[TalenLee] So I guess CHK is a dead format now, huh.
[Mournglash] It took you this long to notice?
[TalenLee] This means that all those kickass casual decks I made for CHK block are all kinda pointless now, huh.
[Mournglash] You could write about them with better lands and call them Standard decks.
[TalenLee] Or I could write about them without the better lands and call them budget. 😀
Let me never be accused of being quick on the uptake. This time last year, I had a set review of Champions of Kamigawa raring to go to the printers, but I decided I’d hold back and refine it a bit. Didn’t want to embarrass myself in front of the, you know, professional editors and people who read more than they write by default. So I refined, and I refined, and over twelve months later, I’m still not entirely happy with it.
Big tip #1 for those of you who want to write a casual article: Just. Freaking. Send. It. To someone, to anyone, to a friend who’s good with words, or to the Ferrett so he can sigh mournfully and cluck his tongue at your comical misspellings of his name.
Excuse me while I sneakily go back and correct my spelling of Ferrett in that last paragraph.
So, what are you playing in the casual room?
I mean for that question to receive an answer, but don’t worry, I’ll mention it again near the bottom so you’ll remember to answer it on the forums, and hopefully, it’ll distract you from saying mean things about my other decks.
By “the casual room”, I quite literally mean Magic Online’s (henceforth referred to as MODO) casual room (henceforth referred to as “that den of whiners who seem to beat me all the time”). The New Players room and Tournament Practice Room are their own concerns – I, and others I know, spend most of our time tooling around in the casual room. Because we wanna have fun.
However, don’t think this is an exclusively online article. It’s a casual deck article, and that often translates to “I’d do this better if I could, but I am poor, lazy, or some combination of the two.” So, dear reader, if you will follow me, let’s have a quick look at the decks with which I have posted a favorable record online.
A favorable record is something of an unfair statement. Be it for whatever reason, some nights, I can go a blue streak online, and provide myself with the most ridiculous results when it comes time to shuffle up and play. Purely for an example, the first night I sat down to play my Glare of Subdual deck, I posted a total record of 24-2-2. I feared neither Jitte nor counterspell nor creatureless mill deck, nor discard. I topdecked like a God, in one game I mulliganed to four and managed to lock down the board by turn 4, and the stars were in line.
And every game I played, I proffered advice – wanted or not. To Boros players, I said “Play shock – it’ll take out annoying mana elves and stunt my development. Play Kami of Ancient Law, somewhere between main and side, or otherwise, you’re just going to grab your ankles to an enchantment like Glare.”
Bear in mind, one of these individuals was, not to aheh, drop names or anything, but, you know, Chris Romeo.
Oh my god, I think he looked at me! Squeeee!
And then the next morning, I sat down and went 1-7.
So “favorable results” will often sound quite ridiculous and inflated. It’s possible that I am blessed by the gods above, that my opposition is occasionally asleep at the wheel, or that I’m a bit more skilled than this self-depreciating style would indicate (my mum thinks I’m cool), but regardless, these are the decks that stood out to me.
Note, I’m also a midgame/aggro-control player at heart. My brain starts to atrophy when I go without interaction for too long, and combo has to be quite fragile for me to appreciate it. It’s curious, actually. When playing a control deck, I’m unsatisfied with exposing my flanks for any reason that doesn’t involve just flat-out winning the game in short order. And yet, whenever I play a combo deck, unless that combo has some element in it that allows my Worthy Opponent an out of some variety, I find the combo dissatisfying to play with. It’s like playing land destruction vs. manascrew. Someone wins, but who has fun?
Also, I’m poor. MODO’s strange economy has a serious impact on my deckbuilding. Were it not for the blessed sign of Mournglash that hangs above my door, and what with me inviting him to my wedding and all, I doubt I’d have anywhere to barn commons, and my rares are usually pitiful.
Anyway. Enough introduction, to the meat!
