From Right Field: Code Grey! — The Orzhov Preconstructed Deconstruction, Part 2

{From Right Field is a column for Magic players on a budget, or players who don’t want to play netdecks. The decks are designed to let the budget-conscious player be competitive in local, Saturday tournaments. They are not decks that will qualify a player for The Pro Tour. As such, the decks written about in this column are, almost by necessity, rogue decks. They contain, at most, eight to twelve rares. When they do contain rares, those cards will either be cheap rares or staples of which new players should be trying to collect a set of four, such as Wildfire, Llanowar Wastes, or Birds of Paradise. The decks are also tested by the author, who isn’t very good at playing Magic. He will never claim that a deck has an 85% winning percentage against the entire field. He will also let you know when the decks are just plain lousy. Readers should never consider these decks “set in stone” or “done.” If you think you can change some cards to make them better, well, you probably can, and the author encourages you to do so.}

Lately, people have begun to ask my “what’s the daggum deal” with my recent fascination for preconstructed decks. I hate to admit it in public, especially when I won’t get a free trip to some sleazy talk show out of it. (“Next on Montel, some guy admits that he like precons!”) The truth of the matter is that I’ve always liked the precons. The first deck that I ever played that I considered to be “mine” (i.e. not built by the guy who taught me the game) was the mono-White Sleeper precon from Urza’s Saga. I bought two precons that day. The other was the U/B Tombstone deck. That became my brother’s deck.

From the “git go,” we were changing the decks to beat the other. I’d add Light of Day; he’d add Mind Bend. It was fun and educational.

Starting with Urza’s Legacy, I’d buy one of each of the precons. Part of the reason was to get to know the cards. Mostly, though, it because a thrice-yearly way to get the gang together to play a fairly-even game of multi-player chaos. We’d randomly be assigned one of the four decks and commence to swinging. Then, we’d switch.

After we were done, I’d yank any really good rares (Umezawa’s Jitte from the Rat’s Nest precon anyone?) for the Constructed Box and replace them with something else. I’d tweak the decks for the next time we played, powering up the weaker ones, focusing the unfocused. It was a great exercise and great fun.

The most fun I had was right after Invasion was released. I walked into the store having forgotten my deck. (Don’t ask. Let me just say that it involved an overnight stay at an apartment that wasn’t mine and me picking up the wrong bag. The yoga mat and Zen “Think Outside Your Box” deck of cards wouldn’t quote cut it.) I bought two of the Heavy Duty precon deck, complete with four Armadillo Cloaks, four Wax/Wanes, two Noble Panthers, and two Thicket Elementals, did some quick modifying (goodbye and good riddance, Llanowar Cavalry!), and entered the tourney. I didn’t win, but I did go 4-2. (We had some pretty well-attended Saturday tournaments back then.) Not bad for a deck that was smooshed together from two precons.

Ever since that great weekend (the post-tournament par-tay back at yoga-girl’s place was pretty intense, too), I’ve been fascinated by working with precons from a perspective of playing them on the tournament level. What a great way for a new player to get his or her feet wet. Don’t have the time or resources to piece together a Constructed deck for this weekend? Maybe you can do pretty well with a couple of preconstructed decks.

Well, as we know, I kinda blundered on the Gruul precon. I got a lot of great suggestions, but they tended away from a Gruul deck and more into a straight G/R deck. Please, don’t misunderestimate me. I know exactly how good a nearly-rare-free G/R deck can be. Kird Ape’s uncommon. So is Moldervine Cloak. Scab-Clan Mauler is a common. Blaze and Savage Twister are uncommons. Sakura-Tribe Elder’s a common. Might of Oaks is a cheap rare. That’s not a Gruul deck, though.

I moved on to the Orzhov precon, mostly because B/W decks kept kicking the Gruul deck, and they were kicking it square in the change purse. Last week, I took a precon with a .667 winning percentage and tuned it down to a .600 winning percentage. Feh. A fluke, I tells ya. I wuz robbed. I wuz framed!

Accordingly, I changed the Orzhov deck again, leaving us with this:

Code WB, v.2.0

Chris Romeo

Test deck on 04-02-2006

Standard

Creatures (23)

Lands (24)

Spells (13)

The moves I made were to get in a couple more White creatures (Kamis and another Guildmage) to help with Teysa’s awesome ability ,and to focus more on creature destruction (Disembowel) than on hand destruction (Castigate). As my eye doctor would say, “Which one’s better: number one; number two; or about the same?” Let’s find out.

