{From Right Field is a column for Magic players on a budget. 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. 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.}
Last week, I wrote about a new mono-Black deck that I’d been working on for while. It featured Phyrexian Plaguelord and a way to make tokens to use with him. The day that I sent it in, Bennie Smith dropped a piece that included a deck with lotsa token creatures and Phyrexian Plaguelord. Could I make it two in a row? Holy junk in the trunk, I hope not.
This week, I want to talk about a favorite color combination of mine, Green and Red. I know it’s after Christmas, but even so, those two colors make me all happy inside like seeing a stocking stuffed with goodies. Red and Green not only evoke the colors of Christmas but also the spirit. I really get into the Christmas spirit. I enjoy giving. As in “take five from my Beast.” It makes me warm and fuzzy just thinking about it.
The inspiration for this deck, though, came not from the Christmas spirit, but from getting bored by testing my White Skies deck. I was quickly getting weary of playing White Skies. It was to the point of trying to figure out if I needed four Holy Days and four Ethereal Hazes or four of one and just three of the other. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. I have no idea how the pros can test the same deck over and over and over for hundreds of games on end without just going nucking futs. I have a great respect for them. Playing that deck so many times burned me out.
“Burn?” my other self asked. “Why, let’s play a Red deck to break the monotony!” The only problem was that I’d been playing a lot of mono-Red lately, too. (More on that in another column.) I didn’t think I could stand it. Red with Green, though, maybe that could be something. So, I started making a nice G/R weenie deck with stars like Hearth Kami, Sakura-Tribe Elder, Tel-Jilad Chosen, and, Holy Heidi Klum’s knickers, was I tired of weenie decks.
I decided that I wanted to go the other way. I remembered something that Nate Heiss or Jay M-S or both wrote that went like this: always have a big finisher. With the mana acceleration available to Green, I could have some real beef on the board posthaste. Thorn Elemental, anyone? Kodama of the North Tree? Myojins and tonics? Of course, Red has some real beefcake, too. Does everyone remember, for example, that Two-Headed Dragon is still legal in Standard? It is, thanks to Eighth Edition. I love flying. The ability, not the actual act. I have a fear of getting into planes and flying. Not just flying, really. What I actually have is a fear of falling. You don’t care about that, though. Unless you need a lightbulb changed. In which case, get someone else. Someone with longer legs. Like maybe Gabrielle Reece or Elle MacPherson.
Back to the card game, I started getting more interested in those two colors because I had wanted to try several of the Green and Red Champions cards, and a deck that ramped up the mana seemed to be a perfect fit for many of them. The Sakura-Tribe Elder still had to go into this deck. He blocks. He accelerates mana. Sometimes, he even attacks. Of course, if I was going to have Rampant Growth Guy, I needed to have Rampant Growth itself. I also wanted to see if I could do something with Kodama’s Reach and Glacial Ray. It looked like I could easily get up to five mana by turn four and cast the Reach, Splicing Glacial Ray onto it, killing some X/2 creature. Throw in some Shocks and a couple of Two-Headed Dragons to take advantage of all of that mana, and away we go.
R/G Post-Champions Silliness, V.1.0
25 Lands
2 Shivan Oasis
2 Pinecrest Ridge
8 Mountain
13 Forest
13 Creatures
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Viridian Shaman
3 Troll Ascetic
2 Two-Headed Dragon
22 Other Spells
4 Rampant Growth
4 Kodama’s Reach
4 Glacial Ray
4 Shock
4 Volcanic Hammer
2 Journey of Discovery
Why Troll Ascetic?
It seems to me that, as Champions rolled in with all of its new toys, we’ve forgotten about some cards. Of course, this always happens. I liken it to kids at Christmas. In the days following Christmas, all of the shiny, new toys get all of the attention. Once the holiday hullabaloo is over, though, the kids tend to go back to the old faithful stuff augmented with one or two of the myriad new toys that are actually still fun to play with. Troll Ascetic is one of the faithful old toys. He’s efficient as a 3/2 for 1GG. He regenerates which means that he’ll stick around for quite a while given the massive amounts of mana this deck can crank out. Best of all, though, he can’t be targetted. He can’t be Magma Jetted. His Flesh can not be Rended. And your opponents can not slap Vedalken Shackles on him. Sign me up.
