Multiplayer Is An Art, Part 2: The United Nations

Now I know some of the more recognized casual writers on the net try to defend the stance that multiplayer is not about negotiation, nor is it about striking deals with others. Some of the more bold ones even claim there is no such thing as politics in multiplayer. (Mister Alongi, I am watching you – The Ferrett) But I am here to try and prove them wrong – and I will prove so by sharing with you one of my most hated decks. (Even though I designed it to bring peace and harmony; hence the nickname "UN deck." The name was given to the deck by a team member from the RVWM, who couldn’t have summarized this deck’s spirit more adequately.)

I built this deck with only one thing in mind: To bring peace to the earth and good will towards men. The best card to do this with is, of course, the Peacekeeper. This is a 1/1 for 2W with an upkeep cost of 1W and with an absolutely pacifying ability: Creatures cannot attack.* The picture vaguely resembles Kofi Anan, the main man of the UN, so that’s an added bonus. But a peacekeeper is easily spat on by a variety of Hellkites, and it just begs for spot removal. So a wise Peacemaker keeps itself protected, and not with just some period slips.

Real World diplomats all have a little thingy called diplomatic immunity, so why not slap such an enchantment on our peacekeeper? Because Diplomatic Immunity just sucks. Spiritual Asylum is so much better since it also protects or other employees and as a kicker it protects our lands. Not being able to attack might be a disadvantage if you have a bloodthirsty Peacekeeper on your side of the board, but that is a price we must pay. (In case you didn’t notice, I was being sarcastic.)

Now we have a Peacekeeper and an enchantment protecting it. But what if those terrorists of opponents of ours blast our enchantment because they don’t believe in politics? Our Peacekeeper will be all naked and alone in the middle of a hostile battlefield. So the next step in our process of deckbuilding is asking ourselves, "Quis Custodit Custodiens?" (Wow, I just actually put some of my Latin in practice! I am truly an outcast.) The answer to that question isn’t as tough as it is in the real world. Even though Spiritual Asylum isn’t a fountain, the Fountain Watch will be happy to protect it for you. And to return the favor, the Asylum protects the Watch. So, to show of with my Latin again, custodes custodent custodies, or the watch watches the watch, or whatever.

So we keep all other players from attacking. Are we happy now? NO! We want more!

I didn’t even need to playtest this deck to know that Ivory Mask is an absolute must for this deck. People not able to pound you in the ground with the Best Fatty Ever Printed or one of his many, many spin-offs tend to try and kill you in any other way possible for them to achieve; they start spitting flames at your dome. They start sucking life out of you with stuff like Corrupt. They might even start to force you to draw a whole big lot of cards until you’re dead, and then they usually stop as quick as they started. But I think you’ve all got the point now: Hiding behind a mask isn’t childish, it’s damned effective. It also keeps your ears safe from Hymns to Dark Gods such as Tourach and the likes. It even prevents an otherwise catastrophic Siren’s Call from being targeted on you. Ergo, Ivory Mask is good.

So you’re putting an Earthquake on the stack, you say? That don’t impress me much. All my creatures are nicely sealed in a bubbly bubble of soap, generated by a Bubble Matrix. This artifact is such great fun, even when it’s not armoring a Peacekeeper. A friend of mine once had a deck with it also packing various walls, some Tims and four High Grounds. His defenses were impenetrable! And in the meantime, he just kept pinging and pinging like a pink rabbit with a shotgun and some of those batteries from the commercial. We all got very frustrated until someone drew our Deus ex Machina (Dude, I’m feeling so very Roman today) – namely, an Icy Manipulator. To understand why it saved us, knowing we were playing in the pre-sixth-edition era is critical. But for the newer players who walk among us and for those just pretending to know what I mean I will explain it: Tapped artifacts used to be shut down, just like Winter Orb still is today. Hence, a tapped Bubble would not have protected a single creature. Our collective opponent didn’t know this, so he carelessly blocked large attackers with his walls and even some with his Rootwater Hunters. After blockers being declared, the Icy was used and suddenly the empire of our former foe had crumbled down, and he broke his crown, and he pointed his finger but there was no one around. (My God, first I digress with an anecdote about a non-sanctioned game and then I start quoting Metallica. I expect to have lost all my readers by now.)

