The moon, she hangs like a cruel portrait, and soft winds whisper the bidding of trees, as this article starts with a shattered-glass hearth and the midnightmare trampling of dreams: Tahngarth’s Glare is no fun at all.
I once slipped this into my sealed deck in a casual game after the real round of the tournament, hoping it would be a fun experience to play the card. So I drew it in my opening hand and cast it on the first turn. And what happens? I change nothing in my opponent’s library order, and my opponent lays my Gaea’s Skyfolk two places lower. That’s not funny. I felt so betrayed. When R&D makes a crappy card like the Glare, I at least expect it to be a fun card to play with… But the Glare isn’t. Never use it. Stop the madness.
Guess what? I’m writing again. Complete with jokes only I myself laugh about, complete with quotes only I myself notice because they are from songs no one ever listens to, and complete with mad tech on multiplayer.
So first things first: What’s up with this weird title, Stijn? I mean, usually you just name the story after the key card of the deck you’re going to discuss. Why these three geniuses instead?
Let me answer that question: This deck doesn’t have a single key card. I have spent dozens of minutes trying to think of an appropriate title, but none entered my mind. I even asked people about it. Some suggested”the Chameleon deck,” where some others suggested”Darwin’s nightmare.” But none of those options seemed fit for me, so I chose the title of the book I’m reading now instead.
Yes, there is a book that’s actually called Gödel, Escher, Bach. Yes, I’ve been reading it for more than a month now and I’m still not halfway.
Onto the Tech, before zee Germans get here!
The following is a list of people who have written about Survival of the Fittest in multiplayer recently:
GP Baglione
Erik van Griensven
The following is a list of people who recently wrote that I am a good writer:
Peter Jahn
Erik van Griensven
The following is a list of people that appeared on both of the previous lists:
Erik van Griensven
But back to the Survival of the Fittest-list. One of them (GP) played with only one copy, the other (Erik) played the full four of them. And even though I’d like to call Erik some sort of friend, I’ll have to go the path of GP here. In multiplayer, one Survival of the Fittest is enough; more of them simply seems unethical. Just like playing Armageddon in multiplayer. Or Recurring Nightmare. (Those two cards are my personal Banned list for multiplayer; the restricted list consists of Survival of the Fittest and all other restricted cards like Balance. Banned cards aren’t banned in multiplayer, so just play those cool Time Spirals or those smashing Dream Halls.) So this is our decklist so far:
Now, what goes with Survival? We all know Squee does… But he is so lame, I’d rather not include him. Still I do so, however. He just does the work, and one of him can’t hurt, can it? Just make sure you’re not boring people to death while using him and everything will be fine.
So for not boring people to death, we need some cool stuff to search for. And that cool stuff is purple. No I’m not talking about those fake purple cards that were once printed in inquest – I’m talking about the two Phelddagrifs.* Make sure one of these two dudes are the first thing you start looking for, so people will drop their guards a little and ease the tension they have towards your Survival/Squee trick. Just look at the situation when deciding which Phelddagrif to look for. Look for the Questing one when you’re facing players with a lot of burn at their disposal, look for the Vanilla one when you’re playing some Swords to Plowshares-wielding white mage.
Do not underestimate the first impression you’re making with your Survival of the Fittest; it is okay to look for Squee first. People expect you to. But it is the second time you activate the dreaded green tutor engine that people will remember the most. It sort of sets the tone. Are you looking for a Verdant Force? Expect the beatings to head your way. Are you looking for a Monk Idealist? You’re a smart player, but it will signal to people you’re very fond of your own Survival and make them try and destroy it twice as fast (and as often). Are you looking for a Keldon Vandals to destroy an opponent’s mana artifact? Prepare for retaliation from all other players (for the non-former-artifact-owners, your aggressive action will just be an excuse to start smashing your face.) But are you looking for a Phelddagrif? You can just see the suspense float out of people’s expressions as they break into a smile. Everybody loves Hippos. You don’t even have to activate them. Former versions of this deck included a normal and four Questing Phelddagrifs, just to try and play one on turn four. This way people would not even bother me casting or looking for Survival. For, as with anybody who speaks German, anybody who plays a Hippopotamus can’t be evil!
Another thing that would be cool is a way to look for Survival of the Fittest. Allowing yourself to play only one of them causes you not to draw them as often as you’d like, especially not in an eighty-card deck. So we include one of the best cards ever printed: Academy Rector. Four of them. When they are the only creature on the board, they can beat your opponents to death, and when there are other monsters in play, they just chump some and turn into an enchantment. An enchantment of your choice. Like Survival.
And this is where the Stroke of Genius hit me (X was not known, but it must have been quite high). The Rectors not used to find your Survival can be Survivaled for and cast, causing you to indirectly Survival for enchantments. This I knew already… But the actual stroke is about to come. I included four other cool enchantments to build some tech around and to give me something to search for with the Rectors (yes, that is a total of five enchantments where there are only four Rectors to find them; I expected to draw at least one of them). But then I got greedy and included about seven enchantments to look for, and then even more. I was always very disappointed when all my Rectors had been used up. But this stroke saved my day: The first Rector dying will remove itself from the game to find us a Wild Research!
