Magical Hack – Heading For Adventure

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StarCityGames.com!Magic, when played between two people, is probably the best game in the World. When played between four consenting adults, is it a case of double your pleasure, double your fun? With the Two-Headed Giant Champs mere weeks away, Sean takes a timely look at a sample cardpool, and builds a pair of strong decks with the sweetmeats therein.

As the Extended season rolls ever onward, awaiting the appearance of Planar Chaos on the horizon, we find ourselves caught in the middle of a variety of interesting formats. Pro Tour: Geneva provided us with an awful lot to think about as far as Limited play is concerned, and thanks to the excellent Draft Viewers sprinkled throughout the coverage you can get a bird’s-eye-view of some of the best drafters in the world chugging along… some of them doing things that you wouldn’t expect, as can be seen in Nick Eisel surprised look at Kenji Tsumura drafting. A few odd cards were certainly vindicated during the event, like the originally-disliked Uktabi Drake, and in the end an American won a Pro Tour on foreign soil for the first time in what feels like rather a long time, with the last American wins coming in Honolulu and Philadelphia.

From my perspective, though, it seems that Pro Tour: Geneva offers a lot of lessons to be digested, many of which will take time and playtesting drafts to get a real feel for their validity… after all, when you watch something like that happen, you have to wonder whether you are seeing what you think you are seeing, or whether the true lesson is simply something you haven’t thought of yet, which is what makes the daily Drafting With Rich articles so useful. And despite the fact that I am personally about to re-immerse myself in Extended starting with this weekend’s PTQ, the format’s most interesting changes are one week in the future… seeing the addition of another set in the middle of the season, and hitting just in time for the Grand Prix in Dallas.

Forgotten by many, however, is the fact that the first weekend of March is the Two-Headed Giant State Championships, letting competing teams of two players duke it out mano a mano (… a mano a mano…) until in the end there can be only… two? Unlike Connor and Duncan MacLeod, you and your team-mate can both survive to the end of the battle to savor ultimate victory together, and hopefully you won’t have to completely nullify the existence of prior sequels (like Highlander 2: The Quickening The Sucking, a movie I have only ever heard spoken of as “a good movie” by one Michael J. Flores, take that as you will) just to get there. Now, with the advent of 2HG as a Pro Tour format instead of that wacky format you play once in a while but you don’t know why, everyone’s got to figure out the odd bits behind all the little rules of the game and discover how they impact on your deckbuilding… and some people are even further behind in the learning curve, still considering playing simple bears in the format “because they’re decent in Time Spiral Limited.”

To advance our efforts and give us something to talk about, let’s have a practice Sealed Deck pool and start going into the detail work:

Time Spiral Limited

Creatures (91)

Lands (7)

Magic Card Back


Cutting the 2HG unplayables out, we’re left with:

White
Amrou Seekers
Castle Raptors
Cavalry Master
Cloudchaser Kestrel
D’Avenant Healer
Fortify
Ghost Tactician
Honorable Passage
Malach of the Dawn
Saltfield Recluse
Shade of Trokair
2 Sinew Sliver
Whitemane Lion

Here we have to cut all the Flank-knights and the usual “bears” that makes White work in individual Limited, relying on the tricks and fliers White possesses to push through. Anything less relevant than a Hill Giant isn’t really worth bothering with, but there is some possible synergy available across two decks by use of the Sliver theme. Amrou Seekers is underwhelming but it’s somewhat evasive; it would be one of the last cards to make it into a 40-card pile, but it might make it in so it isn’t cut yet, even if its chances of being better than a Gray Ogre might be very limited.

Nothing besides the Slivers suggests another color or otherwise connects with a theme, and some of your White cards are very White-intensive… requiring it to be at least evenly split with its partner color. It’s also conspicuously lacking in removal, and thus conspicuously unimpressive unless we really get that Sliver theme rolling.

