Hello again, friends old and new. Our daily dosage of deck has almost passed, but before it is gone completely, we have one last entry. This week, we’ve looked at a bad rare deck, an online friendly Culling Sun deck, an old school fish deck, and even a lost precon. What’s missing from this list?
On my Friday dailies I like to see if there are any holes during the week that I failed to fill. We have old decks and new, Johnny decks and Timmy decks, online and offline, quirky fun decks and more hard decks. That doesn’t leave much of an opening.
That means I can do pretty much anything I want for today’s article. I’ve decided, just on the spur of things, to write a deck trying to win through one of the alternate winning conditions. I’ve done Coalition Victory and Test of Endurance before, so let’s try something else. I’m skipping Battle of Wits because it would take too long for a daily article. I am going to roll randomly on the following chart:
1 — Poison Counters
2 — Phage the Untouchable
3 — Mortal Combat
4 — Chance Encounter
5 — Epic Struggle
6 — Darksteel Reactor
7 — The Cheese Stands Alone
8 — Now I Know My ABCs
I have my trusty d8 in my hand. It’s a throwback to my Dungeons and Dragons days. I roll and get a…
1 — Poison Counters
Now I need to build a Poison Counter deck, which I don’t believe that I’ve ever done. Let’s take a look at a few key cards to this strategy:
Marsh Viper — This very poisonous creature gives an opponent two poison counters. We simply have to play it.
Sabertooth Cobra — This creature gives one counter, and delivers a second if a player does not pay mana.
What can we do with this, hmm?
This deck tries to kill people by shooting them with poison counters instead of attacking with creatures. Play a Marsh Viper, and then slap on a Hermetic Study or Psionic Gift. Tap to deal one damage to a player and give two poison counters. Then untap with a Puppeteer, Alchemist, or Seeker, and do it again. Untap and do it a third time. On your next turn, tap, then untap and tap, and you can kill with poison counters very quickly.
Let’s break it down:
Eight cards in this deck allow a creature to tap to deal a point of damage to a creature or player. That gives you eight chances to draw one of these cards.
Eight creatures give multiple poison counters. That gives you eight chances to draw a critical creature. The Cobra usually only gives one counter unless the player doesn’t spend two mana; in which case it gives two counters. However, if you can hit with it multiple times, the likelihood of mana being spent diminishes significantly, as players are less likely to have increasing amounts of mana available.
Twelve creatures can tap in order to untap one of your creatures. This allows you to have multiple ways of untapping a key creature in order to kill a player.
Those are the three combo elements of the deck, and all such elements are in large amounts.
To support this deck, we have Naturalize. Among other things, Naturalize will take out the rare but occasional Ivory Mask, which would shut this deck down. It also goes after Platinum Angel or other enchantments and artifacts that interfere with the plan.
I added a pair of Muddle the Mixture to this mix. You can use it to counter the occasional spell that would otherwise end your plans — like a removal spell, for example. However, its primary purpose is to tutor for several things — a creature that taps to untap, an enchantment that allows a creature to tap for damage, or a Naturalize. You never know when the plan does not resolve itself quickly, and it’s nice to have a tutor.
Serpent Generator is the backup plan. It can spit out creatures to overwhelm an opponent, its tokens can also tap to deal damage and give a poison counter, and an attack by several could supplement previous poison counters your opponent gained.
I always hated the poison counter decks that used Tawnos’s Wand or Dwarven Warriors to make a Pit Scorpion unblockable. If your path to victory relies on attacking in ten different combat phases, then that’s a pretty awkward path to tread.
Think about it this way: if I attack with a 2/1 for ten straight turns, and make that 2/1 unblockable, I’ll deal twenty points of damage and likely win. Or, I could attack with a 1/1 Pit Scoprion or Swamp Mosquito ten times and win. There’s no advantage there. In fact, I could attack with, say, Murk Dwellers, with Tawnos’s Wand, and hit just five times, for twenty damage. Alternatively, I could just play Guiltfeeder.
That’s probably why I have never built a poison counter deck before. It’s just always seemed so futile. However, here we have a way of killing in just two or three turns with poison counters. That’s much better, I think.
I hope that you have enjoyed today’s deck. I fact, I hope you’ve enjoyed our entire daily trek through deckland. I’ll see you soon!
Until Later,
Abe Sargent