This way we will be able to find our Survival of the Fittest and all our other Enchantments at the mere cost of 1W and a random card! And it doesn’t matter when we randomly discard the card we Researched, for since it is an enchantment we will be able to restock it with Monk Idealist, which is safely put into our hand with the Survival when needed.
What’s wrong with this thread of reasoning? You’ve got it: When you look for your Survival of the Fittest and you lose it due to the excessive wildness of your Researching, you lose all your consistency and the availability of all your creatures as well.
So how is this solved? By cheating.
Just put the Survival of the fittest in your lap or up your sleeve somewhere right before having to discard, and then, when you have discarded at random, return it to your hand in such a way that no one will notice. When you do this skillfully enough, no one will notice. It also helps when you have built up a very large credibility or some other kind of good reputation. It’s incredible what you can get away with! Even just ‘forgetting to do the discard’ might sometimes work out!
Wait – that’s not what I meant. I meant cheating on my own personal rule of restricting Survival of the Fittest. By including two of them, we get the chance to blow one part of Research. For when we have lost our first Survival to discarding, we get a second chance. When we also lose the second Survival, we may safely conclude that it was God’s will that we lost it. The mathematical chances of this happening (I mean losing two Survivals, not God’s existence) are, when only researching with eight cards in hand, 1/9 times 1/9, being 1,23456×10^-2. When we’ve already secured our Survival, we may relent on the amount of cards in hand when Researching, for we will then have Idealistic back-up. I have found that having five cards in hand when Researching will almost always give you what you wanted. By the way, for those doubting my calculation: it is indeed 1/9 instead of 1/8. Don’t forget the Researched card joins your hand too, and nobody will doubt that 8 + 1 = 9. And would the Ferrett let incorrect calculations slip past his editing? (Depends on how tired he is, and he’s pretty sleepy – The Ferrett)
Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt.
So we now have a decklist of:
2x Survival of the Fittest
1x Phelddagrif
1x Questing Phelddagrif
4x Academy Rector
1x Wild Research
1x Squee, Goblin Nabob
“You, mister Bond, have the nasty habit of surviving.”
“Well, that’s what they say about the fittest, don’t they?”
– James Bond in Octopussy
“Do you expect me to talk, Goldfinger?”
“No, Mister Bond. I expect you to die!”
– James Bond in a less-fortunate situation in Goldfinger
As you can deduct from the above quotes, even very skilled Survivalists can get into trouble sometimes (please don’t mention that Goldfinger is an older movie than Octopussy and that 007 thus must have survived the dreary situation). So expect trouble anyway, even when you’ve got a Hippo in play, for some people can look right through your marketing scams. Or some people just like to play some Living Plane/The Abyss/Plaguebearer-concoction. In those cases, you have to be able to beat those Goldfingers.
Luckily, Q has a whole bag of tricks for us to use. That bag of tricks is also known as The Toolbox, and was very often used in tournaments. But even though it’s hardly original, I’m going to play my own personal toolbox because it’s so damned effective. For those of you unfamiliar with the term ‘Toolbox,’ I will act like I invented gunpowder and explain each and every card choice in my toolbox to you like I had thought of it myself.
The following part is only for my mother and for other people who don’t know what’s meant by ‘Toolbox’:
The Toolbox is the nickname for a set of creatures, with special abilities, that can be found with the Survival at its controller’s whim. Because each and every wanted effect comes within an arm’s reach with this Survival of the Fittest-card, and each and every effect is perfectly suited for a specific situation, people got reminded of a toolbox when handling a deck like this. Hence the name.
Tools of destruction:
1x Monk Realist
1x Avalanche Riders
1x Bone Shredder
1x Uktabi Orangutan
1x Mystic Snake
As you can see, our deck is more versatile in destruction than a rocket launcher with a built-in microwave. We have a tool that is able to handle each type of card. In the past, sorceries and instants could still slip past this deck’s guard, but the Four Horsemen brought us this certain Snake that could take care of even those two types of cards. The Uktabi and the Avalanche Riders are the best in their profession. The Bone Shredder is a little suboptimal, but I already had all four of my Dark Hatchlings in another deck – and hey, the Shredder’s cheaper. That’s the same reason as for why I chose the Monk over the Cloudchaser Eagle. On any given day, I’d go with Franklin, the Eagle, but as I had already selected the Bone Shredder, I thought:”Let’s stay in the theme and pick the cheap and lousy one here, too.”
For every act of destruction, there is a repercussion – Karn, Silver Golem.
Listen to the old robotl he’s right. A toolbox filled with destruction might take you far, but it won’t take you all the way. So let’s also provide ourselves with some repair tools. My selection:
1x Cartographer
1x Monk Idealist
1x Radiant’s Dragoons
1x Hell’s Caretaker
No, nothing is lacking here. I didn’t miss Scrivener because I play no instants. For the same reason, I didn’t invite a Treasure Hunter or an Anarchist… And still these ones should do the trick. Cartographer is there because there is going to be land in the deck. Monk Idealist is there because there already are some enchantments in the deck. Radiant’s Dragoons is there because, sometimes, you lose some life. Or sometimes you feel threatened by a red mage with a Mana Flare and twelve lands in play. In cases like those, it might be a better idea to just gain some from the Dragoons a few times. That way you won’t have to waste the surprise element of a well-timed Mystic Snake. My pro for the Dragoons over the superior Spike Weaver is the fact that they give their gift without dying, which is going to be useful. For the echo isn’t going to bother us because of our creature-retrieval card: Hell’s Caretaker.
