It’s mid-week. We are halfway through a list of the worst, most reprehensible Magic decks of all time. These aren’t just the decks that had Wizards R&D folks crying, “What have we done?” and stepping in front of busses – these are the decks that had the bus drivers stomping on their brakes because “getting creamed by a bus was way too nice a death for people like that.”
Ironically, today’s public enemy was created and popularized by a nice person. Her deck, however, was anything but nice. Michelle Bush, the “Magic Diva,” played the deck in the early PTQs and GPs in the fall of 1999, and called it “Trix.” The name stuck.
By the end of the 1999-2000 season, Trix decks were dominating the PTQ and GP T8s. Before the 2000-2001 Extended season, the DCI banned Dark Ritual and Mana Vault, but Trix adjusted and came roaring back. Before the 2001-2002 Extended season, the DCI banned Demonic Consultation and Necropotence, but even that didn’t kill Trix.
I wrote a rant about Trix in YW #17: an Extended Fable – maybe one of my best articles ever.
The truly evil Trix deck was the first iteration – with Mana Vault and Dark Ritual, Necropotence, Force of Will and all the rest. The kill was Illusions of Grandeur and Donate. Illusions of Grandeur gave the caster 20 life, but cost the owner 20 life when it left play – and it had a steep upkeep cost, meaning that it would, sooner or later, leave play. Donate, however, meant that the leaving play life loss was your opponent’s problem.
Donate / Illusions was cute, but Necropotence made it deadly. For those of you that don’t remember, Necro let you pay life for cards. That meant that Illusions of Grandeur wasn’t just 20 life – it was 20 life or 20 cards, or some combination of the above.
I remember strategy discussions about how many cards to Necro for, once you cast Illusions. It was almost always at least enough to give you eight cards in hand at end of turn – we called it “having selection.” I have also seen players Necro for 20+ cards. Necro put the cards into the player’s hand at end of turn, before cleanup, so the player would have to discard down to seven cards. So what? The seven remaining cards were usually great, and the win condition was already on the table.
What was bad about Trix was the feeling of inevitability it produced. Whenever an opponent opened a game with Underground Sea, Ritual, Necro, Necro for four cards, discard to seven, go, you just knew you were in trouble. The Trix player was already ahead, and probably had a Force of Will in hand. Even if she did not, Trix was going to drop lands and mana acceleration and build towards the Illusions. Once Trix cast the Illusions, it would draw lots of cards and have answers to everything.
It was possible to beat Trix, but it was just so very, very hard. It was worse than Affinity – it was like playing Affinity would have been if Affinity started the game with an Arcbound Ravager and a Welding Jar in play.
Trix had all the good cards. In addition to mana acceleration, it had Force of Will and Duress to ensure that opponents could not play answers. It had Necro, Vampiric Tutor and Demonic Consultation to get the cards it needed. It also had a very fast clock – faster than the aggro decks in the format.
Trix was a bitch to play. It required a lot of math, every turn, and charting the best path through each and every game required careful calculations and careful play. Playing 10-12 rounds of Trix left you dead tired and with a vicious headache. However, Trix rewarded good play with Pro Tour invites.
The big problem was that Trix was a very hard deck to play against. It had one vulnerability – if Illusions of Grandeur was disenchanted with the “gain 20 life” on the stack, the life loss happened first. However, getting a Disenchant off during that window was difficult. Trix often cast Illusion on turn 3 or 4. Decks that left mana up had no pressure, and Trix would simply wait for Duress or Force of Will to protect itself before going off. The other alternative was to try to race Trix, but that usually meant doing close to 40 points of damage, since the Trix player would have cast Illusions at least once in the first few turns. It also meant that the opponent’s mana was tied up trying to pay upkeep on a Donated Illusions.
It was all bad.
Demonic Consultation, tutors and Necropotence meant that Trix would be able to remove or counter any answers. For a brief period, green decks started playing Elvish Lyrist, which could be cast turn 1, but the Trix players started playing Firestorm, which dealt with that answer quite nicely.
Trix was brutal.
If Trix had any redeeming features, it was that the deck was not easy to play. Trix required you to do the math, every turn, and mistakes were generally fatal. Unlike Affinity, you could not just rip Ravager to negate any and all bad plays. I always enjoyed playing against bad players trying to play Trix, because it was close to a bye, but I really feared good players wielding Trix.
My strongest memory of Trix was the at the start last round of a Madison PTQ, seeing that I was paired against Jason Moungey and that we could not draw in to the Top 8. Jason was with Trix, and was a very good Trix player.
My best moment came a couple minutes later, when the TO said “Sorry, we have to repair this round.”