Welcome to the penultimate article in our daily series. Today I am going to again use my own “Best Underused Cards” articles for inspiration for today’s decklist. We are going to harness the power of Wild Research in a R/U burn deck.
Now, obviously Wild Research can be used in a R/W enchantment based deck as well, especially a Replenish deck that would benefit from the occasional lost enchantment card. I suppose that you try and combine all three, but that seems a bit too much for my tastes. Therefore, we are going to focus on the R/U deck.
I’ve often said that Wild Research is one of the great untapped resources in the game of Magic. There have to be bunches of great Wild Research decks out there just waiting to be found. That’s why I am going to take a stab at a deck. Today’s deck will be relatively untested, working to establish dominance and destruction. Let’s take a look:
Wild Knowledge
4 Wild Research
4 Kindle
4 Accumulated Knowledge
4 Fact or Fiction
4 Shard Phoenix
3 Counterspell
3 Forbid
2 Circular Logic
4 Fiery Temper
1 Bosium Strip
2 Thran Foundry
4 Shivan Reef
11 Islands
10 Mountains
This deck runs on several principles. First of all, everything that goes into the graveyard can be reused. Instants can be Bosium stripped, Phoenixes can be returned, and Foundries can bring back lost goods.
Another principles rests on Kindle and Accumulated Knowledge. If you accidentally discard one to a Research, it’s no big deal, really. If you need countermagic in response to something, always get Circular Logic, which can be used even if discarded. The same is true of Fiery Temper. In fact, nothing is quite as powerful as playing Forbid, discarding a pair of Tempers, and paying their Madness costs. Ick.
I almost want to cut a Research for an additional Counterspell, or maybe a Compulsion. That’s certainly one route you could take. You could push the madness and toss in Obsessive Search.
One quirky idea that I had was top splash a little Black in the mana base and run a Yawgmoth’s Will. In this version you run Lightning Bolts as well, in an attempt to accentuate the cheap spells.
Another card that would fire is Intuition. Now, granted, Intuition is a bit pricey, but you could Intuition for triple Phoenix, triple Accumulated Knowledge, even triple Kindle would be unfortunate. I wouldn’t play more than two, even in an ideal money situation.
Yet another quirky idea adds Green for Gaea’s Blessing. That version probably wants the Intuitions, however. Use the Intuition to pull a pair of Gaea’s Blessings from the deck, and you shuffle your graveyard back in. This is a deck that can easily blow through 60 cards, hence the Foundries. Blessings, however, could allow the deck able to play forever.
If you decide to play this deck in multiplayer, you might want to make a few minor changes. With only four creatures, you might be perceived as an easy target. If your multiplayer games consist of people attacking in the first several turns, you might be helped by adding a few cheap defensive creatures. For walls, Fog Bank, Wall of Diffusion, Steel Wall, and Wall of Air each have something going for them. Alternatively, you could play something like Bottle Gnomes to slow your opponents down, gain a little life, and get a minor little beater as well. Hey, I once killed a guy with nothing but Bottle Gnome damage.
Another option for the multiplayer game is to play cards like Propaganda or Seal of Fire. These cards help steer your opponents in other directions. If you end up playing enchantments, you might as well play a few Cities of Brass or other White sources of mana in order to take advantage of Wild Research’s White ability. Even a few Fellwar Stones (or Mox Diamond) can help make the White mana you need without pain.
Make good use of the Bosium Strip. Remember that you choose the order cards go into the graveyard if they go in simultaneously from effects like Fact or Fiction or Forbid. This would be another place where Gaea’s Blessings would be helpful – you could shuffle into your deck cards that are preventing you from using the Bosium Strip.
One last idea would be to play some flashback spells. That way, in case they are discarded, they are still usable. However, I find the instants to be prohibitively expensive on their flashback side, and I don’t want to weight down my deck with sorceries like Deep Analysis. You may want to try it out, however, and if so, I wish you good luck.
Anyway, we now have a solid deck to run our Wild Researches in . Maybe this will spark some other Wild Research ideas for you – I hope so!
Until Later,
Abe Sargent