Boy, must that guy be a bad sleeper. He has a Recurring Nightmare each and every turn! (Insert canned laughter here.) But that’s why we put him in our deck, right? During your upkeep, tap him and switch two creatures, one living and one dead, in places. So sacrifice the Dragoons before paying their echo and bring back that Mystic Snake to punish that opponent who thought he could take advantage of your upkeep by playing spells. No really, this happened:
Opponent:”Stijn, during your upkeep, Orim’s Chant with kicker.”
Crowd:”Ribbit, Ribbit.”
(Go read my interlude about interlangual synonyms if you don’t understand this. It’s in my Corpse Dance article that should be in my archive somewhere. Oh, yeah, I still don’t have an archive. And the picture I sent in some months ago never saw my articles, either.)
Me:”Well, I think I’m going to activate my Survival and discard a Mystic Snake. I’ll put a ~ random creature ~ in my hand and then I guess I’ll just sacrifice a Wall of Blossoms to my Caretaker, bringing back the Mystic Snake.”
Crowd:”We love you, Stijn! You’re our hero!”
Storekeeper:”Stijn, this Mark R. guy just called, he told me the multiplayer Pro Tour is all settled and that you are qualified by rating. Have a free display box of Beta.”
Dude sitting next to me:”So after we’ve conquered this entire continent, do we march towards Asia or do we capture Africa first?”
Me:”Shut up, George W., I’m playing a game here. Just call me sometime, m’kay? And you, Tarantino, you go away too. I’ll send you my script by mail, alright? Miss Diaz may stay, though.”
So maybe only the first and third sentence are based on the truth… You’ll never know it for sure; the truth is out there.
Now my personal toolbox has an extra compartment; a compartment with the inscription ‘Decadence is a Virtue,’ in there are a whole lot of creatures that are included in the deck only once. They are creatures for the person who wants to be able to lay back and relax while playing multiplayer; creatures like Fountain Watch. No more worries about targeted removal targeting your precious enchantments. Or creatures like Spike Weaver. No more worries about large hordes of creatures roaming an opponent’s territory. Just lay back, take it easy, and play with the counters you put on your Weaver as a signal. Or creatures like Gilded Drake. No more worries about creatures with the regeneration ability, or about creatures that are black. Sometimes you even steal a good creature with it, like a Rhox or something.
And who is Gilded Drake’s bestest buddy? Indeed – Tradewind Rider. The Tradewind has somehow managed to domesticate the Gilded Drake, for each time I cast mine with a Tradewind on the board, the Drake returns home before my next untap step. And Tradewind is worthy enough of slots in the deck to be included, even without the Drake as company. It saves your permanents from imminent burial and it removes attackers from combat. It can even cripple a player who has been jinxed by the mana-gods. All in all, a Tradewind Rider just loosens the fundaments beneath any given strategy, be it for the long term or near future.
“Cartoons seldom go onto the air live. It’s a terrible strain on the animator’s wrist.” -Will the Simpsons ever cease to make me laugh?
The following luxury creature is my favorite elf. This elf is in almost all my green casual decks because of its superiority to all other mana elves when tempo isn’t an issue. I am talking about the Wood Elves. They look in your library once they come into play, and they don’t stop searching until they’ve found a forest, no matter what else is growing on that piece of land. They’re satisfied with a Forest in a Swamp, a Forest on a Mountain, with whatever! (I hope you catch my drift: They search for dual lands.) And that’s my first point in favor of these elves: They give mana of every color, plus green. My second point is that they’re still useful when they’re dead. A Bird of Paradise takes his mana with him to his grave, but a Wood Elf leaves his Forest for you to (ab)use. My third point is closely related to my second one: Casting a Wood Elves multiple times gives you multiple advantages. Casting a Llanowar Elves multiple times makes you the laughing stock of the group.
The only thing that might be not to be liked about these Elfi dei Boschi is their Exodus artwork… But since I am the proud owner of a complete set of Portal Wood Elves, even that disadvantage doesn’t keep me from playing with the Elf that costs three mana. Come to think of it, the Elf virtually only costs two mana, since the Tropical Island it brings can be tapped for mana right away. Final rant: It’s savage deck-thinning, just like Terminal Moraine.
Can you think of another luxury each player would want to have? I, for one, sure can. Being allowed to bury a target creature during each turn. By playing a creature that just goes tap/zap/toast. And that creature is Avatar of Woe (As if anybody didn’t know that). Isn’t it just a secure and comfortable feeling that you’re able to bury any creature at whim? Sure it is. So let’s include an Avatar des Leids, or an Avatar du Malheur. Or, in my case, a Korean one. (For some strange reason, I do have four Avatars, but none of them speak English. Luckily, I’m a multilingual European, so I can just say:”Mach Tod!””Sterf!” or:”Fais Morte!” instead of”Die! By my hand! I creep across….” You get the point.)
