Let me describe my last few sessions of Magic.
I play, primarily, at two stores in the Oakland area. I play on a day-to-day basis at Collector’s Corner in Oakland, which features one or two tables that seat six; it’s a small place, but it’s the kind of place where – for lack of a better way of putting it – everybody knows your name.
The other is Games of Berkeley, where there are several rabidly competitive players, where people come and go. There are regulars, but because it’s so busy, you see more people than you normally would. Berkeley is a very busy town, and it shows here. Friday is Magic Night, and the little basement they have is set for gaming.
Now, in such public places, it may be hard to get three or four people together for a quick multiplayer game. Occasionally, we even get six together for a game of Emperor – but by and large, most of my games there are duels, in a casual manner. I will play the Type 1 Tourney guys, but most of my games are with players who draft for fun, who don’t follow the Pro Tour, who follow their hearts when it comes to Magic, and, to illustrate, sometimes use Portal or Starter cards in their decks. One plays a gratuitous babe art deck featuring the famous Dakmor Sorceress (I can’t believe that its average price is almost $10 – but hey, to each their own!)
Now, as I’ve been saying the whole time since I started writing about Magic is that Multiplayer Casual is different from Duel, even if Casual. The deck I’m about to present to you is somewhat usable in multiplayer games – with the less people around, the better – though it’s most fun in a casual one-on-one game. It’s not about to beat Keeper or TnT anytime soon, and it’s not likely to beat Gro-A-Tog, either (though a few casual games against it have ended well for me). But it is a lot of fun, and has a tendency to pull wins out of its proverbial ass. I proudly present to you…
Pick A Card, V.1
4 Blood Oath
4 Head Games
4 Lavaborn Muse
1 Glasses of Urza
4 Flametongue Kavu
2 Chainer’s Edict
4 Terminate
3 Cursed Scroll
1 Void
1 Diabolic Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
3 Browbeat
1 Sol Ring
4 Dark Ritual
4 Tainted Peak
4 Badlands
9 Swamp
6 Mountain
Sideboard:
4 Duress
3 Hypnotic Specter
4 Overmaster
1 Haunting Echoes
3 Flaring Pain
Yes, it is a combo deck. The pieces are cheap; the deck is a blast to play. The greatest (and really nifty) thing is nailing someone with a Head Games. Not bad for a $1 rare, if it resolves! It can completely screw with someone’s hand and game plan – and even with the minute amount of mana acceleration, comes out on turn 2 with disturbing frequency. Turn 2 Blood Oath happens, too… And that’s a lot of fun. It’s playable in both multiplayer and dueling, but what’s really nifty about this deck is how it takes very different roles in multi and duels.
The objective of this deck is to smack someone with Blood Oath – hard. To do that, you use cards like Glasses of Urza (which can be substituted with Recoup to get more uses, albeit blind ones, of Blood Oath) and Head Games to guarantee that the Oath is going to hurt. Search and draw cards like the two Tutors and three Browbeats get you closer to a crippling Head Games and/or a game-ending Blood Oath. More Diabolic Tutors can be added to your liking, but I personally think that more Diabolic Tutors clog up your hand early and add more strain to the mana base. As for Recoup, I think it’s better to make the castings of Blood Oath count. Additionally, until you get a spell to cast Recoup on, it’s dead weight. The Glasses, while not providing true card advantage per se, do provide you with information.
But let’s get into the card choices. I’ve already discussed Glasses of Urza – and quite frankly, one is enough. Too many are useless to you.
Blood Oath is the key card in the deck and the main source of damage. Because it comes out as soon as turn 2, Blood Oath can all but win the game for you if you get lucky. When playing this deck, it is very important to keep track of every bit of information that your opponents provide, be it by playing spells or what they react to. For instance, if someone is playing Auratog, it’s a good chance that they’re running lots of enchantments. Your Magic experience and intuition can go a long way. For instance, the younger the player, the less likely they are to be playing counterspells.
Head Games makes sure that you don’t have to be lucky to hit someone hard with Blood Oath. Moreover, it allows you to manascrew your opponent by giving him spells he can’t cast, or manaflood them by giving them all the land they can handle. This card will buy you time or completely screw with an opponent’s hand and game plan.