Why Viridian Shaman?
You’re not serious, are you? Do you play Magic in a cave in Afghanistan or something?
This version was okay. It wasn’t a blast to play or anything. It was nice to ramp up the mana, but sometimes, it seemed that there was too much of that and not enough substance. I did get to Splice Glacial Ray onto Kodama’s Reach more often than I expected. The card advantage involved in that is sweet. “You mean, I get to use Glacial Ray, but I still have it in hand? Nice.”
It still wasn’t much fun, though, for two reasons. First, I only got to a Two-Headed Dragon about every third game. If the point is to use all of that mana to make a monster, that’s not a great track record. Second, I didn’t seem to be stopping the early beats very well. You wouldn’t think that was a problem with Shock, Glacial Ray, and Volcanic Hammer. The problem was that, if I kept using early mana to play burn spells, I wasn’t using it to cast Kodama’s Reach and Rampant Growth.
For the next version, I dropped the Journey of Discovery, a Shock, and a Hammer for four Vine Trellises. The Trellis would be my early defense as well as some mana acceleration. I also realized that I had not had any problems getting the mana needed to cast Two-Headed Dragon. I could easily go with four. Out came another Shock and another Hammer for the final two THD’s. This left me with:
R/G Post-Champions Silliness, V.2.0
25 Lands
2 Shivan Oasis
2 Pinecrest Ridge
8 Mountain
13 Forest
19 Creatures
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Vine Trellis
4 Viridian Shaman
3 Troll Ascetic
4 Two-Headed Dragon
16 Other Spells
4 Rampant Growth
4 Kodama’s Reach
4 Glacial Ray
2 Shock
2 Volcanic Hammer
Off for more testing. This version proved more fun. I was living longer and able to make Two-Headed Dragons much more often. Guess what? Go on. At least try. No, Tara Reid is not coming over for dinner again tonight. She’s not even coming back through town until Valentine’s Day or so. What you were supposed to say is “Two-Headed Dragon is nigh unblockable!” Or something like that. Of all the decks I tested against, only White Skies and one rogue Black deck ever had two fliers out at the same time. Since THD can’t be blocked by fewer than two critters, it was getting through almost all of the time. Add to that the ability to give this puppy +2/+0 for each 1R you have – and I had plenty – and you can see what sort of beatstick this guy is in this deck.
The fun factor was definitely higher. Winning more games and swinging with Two-Headed Dragons will do that for you. The early game was much better thanks to the Vine Trellises. I hadn’t really worried about the late game with the previous version, mostly because I wasn’t getting there. Now that I was, staying in the games longer, I needed to have something for the other guy’s ugly beasties. See, while I was trying to get to Two-Headed Dragon mana, opponents were trying to get to Kokusho or Myojin mana. While watching House – highly recommended, Tuesdays at 9 PM on Fox starting again at the end of January – I was flipping through some older cards and happened upon another forgotten gem: Grab the Reins.
Here was the card I was looking for. There are all sorts of great combat tricks you can do with Grab the Reins, all sorts of great end of turn tricks. My favorite trick with GtR will always be the one that comes from Entwining it. There’s nothing better than staring down a couple of huge monsters like Jugan, the Rising Star, and Serra Angel while holding this. Your opponent has this smug look in his face. You take the Rising Star, throw it at the Angel, killing both, and get to put the counters on your creatures! I don’t know the Card Advantage Factor ™ on that one, but it’s almost as fun as looking at pictures of Jaime Pressly, who, for a skinny chick, is really hot.
Things to Remember About Grab the Reins
• You control the stolen creature. So, if it says “All creatures you control get +1/+1” on it, that means all of your guys, not your opponent’s. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? It is. So, why, when I steal a Kokusho and throw it at my opponent, do I always have to say, “No, you lose the life. I controlled it when I threw it at you”?