Blue
Brine Elemental
Clockspinning
Dream Stalker
2 Dreamscape Artist
2 Erratic Mutation
Eternity Snare
Fathom Seer
Fledgling Mawcor
Giant Oyster
Merfolk Thaumaturgist
Piracy Charm
Reality Acid
2 Screeching Sliver
Serra Sphinx
Snapback
Tolarian Sentinel
Trickbind
Veiling Oddity
Viscerid Deepwalker
Wipe Away
Wistful Thinking

Here at least we see some of those powerful fliers, or at least a big fat Serra Angel with a bit of support. The Sliver theme continues hilariously, with double Screeching Sliver, letting you team up all of your Slivers on one opponent’s deck to finish the game long before lethal attacking would resolve the issue. Blue also has some much-desired removal, with Giant Oyster and Fledgling Mawcor for repeating effects, Merfolk Thaumaturgist for general nuisance-making plus the Tolarian Sentinel / Reality Acid combo. For real removal there are two copies of Erratic Mutation, which might make inclusion of Screeching Slivers a bit troublesome, and the slow-mo special of Eternity Snare as well as a few bounce spells. It’s decent, perhaps even a little bit better than decent because you can thin your deck absurdly quickly with Dreamscape Artist until there’s nothing left but good cards, and isn’t getting looked at to sit on the bench.

Clockspinning is an interesting card to note, as in doubles play you and your team-mate’s Suspend cards are worth speeding up, and it might just work as a combat trick or removal with buyback if there are any kinds of counters at all… or could even just screw up the math of an opponent’s Suspend spell by delaying it for a turn when they’ve built their plans around it happening now.

Black
Big Game Hunter
2 Cradle to Grave
Corpulent Corpse
Dark Withering
Deadly Grub
Deathspore Thallid
Drudge Reavers
Evil Eye of Orms-by-Gore
Feebleness
Lim-Dul the Necromancer
Melancholy
Midnight Charm
Plague Sliver
Rathi Trapper
Roiling Horror
Spitting Sliver
Viscid Lemures

Anything at all Sliver-like is getting included now, even just a 3/3 for five, but we’ve got Rathi Trapper as repeating removal, three definite pieces of removal, plus double Cradle to Grave and the situational but very strong Big Game Hunter. Add to that the landwalking Lemures and more or less unblockable Evil Eye, then subtract the Eye because doubles play is far more likely than singles to feature a lock-down enchantment like Eternity Snare or Melancholy that will make him a painful embarrassment. It’s somewhat generic, and like White there’s not many places to connect in with the other colors… and its cards are mana-intensive, like Lim-Dul or the six-mana Dark Banishing. Even Roiling Horror requires a pile of mana before it does anything, but it’s worth noting because it can be an absolute monster if you get an early lead and does something presumably worthwhile if you have some mana and aren’t too far behind.

Red
Akroma, Angel of Fury
Bogardan Rager
Bonesplitter Sliver
Blood Knight
2 Brute Force
Coal Stoker
Conflagrate
Flamecore Elemental
Fury Charm
Goblin Skycutter
Hammerheim Deadeye
Lightning Axe
2 Rift Bolt
2 Stingscourger
Subterranean Shambler
Thick-Skinned Goblin
Viashino Bladescout

A decent chunk of removal spells plus an Akroma is pretty impressive, and more than a few of your removal effects double as creatures… always nice in a format like this, where you have to do twice as much work against twice as much opposition before the job is done. Red is your most solid color… even moreso than the nice Blue… because it seems to work well with itself and is full of comes-into-play effects. It seems to be begging to go with Blue to piggy-back on that Tolarian Sentinel and the Dream Stalker, to let you buy back your Man-o’-War hits and turn Hammerheim Deadeye into a fully automatic weapon; the first hint of direction seems like a good one to go with.