Now I have already told about instants and sorceries like Erase and Purify that hurt a little; that’s why we included Mystic Snake. But sometimes, a whole flow of threats is presented to you, or sometimes your Snake gets countered itself. In the most awkward situation, you might find yourself without any mana without any guilt to it yourself. In all of the above cases, there is a wizard that will help you out. Daring Apprentice just lies there, waiting for you to tap it for free, lovingly placing it in the graveyard and effectively clearing the stack from target unwanted spell. Without possibility for opponent’s to counter back because you didn’t counter with a spell. Sweet.
Almost as sweet as Phyrexian Plaguelord. Do you know why I list this bad boy in the ‘luxury’ section? Because I only play him because of his ability to sacrifice a creature to give a Bird of Paradise -1/-1 until end of turn. (Does he kill anything else, then?) Now why the hell is the ability to sack all your own permanents a luxury? Because then, and only then, you will have full theft insurance. Have you ever had your own face smashed by your own Morphling? (An opponent of mine once had! Hurrah for the Confiscate out of an Academy Rector!) Well, that sucks. Theft in general just sucks. You lose some, your opponent gains some. But when you’re playing with the Plaguelord, never fear again. Nobody will try and steal any of your creatures as this will only result in some sickness imbued to the best creature they control. Unless, of course, that creature is a Zephid… But we don’t get that here very often. Plaguelord also lets you emerge from the Living Death even stronger than before, and he saves your creatures from eternal damnation due to Swords to Plowshares or Excise. He turns their Exile into a mere funeral. And, well, he’s a large warm body to bring to the war, isn’t he?
Talking about large bodies, is 7/7 large enough for you? This number one from green’s multiplayer hall of fame is the Swiss bank account in ceature-land. (And it’s the only number one I agree on. White’s one should be Martyr’s Cause or Academy Rector, and black’s should be Phyrexian Plaguelord. Blue should see Reins of Power on one, and red, in my humble opinion, should see Goblin Bombardment or Bloodfire Colossus somewhere at the top. I mean, look at that Colossus! Would anybody dare touching it or it’s controller? They face retaliation with an Inferno. Six damage to everything. In a can. For only R! That is one huge stay-away sign. And it doubles as a creature that serves for six per turn.) Invest eight mana, or do a trick to get him into play, and you can watch the 1/1 saprolings stream in. Those tokens are there mainly to sacrifice to Hell’s Caretaker (Hell must be filled with saprolings by now), but they swarm opponents pretty effectively. They also chump like they were designed to do so, and they love hanging out with Phyrexian Plaguelord. They bow obediently to Tradewind Rider and are very willing to die for any other worthy cause that we might include in our deck. And there are going to be some nifty enchantments that eat creatures, as has been foretold when I was explaining Wild Research. There’s also going to be a creature that makes our Saprolings slightly more respectable in size…. But more on that later.
The Hell’s Caretaker has a pretty cool job. Imagine all the neat things you could do in such a position. You could switch the wrongfully executed with the delinquent who got away with it. You could switch the victim of the car accident with the one who caused it but survived. Or, in your free time, you could switch a lunatic in an asylum with Napoleon Bonaparte or Saint John and enjoy the groans of his caretakers when he tries to baptize them again, or when he tries to order them to invade Russia. Switch Jason Newstead and Cliff Burton. Or you could change Saddam Hussein with Hitler – they both have a moustache, so who will notice? You might consider changing Elvis with an impersonator and watching him get picked up by men in white coats. Switching your least favorite StarCity writer (should one exist) with Tolkien might also ease your life. And would it be cheating when you would change your own girlfriend with Helena of Troy? Change your father with J. D. Rockefeller? Change your baby brother into J. Vermeer, so that the drawings you get for your birthday will be actually worth something? Maybe you could change your own kid into Jesus, so that you retroactively become God… Or into Damien, if you feel evil.
But it isn’t all fun and games here at HellCare inc., for some employee keeps on building a better life by stealing office supplies. She keeps on taking away creatures from hell without putting anything back. The criminal has been identified as Reya Dawnbringer, the 4/6 flying beauty costed 6WWW. Why is she still employed by our deck, one might ask? Because she keeps on taking away creatures from hell without putting anything back. That’s good. That’s card advantage. Is there anything Magic related that is more fun than, during your upkeep, Dawnbringing a Wood Elves, search for a Beta Bayou (It’s not in such a perfect state as I would want it to be, but I’m still proud of it) and then sacrificing the Elves to bring back Arcades Sabboth? (You just missed yourself a 1/3 Wood Elves there, buster.) Yes there is. In fact, there are a whole big lot of things more fun to do in Magic. But hey, I’m just being all rhetorical and stuff.