Aside from being a 3/3 for four mana with a decent ability, Lavaborn Muse can force opponents to hold cards in hand. It attacks, it blocks, it keeps cards in hand instead of being cast – where they should be (for your opponent). In multiples, the abilities are dangerous.
What virtues do Flametongue Kavus have that have not already been extolled? It increases pressure while removing a threat on the table. It’s got four power, so it’s going to keep adding on the damage. And whatever the trusty FTK doesn’t hit, Terminate mops up; it deals with any targetable creature, even Spiritmongers, which Terror or Dark Banishing can’t touch. Two mana, instant, and permanent removal. Chainer’s Edicts helps to deal with untargetable and red-protected creatures.
Cursed Scroll, the ultimate damage artifact, keeps the pressure on and removes small creatures. It also reduces the available life your opponent has, gets around Circles of Protection. This rounds out the creature elimination you have available to you.
Browbeats refill your hand slightly without losing critical combo pieces you can’t cast yet – and should an opponent take five, it brings them that much closer to death. A fun little”win more” tactic (if you’re in no danger of being burned to death) is to Browbeat your opponent, let them draw the cards, use Glasses of Urza to peek, and then cast the Blood Oath. That will finish off any injured opponent in short time.
After all that explanation, this is the God draw for this deck: (playing first) Swamp/Badlands, Dark Ritual, Dark Ritual, Head Games (four cards, three left). Turn two, draw, play a red-producing land, Dark Ritual, Blood Oath.
The most damage possible with this deck is twenty-four damage (seven cards, Draw step, cast Blood Oath in response to the”draw a card trigger” – someone please correct me if I’m wrong!). Other than that, if you can Head Games and Blood Oath someone with seven cards all in the same turn, you can nail someone for twenty-one. Values of Blood Oath damage usually average around nine to fifteen points of damage. Once the Lavaborn Muse comes out, people try to keep the card count above two, which means a random Blood Oath, combined with Cursed Scroll and creature damage, could mean the game.
The highest casting cost spells in this deck are Void and Head Games. These are used as disruption – and, in the case of Head Games, set up a crippling blow. Void is pretty much a sorcery-speed, five mana Powder Keg and should be used as such. Unless you know what’s in their hand and can make a huge impact on it in terms of disruption, use it to eliminate threats on the board.
Heavy control decks can easily counter the eight major threats this deck has (Head Games and Blood Oath), as well as lesser threats like Cursed Scroll and Lavaborn Muse. The key, then, is smart use of Void to remove creatures or artifacts on the board – and if you can, to strip spells from their hands that could be problems. Remember that Force of Will, Misdirection, and Morphling all cost five mana… But be careful! Void is Misdirectable, and Head Games costs five. Never mind that the mana cost is chosen on resolution. It’s very, very, very dangerous to cast Void against a player carrying such misdirection spells. If, however, you manage to draw out counters, and you are aware of the contents of their hand, Void can be very devastating.
With that in mind, however, Head Games cannot be Misdirected to you. Use it to screw with control players or combo players, and let the rest of the group take care of business. Assist by just staying out of the way. Casting Head Games on someone does a lot in the way of earning their enmity.
Protection from Red hurts this deck pretty badly, but hopefully Flaring Pain can help you out. After siding, Hypnotic Specter gives you fast, non-red damage, and a way to smack control around. Given the choice between turn 2 Blood Oath and turn 1 Hypnotic Specter, always go with the Specter. Besides giving you a faster start, it gives you more long-term damage, and something for the opponent to worry about. Duress, as always, is classic control hate. Overmaster will protect a spell and draw you a card, which is always good, all for the low cost of one mana. It’s never really a dead draw, unlike Red Elemental Blast or Pyroblast. Finally, Flaring Pain is the best thing you can ask for short of a black or red Disenchant when facing Circles of Protection. Let’s let the unreality go, and come back to what we have.
No. It’s not going to happen. Side it in. You’ve got to cast this when you’re ready to make your move, either with a big fat Blood Oath or with Lavaborn Muse’s trigger on the stack.
Playing this deck, it’s important that you be able to cast the spells you draw. Unless everything’s already in hand, send back any hand that doesn’t have both black and red mana. It’s imperative that you are able to cast your spells – this deck is all about getting your spells off as soon as possible before your opponents can react.
