{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 Aeon Chronicler, 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.}
I don’t like dares. Dares come mostly in two varieties. The first is designed by the darer to embarrass the dared party. It doesn’t matter whether the dared party accepts or rejects the dare. If he – and let’s face it, it’s almost always men involved in this stuff – says “no way,” well, he’s just a chicken-hearted liberal who wants gay illegal immigrant terrorists to sodomize children… on American soil! If he accepts the dare, he still can’t win. Let’s say the dare is “I dare you to eat the last six pickled eggs in that’ve been sitting in that jar on the end of the bar since Justin Timberlake was still in a boy band.” If he accepts the dare but can’t do it, his manhood is now in question. If he accepts and he does down the half dozen pickled eggs, well, geez, he just ate six pickled eggs that are older than my nephew. This first category of dares is never participated in by the darer. Thus, he never “loses.” Ironically, it’s usually losers who make such dares. “Better to dare someone first than to be dared.”
The second kind of dare is more dangerous and involved. Something along the lines of “I dare you to base jump from the top of the AmSouth Bank building at noon.” Typically, in these cases, the darer knows that the dared party was waiting for an opportunity to do this thing anyway. He just needed the proper incentive. And what better incentive is there than proving that you can do something potentially life-threatening and still survive! These are also the kinds of dares that the darer often does along with the dared party. Gotta prove my manhood, too, you know.
I bring this up because I got an interesting e-mail a couple of weeks ago. The writer wanted to know if we could come up with a U/R Time Spiral Block Constructed deck whose only rare was Aeon Chronicler. Also, even though Time Spiral Block has two of the best counterspells around right now (Cancel and Delay), we couldn’t use any countermagic. He wanted to play the deck both casually at the kitchen table and at a local store. The store guys understand countermagic. The kitchen table crew doesn’t like having stuff countered left and right.
(Yeah, b*tch and moan all you want, but I get it. Nothing ruins a good night with the friends like having one stomp out in a huff over a game of Magic, of all things. Imagine this. You just had a wonderful home-cooked dinner. Sue and Eileen are talking in the living room while you and Fred play some Magic. After the fifth counter spell, Fred gets up from the table and yells “Sue, get your coat. We’re leaving.” I promise that Eileen will not be happy that “you ruined a perfectly good evening because you just had to be in control, didn’t you?!?”)
I was intrigued. It sounded like a dare, but I wouldn’t have to have my stomach pumped or my obituary ready to go if I failed. I just had to know, though, why Aeon Chronicler only? Turns out he had purchased two of the Ixidor’s Legacy precon decks to smoosh together, like I do in my Precon Decon pieces. He got a third Chronicler in a pack, and traded for the fourth with one of his friends.
Okay. Fine. I accepted the dare.
I hate dares.
You see, Aeon Chronicler doesn’t suggest the strategy that goes with it like, say, Greater Gargadon does. The Gargadon says “Play me with stuff that you might actually want to sacrifice or be able to make lotsa extra stuff really fast.” All the Chronicler says is “use lotsa mana so you can draw lotsa cards.” What kind of deck is he going to be used in, though? Straight control? Aggro-control? Aggro? Okay, it probably won’t go into a straight aggro deck, at least not one as aggressive as a Zoo, Gruul, or Mono-Red. In other words, I needed to find a different way than I normally did this to decide which cards would go into the deck.
“Chris,” I asked myself, “what cards simply must be in a Blue-based Time Spiral Block Constructed deck without Teferi or countermagic?” The ones that I hit on right away, no questions asked, were Riftwing Cloudskate, Think Twice, Urza’s Factory, and Prismatic Lens. The Lens gives that extra mana edge needed to Suspend big Chroniclers or to hard cast a Cloudskate. Think Twice is card drawing. The Cloudskate may not be one you’d normally pick, but I hate so much seeing that thing on the other side of the table that it must be good on my side. Finally, it sometimes seems that these games, even when an aggro deck is involved, comes down to who can make the Factory tokens.
I wanted another bounce spell, though. Without countermagic, I needed some sort of board control. Shaper Parasite was fine for smaller guys, but I needed something to take care of – even temporarily – Spectral Force and Greater Gargadon. Bouncing Gargadons is fun. They can’t recast it. I mean, I guess they could, but, if the game’s gone long enough that they can hard cast that guy, you’re in big trouble. My first reaction was Wipe Away. Geez, how could it not be? Split Second bounce? I’ll take four. Oh, heck, supersize me to eight.
That was when I remembered Venser’s Diffusion. Same converted mana cost. No Split Second. Can’t hit lands. However, it does something very powerful in this format; it returns Suspended cards to their owners’ hands. I’ll let you ponder that a second.
I could see that this deck was headed down the Mono-Blue path. Probably not a bad idea. This Block is chock full o’ Blue nuts. That’s boring, though. Besides, with the Lens, I could easily run a second color. I even knew what I wanted that color to be: Red. You see, I’d won many, many, many virtual packs during the Future Sight X3 drafts on the back of Rift Elemental and Arc Blade. If your opponent can’t counter the Blade or get rid of the Elemental, you have a near endless supply of damage as well as a really big one-mana creature.
