{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.}
As I looked for decks to cheapen for my last KBC article, I found…
What?
Oh, yeah. This is the last one I’ll ever do on Kamigawa Block Constructed. Sorry about that. I know that you’re heartbroken. You see, KBC season is almost over. In addition, next week, Ninth Edition (a.k.a. 9E) will be legal for Constructed tournament play. I have to sink my teeth into all of those changes. So, as far as KBC goes, this is it. Please, forgive me.
Anyway, as I was saying, I went looking for a last deck to cheapen up. Obviously, Gifts Ungiven wasn’t going to be it. Way too many rares. I’d already looked at cheap Black Hand. I’d built and played a G/R Aggro deck (“And the Horse You Rode in On”), a mono-Red Burn-centric deck, and several cheap White decks. I even worked on Hondens. I was out of ideas. I turned to the wonderful StartCityGames.com KBC PTQ deck database for decks that might use The Romeo Treatment.
“I’ll look at this PTQ Top 8. Oh, wow. Six Black Hand decks and two Gifts Ungiven decks. Okay, next. Whoa. Six White Weenies, a Gifts Ungiven, and a Legends deck. Can’t really make the Legends deck cheaper. Most of the Legends are rares. Let’s see what they did in Waterloo.
“Well, Mark Cavaco’s deck is mondo cool. Heck, the only maindeck rares are four Kodama of the North Tree. He didn’t even use the Okina – Shinka pair as a way to kill other Okinas and Shinkas. And double kudos for using Path of Anger’s Flame. Heck there’s only six more rares in the sideboard. Well, nothing to cheapen there. Hmmmm . . . .”
(Speaking of Waterloo, can someone tell me what is up with the sideboard of Darrell Schinkol’s mono-Red aggro deck? Did he really run eight Mountains in his sideboard? More than half of the sideboard? Was he expecting a ton of land destruction decks, or did something get mis-registered? If you know, drop a note on the board, mmmmm-kay? Thanks.)
In other words, I couldn’t find any other decks to budgetize. That left me back on my own. I was going to head back to Black. I’ve like the idea of Green and Black in this block ever since Betrayers was released. Once the Jitte became required for aggro decks (triple kudos to Mark Cavaco for not using those) and Manriki-Gusari and O-Naginata hit the scene, I was more convinced it could work since G/B would have access to discard and Wear Away.
It didn’t work. At least not as I was building it. I tried to work the deck – again – around Thief of Hope. I figured with all of the Spirits plus Arcane spells like Kodama’s Reach, Wear Away, Rend Flesh, Soulless Revival, and the rest that the deck could control the board enough to allow some beats to occur while ending the game with the Thief’s ability.
Didn’t happen.
In fact, in the first four games that I played on MTGO, the Thief showed up – let me check my notes – zero times. Yup. Four games. Four Thief of Hopes in the deck. Not once.
Someone – the programmers, the game, God – was trying to tell me something.
Then, I started getting the Thiefs, but it would occur against decks running the Jitte. Four games in a row. Know how many times Wear Away showed up in those four games? Oh, come on. Guess.
Did you say once? Close. It was zero.
I was done with the G/B Thief deck. I even erased the deck list from my hard drive. That’s right. I can’t even tell you what the exact final deck list was. Whatever it was, though, you don’t want to use it. If, however, you feel like working on that deck, I’d love to see someone come up with a good version. Here’s what I think the guts of the deck need to be, other than Forests and Swamps:
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Thief of Hope
4 Wear Away
4 Kodama’s Reach
4 Soulless Revival
I also had, at various times and in varying amounts, Hana Kami, Kodama’s Might, Forked-Branch Garami, Child of Thorns, Bile Urchin, Scuttling Death, Nezumi Graverobber, Elder Pine of Jukai, and even Uproot. See if you can make something out of that base. If you can, post it on the boards.
Like a Phoenix from Ashes, Success from Failure
What the deck did do, though, was get me thinking about something that I had been pondering on since Betrayers was released: is there a decent mono-Black, creatureless control deck in KBC? My Magic 8-Ball says “All signs point to ‘yes.’” Seems reasonable. There’s nice mass removal in Hideous Laughter. The Laughter also happens to be instant-timed. Distress is one of the best discard spells ever. Of course, Night of Soul’s Betrayal wipes out a ton of the critters out there right now including Sakura-Tribe Elder, Hearth Kami, Ogre Marauder, Nezumi Graverobber, Snake tokens, and Meloku’s children. Swallowing Plague even gives us that bit of lifegain that can prolong the game.
