{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.}
This Week’s Campaign Promise: I’ll Let You Design My Card
The biggest perk about the Invitational is that card. Whether it’s Solemn Simulacrum, Rootwater Thief, or Dark Confidant, the winner of the Invitational gets to design a card. (Are they always some 1/2, 2/1, or 1/1 d00d?) When I win the 2006 Magic Invitational, I’ll let you guys design the card. Come on, you know how you’re always talking about how you could do it better or how “<Some Card> would be so much better if it cost one less”? Now’s your chance. But only if you
Glazed and Confused
I kinda left ya’ll hangin’ last week, and that’s not cool. It’s just that the article was already soooooooooo looooooooong, and Craig has so much work to do. Besides, I didn’t have time to get the deck into the Tournament Practice room. I said I would if the clamor was loud enough, and it was deafening. Well, not deafening, but noisy enough to wake the cats from their seventeen-hour naps.
In case you missed it, I had eleven versions of the freakin’ deck before the one that actually worked well. Do you know how long it takes to get to the center of eleven freakin’ decks? One, two, three, whatever. So, I apologize in that way that lets you know that I’m not really sorry, but at least I can say that I said I was sorry.
Of course, the first thing that one needs to do when taking a deck to the T.P. room is to make a sideboard. The most important rule of online testing is never head into the Tournament Practice Room without a sideboard. (This is just barely ahead of the second rule about not getting involved in a land war in Asia.) Sadly, as I’ve said before, I am completely horrendous at choosing sideboard cards and using them in games 2 and 3. As often as not, though, I pick great cards, and they never show up. Either way, I normally just list my sideboard. This time, instead, I’m going to let you in on my thought process. You have been warned.
Problem Number One: Decks That Use Their Graveyard Like the Head Cheerleader Uses Her Cleavage to Get Nerds to do Her Homework
Are you sick and tired – or even just sick – of decks that load up their graveyard and then use those cards to beat you? I know that I am. The graveyard means those cards should be dead. Hence the term “graveyard.” It’s not called “the maternity ward.” It’s “the graveyard.” Cards that go there should stay dead.
But they don’t, and wishing won’t make it so.
That means we need to find a remedy. Removing those cards from the game would be great, but that’s a Black thang. Blue shuffles cards back into the library. While that’s not so hot if they have a way to get specific cards (a.k.a. “tutoring”), it’s better than nothing. This pointed me to Stream of Consciousness.
Problem Number Two: Decks with Fast Little Two-Power Creatures That Swarm Like the Crabs on Paris Hilton
Blue doesn’t have many creatures that are fast and efficient, and it doesn’t have any good, cheap sweepers like Pyroclasm. In order to handle the fast weenies, I went with Kaijin of the Vanishing Touch. It can neutralize all of those 2/X creatures that pop up. Sure, the opponent can often then add Darkblast or Shock to kill the Kaijin after it takes two combat damage, but it’s a one-for-one trade as well as a loss of tempo for them since their creature gets bounced.
Problem Number Three: Enchantments and Artifacts for Which Blue Has No Permanent Answer
One of the great things about playing Red and Green together is that you can blow up pesky lands and enchantments. You can’t counter a land, and, once an enchantment hits, all Blue can do is bounce it. Taking a page from Mike Flores‘ book, I went looking for Temporal Adepts. They are surprisingly cheap. Into the sideboard went the Adepts.
Problem Number Four: Those *&^%^* Lands
Boseiju. Vitu-Ghazi. Sunhome. I hate facing them. I’d rather take them. Like with shifting Borders. Here, have my Island. I’ve got plenty. I’ll take that Legendary land, thank you so very much. Once I get Vedalken Plotters, the Shifting Borders come out. I love using permanents that have the same effect as a spell. Even though all I get is a 1/1 out of it, that’s more than I get with the Shifting Borders.
So, add this sideboard to the decklist of One Dozen Glazed:
Sideboard
3 Kaijin of the Vanishing Touch
4 Shifting Borders
4 Stream of Consciousness
4 Temporal Adept
Stepping into the Tournament Practice Room, I had this happen to me:
Match 1: He was playing U/R Wildfire. Given the pressure I was putting on him, he didn’t have the luxury of casting Wildfire with counter backup. He had to cast it ASAP. I was holding Remand. He conceded the entire match. (1-0)
Okay, great. I was 1-0, but I hadn’t gotten to test the sideboard. Who knew if it was any good? (Shaddup!)
