok Salvagers, then a Trinket Mage for Pyrite Spellbomb, through his counters. After that I’m able to overwhelm his deck with recycling cogs. When I get the Avarice Totem/Tel-Jilad Stylus combo on the table, I’m ready to snatch his Angel if he tries something funny. I recycle the Pyrite Spellbomb until he draws Wrath of God. I Aether Spellbomb my Salvagers to my hand, and my Salvaging Station untaps a ton to punish him for the Wrath. In the next turn, I do lots of mana gymnastics with Chromatic Spheres to recycle Pyrite Spellbomb four times for the win.


Game 78: Mono-Green Ageless Entity deck

I figure he’s using the Entity when he plays Birds of Paradise, followed by Wurm’s Tooth, Sword of Light and Shadow, and Sun Droplet. His 2/3 Birds do me some damage and gain him some life, while I have an early Leonin Elder and Trinket Mage. I use the Mage for land, since I have a Bringer of the White Dawn in my hand. On the sixth turn I have the correct mana to cast the Bringer and start recycling Chromatic Spheres to draw cards. The drawing gets me an Aether Spellbomb the turn after he casts his Entity, and since I can bounce two creatures a turn, he can’t do anything as I run him over. He does get a late Vernal Bloom, but it’s not enough to compensate for the bounce. We each must have gained about twenty life in the game, but I end at twenty-five and he ends at negative two.


Four games with the new finisher, and so far so good. Did I mention”Wow”?

Blog Elemental – The Mastermind Behind Nuts and Bolts

August 2, 2004


So last week I get an e-mail from the original creator of the Nuts and Bolts preconstructed deck. Wait, before I get to that here’s the current deck:


Nuts And Bolts v.2.4

Critters (22):

4 Leonin Elder

4 Leonin Squire

4 Vedalken Engineers

4 Trinket Mage

4 Auriok Salvagers

2 Qumulox


Non-Critters (16):

4 Aether Spellbomb

4 Chromatic Sphere

2 Salvaging Station

1 Conjurer’s Bauble

1 Leonin Bola

1 Pyrite Spellbomb

1 Scrabbling Claws

1 Sunbeam Spellbomb

1 Engineered Explosives


Land (22):

6 Plains

3 Island

4 Ancient Den

4 Seat of the Synod

2 Grand Coliseum

2 Great Furnace

1 Glimmervoid


While I’m at it, here is an extra game from last week with this decklist:


Game 63: Blue/White Kaldra deck

A very cool deck. When he starts out with Auriok Glaivemaster and Weathered Warfarer, I think it may be a WW Equip deck, which I guess it is, but one that’s heavily skewed towards getting Kaldra in play via Steelshaper’s Gift. He even has Steal Artifact (my guess is in case someone else is using Kaldra equipment), which he puts on my Salvaging Station. I have a quick Leonin Elder, Leonin Squire, and Auriok Salvagers, which uses a recycling Chromatic Sphere and Aether Spellbomb duo to keep his creatures off the board and prevents him from ever using the Shield of Kaldra and Sword of Kaldra he casts. I don’t know what would have happened if he found the Helm of Kaldra, but I’m just as happy not to find out and win with my life comfortably in the forties.


Okay, like I was saying, I received a delightful e-mail from Aaron Forsythe last week. The e-mail actually has some confidential stuff I can’t share, but here’s how it starts:


“I’m enjoying the blog! First off, I don’t believe for a second that you chose that deck at random. If any of the four theme decks hinted at the possibility of a cool deck, it was this one. I should know, I built it!”


Wow. Neat. Aaron, former pro playa, StarCityGames.com Feature Writer and MTG.com editor. Aaron, current R&D member and MTG.com columnist. Aaron, probably my favorite person at Wizards of the Coast (Brandon Bozzi being right up there too). Aaron, the person responsible for my MTG.com column and my first names and flavor text gig. Aaron is actually the progenitor of Nuts and Bolts! Whodathunkit?


Here’s how Aaron’s e-mail ends:


“One suggestion I read on the Wizards boards… adding single copies of Avarice Totem and Tel-Jilad Stylus. The Totem lets you steal anything for five, and the Stylus keeps your opponent from using the Totem against you. Anyway, thought it might be amusing and”in theme.””


This is an idea that has come up repeatedly in SC’s Forums as well. In fact, people who have tried it suggest that while the activation cost is pretty hefty, the Totem can grab that problematic permanent your Explosives can’t touch. The Stylus, while spiffy in combination with the Totem, is also a nice way to keep yourself from getting decked.


Somehow I figure that if the preconstructed creator is suggesting a change to my deck, I kind of have to take it to heart, y’know? So…


IN: 1 Avarice Totem


IN: 1 Tel-Jilad Stylus


But what to take out? This is getting tricky, since I now have a fondness for all of the cards in the deck.


OUT: 1 Leonin Bola


I guess I always knew that Leonin Bola would leave, but it’s still sad to see it go. Some of you who have played Nuts & Bolts will recognize that the Bola is a surprisingly good card in this deck, cheaper than a recurring Aether Spellbomb as a way of keeping an opponent’s main threat under wraps. However, while I don’t mind drawing the Bola and can put it to good use, it still isn’t something I ever use Trinket Mage to fetch nor is it something my opponents fear enough to destroy. These are both signals to me that the slot is better used by something else. Besides, Avarice Totem should perform the same function as the Bola – shutting down an opposing threat – but do so more permanently.