The problem was finding a finisher. KBC doesn’t have a card like Consume Spirit, Soul Feast, or Corrupt. What I came up with was a card I had been trying to work into Black decks for months.
I was so friggin’ ready. I thought I might need an alternate kill method, though, maybe one involving life loss, since there are some decks that can recur Ethereal Haze and prevent all combat damage. That’s when I came up with using Measure of Wickedness. I mean, Holy Sardines, losing eight life is huge.
I should know. I lost to it enough.
It seemed like a good idea. I could empty their hand, drop the Measure on a turn that I also got a card into the ‘yard, and then watch them lose eight on their turn. What could go wrong?
Well, they could top deck a sorcery like Kodama’s Reach. They could get Sakura-Tribe Elder. I even lost when my opponent had a Reciprocate in hand and used it on my attacking Swamp. Talk about card disadvantage.
So, don’t use the Measure. I wanted it to work. It just doesn’t. Still, there was a nearly-rare-free MBC deck in there. It looks like this:
25 Lands
1 Shizo, Death’s Storehouse
1 Tomb of Urami
23 Swamps
0 Creatures
35 Other Spells
4 Genju of the Fens
4 Psychic Spear
4 Kiku’s Shadow
4 Distress
4 Hideous Laughter
4 Night of Soul’s Betrayal
4 Honden of Night’s Reach
3 Exile Into Darkness
4 Swallowing Plague
15 Sideboard
1 Exile Into Darkness
3 Razorjaw Oni
3 Nezumi Graverobber
4 Horobi’s Whisper
4 Manriki-Gusari
As I’ve been doing lately, I got the cards, most of which I already had from previous Black Experiments, online and played some games.
Game One vs. BuildingonaBudget
That’s right, a battle of cheapie internet writers. As often happens when JMS and I play, we drew a crowd. Or rather, he drew a crowd. It takes people a while to realize that RightField is the guy writes From Right Field. Go figure.
Anyway, Jay was playing his R/G Blood Clock deck. It was designed to wreck creature-based decks. With his deck packing maindeck Earthshakers, I’m sure that would have happened had my strategy been creature based. Instead, I was able to hold him off, despite the fact that I had to recast Genju of the Fens many times.
Game Two vs. BuildingonaBudget
He just couldn’t get enough. Jay played another Blood Clock deck. This was the one with the Fat Li’l Howling Mine Kami (a.k.a. Kami of the Crescent Moon) and the really stupid Owl artifact Black Vise thing. I love the deck! Who else would figure out a way to make that horrible artifact work? No one, that’s who! (Get it? Ebony “Owl” Netsuke? “Who?” I’m so punny.) I only won because Swallowing Plague offset the life loss from the Owl. Well, that and the fact that Genju of the Fens swinging as a 13/13 each turn is hot hot hot.
I didn’t want to let this go to my head, though. I’ve never beaten Jay twice in a row. I was set up for failure.
From here on out, when I talk about games on MTGO, I’m not going to use anyone’s screen name unless, like JMS, the world already knows what it is. Back when I did my Rat’s Nest pre-con modification, I caught some flack from a few of the people against whom I’d played. They were upset that I’d written about them and their decks without their express, written consent, like they were the NFL or something. I understand where they’re coming from – I just don’t agree with it. None of the games mentioned in that piece were "private." (In case you don’t know, one of the options for an MTGO game is "Private." That means that no one can watch.) In addition, as a participant in those games, I have every right to write about what I played against. I know, I know. I sometimes don’t write about decks that my "real life" opponents play when they ask me not to. What’s the difference? They actually ask me not to write about them. Bottom line, though: while I don’t agree with why they asked that I not use their screen names, I understand their feelings. Since it’s not a huge hardship on me (and actually it makes it easier since that’s one less piece of information that I have to remember), I’m not going to use any screen names unless I get their express, written consent to do so.
Game Three vs. Mono-Red Beats
This was just plain scary. Glitterfang. Blademane Baku. Genju of the Spires. I was quickly at seven life. Then, Night of Soul’s Betrayal hit. Turns out that none of his creatures had a power greater than one. Still, I was pretty low on life. A Lava Spike and a Glacial (properly played, of course) would have ended my game. Luckily, I taught myself a trick. I could activate the Genju of the Fens and hit it with a fairly large Swallowing Plague. Hey, it doesn’t say that I have to target my opponent’s creature with the Plague. Going up to thirteen kept me in it long enough to swing with a Swamp a couple of times to end the game.