Game 1: Will Mike Flores name a new Magic theory from Guildpact? Will we now hear of “Pillory Superiority”? If so, I had it. Against another Orzhov deck, I had three Pillories, neutralizing his defense while he locked up only one of my boys. After that, combat damage and the Guildmage’s activated ability did the rest. (1-0)

Game 2: Remember how Orzhov decks kept kicking the Gruul Wilding decks like Adam Vinatieri kicking a football with only two seconds left in a tied Super Bowl? Now, I’ve been on the other side. The MVP this game was Disembowel, for killing not one, but two Rumbling Slums. Then, there was Skeletal Vampire. Its two 1/1 Bats put the quick kibosh on two Silhana Ledgewalkers. Skeletal Vampire ended it through the air. Of course, I don’t want you to think it was an easy win. I let him/her get a 3/3 Scab-Clan Mauler. It took a Kami of Ancient Law and the activated ability of a Plagued Rusalka to take that one down. A second 3/3 Mauler was wearing a Pillory of the Sleepless until Naturalize hit it. I had to use a Shrieking Grotesque coupled once again with the Rusalka’s ability to kill that one. Still, the end result was: Code WB wins. (2-0)

Game 3: I never thought about how bad Necroplasm would be for this deck until I faced it. Here. In game 3. Look at how many one-, two-, and three-mana creatures this deck has. Now, look at the zero-mana tokens. *gulp* Fortunately, my first two plays were Plagued Rusalkas. Unfortunately, after Distress, his first three permanents were Necroplasms. Ugh. Back on the good side for me, though, I got a sixth-turn Belfry Spirit. That was right before he got the third Necroplasm. Good thing I waited until turn 6, no? That left me the Swamp up to sac the Spirit to kill the Necroplasm during his second main phase. The beats continued, I dropped two Blind Hunters, and ended his game with me at twenty-four. (3-0)

Game 4: I still think that Black and Green (not just Golgari) is a very solid color combination. I’ve said it before, and I’ll keep saying it. Like ten-year-olds at Christmas, we tend to forget the old toys, no matter how good they are, because we have new toys. Having said that, Code WB ripped this deck a new one. Plagued Rusalka was followed by a Guildmage. I held the other stuff in my hand, letting the three combat damage and the life loss from the Guildmage’s activated ability whittle him down. I didn’t want to throw out too many weenies for fear of Hideous Laughter. It never showed, but my removal for his/her creatures did. (4-0)

Game 5: I wanted to start 5-0 like Napoleon wanted Waterloo, but, alas, ’twas not to be. My opponent played Evan Erwin U/B Eternal Dominion–Sins of the Past deck. I had him at four when I made a bad mistake. Are you surprised, too? I had Haunted his Stinkweed Imp with Belfry Spirit with my two Bat tokens on the table. Instead of Disemboweling the Imp at the end of his turn, giving me four tokens, I just let it go. I figured he’d be at two and I could swing again the next turn. Worst case scenario, I’d use the Orzhova’s ability to end it. Nope. He got another Stinky. Then, he cast Sins of the Past to play the E.D., grabbing a Faith’s Fetters to put on my Church of Deals. I dropped him as low as one with the Church, but that was it. After that, he was in complete control. He even got to do something I hadn’t done in all of the games I played: use the Skeletal Vampire’s ability to make extra Bat tokens. I was jealous. (4-1)

Game 6: Did you know the most common form of crime in Ravnica is actually Black/White-on-Black/White? It must be since it happened again. This time, my opponent splashed a bit of Green for Doubling Season, a nice touch with Skeletal Vampire and Belfry Spirit. I was actually ahead until he achieved Pillory Superiority. (Dagnabbit, I’m gonna make that name stick!) I used the Guildmages to keep the life totals close, but I couldn’t keep it up. While I was maintaining and drawing lands, s/he was getting business spells. (4-2)

Game 7: Riddle me this, Bat Guano: how do you know when your deck simply fell apart? It gets beat by a five color Zubera deck that, you know, just for gits and shiggles, was running Golgari Rotwurm as an enabler for sacrificing creatures. Not my best effort. (4-3)

Game 8: This appeared to be a kind of budget Zoo deck. It was doing quite well up until I got the Skeletal Vampire on board and was able – for the first time, thank you Jebus! – to make my own Bat tokens. With a steady stream of tokens for both offense and defense, only mass removal was going to slow me down. He didn’t have it, or didn’t get it. This game was the first one in which neither Faith’s Fetters not Pillory of the Sleepless showed up, thus, answering the question: can this deck win without either of those Enchantments? (5-3) (Um, that means the answer was “yes.”)