The last part of our total immunity to all forms of harm is the protection from global damage spells like earthquake. Not the protection of our creatures – they are all in the Matrix -but the protection of ourselves. A Thrashing Wumpus with a Spirit Link enchanting it will not be the last creature to cause players to die. So we arm ourselves against that kind of violence by declaring a compulsory religion for our creatures. As from now, they will worship us as their Gods, granting us eternal life. Worship might seem redundant with Ivory Mask and Peacekeeper both in position and not to be targeted, but trust me; those Wumpi can be very scary.

1x Peacekeeper
1x Spiritual Asylum
1x Fountain Watch
1x Bubble Matrix
1x Ivory Mask
1x Worship

Before I receive any kind of hate mail about me suggesting crappy decks with all the key parts of it only being included once, allow me to assure you that all will be well in the end. Be patient.

Now that we feel reasonably safe and enforce peace unto the world with our peacekeeper, let’s stay alive long enough to actually get those cards in play. There are several ways to keep yourself alive without maintaining an enormous army of critters, and one of those ways is making yourself popular with Howling Mine and the likes of him. But helping others is not what we’re trying to achieve here. So instead of popularizing ourselves, we simply deflect attention away from us. This is done with a very political enchantment called Propaganda.** Forcing your adversaries to pay precious mana in order to attack you will more often than not cause them to just restrain from attacking you altogether. They will attack that little new kid instead. So even though playing Propaganda might not be a very altruistic thing to do, the end will justify the means. And because we really want to play Propaganda as soon as possible, we’re going to include four of them. (Propaganda being cumulative is also a reason for me to include more than just one copy.)

But no matter how hard you try, there will always be times when Death and Terror rule the lands. There will always be opponents controlling at least three dragons by turn four. And at such a moment, it is time to bring balance to the Force. With Balance, of course. Balance is almost always good for you when it is cast. The deck only uses five creatures and fourteen land, so we’re not very likely to lose a myriad of these. Even better, This deck includes a plethora of enchantments and artifacts, which remain unaffected by Balance. And since we are most probably the ones casting a Balance, we can easily anticipate by emptying our hands first. Balance is also very glad to be kept company by a Griffes de Gix, or Claw of Gix. This will give us the cheesy opportunity to sacrifice all our lands and creatures – thus, provided we also have an empty hand, we will be able to totally reset most players’ board position.

1x Peacekeeper
1x Spiritual Asylum
1x Fountain Watch
1x Bubble Matrix
1x Ivory Mask
1x Worship
4x Propaganda
1x Balance
1x Claws of Gix

There is, however, an ethical aspect of playing Balance in multiplayer, and it is not a very good one. But think about what Machiavelli would have done: he would have played it, won’t he? And was he a better politician than all of us put together? If not,I’ll join the Taliban and start smashing random statues… And I don’t like smashing random statues, so I think you’ll get my point. To put forward as an argument for our case, Balance is restricted. So what will be our chances of drawing one? Actually, these chances are going to be quite large since we’re going to include a great big lot of card advantage engines in our deck.

First, I’ll explain the plain and straight card drawers I chose. They are the Archivist and Urza’s Blaupausen. I include the Archivist since it is quite often cast on turn three and therefor his powerful ability can be used very early in the game. He can also chump an incoming fatty or even block it and live if you control Bubble Matrix. But it is a creature – and hence, gets Balanced out more often than I’d like to see. So instead of four Archivists I chose to use only two, aided in their work by two Urza’s Blueprints. The blueprints aren’t as bad as they seem to be due to their high casting cost and echo. But remember: you can just cast it, draw a card, untap it the next turn, draw again and then still decide not to pay the echo. This isn’t done quite often though, since the card advantage often is more ludicrous than the not spending of some mana is.

The next card-granting goody is Treasure Trove. It has been chosen for its task because of its ability to turn spare mana into spare cards in your hand, and that’s good. This deck will always have a lot of mana in the middle- to end game. But because it is going to be generated all at once (how that’s achieved will be told later), we can’t choose exactly how much mana we will get – and for that reason Treasure Trove is the card of choice here.

