{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. The author tries to limit the number of non-land rares as a way to limit the cost of the decks. 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 Sulfurous Springs, Birds of Paradise, or Wrath of God. 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.}
Today is my birthday. Happy birthday to me. Fortieth birthdays are supposed to be emotionally tragic for men today. Surprisingly, mine wasn’t. I turned forty last year, and we had a blast. I finally felt like “hey, I’m an adult. Maybe the world will take me seriously.” (No such luck.) To celebrate, the family took me to Chuck E. Cheese. This included my four-year-old nephew, and all of the cute MILFs and servers presumed it was his birthday, offering him kisses and free stuff. “Nope, it’s my birthday.” Free stuff, I got. Luanne would not allow the kissing, though, and Dominic still made out (pun intended) like a bandit.
No, forty wasn’t bad. In fact, it was great. Forty-one, though, is turning out to be a real bummer. A week ago Wednesday, someone very close to me had breast-cancer surgery. Two days later, my brother had surgery. Minor compared to the other, but he was still going under the knife. I couldn’t even be with him because I was having more testing done regarding my “vertigo,” now in quotation marks because, well, they don’t know what it is. None of the drugs they gave me worked, at least not without putting me out for fifteen hours a day. Even then, for the nine hours that I was awake, I was still wobbly. That’s not really a solution.
So, last Friday, I had a test done which would tell the ENTs if this was an inner ear issue or not and, if so, which inner ear if not both. They said that the test said t wasn’t inner-ear related. “So, where’s it coming from, then?” I asked, as if I hadn’t been searching the Interweb as much as my inability to read more than a Trivial Pursuit card at a time would let me. “It has to be in the brain. We’ll get a specialist to schedule an MRI and CAT scan. Of course, it could be something else, too. I‘m not a neurologist.”
Oh, goody. So, I either have a tumor or nothing. “I’ll take nothing and like it, Alex.” I honestly can’t tell you what’s worse. Thinking that it’s something as horrible as a brain tumor or simply not knowing. Because I can’t do anything about it for now, though, I choose to ignore it. Nothing I can do. So, I’ll do something else.
Since it’s my birthday, what I’m going to do is give myself a present of sorts. I’m going to make a Time Spiral Block Constructed deck featuring Radha, Heir to Keld. Ever since I saw her in Planar Chaos, I knew that I’d use her in a deck. The problem was that, at the time, there really wasn’t a lot to do with her triggered ability except to play Instants and Flash creatures. Sure, Red and Green have some mighty nice examples of those, but they have to be in your hand. Those colors aren’t very good at holding onto cards. I guess Green kind of is now, what with Harmonize. Of course, it’s a Sorcery that costs four mana. After that, you won’t really have much left to add to Radha’s RR.
I bided my time. I figured Wizards R&D had something up its collective sleeve. Sure enough, Future Sight gave us Thunderblade Charge. It’s an efficient, if unspectacular, three damage for three mana. Sadly, it’s at Sorcery speed. Those of us who like Red and Green decks, though, don’t care. We know about the Theory of Sligh. Use as much of your mana as you can each turn. Once the Charge is in the graveyard, though, wow. That card just has “Mistress Radha, please, abuse me” written all over it. All I needed to do was fill out the deck with fifty-two more cards.
Sulfur Elemental was a sure thing. We all know his benefits. The ability to drop him for one mana (using the two from Radha’s ability) was a no-brainer.
Oops. Bad choice of words. Or good choice, depending on how you look at it.
Of course, if money were no object, we’d also have Bogardan Hellkite, too. Remember, Radha’s ability happens before blockers are declared. So, you could use the mana she gives you, pump out a Hellkite, wipe out the worst of the blockers (or whatever you want to do), and leave your opponent with little, if anything, to take out Radha & Co.
Sadly, money is a consideration for this column. Thus, no Hellkite.
I also wanted a way to keep Radha alive during combat. As I tested the first couple of versions of the deck, I noticed that all eyes were on her. In one way, that was a good thing. Sometimes, my opponent was so worried about her that he forgot that there were more dangerous threats on the board. I actually won one game when my opponent, so focused on killing Radha that he forgot what else was coming, blocked to kill Radha but let lethal damage through. (Yes, one of the pitfalls of MTGO testing: no “Take Back” button.) Stonewood Invocation would be awesome with Radha attacking. That would mean that 1G would pump her way, way up and make her untargetable. Of course, without Radha attacking, Invocation costs 3G. It’s also a six-dollar card. So, I went with the much cheaper (in both senses of the word) Might of Old Krosa.
It was obvious that I’d need some way to get both Red and Green mana. Super duh. Grove of the Burnwillows is one way. If you have them, please, use them. The thing was a set would cost thirty bucks that I didn’t have. Even if I did, though, I’d want another way to make the proper color of mana. So, Search for Tomorrow or Prismatic Lens? As the deck developed, I found Search to be too unwieldy. The deck was skewing toward Red. With Search for Tomorrow, I needed Green before I could get my other color. Unfortunately, in this deck, my “other color” was Green. In a Green-based deck, it would surely be SfT. In this deck, I had to go with the Lens.