Green
Citanul Woodreaders
Fa’adiyah Seer
Gemhide Sliver
Havenwood Wurm
Hunting Wilds
Krosan Grip
Mire Boa
2 Molder
Mwonvuli Acid-Moss
Pouncing Wurm
2 Primal Forcemage
Seal of Primordium
Search For Tomorrow
Spectral Force
Sporesower Thallid
Thallid Germinator
Tromp the Domains
Vitaspore Thallid
Wormwood Dryad

Other than the Disenchants, Green is lacking in the kind of tricksy maneuvers that you want in 2HG, meaning that like the White it’s going to be a second deck’s support color. It has some solid cards, like Spectral Force and Sporesower Thallid, and both makes mana and does good things with more lands… but still, a bunch of dorks is just a bunch of dorks.

Gold / Land / Artifact
Candles of Leng
Jhoira’s Timebug
Sarpadian Empires, Vol. VII
2 Venser’s Sliver

The Timebug doesn’t seem to have a home; we’ve cut almost all of the Vanishing cards (or was it all of them?) and it doesn’t have enough Suspend working here to justify adding a 1/2. Candles of Leng are a nice addition, because card advantage rules in slower formats (and if 2HG isn’t slow, why do you only play one game?), and having access to an extra card a turn for several turns can swing the tide of battle. Which of the two decks gets the Candles will be the interesting question, as it presumably wants to go into the better deck with the better cards, but having the better deck spend all of its mana each turn can be cumbersome.

Sarpadian Empires can be used to good effect if there is actually a Green deck, which currently seems likely, both to power up Thallid-oriented tricks and to fuel up for Tromp the Domains… a weaker route of victory in doubles play than in singles play, but still a potential game-ender if used intelligently. Venser’s Sliver will make the cut if a combination seems short on men and can afford a Snidd, but isn’t necessarily the most impressive of cards.

Frenetic Sliver
Mystic Enforcer
Opaline Sliver
Sol’kanar the Swamp King

Here we see finally more cards trying to drag us in different directions, like adding White and Green together (as if either were good even by themselves!) and encouraging some more Sliver action that as an overall theme looks to be getting cut again. Mystic Enforcer will likely be splashed into whichever of those two colors is actually being played here, while Sol’Kanar is suggesting he be added to the Blue/Red deck and power up a Swampwalking monster that is as good in 2HG as any of the actual Dragons.

Calciform Pools
Fungal Reaches
Gemstone Mine
Molten Slagheap
Saltcrusted Steppe
Terramorphic Expanse
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

These all make the chore of splashing easier; we have a Slagheap for the U/R deck to add Sol’Kanar, an Expanse for wherever it belongs, and Urborg to go with any Swamp-powering spells we may have (like Tendrils, or even if you’re desperate, turn on Swampwalking)… but with the possibility of fixing more than one player’s mana, teammate as well as opponent, it’s a dangerous card to add. Saltcrusted Steppe goes with the Enforcer deck, and whoever wants it can have Gemstone Mine.

Starting with the first of the two decks we know we want, let’s pull the Blue and Red cards together and see how they curve:

1cc: Viscerid Deepwalker
2cc: Dream Stalker; 2 Dreamscape Artist; Veiling Oddity; Blood Knight; Goblin Skycutter; Thick-Skinned Goblin; 2 Stingscourger
3cc: Brine Elemental; Fathom Seer; Fledgling Mawcor; Merfolk Thaumaturgist; Akroma, Angel of Fury; Viashino Bladescout; Frenetic Sliver
4cc: Giant Oyster; Tolarian Sentinel; Coal Stoker; Flamecore Elemental; Hammerheim Deadeye; Subterranean Shambler
5cc: Serra Sphinx; Sol’Kanar the Swamp King
6cc+: Bogardan Rager

Spells: Clockspinning, 2 Erratic Mutation, Eternity Snare, Piracy Charm, Reality Acid, Snapback, Trickbind, Wipe Away, Wistful Thinking, 2 Brute Force, Conflagrate, Fury Charm, Lightning Axe, 2 Rift Bolt.