Game Four vs. Mono-Red Beats
As I’ve said before, I don’t usually play the same person twice in one night when I’m testing. They tend to come back with a deck tricked out specifically to beat mine, knowing that I’m testing the same one. I agreed to a rematch in this case for two reasons. For one, he promised to play the same deck. Second, I knew that the MRB deck can simply wipe out other decks sometimes. This game was one of those times. Neither Night of Soul’s Betrayal nor Hideous Laughter ever showed, and Blademane Baku proved why he’s such a house rocker.
Game Five vs. Mono-Red Beats
We decided to go best of three. It was no contest. I had what is essentially a God draw for this deck. My first-turn Psychic Spear took his Blademane Baku while Distress took out a Glacial Ray on turn 2. Turn 3 was Kiku’s Shadow on his second Baku and Spear hitting a Lava Spike. Night of Soul’s Betrayal hit on turn 4, and that was all she wrote. I just needed to get to a Genju of the Fens to make it official. I did.
Game Six vs. Mono-Black Rats
This was yet another tight one. Luckily, the only Rat that Hideous Laughter doesn’t kill is Ink-Eyes. (Okay, Marrow-Gnawer, too, but he wasn’t playing that.) On the other hand, unless s/he has regeneration mana up, Kiku’s Shadow can kill Ink-Eyes. With regen mana, though, two Laughters do the trick, too. However, even when Ink-Eyes did hit me, there was no creature in my ‘yard to take, so it didn’t matter.
One tip on playing the Ninja matchup. Wait until after the declare blockers step to cast Hideous Laughter unless, of course, you think your opponent has Ink-Eyes. By waiting until they Ninja out a guy, you can kill a creature (or two or three) and make them use their mana, hopefully in a way that won’t allow them to cast another creature that turn.
Game Seven vs. Gifts
I was able to stay in this game simply because of the hand destruction. However, Gifts eventually pulled it out. For one thing, I could only kill via the Genju. The continually replayed Ethereal Haze meant that combat damage wouldn’t be the way to win. Would I have to add Death of a Thousand Stings to the sideboard? I already knew that the Nezumi Graverobber would be in there. Then, it struck me. You can’t do Hana Kami tricks with Night of Soul’s Betrayal on the board. I never got one. I started feeling pretty good about this thing. Time to go to the Tourney Practice room before Friday night’s actual tournament.
Games Eight and Nine vs. White Weenie
White Weenie has no defense for Exile into Darkness. Except for Celestial Kirin, all of its creatures cost three or less. In addition, Night of Soul’s Betrayal gets rid of a ton of its offense. Neither Eight-and-a-Half-Tails nor Hand of Honor can stand up to Hideous Laughter. He was dispatched quickly in two games.
Games Ten through Twelve vs. Mono-Red Beats
This looked like the previous three games against MRB except that there were sideboards. I dropped two Hondens since Red plays its hand out quickly. In their places, I added the fourth Exile and a Horobi’s Whisper. The only problem was mana hosing in game two. I kept a two-land hand but didn’t see my third until turn five and never got to five. I might have been okay sitting on four had I gotten a Night of Soul’s Betrayal. I didn’t. Still, I won the third with a combination of discard and the NSB. It took only three combat phases with the Genju to win.
Games Thirteen and Fourteen vs. Mono-Green Snakes
Night of Soul’s Betrayal isn’t fair to Snakes. Sakura-Tribe Elder can’t be used. Snake tokens from Sosuke’s Summons don’t stay in play. This, of course, is true only if the Big Snake Daddy or his daughter (Seshiro and Sachi, respectively) aren’t in play.
Seshiro is hard for this deck to kill. Kiku’s Shadow alone won’t do it. I had to play Hideous Laughter with it, or I had to play Hideous Laughter Splicing on a second Laughter. Of course, that’s what sideboards are for. So, while game one was a struggle, game two wasn’t so bad. With Horobi’s Whisper in the Psychic Spear slot (nothing in the deck for the Spear to hit), things got much better. Of course, he had Wear Away for the Night of Soul’s Betrayal, but I had another in hand both times.
Quiz Time!
Q: Seshiro the Anointed is a 3/4. Can Kiku’s Shadow kill it?
A: Yes, if you use two of them. (Ditto for Meloku the Clouded Mirror.)
