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OBC: Cat Stone and Some Raw Ideas

Right before the tournament, I ended up swapping the Piannas with Lt. Kirtars in my WW/g deck… And was darn glad I did, since Kamikaze Kirtar was gobbling up Wild Mongrels all day long. I’ve also come to the conclusion that Glory is insane and that any white-based deck should run four of them.

Poor Sean McKeown. I know he holds himself up at the pinnacle of the non-pro tech chain, but sometimes he’s so… Two weeks ago. In this week’s article about new Type 2 Tog over on Brainburst, he gushes over the chance to remove Fact or Fictions from the graveyard with Tog so that he can Wish for them.


Sound familiar?


So just think, Gentle Reader – you heard about that tech nugget back in June right here at Star City! Who needs Brainburst Premium, anyhow?


Last weekend’s OBC tournament went fairly well, with another diverse field of decks and the top 2 offering a monogreen beatdown deck and UZI (Upheaval/Zombie Infestation). My White Weenie/splash green deck performed well, only losing to the UZI deck in the Swiss and eventually falling to quick insane Overrun draws by the monogreen deck in the semis. Yes, Virginia – you ought to pack Moment’s Peace if you’ve got green mana handy.


Right before the tournament I ended up swapping the Piannas with Lt. Kirtars… And was darn glad I did, since Kamikaze Kirtar was gobbling up Wild Mongrels all day long. I’ve also come to the conclusion that Glory is insane (duh) and that any white-based deck should run four of them.


Lastly, I decided that Tireless Tribe was just not worth playing even for the sake of mana curve, so I added back in a third Genesis and a 24th land. Here’s what I played:


WW/g circa 7/6/02

4 Suntail Hawk

4 Benevolent Bodyguard

4 Patrol Hound

4 Wild Mongrel

4 Anurid Brushhopper

2 Lt. Kirtar

4 Battle Screech

4 Divine Sacrament

3 Glory

3 Genesis

4 Sungrass Prairie

8 Forest

12 Plains


Sideboard:

4 Dogged Hunter

4 Morningtide

2 Ray of Revelation

2 Solitary Confinement

3 Phantom Nantuko


I have to say that I’m still very impressed with the deck’s power and performance. It can completely devastate someone who has a slow draw. It’s still a deck in need of further refinement and tuning – especially the sideboard – but it’s close. So close. So, after lessons learned and some more thinking on the environment, here’s the current build I’m testing:


WW/g circa 7/12/02

4 Suntail Hawk

4 Benevolent Bodyguard

4 Patrol Hound

4 Wild Mongrel

4 Anurid Brushhopper

2 Lt. Kirtar

4 Battle Screech

4 Divine Sacrament

4 Glory

2 Living Wish

4 Sungrass Prairie

7 Forest

13 Plains


Sideboard:

1 Phantom Nantuko

1 Genesis

4 Dogged Hunter

4 Morningtide

3 Moment’s Peace

2 Aven Cloudchaser


I decided to try Living Wish in place of the two maindeck Genesis, since Genesis is more of a late game card and I may need to get a Dogged Hunter, Phantom Nantuko, or Cloudchaser instead. The Phantom Nantukos I played last week were great defense against early beatdown – and then later, you could grow one to rather large proportions. Since I’m running two Wishes in the main, I think I can get away with just one in the board.


In Elliot Fertik’s Origins deck (thank God for the Ferrett, else those of us unable to attend would be just about completely in the dark about the happenings there), he presented his deck with maindeck Catalyst Stones. Undeniably, the Stones are powerful additions to power up flashback-centered decks as well as to combat them. The problem is when your opponent is packing them, too, and it becomes a game of Who’s Got the Stone? Is OBC going to degenerate into a contest of Stone Advantage? Hopefully not. But as I started thinking about decks that would also like to run Catalyst Stones in the maindeck, other than the obviously blue/green builds, a pet favorite card leapt out at me:


Recoup!


Hm… Thinking back to my Millikin Burning deck from my Off the Beaten Path for OBC column, I decided to put together a B/R Recoup deck to better take advantage of the early removal of Blood and Edict. Here’s a very rough first pass at it:


Blood from the Stone (B/R)

4x Catalyst Stone

4x Recoup

3x Burning Wish

4x Innocent Blood

4x Chainer’s Edict

3x Tainted Pact

4x Browbeat

4x Breaking Point

3x Magnivore

3x Firecat Blitz

4x Shadowblood Ridge

4x Tainted Peak

7x Mountain

9x Swamp


There’s another OBC card that’s been buzzing around in the back of my head too – Flash of Insight. Yeah, the first time you cast it is terrible, but when it’s sitting in a graveyard chock full of blue spells it becomes quite the digger. Seems to me it would be a great way to search for combo pieces, and what better combo exists in OBC than Wrath/Geddon/Hatred?


Insightful UZI

4x Mental Note

4x Peek

4x Deep Analysis

3x Flash of Insight

4x Aether Burst

4x Syncopate

4x Circular Logic

2x Cunning Wish

4x Zombie Infestation

3x Upheaval

4x Darkwater Catacombs

4x Swamp

16x Island


I think Zombie Infestation is a better combo choice for Upheaval than Tog since firing off an Insight or two will pretty much drain your graveyard of Tog Food. Again, this is a very rough decklist put together to see if the concept works – and at first pass it seems like there’s some promise here. Upheaval is such a ridiculously overpowered card; this engine might be able to set it up pretty darn fast.


So there you go, folks – one OBC deck that is in the fine-tuning stages, and a couple of raw ideas for the deckbuilders out there to chew on. If you do play or develop these decks please drop me a line and let me know how they run for you.