• To reiterate, if you Entwine Grab the Reins, taking a Kokusho and sacrificing it, you – the person who cast Grab the Reins – gets the life. Conversely, your opponent loses the life. And usually whines, too.
• An Entwined Grab the Reins has two targets. Grab the Reins does not “fizzle” (yes, I know it’s not longer correct to say “fizzle,” but it’s such a great word) if the creature you’re trying to grab goes away or gets protection from Red. There’s still the second target, the one at which you are to throw a creature. This is very important, so you’d better be taking notes. What this means is that, if the first target becomes illegal or ceases to exist before the GtR resolves, you still have to sacrifice something. Not only that, the second target will still take the damage. I can’t remember the number of times – because I’m drunk right now – that I’ve gone to steal a creature and throw it at my opponent only to have the first target get bounced. Then, my opponent always thinks that this means s/he won’t take any damage. S/he will. Only, now, I’d have to sac one of my own creatures.
• If you cast an Entwined Grab the Reins targeting two creatures and Horobi is on the board, both creatures will go bye-bye before you can do anything with the GtR. Since both targets of the GtR are gone, the entire GtR “fizzles.” On the flip side, you killed two creatures anyway, and that was probably your goal.
• There is no time between the first and second parts of an Entwined Grab the Reins. You can’t steal a creature, declare it as a blocker, and then throw it at another creatures. The grabbing and throwing all happen as the spell resolves.
Class dismissed. *whew*
I’d decided on Grab the Reins. Where would it go? I didn’t want to drop the rest of the Shocks and Volcanic Hammers, since they could either provide early defense or end the game. I started playing some more games with special attention to the mana base. It often seemed like there were too many lands. I dropped one Forest for a GtR. The mana was still fine. I dropped a Mountain. Now, it seemed thin. It’s amazing how a deck running twenty-three lands can sputter while one with twenty-four seems to hum along smooth as Jennifer Garner. I knew I wanted all four Grab the Reins. I needed to lose three more cards. I hated to do it, but I went back down to three Two-Headed Dragons. Finally, I dropped the other two Volcanic Hammers, keeping the Shocks, since they’re the deck’s only one-mana spells. Thus, I had:
Two Heads are Better Than One
24 Lands
2 Shivan Oasis
2 Pinecrest Ridge
8 Mountain
12 Forest
18 Creatures
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Vine Trellis
4 Viridian Shaman
3 Troll Ascetic
3 Two-Headed Dragon
18 Other Spells
4 Rampant Growth
4 Kodama’s Reach
4 Glacial Ray
2 Shock
4 Grab the Reins
As the used car salesman might say, “I know she doesn’t look like much, but she runs like a dream.” This deck obviously doesn’t have mana issues. If you’ve got two lands in your opening hand and one makes Green mana when it’s tapped, you should be golden.
The key is to survive the early game. Sakura-Tribe Elders block and then fetch lands. Remember, though, they can attack. I love sitting across from someone who drops a second-turn Elder, sacs it at the end of my turn, and then doesn’t even use the mana on the third turn. If you only need three mana on turn three, don’t ditch the Elder. It really is a creature, and it really can swing for one. The other two pieces of early defense are the Vine Trellises and the Shocks. (If you want to make those Electrostatic Bolts, go ahead. You’ve got my permission.) Do your best to save Glacial Ray for splicing onto a Kodama’s Reach. Between the Elders, Trellises, and Rampant Growth, you should have five mana available on turn four. However, if you need to cast Glacial Ray to survive, don’t hesitate.
Once you stabilize, the Shaman and Trolls will actually start killing stuff on defense. You might even be able to kill some things with Glacial Ray and actually get a guy or two through. This, in turn, buys you time to get out the Two-Headed Dragon or cast the Grab the Reins with Entwine. Against more controlling decks, try to sneak the Troll through. As I pointed out about, Vedalken Shackles decks hate to see this guy hit. So, do Horobi decks. Pyroclasm can still kill him if you don’t leave regeneration mana up. Just be careful out there.