Games Fifteen and Sixteen vs. Black Hand
I wasn’t really sure how this matchup would go. Black Hand is seen as the foil for White Weenie, but Black Hand sometimes has some beef in it, beef like Yukora, the Prisoner. In other words, Exile into Darkness doesn’t always take care of things. Turns out, it didn’t matter. My deck punked out twice. In game one, I got only five lands in eleven turns and never saw an Exile. In game two, it was worse. I had to mulligan to five and never got to four lands. I decided to turn in for the night when this match ended. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about MTGO it’s that, once I get mana screwed twice in a row, I’m gonna get mana screwed for the rest of the night. When this starts, my azz clinches up like Rick Santorum’s when someone says the word "homosexual." I get especially tight when it happens in a twenty-five-land deck.
Like I said, this was a good time to hit the hay on Thursday. The next day was the tournament. I needed my beauty sleep.
I’d Rather Be on Top
Oh, yeah, by the way, since you’re gonna mention it, yes, I did try Sensei’s Divining Top in a version before this. It was very frustrating. With no shuffle effects, it often just taunted me. I’d rather not get distracted by wishing I could just tear up my Tops. So, I stuck with the non-Top, non-frustrating version.
Friday: Tourney Day
The next morning, as I went to build my deck for the tourney, I found that I only had three Hideous Laughters. Oh, come on now. I know that I had four of those. They’re from Champions, for Pete’s sake. I’ve had four of each of those commons and uncommons for months now. Before you say it, no, I’m very organized. All of my cards are organized by set, color, and rarity. I know where everything is. The only explanation is that I have a pixie that likes to steal a copy or two of whatever uncommon I need for the week’s tourney. How else could I not have had four Unchecked Growth’s when I was building the G/R KBC Fork-You deck? A quick call to Charles before he headed for work that day ensured that I’d have my fourth. Just in case, though, I built the deck with a copy of Death of a Thousand Stings.
Once we were at the tourney site, we again worried if we’d have eight people for a tourney. I don’t get it. People had been clamoring for a change back to Friday’s. Not only did we change back to Friday, but we moved it to an actual gaming store, one that won’t kick us out at 11 PM or tell us to quiet down because Grandmothers can’t read Dr. Seuss ("Horton Hires a Ho") to their grandkids with all of the racket. So, if you’re in Knoxville and want to play a non-Friday Night Magic tournament on Friday night, come join us at The Round Table on Sutherland Avenue. We start at about 7:30.
This time we got eight. Of course, as usual, everyone was complaining about their decks. As usual, they all looked great to me. Travis, who just celebrated his eighteenth birthday, brought another homemade deck. This one was a tight Green/Black thing that seemed to be one of his best efforts. He beat me in some pre-tourney testing, two games to one. Charles had a Black Hand version. Tommy, who hadn’t been around in a while, played one of Joe’s White Weenie decks. I don’t know what the eighth guy was playing. I, of course, was playing this. The other three, you’re about to meet.
Before the tourney started, Charles was looking through Travis’ non-credit catalogue and just started guffawing.
“What’s so funny in a college course book?”
“Introduction to the Internet: it’s an online course.”
Round One vs. Jonathan playing Hondens
Jonathan had been away from the tourney scene for several months, since we moved from Friday night to Saturdays. He hadn’t bought any cards, either. So, when he wanted to start joining us again on Fridays, he asked what deck he could build cheap. We suggested Black Hand, but he had bought no Betrayers or Saviors cards. Besides, with Jitte, the deck wasn’t cheap. Ditto for White Weenie. In the end, we came up with Hondens. He and I spent a couple of weeks playing online during which he mostly whipped me. Our last online match, however, was with this deck. I knew I could win the matchup because that’s how our final online match turned out. The Genju can deal more damage than the White Honden can offset via lifegain.
In game one, I felt I was doing well. Timely discard and a live Genju pecked away at his life, but I couldn’t get enough mana to take big chunks. Then, he started gaining mad life. That was bad. On the other hand, the Blue Honden had hit, so he was drawing mad cards, too. I realized that, as long as I could use Swallowing Plague on one of my Genju-Swamps, I might be able to gain enough life to stretch the game and make him deck himself. In the end, he had 108 life and only two cards in his deck when he killed me. So close. So close and yet so far.
Given that Kiku’s Shadows were nearly useless, I dropped those for the Onis and the fourth Exile. Two Onis hit on turn 4 and 5, and game two was so quickly mine that we had time for a full third game despite his 108-life-total game one.
My deck decided to start mana-screwing me in game three. I mulliganned to a two-land hand, which should have been okay on the draw. It wasn’t. I struggled to hit four lands and never hit five. Meanwhile, Jonathan had a full Domain and all of the Hondens out.
"See?" I said. "I told you that deck can beat anything."
"Yeah, well, I’m sure I’ll lose my next match." (Of course, he didn’t. Jonathan ended up in the finals against Travis, losing only because he had yet to get the Final Judgments for his deck.)