Game 9: I think he was going for some sort of B/R control deck. The problem was that everything he had (Rend Flesh, Douse in Gloom, Char) was a one-for-one trade until the Honden of Infinite Rage came up. Good thing I’d been holding a Mortify. Back to the one-fer-one stuff, that turned out to be not so good against this deck because it was never truly one-for-one. For example, casting Rend Flesh on a Shrieking Grotesque (“Enhanced,” as my computer is all too happy to tell me) isn’t really an even trade. He lost two cards (Rend Flesh and the discarded one); I lost one (S-Grotesque). Ditto with Char on a Blind Hunter. It just Haunts something. (6-3)

Game 10: I was so very hoping against hope that I could win this one and go 7-3. Sadly, I lost, and went 6-4 for this set. Mostly, it happened because the deck met its nemesis: Nullmage Shepherd. Yeah, maindeck. That’s not really a bad call today, except that faster decks (i.e. ones that don’t use turn four to crank out a 2/4 blocker with an ability that’s only good if it can keep three friends in play) should eat it up. Oh, yeah, I’m also stupid. Disembowel refused to show up to kill the NMS, so I just kept holding Faith’s Fetters. You know what I was thinking, right. “No need to cast the Fetters. He can just use the Shepherd to blow it up.” Um, no, he can’t. Once the Fetters hits, the Shepherd’s ability can’t be activated. When the game ended, I had two Fetters, two Pillories, and one big red spot on my forehead from where I kept hitting myself while saying “Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!” (6-4)

…

Raw data says that this version is exactly as good as the previous version, if you consider ten games enough to gather significant data on a deck. I don’t. I’d need hundreds of games. I don’t have the time for that, though. So, what I can do is look at how I lost the four games that I lost in this set versus the previous set. I believe that I could have won three of the four lost games (the fourth being game 7 – the Zubera game – where the deck simply refused to help me) except for play errors that I made. I certainly didn’t feel that confident in the pervious version of the deck.

Still, I wanted to make a couple of changes. First, Mortify really is as good as advertised. (This is where Talen Lee should jump in and tell me he was right. See also, Blind Hunter, “I told you so.”) There has got to be five of those in here. Of course, I can only use four. I’ll gladly lose the Disembowels to round out the Mortifies. That gives me an extra card, and I’m throwing in a third Belfry Spirit. Finally, I’m switching out an Orzhov Guildmage for a third Kami of Ancient Law. There seem to be some troublesome Enchantments running around.

Code WB, v.3.0

Chris Romeo

Test deck on 04-09-2006

Standard

Creatures (24)

Lands (24)

Spells (12)

Then it dawned on me: Teysa’s been next to useless. Sure, she’s done her trick a couple of times. Mostly, though, she’s come down early and simply died. When she’s come down later, her ability hasn’t seemed to matter. Part of the problem could be that there are only two copies in here. Maybe she’s just not showing up much. The funny thing is that there are exactly the same number of copies of Skeletal Vampire and the Orzhov Guildmage, yet they seem to be popping up like zits on a teenager. So, out go the two Teysa’s for the fourth Kami of Ancient Law and the fourth Belfry Spirit. (My take on Teysa is that she needs to be in a deck with lots of White or W/B weenies. She needs to be at the top of the curve so that, when she hits, she can use her ability right away. When she’s only the second creature on your side of the board, and when the first is the mono-Black Rusalka, she’s just a 2/3 for three mana.)