You know what? I’m through with the creature toolbox. I also have an enchantment toolbox… But I like to refer to that as ‘tech’ instead. And some of the one-off creatures aren’t revealed yet, either, but that’s because they are only in the deck in service of the ‘tech,’ and not because they mimic some kind of tool. Not even a decadent one. (Can you think of decadent tools anyway? I think a honey dripper comes close. As does a Gamba-fork.) But because it has already been quite a while since I gave you a short list, I’ll do so now. 25 Different cards down, 27 to go. But don’t quit reading in disgust yet; nine of them are lands.
El listo:
1x Fountain Watch
1x Spike Weaver
1x Drakôn Clinquant
1x Tradewind Rider
1x Wood Elves
1x Avatar des Leids
1x Daring Apprentice
1x Phyrexian Plaguelord
1x Force Verdoyante
1x Reya Dawnbringer
Some of my readers might wonder why I am building this deck. If I’m not building it to use Survival of the Fittest or Wild Research, then why am I? It is not just a rhyme without a reason. I built it to use one little combo I thought of: The combo involves two enchantments and a creature. Now, which creature would it be? I’m telling you it has a whole load of abilities and that I have already mentioned and discussed it. Right, the Phelddagrif. Now what combo could be pulled of with that Garfield Ph. D.? Could you make an opponent overconfident by giving him infinite life… And then use Mirror Universe? The sharp and alert reader will know that’s not it, for there was no Treasure Hunter in my toolbox to retrieve lost Mirrors with. Could I fool an opponent into quick decking by letting him draw as many cards as he would want with the blue ability? Or could I play Dingus Staff and Earthquake to harm any player who accepted my tokens? Well, it is going to be about the tokens.
I was once wondering whether or not I could create a lock that causes every opponent to never draw a new card again. I did find one, and it was Chains of Mephistopheles combined with Anvil of Bogardan. I was very fond of my find… But since I didn’t own any Chains yet, and because the combo didn’t also clear an opponent’s hand, I kept on thinking. I had to act during their draw step, after their draw. Only Funeral Charm is legal discard then, but recurring Funeral Charms over and over again would be more complicated than it would be beneficial. Isn’t there a triggered effect that causes discard, which I can trigger during their draw?
Yes there is – and it’s called Bereavement. This 1B enchantment from Urza’s Saga lets one slough a card when a green creature put into a graveyard. And the Hippo gives away green creatures at instant speed, right? So now our only task is to kill those tokens upon conception. With Aether Flash. Pay G, give an opponent a token, watch the token receive lethal damage from the Flash, and remind the former token controller of the Bereavement he once shrugged at because he didn’t play green. This makes Questing Phelddagrif read:”G: Questing Phelddagrif gains +1/+1 until end of turn. Target opponent chooses and discards a card.” Which, I think, is an improvement. Get this trick onto the table and each of your opponents empty their hands and never see a new card again. Only instants can be played – but due to the Fountain Watch we’re not fearing them, and due to a trick that is to follow we’re not fearing Terrors either.
What’s the flip side of this medal? Right; the Aether Flash interferes with our happy Wood Elves recursion, our carefree Mystic Snakeries, and our troubleless Daring Apprentice castings. And it doesn’t interfere by creating beautiful wave patterns like you get to see in physics class, but by killing. So how do we shield our creatures from the Flash? We’d rather not have it costing any mana, like with using Crimson Acolyte. The Phelddagrif trick already eats G per opponent per turn, and starting the trick by stripping their hands costs even more. How else do we give protection from red, then? Absolute Law is out of the question, as it shields our opponent’s tokens as well, ruining the trick. So I got to think of creature boosters. Castle works well. Untapped creatures you control get +0/+2 as long as they are not attacking. Sounds fine with me. So why am I not using it? Because there is a creature that carries a Castle around. A huge one, as creatures that carry Castles around ought to be. Enter Arcades Sabboth, one of the brothers of Nicol Bolas, cousin of Vaevictis Asmadi and full time Elder Dragon Legend.
2WWUUGG
Creature – Elder Dragon Legend
Flying.
Creatures you control get +0/+2 as long as they are not attacking.
W: +0/+1 until end of turn.
During your upkeep, you may choose to pay WUG. If you don’t, sacrifice Arcades Sabboth.
7/7
So this is basically a 7/9 beast that serves through the air for seven and drastically increases our own defense. Verdant Saprolings become like Bottle Gnomes in power and toughness, Mystic Snake becomes eerily similar to Simian Grunts without echo. Hell’s Caretaker doesn’t die upon entry anymore, and Spike Weaver survives when he has puffed his last bit of fog. Now this might not be good, for now we can’t bring him back from the dead to gain three new counters… But just attack with him and he’ll die. Or sacrifice him to the amazing Phyrexian Plaguelord. Feed him to the Caretaker. The possibilities are endless.
For those of you who are still able to recollect what I was saying two paragraphs ago, I am now going to tell you about the other trick I mentioned; the one that soothed our fear of the involuntarily targeting of our creatures. It involves a card that I loved the moment I saw it. Unnatural Selection. Even unmodified, this is a very good enchantment. Let me give you some examples from real life. But remember, these examples are here for the sole purpose of demonstrating the Selection’s power, not for showing some of my incredible and superior play skill:
“Look, I’m casting my third Necravolver with both kickers! And I’m sending the two other ones to you, Stijn!”