Round Two vs. Joe playing G/W Legends
Joe has simply had my number the past few months. Part of the reason is that Joe is a fantastic player who plays good decks. He is very thoughtful in his play. He does an excellent job assessing his options where I would just cast the thing that seems like the biggest threat at the time. I won game one thanks to Kiku’s Shadow (he didn’t Kodama of the North Tree), Night of Soul’s Betrayal (no chump blocking Elders), and Heartbeat of Spring. With two of Joe’s own Heartbeats on board, I was able to make the Genju-Swamp monstrously large. I won in one single swing.
Then, I started showing my true colors. Stupid me, I didn’t bring in Horobi’s Whispers. Hello! McFly! The whole reason for the Whispers is that sometimes the deck needs to kill something big right now. Three Exiles and a Hideous Laughter were supposed to come out. But did I do it? Noooooo! Joe won game two, by the way.
So, how do I follow such colossal mistakes? Repeat them. That’s right. I made no sideboard changes for game three, either. Joe doesn’t make these kinds of mistakes. And that’s why I started 0-2.
I was pretty down on myself at this point. "Why do I think that my decks are tournament worthy? They never win." I didn’t feel any better when I saw that my next opponent was Daniel Cooper. Cooper only plays White Weenie. I don’t know if he doesn’t have another deck or doesn’t feel comfortable with another deck or if he just wants get very tight with WW. Whatever the reason, I haven’t beaten him and his deck yet.
Funny thing, though. This time, I won, and it was 2-0. Daniel felt that he was getting "creature hosed" in the first game but, truth be told, it was simply that I had all of that removal. Kiku’s Shadow took a creature on turn 2. Psychic Spear and Distress took cards on turn 3. Hideous Laughter wiped everything out on turn 4. Then, Exile into Darkness hit. As I mentioned above about the online match, other than Celestial Kirin, White Weenie tends to pack nothing that can withstand Exile. Once their hand is clear (thank you, Honden of Night’s Reach!), they can never drop two creatures on a turn. That means that they’ll never have a creature to defend. So, while his deck may not have given him a steady stream of creatures, even if it had, they would have been dispatched. Genju of the Fens ended the game in two swings.
For game two, I brought in the fourth Exile and the Gusaris for the Distresses and a Spear. I know that was dangerous, but the Distresses rarely got me anything that the other cards couldn’t handle. He was playing out as many creatures as he could. And with him going first, if he had the Jitte, it wasn’t sitting in his hand for me to take. That’s when he mulliganned. He followed that by dropping a Pithing Needle calling Genju of the Fens on the first turn.
Uh-oh.
My win condition was gone. So, I settled into "I can deck him mode." About twenty turns into the game, however, it struck me that he had mulliganned, and I had been on the draw. That means that I’d draw out first. Now, I needed to win. But how?
That’s when Tomb of Urami popped up. Of course, the problem with using the Tomb was simply: no more lands. If he peeled Hand of Honor and the Jitte, I’d never quickly enough get to the five lands I’d need to cast Exile Into Darkness. I had no other choice, though. So, after waiting a few turns so that I could stock lands up in my hand, I finally popped the Tomb. I traded all of my lands for a 5/5 flying Demon Spirit Snake Legend Enchant World Aura Artifact Goblin Friggin’ token.
Why, yes, my ballzz are quite large, thank you.
Fortunately for me, he didn’t get the Hand/Jitte combination until the last possible moment, that being his final turn before I untapped and swung for the win.
Basking in the Afterglow
I ended the night at 1-2 but still felt very good. I know, I know. Scrubs feel good whenever they win anything. But there were genuine good reasons for the feeling. I lost one match to a deck (Hondens) against which Black has no inherent defenses, and yet it took me getting mana hosed in game three (along with Jonathan getting perfect, Top-aided draws) for me to lose. Against Joe and his G/W Legends deck, I could very well have won if I wasn’t a complete maroon. Finally, I had beaten WW, one the three undisputed Kings of KBC.
"If I Had a Million Dollars. . . ."
How would I modify the deck if money were no object? If money were truly no object, I’d hire Zvi or Mike F. to play it for me. Card wise, Umezawa’s Jitte is a no-brainer. Possibly Cranial Extraction. Definitely Kagemaro. This deck likes mass removal.
As usual, you’ve been a great audience. Let’s give KBC a great, big, wet goodbye kiss. *mmmmmwah!* Now, let’s get ready for Ninth Edition. I have a treat for you next week: guest contributors!
FromRightField-at-AOL-dot-com