{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 Wrath of God, City of Brass, or Birds of Paradise. The decks are also tested by the author, who isn’t very good at playing Magic. His playtest partners, however, are excellent. 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.}
So, what’s the gag gonna be this year? Who knows? Whatever it is, though, I’m sure it’ll be more fun than looking at a bunch of models standing around in their underwear. Well, maybe not. I guess it really depends on who the models are. If you’re talking Tyra Banks, Ashley Montana, and Rachel Williams, possibly. If it’s Alessandra Ambrosio, Yasmeen Ghauri, and Heather Stewart-Whyte, maybe not.
Anywho, I had another thirty-eight bucks burning a hole in my wallet. You married guys – both of you – know the drill. You get married, and, all of a sudden, your money is “our” money. Which means she spends most of it, and you get an allowance. Of course, it frees up that part of the mind that you had reserved for paying bills to wonder more about sports. Will The Red Sox beat The Yankees in the season opener, guaranteeing that they will be in first-place for at least one day over the Devils in Pinstripes? Will any Major League teams be smart enough to ask Olympic gold-medal-winning softball pitcher Jennie Finch to try out? What if the beer twins could play baseball?
I thought about taking my newly found windfall and buying nineteen years of Sports Illustrated swimsuit issues that some guy was selling at a comic book store. Ah, pictures of Elsa Benitez, Yamila Diaz, Marisa Miller, Christie Brinkley, and Cheryl Tiegs in less than they probably wear to bed. Then, I remembered that I have all of those issues already. So, I thought I’d buy some new Magic cards instead.
Wow. Thirty-eight dollars. I was sure that I could build a great deck for that amount. I had to. It was all I had! And I knew just what deck I wanted to try to build: Green/Black Snakes! Heck, I even had a name picked out already, being the creative guy that I am. I’d call it Western Green Mamba since the Western Green Mamba is a mostly green snake with a little but still noticeable black coloring. Now, all I needed were some cards.
We’re talkin’ two enemy colors. Since one is Green and we’re talkin’ Snakes, it goes without saying – much like I don’t have to point out how hot Angelina Jolie is – that we have to use Sakura-Tribe Elder. If it goes without saying, I guess I won’t say it, then! And, of course, I have to use the hottest non-creature mana-acceleration spell in town, a spell hotter than Natasha Henstridge, Kodama’s Reach.
That part was as easy as Pam Anderson near a rock star. What I needed was to fill out my budget with some rares. Hey, Seshiro the Anointed looks good. Not as good as Adriana Lima, but still pretty good. He’s a fairly hefty Legend with a couple of great abilities. If we’re using Seshiro, we might as well use his son. If you have a father and a son, you need a Patron, doncha? A copy or two of Patron of the Orochi will do fine. Oh, and I know that I want to use Sosuke’s Summons. In a deck casting Snake after Snake, this will be as hot as Leann Tweeden in a sauna. Going outside of Champions, Tangle Asp is a sweet two-drop because it makes a lot of other creatures stay on their side of the board in the same way that Jennifer Garner in leather makes guys stay on the other side of the room. Okay. Bad example maybe.
“Where are the flying cars?!? I was promised flying cars!”
You’re probably wondering where the Black cards are. Hey, me, too! Might as well get to them. So far, they’ve been hiding away like Cindy Crawford‘s acting talent. This deck craves Snakes. Gotta have ’em. In fact, I’m throwing in two Time of Need to go find one of the Legendary Snakes just in case. The Black is only going to be in here for removal. Eenie meenie mynnie moe. I pick Echoing Decay and Rend Flesh. Two of the best pieces of non-Rare Black removal in Standard right now, Decay and R-Flesh go together like redheads and, well, more redheads.
This leaves one slot of cards. I need more Snakes! That’s right. I’m not using Nekrataal for more removal, though, by now, you should know that I like him more than I like Halle Berry in purple. However, I’m going to throw in the hot hot hot Eternal Witness. She’ll do lotsa things for this deck, mostly bringing back Snakes!
So, the deck looks like this:
Western Green Mamba
23 Land
16 Forest
6 Swamp
1 Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers
23 Creatures
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Tangle Asp
4 Sosuke’s Summons
3 Eternal Witness
3 Sosuke, Son of Seshiro
3 Seshiro the Anointed
2 Patron of the Orochi
14 Other Spells
4 Kodama’s Reach
4 Echoing Decay
4 Rend Flesh
2 Time of Need
Man oh man oh man is this deck fun. You’re making snakes like Denise Richards is making babies. Each Sosuke’s Summons makes two. Then, a single Sakura-Tribe Elder brings all of the Summonses back to your hand. Imagine that. You’ve already cast two Summonses in the game. Now, you have a third in hand. You cast it. Then you cast an Elder and get three Summonses back. Wow. Just . . . wow. You might also want to try Blasting Station in here because you’re gonna be making a ton of Snake tokens. And if you sac a real Snake, Eternal Witness can bring it back.
Geez, you know what else would be really good in this deck? Fecundity! Heck, you could even force yourself to draw a bunch of cards using Echoing Decay. You have a Fecundity out along with five Snake tokens. You cast Echoing Decay on a token. You draw five cards. Holy Elisha Cuthbert in a tight sweater, Pervert Man!
Okay, so, anyway, I didn’t have any time to test this because I have another column to write for this week, too. Yeah, Ted works us like dogs. But, I’m sure that this deck will work at least as well as Heidi Klum‘s marriage to Seal will.
As usual, you’ve been a great audience. Please, put down the Christina Milian CD and step away from the stereo.
Chris Romeo
CBRomeo-at-Travelers-dot-com