What this means is that this deck shows a marked weakness to Land Destruction decks, particularly in duels. Your best chance here is to aim for (and yes, I know this is very difficult) a turn 2 Blood Oath for Sorceries or a turn 2 (with a Sol Ring on turn one and a Dark Ritual for turn 2, or a Sol Ring and Dark Ritual on turn 2) Head Games. Short of Sinkhole and Raze, all the best LD spells come out on turn 3, so you have three turns to cripple someone. After that, do what you can to beat down. Save as many Dark Rituals as you can, and keep blasting away for Sorceries, since most LD spells are sorceries. If you get a second match, bring in as much control as you can, minus Overmasters. That means Mind Twist, Hypnotic Specter, and Duress. This gives you cheaper spells to cast that will still put a crimp in your opponent’s plans. In a multiplayer game, the LD player is going to have his hands full – so as long as he’s leaving you alone, leave him alone until you take out bigger threats, or if he attacks you.
The difference between multiplayer and dueling with this deck is pretty marked, actually. When going solo, constantly keep the pressure on. The only thing you should hold on to are Terminates and Edicts, plus Blood Oath if you have no clue what your opponent is using or he has no hand. Don’t be afraid to use your spells on small creatures early, if you have the means to continue applying pressure. The later you cast Head Games and Blood Oath, the fewer cards your opponent will have.
As for multiplayer, like I said, your Blood Oaths are going to have to work much harder. Kill creatures that are attacking you, and keep a low profile. The best case scenario is to let your opponents beat each other half to death, and let your Lavaborn Muse increase the beatings. Your role is a conservative one,
Bottom line is this: The more opponents you have, the more work those four Blood Oaths have to do. You will have a much harder time. The goal in any multiplayer game is to sit back, let other players do the work, and defend yourself with this deck. Take note of what people play and what they draw. Your creatures will serve a defensive function, and your creature kill should target only that which targets you.
In duels, however, the pace is fast. Don’t let up for a second, and play this like an aggressive deck. Cast one Lavaborn Muse and hold the rest if they’re holding more than two cards, but if they’re low on cards, lay them out on the table. You’re going to get two-for-one with your Flametongues most of the time; take advantage of that. Terminate any creature that could block it, use your Chainer’s Edicts to take out problem creatures. Let it be known right now that Crimson Acolyte is going to be a problem. Use Cursed Scrolls to take out anything you can, and damage your opponent. Dark Rituals power out early spells. The key to this deck is pressure, pressure, and pressure.
In my experience, here are some tendencies that you will see based on some of the cards you will see an opponent playing, to help cast a blind Blood Oath in the times you have to, without the benefit of a Glasses of Urza or some other peek at the hand.
Most discard spells are sorcery-speed. The other major source of black discard is creatures, so those are two possible choices, but sorceries may be a better choice.
Elf, Zombie, Goblin, and other tribal decks are heavily creature based.
Blue decks – with the exceptions of a Blue Skies-or-Fish-style deck – will usually be heavily populated with instants. The problem here is that these spells may be cast in response to Blood Oath, thus lessening the count available to you. Cast Oath, and let them respond before naming the type.
Red burn and Sligh decks will pack a mix of sorceries and instants. Cast Blood Oath, and wait for any responses. If there are any, sorceries will be most likely left in hand. Most good spells are instants; so if nothing gets cast in response, call instants.
In general, if all your opponent’s done is lay lands, here’s a very, very basic guideline: If you see white, go creatures or instants, with the major white sorceries being Wrath of God, Balance, and Armageddon. Green is best known for its creatures, so call that if you see forests – but instants are a good second choice, with choices like Fog, Giant Growth, and related spells seeing the most play. Blue packs quite a few instants. See islands? Blood Oath reaches for its fellow instants – counterspells, some card drawing, bounce…
Red is a little harder. Sorceries and instants abound with red, and you could be playing anything from Sligh to Goblins to Land Destruction. But my instinct is to call for instants. Sorceries would be the next best guess.