On Spirits Past
I liked Champions. I really did. I liked Spiritcraft as a mechanic and I understand why Maro wanted to keyword it. To those who don’t quite understand why, keywording Spiritcraft as follows:
Thief of Hope – 2B
Creature – Spirit
Spiritcraft – Whenever you play a Spirit or Arcane spell, target opponent loses 1 life and you gain 1 life.
2/2
Would have had practically zero affect on the game. Much like the keyword Arcane (and its little brother Substance), it would have had no actual impact on cards – but it would have allowed for, say…
Tetsu Raijin – 2GG
Legendary Creature – Human Monk
Tetsu Kyaku cannot be the target of spells or abilities.
Whenever a creature with Spiritcraft comes into play, you may put a +1/+1 counter on Tetsu Kyaku.
As the magics of the kami wove ever tighter, the once-indistinguishable Tetsu rose above his comrades and showed them that in war-time, true greatness is within every man’s grasp.
2/2
Tranquil Moment – W
Instant
Counter all Spiritcraft abilities.
As two examples. But honestly, I feel that Green should probably have received some better spiritcrafters than it did, since the color had some of its major themes poached during the set. Such is life.
Unfortunately, Spiritcraft proved to be a bit of a dead duck in Constructed, with only two attempts of mine to do anything involving spirits being worth a damn. One of them rapidly found itself losing its spiritcraft elements until it was, all told, about as much a spiritcraft deck as Psychatog is an aggro deck.
Splice Splice Baby
11 Forest
6 Island
2 Plains
4 Swamp
1 Dampen Thought
4 Eerie Procession
4 Ethereal Haze
4 Hana Kami
1 Joyous Respite
4 Kodama’s Reach
4 Peer Through Depths
4 Reach Through Mists
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
3 Sensei’s Divining Top
3 Soulless Revival
1 Stream of Consciousness
Sideboard
3 Hideous Laughter
4 Horobi’s Whisper
4 Thief of Hope
4 Wear Away
Meet Gifts Ungiven’s kid cousin. The thing is, while Gifts will set you back something in the district of One Internet in order to pay for it, this deck can be constructed with a total investment of three MODO tickets (assuming you have nothing but the lands). The uncommons are all really cheap – and not remarkably good anyway – so you can pick up the deck really cheaply and kick in skulls with it.
Or not.
Ultimately, losing to this deck is a slow, agonizing, and boring experience. The infinite fog lock usually kicks in on turn 4, and against dedicated burn, you can recycle Joyous Respites. Each turn becomes more like math class as you have to click through your stops and double-check the mana you’re leaving open at each step, so you can leave yourself as minimally open to Just Plain Losing.
It is, however, quite resilient. I milled an opponent of his deck of over 112 cards recently, and it was a swine of a task to do so. Nothing short of a massive (70+) point burn spell straight to my face could end the game, and there was no way his deck could muster it.
Since, ah, he was running no burn in his mono-Red deck. His decision.
It can be a really fun deck to play – in a strange, Gottlieb-esque escapade in sadism. Another win that rings in my memory as a fabulous example of How To Annoy Your Opponent was when I milled an opponent for eight cards with his Battle of Wits trigger on the stack, putting him at 198 cards in his library – and his four Kagemaro in the bin. Don’t play it too often, though – it loses far too hard to some cards that should be showing up, the most significant of which are Shred Memory and Samurai of the Pale Curtain.
Lock, Block, And Two Smoking Barrels
Another deck concept that came out of Kamigawa Block was based around my love of fat creatures and control elements. If you give me a choice between Forbid and Ophidian or Slice and Dice and Arc-Slogger, the common sense element of my brain shuts off and I reach for the Red cards. Like many a writer on this site, bodies entrance me, especially if they’re interestingly shaped, and I prefer mine to be larger and more healthy in their dimensions.
I’m not really sure if I admitted to something embarrassing there or not.