Playing Against Affinity
Yes, I always start here. Why not? You’re going to face that deck between a third and half of the time. If you keep winning, you’ll face it even more. First off, make sure your sideboard has Oxidize or Wear Away. For game one, use the defense. You have to keep your life as high as possible because game one often becomes a nice waiting game for them to “combo” you out. They drop a Disciple of Vault and then sac fifteen or twenty artifacts to a Ravager. Bang, bang, you’re dead. Use the Vine Trellis, Elder, and Troll to block.
The helpful Grab the Reins hints above are very important in this matchup. I almost never cast GtR with Entwine in this matchup unless I have a creature that I want to sac. Remember, if you cast it with Entwine and the first targetted creature goes away (i.e. sac’d to the Ravager), you must still sacrifice something. So, let’s say you try to Grab a Ravager to throw at a Disciple. The smart player will sac the Ravager. However, you’ll still need to sac something to throw at the Disciple. If all you have on board is a Troll Ascetic, well, that’s not good.
Against Affinity, if there is a sac mechanism on board (or an Aether Vial with two counters on it, meaning they could drop a Ravager into play), only play the first part of Grab the Reins. For example, you play GtR targeting a Ravager. If they sac it in response, well, you killed a Ravager. If they let you take it, swing with him, and then sacrifice him to himself.
Oxidize will come in for the GtR. It pretty much has to. GtR can sometimes do tricks, but often it’s a four-mana Oxidize. You might also want to try Wear Away. The ability to cast it over and over is incredible against Affinity.
Playing Against Tooth and Nail
There’s only about eighteen-bajillion ways to make T&N decks. The best ones all seem to focus on the same things right now, though. Make lotsa mana to Entwine a Tooth & Nail to go get (a) Kiki-Jiki and Darksteel Colossus, (b) Kiki-Jiki and Sundering Titan, (c) if they’re low on life Leonin Abunas and Platinum Angel, or (d) against weenies Triskelion and Mephidross Vampire. In game one, you’re strategy is to swing as often as possible, using the burn to get rid of the Viridian Shaman and Eternal Witnesses so that the Elders, Shaman, and Troll can do their job. The good news is that, if they do go for the Triskelion-Vampire combo, they can’t target the Troll. The bad news is that they can kill everything else. Luckily, they don’t have lifegain. So, if they don’t get the Abunas-Angel combo, you can often use GtR to win.
NOTE: It’s more fun than a pajama party at Victoria’s Secret to grab and throw a Darksteel Colossus.
From the sideboard, bring in Scrabbling Claws and Stone Rain. You’d be surprised at how far a little land destruction will go against T&N decks, especially when you couple it with Scrabbling Claws which means that they won’t be recurring any Sylvan Scryings or Kodama’s Reaches. The bad thing is that you don’t have a lot to take out. Vine Trellis is less than optimal in this matchup because it doesn’t attack. Walls can’t attack, you know. I’m sorry. I mean, they have Defender. Which is why I now call Rolling Stones “Defender Ender.” Heh.
For the Stone Rains, I take out the two Shocks and two Rampant Growths. They key in this match isn’t to get tons of mana for the Dragon. Rather, the key is to keep them from getting to T&N mana. If you do that, you’re golden. Besides, those changes still leave you with two Rampant Growths, four Kodama’s Reaches, and four Sakura-Tribe Elders.
Playing Against G/B Control
Great news! Troll Ascetic can’t be targeted! Bad news! After they bring in Hideous Laughter, it doesn’t matter! In this matchup, Grab the Reins is the winner. You know how G/B Control tries to win by getting you to ten life with Kokusho and then casting another? You’re gonna do the same (in effect) with Grab the Reins. First, get them to ten life. Done? Super! Now, cast Grab the Reins with Entwine targeting their Kokusho and them. Grab the Reins does five damage to them since Kokusho’s power is five. Then, the triggered ability from Kokusho (remember the hints above?) makes them lose five life. I gotta tell you, it’s a blast using against your opponent the very strategy that s/he was hoping to use against you.