26 possible creatures and 17 possible spells leaves us a lot of room to make cuts, as we are 20-21 cards over the desired count (depending on final land count, and who gets the Candles of Leng). Some are easier to make than others – we don’t need Giant Growth effects, two-drops still stink, Viscerid Deepwalker doesn’t pull as much weight when going from 40 instead of 20, and Flamecore Elemental just wastes more of your mana when you can rely on the team-mate’s Green deck to have the fatties you seem to be compensating for. Fury Charm is worth considering as a versatile trick / accelerator / Shatter, but isn’t an auto-add, while Reality Acid gets pulled at this point outright as we have better cards that already combo nicely with the one Sentinel… adding a bad one just leaves you with a bad card if you don’t draw the other half of the combo, and we’ve got plenty to choose from already. Parsing this down to keep only the better cards we get:

1cc:
2cc: Dream Stalker; 2 Dreamscape Artist; Veiling Oddity; Goblin Skycutter; 2 Stingscourger
3cc: Brine Elemental; Fathom Seer; Fledgling Mawcor; Merfolk Thaumaturgist; Akroma, Angel of Fury
4cc: Giant Oyster; Tolarian Sentinel; Coal Stoker; Hammerheim Deadeye; Subterranean Shambler
5cc: Serra Sphinx; Sol’Kanar the Swamp King
6cc+: Bogardan Rager

Spells: 2 Erratic Mutation, Eternity Snare, Snapback, Trickbind, Wipe Away, Conflagrate, Fury Charm, Lightning Axe, 2 Rift Bolt.

“Down” to just 31 cards, leaving us with a better core understanding of where our deck should be. Looking at the other three colors to make the weaker deck out of, we see the following:

Spells: Hunting Wilds, Krosan Grip, 2 Molder, Seal of Primordium, Search For Tomorrow, Tromp the Domains, 2 Cradle to Grave, Dark Withering, Feebleness, Melancholy, Midnight Charm, Sarpadian Empires Vol VII

1cc: Corpulent Corpse
2cc: Whitemane Lion, Fa’adiyah Seer, Gemhide Sliver, Mire Boa, Vitaspore Thallid, Deathspore Thallid, Rathi Trapper
3cc: Citanul Woodreaders, 2 Primal Forcemage, Thallid Germinator, Wormwood Dryad, Big Game Hunter
4cc: Mystic Enforcer, Pouncing Wurm, Sporesower Thallid, Drudge Reavers, Plague Sliver
5cc: Castle Raptors, Spectral Force, Viscid Lemures, Roiling Horror
6cc+: Havenwood Wurm, Lim-Dul the Necromancer

A mighty 39 cards, some of which admittedly are pretty trashy but were included because at least they worked with the haphazard Thallid theme. Four of those are Disenchants, but with many removal spells working as enchantments and there being a few power artifacts (like Weatherseed Totem or the aforementioned Candles of Leng) that would be worth negating at least some of these will likely make the cut.

Paring down some of the less-than-playables, we cut down to the more “essential” list:

Spells: Hunting Wilds, Krosan Grip, Seal of Primordium, Search For Tomorrow, Tromp the Domains, 2 Cradle to Grave, Dark Withering, Feebleness, Melancholy, Sarpadian Empires Vol VII

1cc: Corpulent Corpse
2cc: Whitemane Lion, Fa’adiyah Seer, Gemhide Sliver, Mire Boa, Deathspore Thallid, Rathi Trapper
3cc: Citanul Woodreaders, 2 Primal Forcemage, Thallid Germinator, Big Game Hunter
4cc: Mystic Enforcer, Pouncing Wurm, Sporesower Thallid, Plague Sliver
5cc: Castle Raptors, Spectral Force, Viscid Lemures
6cc+: Havenwood Wurm, Lim-Dul the Necromancer

We’re down to 32, but have very little to work with our Primal Forcemages (just Whitemane Lion and the numerous Saproling generators) so those may not be long for this world. This deck wants a lot of mana so it hurts less to keep up two for Cradle to Grave, to pay the “alternate casting cost” of Dark Withering, and to kick up Woodreaders for more cards and Pouncing Wurm for a better body. This makes Hunting Wilds the better add than Search for Tomorrow, and suggesting that this may be the preferred home for the Candles of Leng as it turns mana into cards, something this deck will have a reasonable quantity of… and which the “better” deck can still get by itself at a discounted mana cost.