The last card drawer I decided to include is the almighty Planar Portal. This evil artifact is, in fact, a Demon-college since it grants a Demonic Tutor every turn. It is, however, quite costly – but the massive amounts of mana I already rumored about will help us out here too. Drawing a Portal often means you’re out of trouble – or, even better, you’ll be able to bring peace and harmony within a few turns. Getting you out of trouble it usually accomplishes by searching for a Peacekeeper, Worship or, most often, a Balance. If none of this is needed, it will just search the half-dozen cards needed for your ‘lock.’ Or search for the ones you haven’t already drawn. I always postpone searching with this as long as possible since it even allows you to search for a counterspell or something like that if needed.

1x Peacekeeper
1x Spiritual Asylum
1x Fountain Watch
1x Bubble Matrix
1x Ivory Mask
1x Worship
4x Propaganda
1x Balance
1x Claw of Gix
2x Urza’s blueprints
2x Archivist
4x Planar Portal
1x Treasure Trove

But when I activate my Portal for the first time, I usually look for my broken mana producers: Tolarian Academy and Serra’s Sanctum. As said before, this deck packs boatloads of artifacts and enchantments. So how does getting a colored mana for each of them every turn again sound? Good, I’d say. This deck bathes in the mana when these two are out, but it absorbs it to the very last drop, so these two lands are vital to your dominance. Once you have these two lands out, you’ll be able to use your Portal and cast what you searched for the very same turn, every turn. At a certain point, you might even decide to look for a second Portal, cast it, and then use it, doubling your rate of action.

Now that we are so damned mighty and invulnerable, how are we going to win? We can’t attack with creatures, since our peacekeeper tells them to sit perfectly still. It would also tear our Spiritual Asylum apart. But we DO do have gargantuan amounts of mana.

So what keeps a single Fireball from doing its job?

Style, my friend.

Have you ever seen the United Nations throw a Fireball at Iraq? No, you haven’t. A rocket launcher, on the other hand, is frequently used to poke Saddam with. So Rocket Launcher will be the artifact we’re going to use – that’s just the way civilized people kill each other.

But Rocket Launcher commits suicide after use, so when we use it we want to make sure we’ve got enough mana to blow the entire world into smithereens. And this is where our Swiss bank accounts come in handy. Got some spare mana? Not feeling like using your Treasure Trove? Just put it on the bank called Iceberg. Now I’m sure none of you knows that card, except for those of you who play as much casual games as I do.

Iceberg is a blue enchantment with a casting cost of xUU. It comes into play with x ice counters on it and additional ice counters can be added for three mana apiece. Removing an ice counter from Iceberg adds one to your mana pool. Pretty lame, huh? But it works, especially at the end of the game when you’ll be able to deplete your Iceberg, eat it with Claws of Gix, restock it with Soldevi Digger, draw it with Blueprints and then cast it again, spending all your mana on x, with almost 100% yield of bonds! If opponents see you do this, they will most probably just concede. Because of the sheer decadence you display by doing such a stupid thing over and over again, and profit from it, while they are unable to do something about it. But hey, where else do you find such large amounts of mana without targeting (remember, all our permanents can’t be targeted) or Palinchron? I’ll tell you: inside your Diamond Kaleidoscope. For three mana and a tap it will give birth to a prism token, which lives only to be sacrificed sometime for a mana of the color of your choice. Or sometimes the prism token lives to chump an Albino Troll, since it is only a 0/1 artifact creature. Or it blocks a Nemata and lives due to Bubble Matrix. But most of the time it just sits there, energizing your Tolarian Academy. It is an artifact token, you see. And it can always be sacrificed in an instant to gain mana to pay for counterspells. (But only if you’re totally tapped out, of course. The Kaleidoscope and the Iceberg assure you of mana reserves each time you tap out. This gives a safe and comfy feeling.)