Trigger Happy
13 Forest
11 Swamp
2 Death of a Thousand Stings
2 Elder Pine of Jukai
4 Ghost-Lit Stalker
4 Hana Kami
2 Horobi’s Whisper
4 Kodama’s Reach
3 Kyoki, Sanity’s Eclipse
3 Rend Flesh
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Soulless Revival
4 Thief of Hope
Death of a Thousand Stings! Yes, a win condition that rivals the worst. It’s a sad state of affairs when a card needs literally one hundred mana to win you the game. It’s a simple enough deck – the mana engine is there to power up your expensive spells, namely Kyoki and channeled Stalkers.
The plan is simple. Keep the board at least vaguely stymied, empty your opponent’s hand, then cast Death of a Thousand Stings in their upkeep. Every upkeep. Kyoki does a remarkable job of enabling Wisdom effects, of which this deck runs a total of two. Sad but true.
This deck taught me one thing. If there was any deck in the format that could handle BB on a seven-mana spell that was having trouble with control, it needed Ghost-Lit Stalkers in there. Such an amazing card.
Another cheap one; this was originally called Cheap Thrills, as the Thieves of Hope were the most expensive part. The commons go cheaply, Hana Kami isn’t valuable now that people only need one of her (or are using Trade Routes to win the game instead). The card choices were generally questionable, but in addition to being cheap, this deck satisfied a part of me that longed to see Spiritcraft put to good use.
Such is the days of the past. The thing is, there aren’t that many cards you could add from Ravnica and 9th. Unsurprisingly, I suspect dual lands would help out – to a degree – but if you could afford those, you’d probably not be wasting your time reading articles that call themselves casual.
Meet The Guilds – Golgari
On to new territory! There’s so much gushing I could do about Ravnica, but it would look girlish and efete, and I’ve already squealed at being noticed by Chris Romeo. Ravnica’s guild system is a boon to us casual gamers, in a way – each mechanic offers new direction and ideas, and, mercifully, pulls in a number of different directions. There are enough mono-color cards in each guild that interesting combinations can work alongside one another, and that’s always a good thing in my mind.
First up, the Golgari.
Let me speak my peace here, to the vast majority of casual players. You don’t deserve the Golgari. You don’t deserve Putrefy and Rotwurms and Vulturous Zombie. They make playing Green/Black easy. They’ve been handed to you on a platter. I was playing Green/Black Cemetery decks when the Rock was still running Yavimaya Elder, and I’ve been playing Death Cloud in Extended since it hit MODO.
There is an enormously mean-spirited part of me that is sulky every time a Grave-Troll pounds over for my life, or a Mortivore wielding a hammer blunts whatever damage I’d done so far. I was playing Green/Black for longer. Why does it turn so readily upon me?
As a historical aside, here is the latest incarnation of the deck I’ve been building as my Extended beast. It started as a Standard deck when Oversold Cemetery and Death Cloud were legal alongside each other, and it was great fun in the casual room – except for when I had to deal with an opposing Skullclamp.
The deck’s philosophy was simple – Accelerate past the opponent, drop an Oversold Cemetery (or not, if the game goes too quickly), then Death Cloud for all your mana -3. The deck could out-mana an opponent with ludicrous ease, and was designed to win the topdeck war after a cloud thanks to its (originally) morph and three-drop creatures.
Pet Rock, 3.0
12 Forest
10 Swamp
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Werebear
4 Krosan Tusker
4 Oversold Cemetery
4 Ravenous Baloth
2 Nantuko Vigilante
3 Twisted Abomination
3 Death Cloud
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
2 Sensei’s Divining Top
The point of this deck was that every card – with the exception of the Ravenous Baloth – can do something for three or less mana. Tuskers and Abominations cycle, Vigilante can come down as a Grey Ogre, and Nimble Mongoose and Werebear are decent speedbumps before the cloud, and fat threats afterwards.
I love this deck. I really do.