Another key decision that has to be made is which seat is the A seat, and which the B seat. The “A” player starts with one less card but gets to have the final say as far as plays go, and presuming that either player can play either deck you put the deck that wants the extra card in the B seat. Between that extra card and the free mulligan you have some room to play around with the numbers, and here we get to make a distinction: the B/G/w deck in the A-seat is slow building to get its resources, like extra mana and extra cards, but can play solid cards in the early game and drop some serious fat in the 4-5 mana range. It would be lacking in the extra card, it’s true, but this is the deck that is better enabled to gain card advantage steadily throughout the game… that one extra card matters less to it.

Putting the U/R deck in the B seat always accomplishes the overarching goal of “letting the better deck draw more cards,” much more consistently than giving it the Candles of Leng would be… some games you’ll draw the Candles, but every game the U/R deck will get that extra card. Since the U/R deck wants more cards but doesn’t want to pay for them, this seems the logical way to go about it, and hopefully your team’s two heads crammed together can still be logical enough to let the U/R deck start with an extra card. While you’re at it, since the deck is reasonably quick and can lean on the two Harrow spellshapers, you can cut down to 16 Lands… giving you that slight bit of extra oomph overall, and letting you take advantage of that extra card plus the format’s free mulligan to again help the better deck “draw more cards” slowly but surely by having less mana in the deck overall.

To further that goal, let’s look at the two decks’ mana curves set together:

Creatures:

1cc: Corpulent Corpse
2cc: Dream Stalker; 2 Dreamscape Artist; Veiling Oddity; Goblin Skycutter; 2x Stingscourger; Whitemane Lion; Fa’adiyah Seer; Gemhide Sliver; Mire Boa; Deathspore Thallid; Rathi Trapper
3cc: Brine Elemental; Fathom Seer; Fledgling Mawcor; Merfolk Thaumaturgist; Akroma, Angel of Fury; Citanul Woodreaders; Thallid Germinator; Big Game Hunter
4cc: Giant Oyster; Tolarian Sentinel; Coal Stoker; Hammerheim Deadeye; Subterranean Shambler; Mystic Enforcer; Pouncing Wurm; Sporesower Thallid; Plague Sliver
5cc: Serra Sphinx; Sol’Kanar the Swamp King; Castle Raptors; Spectral Force; Viscid Lemures
6cc+: Bogardan Rager; Havenwood Wurm; Lim-Dul the Necromancer

(39)

Spells:

1cc: Search For Tomorrow, Lightning Axe
2cc: Seal of Primordium, 2 Cradle to Grave, Feebleness, Snapback, Trickbind, Fury Charm, Candles of Leng
3cc: Krosan Grip, Melancholy, Sarpadian Empires Vol VII, 2 Erratic Mutation, Wipe Away, 2 Rift Bolt
4cc: Hunting Wilds
5cc:
6cc+: Tromp the Domains, Dark Withering, Eternity Snare, Conflagrate

(23)

We already want 16 lands in the U/R deck, and presumably 17 lands in the G/B deck, leaving room for 24 cards in the U/R deck and 23 in the G/B deck, 47 altogether. We have 15 cards to cut, then, and want to keep a reasonable balance of creatures in both decks if possible… but we won’t be cutting quality removal spells or bomb creatures just to keep an arbitrarily decided number of creatures in the deck. Rating them in order from best to worst we can come up with the following approximations (in context for the decks, thus paying full price for Dark Withering):

