Wednesday brings with it cards and flowers and bees and freakish cold weather here in Michigan. It also brings the third installment of this week’s daily series with a new deck every day.
This week I’ve been selecting cards from Magic completely at random. I roll dice to determine the expansion set, and then roll in that set to see what card is picked. So far we’ve had a deck built around Clockwork Swarm and a deck around Orcish Mechanics. What will today’s roll of the dice bring?
I grab my trusty purple and orange dice. I roll on my desk and get…
Well, the purple die shows a 4, but the Orange die fell on the floor, so I pick up the orange die and roll a 0. [What happened to the Heroclix Rules you mentioned on Monday? – Craig]
A roll of a 40 is the twentieth expansion set. What is expansion set 20? Prophecy.
I roll card number 58, alphabetically, which is… Keldon Battlewagon. Alright, so my goal today will be to get the biggest, most powerful Keldon Battlewagon you’ve ever seen. Let’s go:
Creatures (23)
- 4 Priest of Titania
- 4 Timberwatch Elf
- 4 Seeker of Skybreak
- 3 Ambush Commander
- 2 Tribal Forcemage
- 4 Keldon Battlewagon
- 2 Nantuko Mentor
Lands (24)
- 22 Forest
- 2 Gaea's Cradle
Spells (13)
Okay, let’s take a look at this deck. First, note that one of the keys of this deck is a little Keldon Battlewagon trick. You can tap the Battlewagon to pump itself. Attack with a Battlewagon, untap it with a Seeker, then tap it to double its size. That alone will make it quite powerful.
Timberwatch Elf is a great mana-free way to pump your Battlewagon. The deck already has a lot of elves in it, but if Ambush Commander is in play, the Timberwatch alone will be crazy.
Mobilize and Vitalize will allow you to untap all of your creatures and make the Battlewagon even bigger. Remember to tap the Battlewagon for itself.
Blanchwood Armor is a great enchantment prior to going off in order to give the Battlewagon a nice base power.
You won’t have too much mana when you go off, unless you have a Cradle or Priest in play. As such, you may have to use only Vitalize, Mobilize, and Berserks, cheap pump spells, on the “go off” turn.
If you do have access to actual mana from Cradle and/or Priest, you can use the Nantuko Mentor’s ability several times to seriously pump the Battlewagon to amazing heights.
Tribal Forcemage is a great flip early in the “go off” turn to raise the heights of your creatures.
Let’s take a look at a few scenarios.
Suppose it is the fifth or sixth turn of a game. You have out:
1 Battlewagon
1 Seeker of Skybreak
1 Priest of Titania
1 Timberwatch Elf
5 Forests
In hand you have a pair of Vitalize or Mobilize.
This is not a great situation. Obviously you could be in a much better position. However, let’s get cracking.
Tap the Timberwatch to pump the Battlewagon. Tap the Priest to do likewise. Tap the Battlewagon to pump itself. Untap it with a Seeker and pump itself again. Everything is tapped, Battlewagon is at 16 power.
Cast Mobilize
Tap the Timberwatch and Priest. Tap the Battlewagon, untap, and tap. Total power – 80.
Cast Vitalize.
Tap the Timberwatch and Priest. Tap the Battlewagon. Untap. Tap to attack. Total power when attacking: 168 power with trample.
And that was a minor group of creatures out. Suppose it’s a few turns later:
1 Battlewagon
1 Ambush Commander
1 Seeker of Skybreak
1 Nantuko Mentor
1 Priest of Titania
1 Timberwatch Elf
6 Forests
In hand: 2 Vitalize.
Tap the Timberwatch to give the Battlewagon +10. Tap the Priest for 10 mana. Tap the Ambush Commander and six Forest Elves for +8 power. Tap the Mentor to double the Battlewagon’s power. Tap the Wagon to double its power, untap the wagon with a Seeker, tap again.
After one round, 7 Green mana in pool, Battlewagon is at 144 power. Cast Vitalize.
Repeat except this time you tap the Priest for power instead of mana. 1304 power and 3 mana. Cast Vitalize again.
Repeat. This time you untap the Battlewagon with the Seeker and leave it untapped so you can attack. What do you have?
5292 power trampling creature of doom.
That’s a big creature.
In the above scenario, what if you had one more Seeker of Skybreak in play? 42336 power! An extra Vitalize or Mobilize? 338832 power!
2 Timberwatch Elves
2 Seekers
1 Nantuko Mentor
1 Priest of Titania
1 Ambush Commander
1 Blanchwood Armor already on the Battlewagon
6 Forests
2,634,496 power.
That’s right, over two million power. Raise your hand if you want to play the highest power creature ever seen in your life.
I’m sure several of you will enjoy this random deck. Heh, if all of my random decks turned out this well, I’d be the best deck builder this side of Tsuyoshi Fujita. Of course, I’m not, so you can figure the normal quality of my decks.
Until Later,
Abe Sargent
[Any mistakes in the math are purely down to Abe… I’ll not lie, this one broke my brain. – Craig]