However, my nostalgic Extended decks aside, let’s see what I’ve been able to do for the budget builder in Golgari. I’ve learned a few things playing Green/Black in Standard right now.
First things first, Oh my lords, you’re slow. You give up your draws every turn to pick up a threat, which is fine, but more often than not, you’re going to deplete your hand of lands. There’s a reason that Wizards printed Life from the Loam – because they had to.
Golgari’s best threats are really just Greens or Black’s, and without Troll Ascetic, the best thing on hand is, well, Hypnotic Specter. At 11 tix apiece, Hippies are not on the “budget” card. Losing to a hippie is like having someone smack you in the side of the head with a gold brick – sure, it may sting, but hey, a gold brick!
At the same time, your best option – resilience and wearing down your opponent into the long game – makes you really inclined towards playing a mid-game aggro-control deck. That’s fine, but unfortunately, some of the cards involved in that strategy aren’t cheap.
You’re playing one of the colors that can play “fair” getting itself multiple colors of mana; there’s no reason not to capitalize on that. You’re also in a color combination that has eight first-turn mana accelerators. My first inclination for this deck was a fatty-based Green/Black affair that churned dudes onto the table starting on turn 3, but as with such builds you wound up mana clogged.
Then I tried a build based around Horobi, Death’s Wail. The problem with that is that right now, the casual room is a sea of targeted spells. Even those strange new players, with their Seeds of Strength and Gather Courages, are able to hoof you in the nuts, and Horobi loses much of his luster when he’s a 4/4 target that never lives long enough to swing. Plus, Stinkweed Imp is running wild right now.
Darn stinky.
The deck I wound up settling on I did so for giggles more than anything else. Rather than waste my time trying to find stuff I wanted in the rare slot, trying to break open expensive cards and wheedle for the best prices, I went with Simple. Simple is often best.
PEZ Dispenser
4 Sakura-Tribe Scout
4 Thoughtpicker Witch
4 Ravenous Rats
4 Ashen-Skin Zubera
4 Dripping-Tongue Zubera
4 Fists of Ironwood
4 Nantuko Husk
2 Sundering Vitae
4 Golgari Germination
4 Scatter The Seeds
There. The entirety of the deck should set you back, if you wish to replicate this experiment on MODO, two tickets. You’ll probably wind up paying one for the Germinations (and four more uncommons, if you find the right bot), and one ticket for the non-land cards (and probably some change). And then…
Well, it’s not remarkably good as decks go. But lords amighty, is it fun. Many games have been ended on turn 4 by an 18/18 trampling Husk, with my opponents blinking and wondering what the hell just happened.
Current favorite event in testing the deck was swinging in with a Husk wearing Fists, with only two Zubera (Dripping Tongues) on the table. My opponent blocks with a Nezumi Graverobber. I Scatter the Seeds, then, Scatter the Seeds again. Sacrificing the six tokens, then the two Zubera, then the four tokens left me with a 24/24 trampler, and the game was ended shortly after.
Germination is a house, but I really wish it was just another creature instead. I miss Carrion Feeder! I miss Onslaught block, where creatures could be expected to off themselves for free and getting effects out of them was a pleasant side effect.
This deck is Peasant legal, but not Pauper (the online equivalent). The four Germinations put a hoof to the deck being Peasant legal, but if you were going to play online peasant, I’d cut the Thoughtpicker Witches for Carrion Feeder.
Is it competitive? Oh, god no. Is it fun? Well, symmetry commands I say “Oh, god, yes,” but I dunno if the editor will allow it.
Don’t Meet The Guilds – Dimir
It’s strange that, being a Green/Black player for a long time, I’ve found myself so magnetically pulled towards the Dimir aggro deck I slung together as I started this experiment. It all came down to one single card that made it happen for me.