Match 2: This guy had really honed JMS’s Ebony Howl deck. (That’s what I call it anyway. It’s the one with Ebony Owl Netsuke, Howling Mine, and Kami of the Crescent Moon that keeps the opponent’s hand full in order to kill him. [I think it’s now been christened Owling Mine. – Craig] He barely beat me in game 1. I had no idea how to sideboard for game 2. I knew that Telling Time would be pointless. So, I dropped those for the Temporal Adepts. What else could I do? It didn’t matter. He won game 2 in a very decisive fashion, finishing at sixteen life. (1-1)
Match 3: The Enduring Ideal deck is my kinda deck (other than the fact that pretty much every card that isn’t a land is a rare). It’s wacky and creative and tough to beat. Game 1, though, I did. I Remanded his first Enduring Ideal. Thanks to the early beats, that was pretty much all it took. For game 2, again, the Temporal Adepts came in, this time for Icy Manipulators. My thought was “what are the Manipulators going to tap on his side?” When my first Adept resolved, he conceded. (2-1)
Match 4: He was playing a U/B aggro-control deck that relied on discard. It had Dimir Cutpurse and Dimir Guildmage among others. It turns out that discard isn’t so great against this deck. An empty hand means that Imaginary Pet can attack. That essentially left him with the decision to double block the Pet and lose two of his best creatures, single block him and lose one without me losing any, or take four each turn. He started by taking four a turn, then went to chump blocking and losing a man. Even with his card drawing, he couldn’t keep up. For game 2, I brought in the three Kaijin of the Vanishing Touch and a Temporal Adept on the theory that Boomerang wasn’t all that advantageous against his deck. For the first time in, well, I can’t seem to remember, this deck got mana hosed. I mulliganed to four, keeping a two land hand and never saw another. In game 3, my sideboarding turned out to be right. The Kaijin stopped the initial 2/2 rush. Once Kira hit, he couldn’t even use the strategy of attacking with a 2/2 and then Darkblasting the Kaijin. At the same time, I was flying over for more damage than he could deal with. Once my hand was empty, Imaginary Pet brought the fight to the ground, and that was that. (3-1)
Match 5: Do you know what deck you don’t want to face when you have to mulligan to four in game 1? U/R Wildfire. It’s a testament to this deck that not only did it stay in the game, it won. Yes, dropping to four cards against U/R Wildfire, One Dozen Glazed still won. I’m still shocked when I think of that game. I kept a two-land hand with a ‘Thopter and a Telling Time. I kept drawing more lands, but I also got an Icy Manipulator online before the first Wildfire went off, thanks to Remand. The land I kept in hand allowed me to prevent him from developing enough mana to do me in too quickly. When he got his second Wildfire off, he was at four, and I had a Glaze on board. I lost all of my lands, but it didn’t matter. I had held an Ornithopter. I dropped it and won with no lands on the board.
For game 2, I dropped the Boomerangs for the Temporal Adepts. That seemed risky because the Adept is too fragile, and my opponent was playing with Red. There really wasn’t much else to do, though, and I wasn’t going to let the deck ride. I know that there are match-ups where you don’t change a thing. I’m no Pro Tour Playa, but I don’t think U/R Wildfire is one of those ones against which you stand pat. I mulliganed, but "only" to five in this game. Going first, he got a quick Genju of the Spires. He dropped me to fourteen by tapping out on his third turn to activate the Genju and swing with his Mountain. That allowed me to drop Kira and an Ornithopter unimpeded. On his turn, he swung again. I blocked with the ‘Thopter. Since he only had one land up, I knew that he couldn’t counter anything. I dropped an Adept unimpeded. He quit. (4-1)
Match 6: More than U/R Wildfire, U/R Beats scares me. Wildfire has two key spells: Wildfire and Magnivore. The Icy Manipulator can take care of the ‘Vore, while Remand can hold off the Wildfire long enough to let the fliers win the game. This, though, was a scary beast. There were fast beats in Red creatures like Frostling and Frenzied Goblin with card-drawing tricks in the Ninja of the Deep Hours. Even worse, all of those built-in targeted abilities meant that killing Kira was easy. He just swung with the Goblin, targeted Kira, and then Shocked her. The problem was that he never got to draw those extra cards. In game 1, I always had a blocker. He used up all of his burn killing Kira and the Shimmering Glasskite. When the game was over, I was still at twelve.