Spells
Candles of Leng
Lightning Axe
Rift Bolt
Rift Bolt
Melancholy
Erratic Mutation
Erratic Mutation
Conflagrate
Tromp the Domains
Wipe Away
Trickbind
Eternity Snare
Dark Withering
Cradle to Grave
Cradle to Grave
Feebleness
Krosan Grip
Snapback
Hunting Wilds
Search for Tomorrow
Sarpadian Empires, Vol. VII
Fury Charm
Seal of Primordium

Creatures
Sol’Kanar the Swamp King
Akroma, Angel of Wrath
Mystic Enforcer
Serra Sphinx
Brine Elemental
Lim-Dul the Necromancer
Spectral Force
Plague Sliver
Fledgling Mawcor
Castle Raptors
Rathi Trapper
Hammerheim Deadeye
Big Game Hunter
Stingscourger
Stingscourger
Goblin Skycutter
Veiling Oddity
Fathom Seer
Citanul Woodreaders
Giant Oyster
Dreamscape Artist
Dreamscape Artist
Fa’adiyah Seer
Mire Boa
Viscid Lemures
Gemhide Sliver
Coal Stoker
Tolarian Sentinel
Dream Stalker
Whitemane Lion
Corpulent Corpse
Sporesower Thallid
Pouncing Wurm
Subterranean Shambler
Bogardan Rager
Havenwood Wurm
Thallid Germinator
Deathspore Thallid
Merfolk Thaumaturgist

We start to have significant regrets once we get as high as Snapback in the Spells list, letting us take five cards out, and as high as Subterranean Shambler in the creature department… though one could argue as to whether that means to say we would regret cutting the Shambler, or whether we could cut him with no regrets. Another five, or perhaps six, cards out of the combined pool. This cuts all of the Thallids and Thallid-associated cards, and removes the “spare” Disenchant effect. Some very solid cards are going down here, but let’s backtrack to the individual decks to get a sense of how close we are to done:

1cc:
2cc: Dream Stalker; 2 Dreamscape Artist; Veiling Oddity; Goblin Skycutter; 2x Stingscourger
3cc: Brine Elemental; Fathom Seer; Fledgling Mawcor; Akroma, Angel of Fury
4cc: Giant Oyster; Tolarian Sentinel; Coal Stoker; Hammerheim Deadeye; Subterranean Shambler
5cc: Serra Sphinx; Sol’Kanar the Swamp King
6cc+:

Spells: 2 Erratic Mutation, Eternity Snare, Snapback, Trickbind, Wipe Away, Conflagrate, Lightning Axe, 2 Rift Bolt.

Four more cards have to come out of this one.

1cc: Corpulent Corpse
2cc: Whitemane Lion, Fa’adiyah Seer, Gemhide Sliver, Mire Boa, Rathi Trapper
3cc: Citanul Woodreaders, Big Game Hunter
4cc: Mystic Enforcer, Pouncing Wurm, Sporesower Thallid, Plague Sliver
5cc: Castle Raptors, Spectral Force, Viscid Lemures
6cc+: Lim-Dul the Necromancer

Spells: Candles of Leng, Krosan Grip, Tromp the Domains, 2x Cradle to Grave, Dark Withering, Feebleness, Melancholy

24 cards, exactly one too many, meaning that this one is presumably done unless we’re looking to make any additions… and Hunting Wilds might be a worthwhile inclusion, to help pay for some of the mana-intensive effects. The two least impressive creatures may very well be Whitemane Lion and your personal choice of either Corpulent Corpse or Pouncing Wurm… whether you want a creature with a little bit of evasion and a low cost sometimes to help compensate for the fact that this is a mana-intensive deck, or something impressive to invest a lot of mana in as the game grows longer. Since we are already concerned about the mana flow, trying to get something for practically nothing sounds more worthwhile than the standard-issue Hill Giant with benefits. That last one gets cut to add another mana-generating effect to the deck, and can still generate six power worth of creatures for a similar investment of mana… considering we’re concerned about having enough mana in a deck that includes significant card drawing and two-mana creatures that make mana (Gemhide Sliver) or even make multiple lands (Fa’adiyah Seer), another card advantage-positive effect to help generate mana is desirable to power out bombs like Lim-Dul.