Code WB, v.3.1

Chris Romeo

Test deck on 04-09-2006

Standard

Creatures (24)

Lands (24)

Spells (12)

Game 1: I don’t like seeing a first-turn Temple Garden bringing out a Birds of Paradise. It tells me Ghazi-Glare is coming. And it did, with a twist: Myojin of Cleansing Fire. That wasn’t actually too bad. I dropped a Pillory on it while playing out Blind Hunters and Orzhov Guildmages. I waited for the Glare of Subdual before casting my first Kami of Ancient Law. He did get a Hierarch in play, but that just delayed the inevitable. (1-0)

Game 2: My opponent in this one was playing another W/B deck. It featured the Dark Confidant–Sensei’s Divining Top combo. It wrecked my hand early, leaving me empty while he had two cards in hand with an active Top and a Nezumi Graverobber that was about to flip. So, how did I win? Bats. Bats. Everywhere, Bats. Technik is right. It would be really cool to make the first decent Bat deck. By the way, somehow I won the game without seeing a single Pillory, Fetters, or Mortify. Solid. (2-0)

Game 3: What is it with G/W decks tonight? Three games in, and I’ve faced two. This one, lotsa Pillories and Fetters showed up. Pillories did eleven points of damage. The rest was from Blind Hunters and Bat tokens. Have I mentioned how much I like this deck? (3-0)

Game 4: My petty side rears its ugly head again. On turn 4, my opponent dropped a Jitte and Equipped a flier. Ugh. That shouldn’t have been a huge problem except that Faith’s Fetters never showed up. Guess what? It didn’t matter. Through sheer great play (and my opponent losing eight life to his Dark Confidant), the Bats came out on top. (4-0)

Game 5: Wow. A 5-0 start. Not one of those “I won two or three cheap ones,” either. For instance, this game was against a U/R deck. He was trying to abuse the Wee Dragonauts, and it would have worked if it hadn’t been for those meddling kids! I mean, if I hadn’t gotten Faith’s Fetters and Pillory of the Sleepless. Throw in a couple of Belfry Spirits, and the deck is undefeated. So, far… (5-0)

Game 6: You know what? This is enough. Code WB just beat Evan Erwin Mono-White UrzaTron Control deck. At a very solid 6-0, this deck is ready for the Tournament Practice room. The only question is what do we put in the sideboard? (6-0)

How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?

The question is what problems does the deck have to solve? First and foremost, it needs an answer for quick weenies, especially ones like Hand of Honor and Paladin en-Vec that have Protection from Black. There’s only one answer for that, and the answer is Hideous Laughter.

The rest… well, I’m going to leave that to the forum hounds. Help me fill out the other eleven cards in the sideboard. What I’ll do is spend this week digesting the suggestions, finalizing the sideboard, and then playing this in the Tournament Practice room.

Here are some cards I’m looking at. Think of this as my forum contributions:

* Nikko-Onna – There are plenty of Spirits in here to trigger bringing her back. Is she overkill with Kami of Ancient Law?

* Sacred Ground – There seem to be a bunch of land destruction decks right now? Do I fight through them or pack this?

* Exile into Darkness — This is one that we keep forgetting about but which can simply punish weenie decks. Zoo, for one, would simply despise this card. Does it still deserve a sideboard slot?

* Nightmare Void – I want to be able to hose control decks. I think reusable discard is pretty good.

* Shred Memory – The deck to be able to deal with opposing decks that want to use the graveyard as a second hand. It’s either this or Nezumi Graverobber.

* Terashi’s Grasp – There is no way for this deck to deal with Umezawa’s Jitte other than making sure that the creature wearing it dies and/or that it never gets a counter.

Because of the timing of when these articles have to be submitted to Our Esteemed Editor (Hi, Craig!), I’ll be taking a detour next week while I compile the suggestions and test the deck. In two weeks, I’ll give you the results of this deck in the Tournament Practice room.

Next week, I get back to a piece of business that I sadly neglected. In three weeks, I gotta get started for Regionals, and I’m taking you along for the ride. Are we clear on that schedule, now? Next week: a standalone column while I work on finishing the Code WB testing. In two weeks: the final Code WB column. In three weeks: Regionals decks start to flow.

As usual, you’ve been a great audience. Oh, and I’m sorry for the lack of cheesecake. How about a shot or two of Kristanna Loken, the woman from Terminator 3 and most recently SciFi’s Dark Kingdom? Yeah, I thought that would be okay.

Chris Romeo