For the second game, I brought in the three Kaijin for three Remands. It seemed that there weren’t any "must-counter" spells a la Wildfire. To put it another way, there were so many spells that hurt One Dozen Glazed that popping them back to his hand was like grabbing a towel in a hurricane. The Kaijin did a great job, stemming the weenie rush almost immediately. Like Kira, when he did go down, it left me with card advantage as when he swung with a Frostling, I blocked, he sac-ed it with damage on the stack and then popped a second one on him. Again, he was quickly out of card while I kept drawing them. When it ended, I was still at eighteen. (5-1)
Match 7: He was playing Gifts Ungiven, and I screwed up way too many times. In the first game, I never left Remand mana up. That allowed him to play both Gifts Ungiven and Wildfire without worrying about it being countered. For game 2, I brought in Temporal Adepts (to take care of Boseiju Who Shelters All) for the Boomerangs, but I didn’t bring in the Stream of Consciousness-es. I are a jenius. (5-2)
Match 8: Clearly, it’s too late at night for me to be playing because I keep screwing up. This was (I think) a Fungus Fire deck. I say "(I think)" because I never saw Glare of Subdual. I won game 1 handily. For game 2 I dropped the Boomerangs for the Shifting Borders in order to take care of Vitu-Ghazi, the City Tree. I got him down to four in game 2 and then made two serious mistakes. Even though I had control of the board, I tapped out to play some other creatures. Bad move. He cast Wrath of God. The next turn he dropped a Firemane Angel. I couldn’t get back in the game. The same thing happened in game three after I mulliganed to five. I need some caffeine. (5-3)
Match 9: For the first time in a long time, I faced a mono-Red deck. As seems to be happening this evening, I won game 1 handily and then lost games 2 and 3 to a combination of mulliganing and bad plays. In game 1, I rolled him. Despite him running a mono-Red deck, I was at seventeen when the game ended. For game 2, I brought in the three Kaijin and a Temporal Adept for the Boomerangs. I promptly mulliganed to five. I kept a two-land, three Glaze hand. Not very optimal, but how in the hell do I go down to four in that case? As you’d expect he rolled me right back. For game 3, I started with another five-card hand and wasn’t drawing. I did get a ‘Thopter and a Kaijin, but he had all of the answers in hand while I got stuck on two lands. By the time I got to four lands, he had game-ending damage on board. (5-4)
I have to say that I hate when a deck does this. I started 5-1, and yet I’m in danger of going a measly 5-5. That sort of result makes the deck look a lot worse than it is. When that happens, I simply have to hope that people actually look at how it got to 5-5 (many three-game matches in those five losses, for example) rather than the fact that it ended at 5-5.
Match 10: And, of course, One Dozen Glazed ends at 5-5. I’m so freakin’ mad I could type things that would prevent this from ever seeing publication. I won’t, though, for you. He was playing a Boros deck with a splash of Green for Loxodon Hierarch. Guess what? I won game 1. Are you as surprised as I was? Yeah, me neither. For game 2, I brought in the Kaijin and an Adept for the Boomerangs. I know that I seem to keep taking out the Boomerangs, but the truth is, in the match-ups that I’ve had, the other sideboard spells are better. In game 2, at least we both had to mulligan. He, however, mulliganed into a much stronger hand, getting a Kird Ape on board via a Sacred Foundry followed by a Selesnya Guildmage. Thanks to his Temple Garden, the Ape was a 2/3 when it first swung. I was never able to keep up because I couldn’t find a Kaijin or a Glaze. The same thing happened in game 3, except that he didn’t have to mulligan. Also, for the fifth straight match, I didn’t see an Imaginary Pet. Notice anything about that? Yup. I lost five straight matches and didn’t get Imaginary Pet in any of them. There is a correlation, but the question is: is there cause and effect?
So, there you have it. As with pretty much every, since thing in my life, it started strong and then quickly turned into a runny turd. Please, though, read between the lines. Notice how the deck lost and why. I think you’ll agree that this is pretty strong for such a cheap deck. However, I cannot recommend playing it between midnight and 3 A.M. when you woke up for work the previous morning at 5:45 A.M. Just a thought.
A Fortnight Ago . . .