Deck A is complete at least…


We now have 14 creatures in Deck A, and seven removal effects of varying types. Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth makes the cut because it can help to fix the mana in Deck B, with the hope that the opponents will not be able to significantly capitalize by using either Tendrils of Despair or Phthisis when they wouldn’t be able to otherwise. These 14 creatures include four evasive beaters, and we’ll be looking for more evasive power from Deck B.

For Deck B, we can finally cut Subterranean Shambler, because it kills three creatures we’d like to perhaps rely on in Deck A, plus Deck B’s own Dreamscape Artists and Goblin Skycutter. Deck B is so full of powerful effects we have to compromise somewhere, and that’s a solid card but we have to make some cuts somewhere. Trickbind can get cut as well, because as potent as it can be by countering key effects or Suspended spells, we’re crunched for space and currently quite able to face opposing problems head-on with our removal spells… it can be just a dead card sometimes, and we’re asking for better than that from this one. That’s still only two spells out of four cut, though… and next we can take out Snapback; we have the uncounterable Wipe Away for instant-speed bounce, Tolarian Sentinel and Dream Stalker for bouncing our own creatures, and two Stingscourgers to bounce opposing creatures. We can get more for our cards invested, and again an amazingly solid Limited card gets pulled out of the deck once again thanks to the oddity that is 2HG… tempo like Snapback can create is just less important when fighting two people instead of one.

We have one card left to take out, then, and might want to look at the deck in context. We’re already cutting a land, and will be spending mana for echo costs and Morph costs… not to mention the fact that we’re more or less content to stop at five mana, and will quite possibly return lands to our hand again and again with Fathom Seer. The most expensive card in the deck might be the best card to remove, or perhaps another “tempo-positive” creature.

This pegs it as a matchup of Eternity Snare versus Coal Stoker, because again 3/3s aren’t quite the industry standard of 2HG that they are in individual Limited play. With 17 creatures in the deck already, and our prior statements that tempo is not quite as relevant and that removal spells would be coming ahead of creatures, it should come as no surprise that the final judgment between Coal Stoker and Eternity Snare favors the cantrip removal spell and not the ridiculous one-on-one creature.

With much deliberation then we finally arrive at this list for Deck B:


Gemstone Mine seems like a “free” fixer, doing what it needs to do until it is fed to the Dreamscape Artist; there’s another “free” fixer in Deck A, with Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth providing the B-deck with Black mana. This deck gets to draw the extra card along with its potential free Mulligan, letting you get away with the slightly sketchy sixteen lands.

Working together, the two decks have a might 21 removal-style effects, with seven in Deck A and fourteen in Deck B. Deck B can also re-use several effects due to internal synergy with Dream Stalker and Tolarian Sentinel, and provides another three high-quality evasive creatures plus the game-ending Veiling Oddity. Inter-deck synergy of course exists now; Deck B can set up the no-blocking turn, while Deck A can save its Tromp the Domains for that crucial moment. Both have the potential to draw a significant amount of cards and take advantage of internal synergy.

Figuring out which deck can best make use of getting to draw the extra card at the start of the game and free mulligan, and how to take advantage of that difference from “conventional” singles Limited during deck design, is the first tricksy exploration of our look at Two-Headed Giant. Next time, we’ll look into taking advantage of other rules like the communication rules during play… if you think this week’s stories on Bluff Week at MagicTheGathering.com are interesting, just imagine how much bluffing might be present in Magic as a two-on-two game. Some teams try to hide the contents of their hand by being vague and veiling what they are talking about; others try to subtly gauge their opponent’s potential options by pointing at their own cards and their opponents’ cards to gain information by their reaction. (The latter is basically silly, but some people are convinced it works.) What if you and your team-mate work well without needing to talk, and kept up a running track of lies to push the opponent into holding back or misplaying?

Sean McKeown
smckeown @ livejournal.com