A one-mana creature with an, um, small butt. Oh, who am I kidding. It’s the smallest. If it were smaller, it would die. Still, the Blade often got rid of any pesky blockers, letting my 3/1, 5/1, or even 7/1 Rift Elemental deal some serious damage.
After nine tries, this is the deck I had:
Creatures (14)
Lands (24)
Spells (22)
As Rivien Swanson commented during one of my games “I don’t think a deck with Keldon Megaliths wants the Chronic in it.” It’s the other way around, though. The Chronicler stays. The Megaliths is in there just in case the whole Draw-Lots-of-Cards Plan goes awry.
Dream Stalker was the last thing added to this deck. I needed better defense, and that Hugh Jass was great for that. In addition, being able to recast a Cloudskate or re-Suspend an Aeon Chronicler is fantastic.
Except that the deck wasn’t very consistent. Some games, the Rift Elemental came out early or I got the Cloudskate Suspended on turn two, and I rolled the other guy. Some games, though, it was uphill the entire way. Since this was the ninth version of this deck, I decided to stop just revising this one, and I started over with the same Chronic-Cloudskate–Think Twice-Factory base. I got something that was a bit more aggressive:
Creatures (20)
Lands (24)
Spells (16)
By the way, while testing these decks, I found a great bit of synergy. You probably already knew it, but it never struck me until I did it myself. The Chronicler draws you a card whenever a Time counter is removed from it. Not when a counter is removed because of the trigger at your upkeep, but any time a Time counter is removed from it. In other words, with a Suspended Chronicler out there, Rift Elemental actually reads “spend 1R, draw a card, give this guy +2/+0: Be the Man. Repeat if you can.”
Another tip and/or trick from my extensive playing of these decks. Don’t be afraid, during your upkeep, if a Suspended card has its last counter on it, to use the Rift Elemental’s ability. Just make sure you don’t really have any other use for that mana. For example, if you have a ton of mana and nothing you really need to play with all of that mana, why just let the Time counter get pulled off? Take it off on purpose, and give the Rift Elemental +2/+0. Sure, you don’t know what you’re going to draw, and, if it’s an Aeon Chronicler, you might want to kick yourself since you really could have used that extra two mana. I have no deeper strategic insights in that area. You have to do what you think is best. I can say this, though. In the hundred or so games I played, I was almost never upset at using the Elemental’s ability to pull off the last Time counter, even when the upkeep trigger would have done it anyway.
I was much happier with this version. Even though there were no Rift Bolts, there were even more targets for the Rift Elemental’s ability. Yes, I know the deck gets completely hosed by Teferi. Remember the requirements, though. No counters. I’m pretty sure that I can convince him to run countermagic at the local store’s tourney. He has to know that he’ll need it there… right?
This version was much more aggressive, a.k.a. my kinda deck. The il-Kor brothers, Looter and Infiltrator, the Cloudskate, the Ephemeron, and Snapback tell me that there’s a Fish-esque Block deck out there right now. In fact, I’ve seen the aforementioned Mr. Swanson running one. I’ll stay off that for now and let him be the one to spring it on you. Maybe he’ll do a guest column before Block season is over.
I still wasn’t giddy about this deck, though. Again, trouble with beef. Weenies weren’t a problem thanks to the Arc Blade and Urza’s Factories. Well, Weenies not spawned by Empty the Warrens, anyway. So, I did something that I hadn’t wanted to do. I made a Mono-Blue deck.
I know.
Please, forgive me.
This I call Chronically Blue
Creatures (20)
Lands (23)
Spells (17)
Now, here’s some creature control… kinda. Nine spells can bounce a creature. It’s thirteen if you count the Cloudskate’s comes-into-play ability. Like No Suspense Puns Allowed, Chronically Blue is pretty aggressive. You can’t end the game with burn, but that hasn’t tended to be necessary. All of that bounce has been plenty to keep the Red Zone clear of defenders or at least clear enough to get then final bit of damage through.
Finally, I sent him this deck:
Creatures (15)
Lands (23)
Spells (22)
I explained to him that, if he was going to take the deck to a Saturday afternoon tourney, he’d have to have countermagic. There are just too many spells that he’d need to stop at a decent tourney.
This version was, as control/aggro-control decks often are, nerve-wracking to play. I’d feel in control of the game, then out of control, then I’d win. Or vice versa. Or I’d fell in control and then lose. That’s Mono-Blue with countermagic for you.
Hopefully, in a few weeks, I’ll have some news about how this did at the tourney. Sadly, I’m not counting on it. I tend not to get much in the way of follow-up from people. I guess they don’t want to write my columns for me.
As usual, you’ve been a great audience. I don’t know what’s up for next week. Tomorrow, I go in for another test regarding my vertigo-type thing. Essentially, they’re going to make me dizzy in an attempt to find out (a) if this is an inner ear thing or not and (b) if it is which ear is the problem or if it’s both. If this test doesn’t show them what they need, well, let’s just say, I’m hoping that this shows the doctor what he needs. Until then, my final piece of advice is to always keep something around to grab onto in case you start to fall. A nice firm chest or ass is best, I’ve found.
Chris Romeo
FromRightField-at-Comcast-dot-net