Two weeks ago, I wrote about janky G/W and G/U Thran Golem decks that I couldn’t get to work well enough to be considered worthy of using in your local Saturday tournament. In the entire time that I’ve been doing this (going on five years now), the only column that generated more e-mails than that one was the one I did on averages and “luck.”
Romeo Rant! Romeo Rant!
What is your major malfunction?!? Do you know how hard this is? Every week, I write something. Every. Freakin’. Week. I have to be funny. “Ha ha ha ha ha!” And I have to be witty. “Ho ho ho ho ho!” I sweat blood making sure I put out my something adequate my absolute best. I fret and worry that you won’t love me anymore if I don’t put in enough cheesecake. All of that, and you go bonkers for Thran Golem?!? What the flock?!?
You people are crazier than a college girl who thinks that showing her lady lumps in exchange for a t-shirt makes her a model!
That must be why I heart you so much. {squeeze}
Truly, I was floored. Why did so many people care so much about a 3/3 artifact creature that costs five mana to cast and isn’t really good unless it’s Enchanted? I had no idea, but they did. And they gave me tons of ideas. The vast majority said the same thing, though: “Add Verduran Enchantress!”
Sometimes things are so obvious that you look right past them. I felt like Homer Simpson calling for help. “Operator! Gimme the number for nine-one-one!” Of course, Verduran Enchantress.
There were several other great ideas. When I sifted through them, I came up with this:
Creatures (19)
Lands (23)
Spells (18)
Gimme Some Skin, Man!
Serpent Skin was the idea that struck me as the best off-the-wall one. Sure, the Moldervine Cloak made him an 8/8 flying, Trampling, first striker, but it was still easy to kill him. Serpent Skin makes for some really cool combat tricks. The question of the week, though, would be: do these changes make it any better?
The answer is: a bit. The deck went 5-5 in the Casual Decks room against a wide range of decks, from Pro Tour-winning net decks to brand-spankin’-new Gruul decks. The mini-Tallowsip/SpArc engine just wasn’t doing enough for the deck. I only drew a few Auras off of it in the entire ten games. Moreover, I was having color issues, a very strange animal for a Green-Anything deck. I obviously need Mike Flores‘ Favorite Card Ever (from Champions of Kamigawa): Sakura-Tribe Elder. I dropped the ‘Wisps. Also, without the ‘Wisps to grab the Treetop Bracers, having those as a one-of made no sense. They became the third Serpent Skin.
That deck promptly faced off against ten more decks, many of them Gruul decks. (I know. They’re shiny new. People want to play with their new toys. That’s okay.) It started 5-1 but ended 5-5 (again!) as I faced a string of four weenie-based decks in those last four games. The deck will have to take care of the weenie fliers in the sideboard. The Goblins and Rats and Saprolings – oh, my! – something else would have to be done for them.
That’s when I remembered Ryan Ingram’s unique suggestion. (Before you flame me, I use the word “unique’ to modify the word “suggestion.” While you may have thought of this, only Ryan suggested it to me.) He suggested that I go Green and Black and use Strands of Undeath. Not only does the Strands provide possible regeneration like the Serpent Skin does, thus giving the Golem a bit more protection, as Ryan put it, “[e]ven if they kill the guy, it’s still a two-for-three advantage for you. (Strands is a two-for-zero when it comes into play, and their kill spell is a two-for-one for them.)” I gave it a whirl. Worst-case scenario, I’d get this out of my system and hopefully yours, too.
This version was even worse, going 4-6, and it was the best of the three that I tried. Strands of Undeath was pretty darn good, but there just wasn’t enough removal or protection for our gang. Moreover, even the games I won I didn’t feel comfortable. Going 5-5 with each of the G/W versions, I rarely felt overwhelmed and never felt out of control in games I won. With this one, it was a nail-biter every time.
In other words, I alone can’t get this to work. So, since you guys are so passionate about it, I’m throwing it to the forums. Not to my e-mail, but the forums. I want all of you people who wrote to me and feel so strongly about it talk amongst yourselves. Discuss. Test. Change. See if you can come up with a decent deck based on Thran Golem.
In the meantime, I’m moving onto a Gruul Preconstructed Deconstruction next week. Hey, if everyone’s playing it, there must be something to it.
As usual, you’ve been a great audience. Enjoy the halftime show.
Chris Romeo
CBRomeo-at-Travelers-dot-com