This Is Not The Aggro You’re Looking For
10 Island
12 Swamp
4 Mana Leak
4 Nekrataal
3 Cruel Edict
1 Phantom Wings
1 Consume Spirit
1 Drake Familiar
2 Death Denied
2 Dimir Guildmage
4 Dimir Infiltrator
2 Dimir Signet
4 Moroii
2 Nezumi Graverobber
4 Ninja of the Deep Hours
4 Remand
What a weird mess this turned out to be. Really, the deck primarily works because Moroii is a million ladies tall. 4/4 fliers are hard-pressed to actually avoid killing your opponent, I’m sure. There’s probably a clause in the comprehensive rules stating that.
I’m not entirely happy with this deck as it stands. For those who don’t “get” it, it’s a simple, two-mana-blot deck that wants to lay a threat that can win it the game (usually Ninja, or Moroii), then protect it. Along the way, it has a handful of things it can do to protect itself.
Dimir Infiltrator is a champion in this deck. I’m tempted to run Dimir House Guard to tutor up Moroiis and Nekrataals, so I’m not left holding 4/4 fliers when I already have a Moroii pecking away at my life total, except, then I’d be left holding 2/3 fear guys, who reassure me less. Really, I should be putting in Clutch of the Undercities to replace them, since Clutch is a little more of a hoof to the nadgers when you’re already chewing on your opponent’s life total with dudes. [Right-o. Hoof… to the nadgers. -Knut]
There’s something infinitely demoralizing to an opponent when you Transmute Infiltrators for Remands while there’s a Moroii on the table.
Now, this deck is also reasonably cheap, but not nearly so much so as the others. In this case, I was lucky – I had most of the commons already, and a bit of barning got me the ones I didn’t. The uncommons I was lucky enough to get in a fairly large lot in /auction. However, the heart of the deck is Dimir Infiltrator. He lets the deck tutor up any number of powerful, situational spells that can be real back-breakers at the right time. He lets a Deep Hours come out on turn 3, then goes away and turns into something useful or scary while your opponent tries to recover.
This deck is obviously best against slow decks – the potential pressure from a turn 3 Moroii will often be more than any non-White deck can overcome, and Moroii conveniently outlives most of the intimidating removal right now (or, in the case of Putrefy, dies to it any old way, but hey).
Make Your Own Joke – Boros
I’ll admit, I’ve been reluctant to touch Boros. It seems to be a surfeit of grotesquely pricey spells with a mechanic that’s about as precise as a sledgehammer made out of rhinos, and they seem to do nothing but attack or block. And I do everso love playing with a measure of control on the board, and I hate the feeling of being without answers.
I was pleasantly surprised when I finally mustered up and made myself a Boros deck, I found myself having a fair bit of fun with it – because in my grand tradition, I slung in anything that looked cute and blamed it on that when I lost.
Which, er, I haven’t done yet. At least, not as of the writing of this article. It’s 6-0, which surprised me.
Bloody Boros
4 Suntail Hawk
4 Lantern Kami
4 Frostling
4 Skynight Legionnaire
3 Pegasus Charger
3 Leonin Skyhunter
4 Shock
3 Galvanic Arc
3 Glorious Anthem
3 Blood Clock
The mana curve goes up to four, and stops there. I originally had Sunhome Enforcers and Veteran Armorer in there, but as much as I love The Big Man and Little Bruce, neither of them are necessary in this deck. Enforcer is fat and expensive, which the deck dislikes, and the Veteran Armorer was just a grizzly bear every time I played him. Most of the dudes in the deck fly over my opponent’s creatures, and the ground-pounders aren’t usually blocked either.
The deck gets up to four mana, then spends the rest of the game bouncing a land or Galvanic Arc thanks to Blood Clock. You can just roll over your opponent (ho hum) as an aggro deck.
For alterations to the deck, You could theoretically fit Sparkmage Apprentice and Soul Warden in here – and honestly, I’d be tempted to, but there aren’t many bears with comes-into-play abilities, and there aren’t many cheap cards with them as well. Venerable Monk? Ah, no, pass.