One other little trick came up during testing. Sometimes, I didn’t actually want to cast the Charge during my first main phase. Sometimes, it’s actually better to have it in the ‘yard as an Alongi-like Rattlesnake threat or a red herring. Casting it during your first main phase meant you had three fewer mana with which to bluff. Granted, this didn’t happen often. Casting Thunderblade Charge for three mana is much better than doing it for five mana. Sometimes, though, sometimes is enough. That meant I needed a discard outlet. Jaya was one quickly dismissed creature. She was another Legend, and my hand started getting clogged with 2/2 women who didn’t do much but sit around waiting for the other ones to die. So, I went with Gathan Raiders and Lightning Axe. By the time I had to submit this week’s column, I had this:
Mistress Radha’s Neighborhood
6 Forest
10 Mountain
2 Keldon Megaliths
2 Llanowar Reborn
4 Terramorphic Expanse
4 Gathan Raiders
4 Radha, Heir to Keld
4 Sulfur Elemental
4 Thick-Skinned Goblin
4 Fiery Temper
4 Lightning Axe
4 Might of Old Krosa
4 Prismatic Lens
4 Thunderblade Charge
Is this optimal? Surely not. One of the problems with my “vertigo” is that I can’t spend a lot of time slinging spells. I’ve always been sensitive to motion sickness. This thing makes it much worse. In other words, I didn’t get to test this deck as much as I would have liked to.
Truth be told, I don’t think I could ever test this deck enough. Why? It’s a blast to play. Unlike some decks that I’ve gotten tired of playing halfway through development – a Very Bad Thing when you have a column with a deadline – I had fun playing this over and over. Would I like to tweak it some more? Well, yeah. I wondered what Call of the Herd would do in the deck. I looked at Empty the Warrens. I wanted to test the deck with Llanowar Augur. Trample, after all, is a fantastic ability with Thunderblade Charge. Thunderblade Charge also seems to cry out for more creatures, especially ones with evasion although I never really had a problem.
Thick-Skinned Goblin? Really?
Why the Thick-Skinned Goblin? Doesn’t seem to make much sense without any Echo spells in the deck, right? If that’s all you’re looking at, sure. T-SG was actually the final card I figured out for Mistress Radha‘s Neighborhood. I wasn‘t happy with a couple of the two-mana creatures I‘d tried in there. Wall of Roots can’t attack. Emberwilde Augur just wasn’t quite enough, although he was close. Tarmogoyf was, obviously, fantastic. He was also way too monetarily challenging. (I hope you got yours back when they were four or five bucks.) Spined Sliver was the next to last creature in that slot. It was good, almost great. Having two creatures that cost RG to cast while the deck skewed so far to Red was too much pressure.
Then, I remembered Thick-Skinned Goblin’s other ability. It can give itself Protection from Red. Seems like a great ability to have in Time Spiral Block Constructed. In fact, I was often able to use that ability to get him through in combat and then use the Thunderblade Charge.
If you’ve been following some of these plays, you’ll notice that some are pretty expensive. That last one, for example, costs a total of six mana: 2RRRR. Yes, this deck can make it to and through the mid-game. That’s also why the deck needed twenty-four lands and the Lenses. Even with Radha, the deck can use up the mana.
If I Had a Million Dollars…
Let’s say that money wasn’t an issue. How would I make this deck, keeping in mind, of course, that I want to keep the deck’s identity. That is I want to keep Radha and Thunderblade Charge.
I’ve already mentioned most of what I’d do. Obviously, Bogardan Hellkite goes into any TSBC deck that can support the mana. This one can. Tarmogoyf is a huge two-mana creature, even though this deck won’t be dumping artifacts into the graveyard. There are often creatures, a land (Terramorphic Expanse), Instants, and Sorceries in Mistress Radha’s ‘yard alone. That means that ‘Goyf is a quite often a 4/5. If you can pitch a Prismatic Lens to a face-down Gathan Raider, then you have a 5/6. Finally, of course, I’d use the Grove of the Burnwillows. That version would be:
Mistress Radha’s Upscale Neighborhood
5 Forest
7 Mountain
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
2 Keldon Megaliths
2 Llanowar Reborn
4 Terramorphic Expanse
4 Bogardan Hellkite
4 Gathan Raiders
4 Radha, Heir to Keld
4 Sulfur Elemental
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Fiery Temper
4 Might of Old Krosa
4 Prismatic Lens
4 Thunderblade Charge
I apologize for the shorter-than-usual length of this week’s piece. Again, I get motion sick very easily. Interestingly, the writing of the column doesn’t do much to trigger that. I don’t usually look at the screen while typing. Ah, but the revising. Now, there’s some major back-and-forth movement with my eyes. I hope that you’ll forgive me. Just think about those six-, seven-, and eight-page columns that I’ve written. I think it evens out.
Next week’s piece will indeed be longer, thanks to the suggestion of an alert reader. I hope you have your suspenders on, ‘cause I don’t want you to get your pants blown off.
As usual, you’ve been a great audience. Thanks for all of the good wishes, thoughts, and prayers.
Chris Romeo
FromRightField-at-Comcast-dot-net