I mentioned a Digger back up there somewhere, and I ain’t going to explain why it’s in the deck. Anyone not knowing why diggers are useful should be shot and then jailed. I even go so far that I include an Argivian Find to retrieve my lonely Digger with. The Find should always be used to reconstruct the Digger – except, of course, when the Digger is still in play. In that case Argivian Find should be dug back as soon as possible. I only lost to deck depletion once (after several Nevinyrral’s Disks, my Digger decided to call it a day and go for the grave) but it traumatized me in such a way that I instantly added a 61st card to the deck, the Argivian Find. It’s just so shaggedelically versatile, like a Regrowth for only one white mana, but then as an instant…

Spellbook is free to cast, so we include one. Oh wait, and it is also good to skip any discard steps we might beget, what with all that card drawing we do. It doesn’t combo very well with Balance, but hey! We usually cast balance on turn seven or eight, while the Spellbook is to be effective only in the late game. It is always cool to drop one on the table while playing against a Prosperity deck in the group. The Prosperity player might even consider not destroying it (if you haven’t got your fountain watch out, that is) because his Multatuli ***, the Maro Sorcerer, will get ever so large. And if nothing else, it will just be a Mox Sapphire when you’ve got your Academy out. The deck so far:

1x Peacekeeper
1x Spiritual Asylum
1x Fountain Watch
1x Bubble Matrix
1x Ivory Mask
1x Worship
4x Propaganda
1x Balance
1x Claw of Gix
2x Urza’s blueprints
2x Archivist
4x Planar Portal
1x Treasure Trove
1x Rocket Launcher
1x Spellbook
1x Soldevi Digger
1x Argivian Find
1x Iceberg
1x Diamond Kaleidoscope
1x Serra’s Sanctum
1x Tolarian Academy

Anyone still paying attention might have noticed me mentioning a Nev’ Disk back up. "Doesn’t that absolutely wreck our invulnerability, Stijn?" they might ask. And I would answer : "Yes. Yes it would, Kent." So that, amongst other reasons, causes us to include four Auras of Silence. We won’t use its cheaper counterparts, the Seal of Cleansing or the Disenchant, because of their names. They don’t refer to hush-policies like an Aura of Silence does. Because missiles that hit hospitals are sure to get surrounded by a nice private aura of silence. It’s all a part of United Nations propaganda.

But now the inevitable part of blue: the counterspells. There are only two cool counters, and those are Dismiss and Desertion. But this deck doesn’t want to make people angry by countering their stuff until the late game, where we’ve actually already won. So as our counterspell, we’re going to use Arcane Denial. Real life example:

Opponent: "I play Devout Witness."
Sneaky UN player: "Arcane that."
Opponent : "Thanks, man!"

People always like drawing those two cards, even when you’ve countered a spell very dear to them. The loss of their spell is restituted by their two cards they get to draw. But to us it is a rescue from certain doom – otherwise we wouldn’t have countered the spell, would we? That wouldn’t have been very diplomatical. The only times we counter spells not threatening to us is on the second or third turn when we want a new card instead of Arcane. Or when we Arcane our own spells as a prelude to a Balance. (That is SUCH a strong play! Go and build a deck with Balance and Arcane right now and play it until you’ve pulled it off at least once.) Another benefit of the Denial is its pretty picture. Just make sure you include two of each version for we’re surely going to pack four of them.

And now the last non-mana source of the deck and also the fifth creature, even though it’s still a counterspell. Yes, you’ve guessed it right, it’s our favorite wizard legend : Ertai. Actually, Rayne is my favorite wizard legend. But saying "our second favorite wizard legend"? That would just ruin the sentence.

Ertai is there because he’s useful, but also because of the formidable treat he poses. An opponent will soon lose hope when he knows his Jokulhaups will be countered for sure, by Ertai, and his Apocalypse will most probably run into an Arcane Denial. Just always keep four mana open for Ertai. Even lay four lands underneath him. At the end of your last opponent’s turn, you can always just tap three of them and fatten your Iceberg. A smart nemesis will try and Rout as an instant now, but that’s when we sacrifice some Prism tokens for mana to pay Ertai for his services. But an experienced player will just know when to keep which amount of mana open to counter with. It becomes like a third sense.