“But Stef, aren’t those legends?”
“D’oh!”
“Mwoo hah hah! Extinction on Avatars! Eat that with that fancy Korean Avatar of yours, Stijn.”
“But Paul, that’s not an Avatar, that’s my Uncle Istvan. Those creatures of yours, however, look frightfully much like Avatars.”
“D’oh!”
(This wasn’t really stupid of Paul; I responded to the Extinction by sacrificing a Rector to a Plaguelord, finding the Selection.)
“Hey look! Stijn made a mistake. He is casting his Reya while I have mine in play.”
“But Wiek, your Reya turns into a mere Headless Horseman, while mine is still on the stack. Now wave her goodbye at end of turn when she tries to ascend to legend again.”
“D’oh!”
Enhancements can come from unwary opponents:
“Look, I drew an Elvish Champion. Now my army suddenly becomes a lot more impressive, doesn’t it? Kill you, Stijn, you have forests.”
“Yes, I have forests. But Ferry, doesn’t Elvish Champion only enhance Elves? Those creatures of yours are all Ali Babas! I’ll just block them to death.”
“D’oh!”
“On my turn, attack you with Arcades Sabboth, who is an elf.”
“D’oh!”
Now for some enhancements of our own:
“You sure you don’t have a Plaguelord out yet, Stijn? Anything else that eats permanents at instant speed then? No? Treachery! Your Dawnbringer joins the dark side, my side.”
“But ~ dude I have never seen before but who still knows my name ~, please do not try to steal a Sliver of mine, for I also have a Crystalline one. And Reya is a Sliver indeed.”
“D’oh!”
“I’ve got you now, Stijn: This Maze of Ith will hold off your only creature capable of attacking. That annoying Coalition Honor Guard.”
“But Niels, that’s not a flagbearer, those are townsfolk. My Wall of Blossoms, on the other hand, sure looks like he’s carrying a flag (what else is the hand in the picture for?). I’ll charge with both.”
“D’oh!”
(Putting Spike counters on your Wall of Blossoms might catch opponents off guard when you suddenly attack with your large walls.)
“Why didn’t you bounce your Uktabi to destroy this Nevinyrral’s Disk, Stijn? Now it’s too late, I’m going to pop it.”
“Well, do you notice how all of my creatures grow long and pointy teeth? That’s because they turned into Vampires. And this Baron Sengir becomes one himself, too. (Now I’m doing some weird trick with untapping the Baron I have yet to explain.) I tap my Baron to regenerate all my creatures, and presto, all my creatures have regeneration bubbles! Thanks for casting Plague Wind for me, Youri.”
“D’oh!”
No further explanation of the Selection will be needed. The three enhancers I’ve included are indeed Crystalline Sliver, Coalition Honor Guard, and Baron Sengir. Is a 5/5 flying, double-bloodsucking enhancement good enough for you?
Other enchantments I found useful enough to include are Martyr’s Cause, Black Market, Tortured Existence, and Sadistic Glee. The Cause is an excellent card for protection: It protects creatures, it protects yourself, and it guarantees that you can kill your own creatures whenever you want. The Black Market gives you a whole big lot of mana. Usually, you have around eighteen counters on it within three turns – and when you don’t need the mana, just use the mana sinks that this deck provides. Those are Unnatural Selection and Tortured Existence. And remember to put a counter on your Black Market when you use the Phelddagrif trick again. Or when you activate the Caretaker. Or when a creature dies in some attack step you’re not even involved in. There are so many creatures dying when you pay attention to it.
Black Market also doubles as our Obliterate-Insurance. Does the world end? Don’t go and tempt fate between your wrist and razor! Your Black Market gives you mana to activate Tortured Existence to retrieve your black creatures with which to dominate the world. After an Obliterate, a single Phyrexian Plaguelord, an Avatar of Woe, and a Baron Sengir should win you the game… Especially when the former gets traded by Hell’s Caretaker for a Reya Dawnbringer. Where other decks of mine had Obliterate as their only fear, this deck fears nothing.
Creatures die by the dozen. And therefore, Sadistic Glee is a very good enchantment to put on your Spike Weaver. Creature dying? That’s another fog for us to use, or counter for us to move to another creature. (Counter moving with a Spike is also mana sinking for the Black Market. Just move the counter to the Spike itself.) I once put the Glee – or in my case, the Schadenfreude – on Questing Phelddagrif with only an Aether Flash in play as part of the trick. But I sure didn’t mind my Hippo getting +2/+2 for each green mana I spent. And I certainly didn’t mind that half of that +2/+2 would be permanent. My opponents did mind, however, so I had to give them two life to counter that Dark Banishing.
Tortured Existence is in the deck to replace Oath of Ghouls. I started out with the Oath, but found that too many an opponent mised some free goodies with this, so I looked for another way to retrieve lost creatures and ended my search when I found this enchantment in my Corpse Dance deck. I used it in that deck to order the graveyard as I wanted; that’s going to be an issue in this deck too, but more on that later. For now, it is only included to discard Squee to, retrieving the creature of your choice from Midian.