One addition I’d love to make to this deck – aside from those beautiful, tasty, magical dual lands – would be Zo-Zu the Punisher in the Charger’s slot. Sligh, once upon an Inquest Magazine, was suggested to run Ankh + Umbilicus, and while I’m not so keen on that idea, I get a little more behind it when your Ankh beats down for 2 as well. Blood Clock is really less of a good way of denying land drops as much as it is a really annoying cursed scroll that sometimes does nothing.
This Is Going To Look Quite Suspect – Selesnya
Alright. Guilty secret time. There’s a bit of gloating to be had in this decklist. See, the day after Ravnica came out, I was running around, playing this…
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Wood Elves
3 Seedborn Muse
3 Congregation at Dawn
4 Glare of Subdual
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
3 Seed Spark
2 Selesnya Evangel
4 Selesnya Guildmage
3 Trophy Hunter
2 Vitu-Ghazi, the City-Tree
4 Watchwolf
… to a 24-2-2 win record.
Look familiar? It probably should. It went through some evolutions, but, barring for Congregation at Dawn (which was originally Civic Wayfinder), this is the deck, as it was, before Worlds. I was also running Glare, and pounding the snot out of everything that came near me for about a week. Then everyone started running good decks.
What I can tell you about this deck, however, as a casual deck is that, unfortunately, it’s now going to be too darn expensive. I built this when I was able to buy two Glares for a ticket. I got passed another (passed, I say!) in draft. I traded for the fourth with the proceeds from winning said draft. So really, this deck is actually going to be a bit expensive for the casual gamer.
Which is a shame, because, in the pro-level version of it, the Glare is probably one of the cheapest cards. Yoseis and Trampling Trees and Greater Goods and Hierarchs, Oh My!
And the landbase. Don’t forget the manabase.
I love this deck. I love it to pieces. It ripped every Mill deck I found in half, because if you weren’t running creatures, I could just hold back glares, drop 3/3 grizzly bears and the One Man Gang, and swing in for lethal damage in three short, brutal turns. It would routinely romp on Boros because my dudes were better and Glare shuts down the combat step.
Do you know how demoralizing it is for a control deck to have you cast Congregation At Dawn in their end step for three Selesnya Guildmages when the game has gone long?
But Enough About Me
So that’s what I’m playing in the casual room. Writing this article has been a great experience for that. Forcing me to test all four guilds meant I found some decks I found a lot of fun, and it’s even now stimulating me to think in other directions with my cardpool. I’m even as we speak wondering if I can get Bramble Elemental to play nice with Blood Clock. I’m wondering if I can pick up Zo-Zu’s for cheap.
I’m also wondering what you’re playing?
See, every day in the casual room, there’s a bellyaching that kicks up. Someone loses to a deck – any deck – that features, you know, cards. And then the complaining begins.
“Such and such is so unoriginal.” They proclaim. “This is cheap.” “Nobody should play this.” “Nice netdeck, n00b.” So, well, if everyone’s unoriginal, let’s see how unoriginal. Please, either through e-mailing me, or through the forums, lemme know what you’re playing as your “casual” deck of choice. I’m really, honestly curious. It’s through interactions in cards that you don’t always see the first time that you really get to appreciate new ideas.
A Final Complaint
Dear Wizards of the Cost Computer Software Boffins.
It’s called “deck editor” not “set viewer.” Why is it that I can set the format to “Extended” and I see Skullclamps available in my cardpool? Or why my 4 Mirrodin Consume Spirits and Viridian Shaman don’t show up when I set it to Standard?
Oh, I know why it happens. It happens because the Deck Editor is a dope. I suppose the question I want answered is, why is this such a hard thing to fix? Why are banned/restricted lists not automatically incorporated, and why does the editor not look for each version of a card you want?
Be real sweet if you could do something about that.
Hugs and Kisses.
Talen Lee
Talen at dodo dot com dot au