Now that we are even able to fend of the likes of tranquility and Purify, the only thing that could possibly harm us is Obliterate. And in a previous version of this deck, I used Angelic Renewal to recover the Fountain Watch after the Big Bang so I would still remain impregnable. Even though I had just lost all my mana producers and my other precious artifacts. But this version, which I consider optimal, is not using it. We can always respond to Obliterate by putting some activations of Soldevi Digger on the stack, sacking our Fountain Watch and other important stuff like Serra’s Sanctum (Enchantments remain in play after Obliterate) to Claw and Gix and then draw them with the Blueprints and Treasure Trove. That way we turn destruction into mere unsummoning, making Angelic Renewal sort of obsolete.

And now for something completely different: lands. I’ve already mentioned the fourteen lands this deck contains, and two of them are the Academy and the Sanctum. The other twelve are simply four Plains, four Islands and four Tundra’s. That’s not pretty much, I know, but I’ve also included some artifact mana. We all know how good artifact mana is with Balance, and it acts as an additional booster for the Academy. And the artifact mana of choice is obviously diamond-shaped. And other jewelry, like the Cameos invasion brought us. So a melange of three Marble Diamonds, three Sky Diamonds, and four Seashell Cameos will provide us with all the mana our hearth will want, right? Yes – but on the sole condition that Sol Ring is also joining the party.

So what have we got now? An absolute pile if you don’t use politics. Take a last look:

1x Peacekeeper
1x Spiritual Asylum
1x Fountain Watch
1x Bubble Matrix
1x Ivory Mask
1x Worship
4x Propaganda
1x Balance
1x Claw of Gix
2x Urza’s Blueprints
2x Archivist
4x Planar Portal
1x Treasure Trove
1x Rocket Launcher
1x Spellbook
1x Soldevi Digger
1x Argivian Find
1x Iceberg
1x Diamond Kaleidoscope
1x Serra’s Sanctum
1x Tolarian Academy
4x Aura of Silence
4x Arcane Denial
1x Ertai, Wizard Adept
1x Sol Ring
4x Seashell Cameo
3x Marble Diamond
3x Sky Diamond
4x Island
4x Plains
4x Tundra

A total of 61 cards.

Don’t laugh. I play with this deck, and it wins more often than you would probably believe. And all thanks to talking people into not attacking you, not harming you, or even help you… Until it’s too late for them to do something about it. This deck is all about weaseling around, not insulting people, and trying to look harmless. Until you’ve waited long enough and you’re ready to bring peace…

Alternate cards to use for this deck are quite difficult to find. Especially because of the highlander character of the deck. Most cards used to protect yourself are vital to the deck. The only replacements I can think of are using other kinds of counterspells or using other kinds of disenchants. But then again, this is quite a unique kind of deck.

A very non-tactical player will turn this deck into a piece of junk in his hands, but when I play it myself it is very effective. (Hey, I designed this deck myself. Can I please claim that I can play it well without sounding big-headed?) A devious player can even win without having a single permanent on the board, as a figure of speech. Just because of diplomacy. Act noble towards your opponents. Or, as I prefer to call them while playing this deck, your fellow players. For a noble spirit embiggens the smallest man. ****

Try and play something like this; it is great fun. It works, however, only a few times. By then even the stupidest opponent will know they should try and kill you before the moment that only Obliterate will save them… Partially, anyway. But until then, have fun playing mister politician!

Next time: Away from all that white and blue, it is time to plunge into the darkness of black and the chaos of red with Corpse Dance…

Emperial Regards,
Stijn van Dongen,
Team RVWM

* – Peacekeeper should most definitely have been a 10/10 flying trampler. That would have been irony in its purest form.

** Even if this card hadn’t been called Propaganda, I’d still include it because of its name. No UN without propaganda, you see.

*** – Don’t edit this out as a mistake, Multatuli is a Dutch hero. Just like your George Washington or something.

**** – Anybody not catching this Simpsons-phrase should quit reading this article now. No ‘until next time’ for you! (But did anyone catch the OTHER Simpsons reference here? The guy’s a wiz, I tell you! – The Ferrett)