OUT: 1 Vedalken Engineer


I like the Engineers, don’t get me wrong. What I have found, though, is that I never need two on the table at the same time because I can’t put the mana to good enough use. I’ve also drawn them late in the game and frowned, because they are one of the few cards I can draw late that isn’t immediately useful. As a result, I think three is the correct number to have in my deck, though I could even argue for two. With three copies, I will usually draw one but I’ll draw two a lot less often.


This puts the decklist here:



Nuts And Bolts v.2.5

Critters (21):

4 Leonin Elder

4 Leonin Squire

4 Trinket Mage

4 Auriok Salvagers

3 Vedalken Engineers

2 Qumulox


Non-Critters (17):

4 Aether Spellbomb

4 Chromatic Sphere

2 Salvaging Station

1 Avarice Totem

1 Conjurer’s Bauble

1 Pyrite Spellbomb

1 Scrabbling Claws

1 Sunbeam Spellbomb

1 Tel-Jilad Stylus

1 Engineered Explosives



Land (22):

6 Plains

3 Island

4 Ancient Den

4 Seat of the Synod

2 Grand Coliseum

2 Great Furnace

1 Glimmervoid


With these changes in mind, let’s see what happens…


Game 64: Red/Green Aggro

There was no way I thought I would win this game. I have a first-turn Leonin Elder and Sunbeam Spellbomb and Tel-Jilad Stylus on turn 2. Then my land stalls and I have to pop the Spellbomb to go searching, then pop an Aether Spellbomb to keep searching. Meanwhile my opponent is playing Rampant Growth, Forge[/author]“]Pulse of the [author name="Forge"]Forge[/author], and Magma Jet twice on my two Vedalken Engineers. My opponent sees my troubles and switches to Land Destruction Mode. He Molten Rains one land, then Echoing Ruins another. I use the Stylus to put the land back into my library each time, but I still can’t draw land fast enough. He Molten Rains again, then Echoing Ruins again. Aargh. To make matters worse, he has a 5/5 Karstoderm starting to eat into my life. The ‘Derm shrinks gradually and eventually dies just as I’m able to get to three land, Tinker Mage out a fourth, and then play Qumulox. My opponent is only holding Forge[/author]“]Pulse of the [author name="Forge"]Forge[/author] and is at ten life (did I mention my little Elders were putting up quite the fight?) so he concedes.


Game 65: Green/Black Anti-Artifact

This guy’s deck was really tricky. He had huge amounts of artifact hate – Oxidize, Tel-Jilad Justice, pro-artifact guys, Viridian Shaman, Nantuko Vigilante, Emissary of Despair, Glissa Sunseeker, etc. – to go along with Mycosynth Lattice. He didn’t even need the Lattice for most of the game, since his artifact hate works fine on my artifact lands. A couple of Leonin Squires and a Trinket Mage keep me from getting too land-screwed, eventually giving me enough mana to drop Auriok Salvagers with Aether Spellbomb protection. By this time he has Loxodon Warhammer and Glissa Sunseeker to go along with his Lattice, so I have to tie up my mana by bouncing his legend every turn. The good news is that he doesn’t have much in the way of blockers, so I can rush him with weenies. A late-game Leonin Elder is just silly with the Lattice, and puts my life in comfortable territory for the win. It’s a testament to this deck that it can win against a deck like that.


Game 66: Mono-Red Goblins

The game gets off to a silly, silly start. I keep a one land hand because of two Chromatic Spheres and two Leonin Elder, figuring I’ll cantrip my way out of it. I play Sphere, Elder, Sphere, Elder over the first four turns unable to find another land. Luckily my opponent is stuck on one Mountain with only a Raging Goblin as offense. We both get our second land and he tries Shattering mine. I draw another land and Leonin Squire saves my dead Seat of the Synod. He tries to beat down with Fists of the Anvil and burns my two Elders, but they have already done their damage. The life-pad helps me comfortably get Auriok Salvagers in play with Aether Spellbomb and that’s game over. He ends the game with four land, showing me a hand of Goblin King, Barbed Lightning, Lava Axe, and Beacon of Destruction.


Game 67: Green/Red Equip

Poor guy. He plays Banshee Blade, Energy Chamber, Loxodon Warhammer, and Mask of Memory, but he has no creatures to go along with his equipment. I get a nice solid start of Leonin Elder, Leonin Squire and Auriok Salvagers, so I’m plinking away at his life and cycling cogs for cards. When I get a Trinket Mage for Engineered Explosives set to two, he concedes.


Game 68: Red/Green/Black Dragons

He is playing lots of land-acceleration like Rampant Growth and two Explosive Vegetations while I have out some little guys like Leonin Squire and Vedalken Engineers. He plays Glissa Sunseeker and I respond with Engineered Explosives for four to kill it. Then he plays a 14/14 Kilnmouth Dragon and I’m a little scared. I bounce the dragon with an Aether Spellbomb, and have Auriok Salvagers in hand. I forget why, but I play Avarice Totem instead of the Salvagers, then Trinket Mage for Tel-Jilad Stylus. I figure next time he tries a big dragon… it’s mine!


Unless, of course, that dragon is Furnace Dragon and I’m tapped out. All of my cogs and most of my land vanish into smoke. The 14/14 Kilnmouth shows up again, and this time I die.


Game 69: Cranial Affinity

For such a fast deck, this guy sure was a slow player. Each turn took forever, but he manages to get Arcbound Worker, Ornithopter, artifact land, and some Wel