Eater of the Dead used to be in the deck to cause other players to not be able to Oath effectively… But when the Oath of Ghouls got downsized, the Eater stayed. He had proved himself not only useful in combination with the Oath, but he also ate opposing Squees, ruined opposing Living Deaths, and was, in general, just good enough to stay. But now that I have added a new creature to this deck, the Eater shines again, even surpassing his former glory. What might this new creature be? What creatures loves to see another creature untap with almost no strings attached? Probably Tradewind Rider, but that’s not quite an awesome combo. Llanowar Behemoth? Quite lame, too. Shall I keep on giving wrong answers or shall I just tell you the new creature is Volrath’s Shapeshifter?
I’ll go with the latter: The new creature is Volrath’s Shapeshifter.
When someone who will not be mentioned by name played a Desolation Angel with an Armadillo Cloak on it while everyone only controlled one or two creatures, I for one only had a Tortured Existence and a Shapeshifter left in play. But I did tap two black mana into my mana pool, activating my Existence to put some creature from the bottom of my graveyard back on top of it. It was the Dawnbringer. And then, when creation froze with the triumph of death, my Shapeshifter stirred and Reya awoke, bereft of concerns safe for the aeons left to lead my armies…
That creature is amazing. It is Reya, Dawnbringer to bring back the Dawnbringer. It is Uktabi Orangutan when it comes into play and changes into Fountain Watch when an opponent tries to Dismantling Blow your Unnatural Selection with Kicker. It attacks as a Tradewind Rider with flying, but after blockers are declared it changes into Verdant Force to deal seven instead of one damage. And throughout your opponents’ turns it remains that same force, so that it can squeeze out tokens. Or it instantly changes into Arcades Sabboth after a well-calculated Fault Line was put on the stack. And how do we change our Shapeshifter into all those entities? With Survival of the Fittest and Tortured Existence.
When I tell you that the last one-of creature in the deck is Seeker of Skybreak, some of you will already see what I am about to explain to those of you who didn’t immediately grasp it. This is called: the weird untapping trick, as mentioned in the Baron Sengir/Unnatural Selection jest.
Step one: Your Shapeshifter is an Eater of the Dead. Put as many untaps on the stack as you want/can/desire.
Step two: Before any of the untaps resolve, change your Shapeshifter into Seeker of Skybreak with Tortured Existence.
Step three: Untap a creature of your choice (say, Avatar of Woe. Or Baron Sengir) and let the next Eater untap that is on the stack resolve.
Step four: Repeat step three until all untaps are done.
Step five: Rejoice.
This trick gives you the opportunity to untap any of your creatures as many times as you would want, given that there are enough creatures in the graveyard. But never fear; Avatar of Woe puts a lot of creatures there. The beauty of it all is that it doesn’t even cost us any land, because the Tortured Existence can be activated with illegal mana we got at the Black Market.
When you haven’t got a creature you would want to untap in play yet, you can also just let the Shapeshifter become that creature. That way you won’t be needing the Seeker of Skybreak link of the chain.
This trick buries creatures for each creature that is in the graveyard at a one-on-one rate. It regenerates Vampires at a one-on-one rate. It activates Hell’s Caretaker at the same cheap rate, which can be very useful. Think of the”come into play” effects you could activate over and over again.
“During my upkeep, I’ll sacrifice Wood Elves to return Radiant’s Dragoons, and then again but vice versa. Then the entire thing again, and that four times. I’ll look for four dual lands in my deck and gain twenty life. No, I’m going to draw a card in my draw step.”
The trick even bounces a permanent at a one-on-three rate, for the activation of Tradewind Rider causes two other creatures to tap as well. But hey, when there are twenty creatures in all graveyards and your only opponent left has seven lands, it might be worth the laugh, right? Especially when you then proceed to force him to discard said lands to a Phelddagrif that causes a certain Spike to smile sadistically.
This is also your ticket to gain instant creatures on the board. Well, it doesn’t actually gain you creatures, but it causes an appearance of them to hit play for a while. When you find yourself in trouble, menaced by a lean, mean Archangel, then suddenly your Shapeshifter might change into Bone Shredder, block the Archangel, and then change into Verdant Force to deal seven damage to the Angel when damage hits the stack. Or changing into Baron Sengir and then transferring a Spike counter to it might also be a good idea, since the Baron will then get a +2/+2 counter of himself, granting a total bonus of +3/+3 for all eternity.
But the most disappointing for an opponent might be the fact that you can now also counter with only one mana available. See a spell that absolutely fabulously crushes you? Then discard Daring Apprentice to Survival of the Fittest and counter the spell with your Daring Shapeshifter. True, this does cost you your Shapeshifter, but once in a while we all have to take one for the team, and Reya or the Caretaker will most probably look unto the Shapeshifter with great kindness.
Or, when you already have your Daring Apprentice in play, people expect you to be able to counter twice: Once with the Apprentice and twice with the Mystic Snake that everybody knows that is in your deck. Try to remember the looks on their faces when you counter thrice by sacrificing your Daring Shifter. That often makes for great stories at someone’s wedding or something.