Playing Against Shrine Decks
These decks are the reason that I prefer Wear Away to Oxidize in the sideboard. Just when you kill one Shrine, they’re holding another to drop in its place. The good news is that only the Shrine of Lotsa Damage or whatever the Red one’s called tends to be a real problem for you. The Shrine of Life Gain, Which All Players Know is Bad, can slow you up, but the Two-Headed Dragon tends to negate that. The biggest problem really is the Red one. If they can stay in the game long enough, that one will kill you all by itself.
I can hear Ted now. “Why is he worried about Shrine decks?” To that I ask, “Aren’t you?” If you say know, then, I would quote the wise old Muppet Yoda: “You will be. You will be.”
If you look at the cards that I use in my sideboard, so far we have four Scrabbling Claws, four Wear Away, and four Stone Rain. That leaves three cards. Use those for whatever wacky decks your metagame has. If you see a lot of decks with fliers, go for Gale Force. Weenies on the ground? Pyroclasm. You might even use Electrostatic Bolt.
For Those Tough Stains, Don’t Scrub Away. Wear Away!
Why do I like Wear Away? That’s like asking why I think Adriana Lima is attractive. Okay, actually, it’s not anything like that. It did give me a chance to sneak in some more cheesecake, though. Anyway, Wear Away does a host of things. First, it can Splice and be Spliced. Against Shrine decks, that’s important since you’ll need to be killing one dangerous enchantment after another. Second, it kills enchantments! Is there an echo in here? I know that I kinda said that. You never know what rogue creation you might be facing, and almost no one packs enchantment removal. Glorious Anthem is bad. Furnace of Rath is bad (although you can take advantage of it, too). Underworld Dreams is bad. Worship can be horrid if your removal (i.e. Glacial Ray) isn’t big enough to off the big guy on the other side of the board and you don’t have Grab the Reins. Fecundity is awful, as Bennie pointed out two weeks ago. Coastal Piracy, Cowardice, Death Pit Offering: all bad. And that only got me through the letter “D” in the Oracle.
Okay, I may be overstating things a bit with those last few. In fact, I’m sure of it. You just never know what’s coming. You may sit down across from the guy who’s figured out to make the Scale/Tooth of Chiss-Goria / Cowardice / Horobi deck (i.e. he can kill any of your stuff he wants and save any of his) work well. [I can see Adam Grydehoj head spinning right now. – Knut] You need answers. Given how many things Wear Away takes care of, I’ll take four.
No matter how you round out the sideboard, I know you’ll have fun swinging with the Two-Headed Dragon (or Kodama of the North Tree or Thorn Elemental or Furnace Dragon or Rhox or whatever beefy critter you decide to use). I know I do.
As usual, you’ve been a great audience. Please, form an orderly, single-file line for the water fountain kids. And no pushing or shoving!
Chris Romeo
CBRomeo-at-Travelers-dot-com
P.S. More than a few folks asked how the mono-Blue Merfolk did in the tournament. I went 2-1-1 with it. In round one versus a guy named Matt, who looked like Warren Cheswick from the now-defunct show Ed, we drew. He was playing U/W Control. Had I been as aggressive in game one as I was in game two, I may have won 2-0. Instead, I lost game one, won game two, and ran out of time in game three. Rootwater Thief is Da Bomb.
Round two was against U/G Madness. I won 2-1. Islandwalk is good. So is Aether Burst. Know what’s bad? Two first-turn Basking Rootwallas.
Round three was against a nicely tricked out WW deck with some Blue for Meddling Mage and a small Rebel Chain. All night I kept getting asked, “Why did you use the Vodalian Merchant instead of Merfolk Looter?” True, if the Looter gets active and stays on the board, it gets you deeper into the deck. Sometimes, though, Merfolk actually have to play defense. Shocking, I know. With a Lord of Atlantis out, Merfolk Looters still die to Silver Knights and White Knights on defense. Vodalian Merchant, being a 2/3 with the Lord out, do not. Also, did you know that Annul can counter a Masticore? “Best. Annul. Ever.”
In round four, I finally lost. But it was a close 2-1. He was playing Reanimator. Game three came down to one simply question: with us both at one life, and me on the attack, could I get something to bounce his Akroma, Angel of Wrath? I dug and dug and dug. Nope.
All in all, not a bad night for a deck that everyone told me would get trounced.