It is the final installment of the latest Deck a Day series, where we build decks like kids build with blocks, or something like that.
Anyway, this week I’ve been randomly rolling expansion sets and then randomly rolling cards in those expansion sets. I’ve rolled Ice Age, Prophecy, Antiquities and Homelands. Let’s wee what we get today.
60 – The thirtieth expansion set…
Mirrodin.
I roll a six, which indicates that the chosen card will be in the second one hundred cards, so between 100-199. I then roll an 80, so this will be card 180 alphabetically in Mirrodin.
Promise of Power. By power, that’s actually the best card I rolled all week. It’s disappointingly powerful.
Obviously, this is going to need to be a very Black deck. What I want to avoid is turning this into a traditional Mono-Black Control deck. Even traditional MBC casual decks look very similar to one another. There’s only so many Visaras, Avatars of Woe, Nantuko Shades, Cabal Coffers, and Consume Spirits that one can play before seeing the same deck over and over. I want to stay away from that.
Still, it’s a hard card to play unless you are playing control, right? Right?
I figure that Promise of Power would be a fine card drawing spell in order to reload and keep a highly aggressive deck in the game. In this deck, you have twelve cards with possible first turn plays – eight 2/2 creatures or Dark Ritual into a Hypnotic Specter or Dauthi Marauder. All of these set up more creatures at the two spot (twelve more, to be exact, including eight two power shadow creatures and four Black Knight). This deck plays very aggressively, and uses Promise of Power to continue the pressure until an opponent explodes.
Well, that didn’t take very long. And here is why you don’t see me build aggro decks very often. They are too easy and quick to write up. This deck does the following:
Turn 1: Play a 2/2 or Ritual into Specter or Marauder.
Turn 2: Play two turn 1 cards, play one of twelve two-drops, or Ritual into a pair of two-drops.
Turn 3: Play any combination of one- and two- drops, or drop one of eight three-drops.
Turn 4: Empty hand of any threats left.
Turn 5: Play Promise of Power to reload hand.
Future Turns: Drop threats as fast as you draw them.
That’s pretty simple, and there’s little variation except against Wrath of God boy, when you hold back creatures. Otherwise, you are all about the creatures. Even this breakdown only added a few extra lines to the article.
That means I need to do one of three things. Build another deck with Promise of Power. Write more. Or build with a new card.
In the spirit of random roll week here at Deck a Day Entertainment, ltd, I decide to roll a die. 1d10, my purple one, will determine the fate of this column. If I roll a Zero, I’ll reroll. 1-3 is another deck, 4-6 is write more, 7-9 is get a new card. I roll a…
Six.
So I need to write more. Okay, let me take a step back and see if there is something I haven’t said yet. Hold on.
Well, that was another couple of lines taken care of. This feels like that scene in Sportsnight where Dana tells Casey while he is on air that he needs to fill fifteen seconds, so Casey tells the viewers that his producer is telling him to fill time, shaking her head, looking cross, and now he’s done. I thought that was quite funny, but somehow, it doesn’t feel as funny to write that sort of stuff.
It’s really hard for me to write filler. Sure, some people can spin off ten pages on the most whimsical topics, but I need something to say. I think that’s typically why I prefer my deck articles to have more decks and less information on each individual deck. It’s easy for me to write a page on deck choices and a paragraph or three on deck playing advice. However, it can be much more difficult to fill multiple pages on a deck, especially in casual Magic where there isn’t as defined a metagame and vital matchup information.
I’m almost done now. I probably need one paragraph more to be safe, two to be really sure. I wonder what Craig will say when he reads this? I bet that he writes some parenthetical after this and tells us what he said…
If he didn’t write a parenthetical just now, I bet that he really wanted to, but he refused to do so after I said he would. Those Brits are always contrary. I could say that the sun was out and he’d say, “No it’s not, it’s England.” [Actually, it’s sunny in Leeds at the moment… – Craig.]
That’s two more paragraphs now. As of the beginning of this sentence, I am at 854 words. I can never remember if I am supposed to write between 800-1000 words for a daily article or between 1000-1200 words for a daily article. You know, you can get more words by writing out numbers, so the above would read, “I can never remember if I am supposed to write between eight hundred and one thousand words for a daily article or between one thousand and twelve hundred words for a daily article.”
See how I cleverly added more to the article by just cutting and pasting a previous sentence and editing a few things in it? Who cares about article quality? We writers are slaves to writing density. We think that if we write enough that there will be some good stuff in there. In fact, that is exactly how some novelists are taught to write – by just writing a bunch of stuff and searching for the good.
I think I have enough length now so thank you very much for your time. Adieu!
Until Later,
Abe Sargent