Summarized list of tech:
1x Aether Flash
1x Bereavement
1x Arcades Sabboth
1x Unnatural Selection
1x Crystalline Sliver
1x Coalition Honor Guard
1x Baron Sengir
1x Tortured Existence
1x Schadenfreude
1x Black Market
1x Fall des Märtyres
1x Eater of the Dead
1x Volrath’s Shapeshifter
1x Seeker of Skybreak
Almost through. We’re only missing a few things, but those things go without explanation. They are:
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Regrowth
1x Gaea’s Blessing
4x Wall of Blossoms
In this deck, the walls are especially useful since they are a creature card that can be discarded when drawn. One Gaea’s Blessing is also enough. Should you draw it then, just counter or destroy all Altars of Dementia, Whetstones, or other millers on sight. It is mostly just there so that you can use Oath of Druids with a comfortable feeling.
Now for the mana base of this land. There isn’t really much that can be told about a mana base for I guess that everybody grasps all the concepts involved. For this deck, however, I chose to include as much forests as possible so that my Wood Elves couldn’t only go to town, but to the big city, too. So the core is:
4x Savannah
4x Bayou
4x Taiga
4x Tropical Island
This is complemented by 2x Tundra, since white and blue mana often seemed pretty useful to me, my Mystic Snake, and Phelddagrif. And speaking of the Phelddagrif, there is a lair that gives all three of his colors in mana. That lair has been dubbed Treva’s Ruins, mostly because it is called like that. That is also included twice. And to not look like a complete fool when everybody is happily searching their libraries for basic land to celebrate the death of a Veteran Explorer, I have even included two basic Forests. Yes, the existence of Veteran Explorer is the only reason I included these basics. Had he not existed, I would have included some Invasion Duals, some more Regular Duals, or some Mirage Fetchers. Or maybe a Yavimaya Hollow and a Kor Haven. Or a Keldon Necropolis. But not basic lands. Those are for the poor or for the people who like to play Limited (oh, wait – that’s me, too). No, seriously, in multiplayer you don’t have to fear stuff like Wasteland or Price of Progress. The only non-basic hate I ever encountered was a Back to Basics, but that just got bounced by Tradewind and then countered upon reentry.
To round out the color requirements and just smooth the mana base in general, four Reflecting Pools and four Thran Quarries were added. Do you know that feeling of a first turn Taiga, second turn Bayou + Wall of Blossoms, third turn Tropical Island + Wood Elves, looking for a Savannah, fourth turn Reflecting Pool so that you have five lands on turn four, with the ability to produce GGGGG, WUBRG or more simple things like 3BB and 1WUB? That feels great.
And on the Quarry: There is no risk in playing Thran Quarry in multiplayer, for if all your creatures die you’re losing anyway and the loss of a single land should not be mourned too extensively in such a case. But this deck has never lost so far, so I still live with the happy assumption that Thran Quarry is a City of Brass where all mana is free. Now let us count how many pages long the final deck list is:
2x Survival of the Fittest
1x Phelddagrif
1x Questing Phelddagrif
4x Academy Rector
1x Wild Research
1x Squee, Goblin Nabob
1x Monk Realist
1x Avalanche Riders
1x Bone Shredder
1x Uktabi Orangutan
1x Mystic Snake
1x Cartographer
1x Monk Idealist
1x Radiant’s Dragoons
1x Hell’s Caretaker
1x Fountain Watch
1x Spike Weaver
1x Drakôn Clinquant
1x Tradewind Rider
1x Wood Elves
1x Avatar des Leids
1x Daring Apprentice
1x Phyrexian Plaguelord
1x Force Verdoyante
1x Reya Dawnbringer
1x Aether Flash
1x Bereavement
1x Arcades Sabboth
1x Unnatural Selection
1x Crystalline Sliver
1x Coalition Honor Guard
1x Baron Sengir
1x Tortured Existence
1x Schadenfreude
1x Black Market
1x Fall des Märtyres
1x Eater of the Dead
1x Volrath’s Shapeshifter
1x Seeker of Skybreak
1x Regrowth
1x Dämonischer Lehrmeister
1x Bénediction selon Gaea
4x Wall of Blossoms
4x Reflecting Pool
4x Thran Quarry
2x Treva’s Ruins
2x Tundra
4x Bayou
4x Tropical Island
4x Savannah
4x Taiga
2x Forest
Almost a full page of words: So when you’re printing this, you will spend well more than one sheet of paper on the list alone. Just wait until your boss finds out that you’re printing this kind of stuff during work.
Now I’m done with this deck, so I’ll just quit the article too. It is already very freaking long, and I salute anybody who made it this far: You are a true hero. I’ll be writing again as soon as I have built up enough courage again.
Emperial Regards,
Stijn van Dongen,
Team RVWM
* – Now why does my spellchecker not know this word? **
** – That was a long scroll down, wasn’t it? Now don’t get scared away by the length of this article, for as you may have seen it contains a lot of lists which are free for you to skip reading because those are only for the ones whose mind is plagued by the forgetfulness that comes with age.