Black’s threats lie in sorceries and creatures, be it Visara the Dreadful or Chainer’s Edict; it’s got quite a few good instants, like Diabolic Edict, Terror, and Dark Ritual, but the big things – the power cards – are sorceries. They’re also more likely to be held onto longer because of higher casting costs. Creatures are the next best bet when facing off with a lone Swamp.
I can’t emphasize enough, though, that a Blood Oath is best cast with some information. You may not have in game clues, but when you play people frequently, you can usually get a good idea of what they’ve got.
As I look back on other decks I’ve made, I wanted to touch on this really quickly – this deck can be made cheaply. In fact, the uncommons cost more than most of the rares! Sol Ring, Flametongue Kavu, and Chainer’s Edict are all more expensive than any rare short of the Badlands and Cursed Scroll. Not everyone has three Cursed Scrolls lying around or four Badlands. The good news is, this deck can still be made pretty affordably without them. Consider the following:
Three-Card Monty: Pick A Card, Semi Light!
4 Blood Oath
4 Head Games
4 Flametongue Kavu
4 Lavaborn Muse
4 Terminate
4 Dark Ritual
3 Arc Mage -or- Embermage Goblin
3 Browbeat
2 Chainer’s Edict
1 Void
1 Glasses of Urza
1 Diabolic Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Sol Ring
4 Tainted Peak
4 Urborg Volcano
8 Swamp
7 Mountain
Sideboard:
4 Duress
3 Hypnotic Specter
4 Overmaster
1 Void
3 Flaring Pain
I use Cursed Scrolls and Badlands because I have them. Sol Ring and Demonic Tutor are the priciest rares after that, and they are worth the price, since they are staples in casual deckbuilding. (Tru dat – The Ferrett) The other rares needed – Head Games, Blood Oath, Void, and Lavaborn Muse – are easy to obtain. Chase uncommons in this deck include Flametongue Kavu and Chainer’s Edict – but again, being uncommons, you should be able to get them pretty handily.
Substituting Urborg Volcanoes still gives you good access to black/red mana. If you have them, Sulfurous Springs would be good, too, and Bloodstained Mire isn’t bad either. But given that this is an allied color pairing, the mana base is not as bad as one might think, even without the rare lands.
As for Cursed Scrolls, there is nothing else in the game quite like them, being a cheap, fast, colorless, and most of all, reusable source of two damage. But Arc Mage shares the activation mana cost, at the additional cost of a card, and the fact that the damage can be split is pretty significant. Embermage Goblin costs one more, but you can search out another one and bring it to two damage for a much higher initial investment, with absolutely none afterwards. They should work just fine. Play this deck identically as you would as if you had the Scrolls.
The biggest lesson I learned from playing this deck is reading people. After a few hits from Blood Oath, people start worrying about the type of cards they’re holding. But in addition to that, you start to learn how decks are built – and given a turn or two, you start to learn to anticipate what spells will follow, and how to deduce a larger trend given small pieces of information. Hopefully this deck does its magic for you, and since it’s easy to build, I’m hoping you take it out to your next casual Magic session. There’s nothing quite like beating someone with cheap rares!!!
An aside, and a warning: I love Magic for the interaction, but there are some people I’d rather not deal with. I was in search of Spheres of Resistance, and I found someone who had three. I asked if he was willing to trade me them for stuff in my trade binder.
The trade offer: Three Spheres of Resistance and $5… For two Windswept Heaths, a Gush, a Flood Plains, two Very Good condition Swords to Plowshares, and an Aerial Caravan.
The response? How about no, you moron?
The guy’s name is David, he’s a big Asian guy, dark skin, usually has his hair in a ponytail. Avoid him like the plague; shun him. He’s a freakin’ jackass. Let me put it this way: Three NM Spheres of Resistance from StarCityGames: $6. Two Windswept Heaths at StarCityGames: $10 each.
I mean, to try and get the better deal in a trade is one thing, but this was just blatant thievery. And this was me he was dealing with! I’m pretty savvy with my cards…. But what about the kids? By the way, if you’ve been reading my articles, this is the person I was talking about last time.
I think that it’s one thing to try to come out ahead in a deal, but something like this is ridiculous! That’s thievery, plain and simple. Be careful out there.
John A. Liu
“Mana flood?”
“Yeah, you should know, you bastard!! @#($&!@ Head Games!!!!”