The discovery of the Dampen Thought archetype has really shaken up this Limited environment. The raw power of the deck is undeniable and plenty of articles have already been written about how to draft it and how to defend against it. I’ve personally become rather attached to drafting it whenever possible – it’s started to have some weird effects on my drafting and also my results. You see, if I open or get passed a pack that has a bunch of stuff that I’m not really interested in, I’ll probably end up taking a Peer Through Depths or Ethereal Haze from it. Sometimes in the middle of pack one my deck will be going in an entirely different direction and I’ll still take the Ethereal Haze or Peer just so I can be “set up” if a Dampen does get passed. This can also start happening as early as the second pick of pack one, and I have actually first picked a Peer from the first pack of the draft over some decent stuff.
It would seem I have a problem.
Normally when someone has a problem you send them off to AA or rehab or some other special facility will help them get rid of so called problem.
In this case, there really isn’t any way to get “rid” of my new drafting habit – I’m addicted to drafting bad cards in the first place!
So, what I’ve done is come up with a solution to the questions many of you have been asking yourselves about the Dampen archetype: What happens if I just don’t get any Dampens or the right amount of Fogs/Peers/etc to make the deck work? What if no Dampens are opened – aren’t I just screwed?
This week, I’d like to introduce the archetype I call “The Backup Plan.”
What is it?
I want to point out that I originally started calling it The Backup Plan because my main intent was to be drafting the mill deck and this new deck was simply the result of a failed attempt at doing so. While that much may be self explanatory, I’ve been drafting this deck for weeks now and pretty much go into a draft aiming for it, so the name “Backup Plan” is actually kinda outdated. But I still like the name so I’m keeping it.
Anyway, now that I’ve spent an entire paragraph essentially talking about nothing, I guess I should get back to explaining exactly what the deck does.
The basic premise behind the deck comes from something I noticed when playing and playing against Dampen.dec. The deck just will not die. Between Candles’ Glows, Fog, and creatures with large numbers on the back end, it is hard to actually deliver the killing blow. This quality led me to wonder if a control U/W deck that used all of the trashy arcane spells was viable should a Dampen Thought not make its way into your pile.
I began experimenting with this idea whenever I couldn’t achieve the mill deck, and was really surprised at the results. The deck seemed like it just couldn’t lose. Before we get into how to draft this crazy deck though, I’d like to say that [author name="Chad Ellis"]Chad Ellis’s[/author] article on the Green version of Arcane is very solid and [author name="Tim Aten"]Tim Aten’s[/author] piece on Dampen.dec is also a must read for anyone looking to learn how to draft this deck. I should also note that while it’s been fairly easy for me to consistently force it on Magic Online and in real life, it is certainly getting harder now that more people are writing about it and it is a real problem with 2-3 people start trying to draft it because there aren’t enough pieces of the puzzle to go around.
The Framework
So you’re probably wondering what one of these decks would look like right?
Don’t worry, I’ve saved a number of lists from recent drafts and I’ll give some comments for each. These decks are all from MTGO drafts in the 8-4 Queue and each of them won at least two rounds (with a split in the finals).
Reach Through Mists
Ethereal Haze
Psychic Puppetry
2 Peer Through Depths
Soratami Cloudskater
Hisoka’s Defiance
Candles’ Glow
Consuming Vortex
River Kaijin
Kitsune Blademaster
Callous Deceiver
Cage of Hands
Hinder
Counsel of the Soratami
Mothrider Samurai
Soratami Mirror-Guard
Honden of Cleansing Fire
Harsh Deceiver
Soratami Seer
Petals of Insight
Keiga, the Tide Star
Time Stop
This list is a great place to start because it should give you a very good idea what the deck should look like most of the time. While it may look like the deck has a hard time actually killing someone, I assure you that quite the opposite is true, as you should easily lock up the board and then proceed to draw cards and find a flier to peck away at them with. Don’t forget that you can use Petals of Insight to essentially search your entire deck for your bomb (Keiga in this case) by just returning it and recasting the next turn. This deck is so good at locking down the game that you will have plenty of time to do something like this. The other nice thing about this deck is that I always seem to manage to get a Hinder and a Hisoka’s Defiance, which help in stopping any annoyances, and Time Stop is also good as a multipurpose answer to a lot of problems. Hopefully I don’t have to go over why Honden of Cleansing Fire is especially nuts in this deck.
Reach Through Mists
2 Ethereal Haze
Blessed Breath
Psychic Puppetry
Peer Through Depths
Hisoka’s Defiance
Glacial Ray
Candles’ Glow
3 River Kaijin
Callous Deceiver
Sift Through Sands
Hinder
Eerie Procession
Soratami Savant
Soratami Mirror-Mage
Honden of Cleansing Fire
Blind with Anger
Kumano, Master Yamabushi
Petals of Insight
Sire of the Storm
Relevant Sideboard
Psychic Puppetry
2 Sift Through Sands
Harsh Deceiver
Cut the Tethers
Kami of the Painted Road
Eye of Nowhere
Quiet Purity
While I’m not going to list the sideboards for all of these decks, I did want to at least do it for this one and maybe one more because it really shows where some cuts were made during deckbuilding. Harsh Deceiver usually makes the cut in this archetype, but this version is different since it doesn’t have as much White as usual and also is splashing Red pretty heavily. Another reason is because of the three Kaijins already filling that position. Another thing you’ll notice in the other decklists is that I usually run two copies of Puppetry if possible, but there just wasn’t room in this deck and I chose Blessed Breath over it (which is abnormal since you usually don’t have enough guys to protect with the Breath to warrant playing it).
As you can see though, the deck builds a strong defense and you eventually just win with a lone flier or in this deck possibly the Master. This brings up a good point regarding what you should be looking for while drafting this deck: find a win condition ASAP in case the Dampens don’t come. The nice thing is that the Mirror-Guard still goes really late for some reason and having a couple of these can go a long way. I usually start out by drafting the Arcane spells first and then pick up fliers whenever I get a chance.
Reach Through Mists
2 Psychic Puppetry
2 Peer Through Depths
2 Hisoka’s Defiance
Student of the Elements
Guardian of Solitude
2 Soratami Cloudskater
Hinder
2 Sift Through Sands
Kami of Twisted Reflection
Soratami Rainshaper
2 Callous Deceiver
Soratami Mirror-Guard
Soratami Seer
Teller of Tales
Petals of Insight
Time Stop
17 Island
Relevant Sideboard
3 Ethereal Haze
Harsh Deceiver
I know exactly what you’re thinking.
“How in the world did you win a single game with this deck?”
Well, believe it or not, I won the entire draft with it, as my opponent wouldn’t split in the finals.
This is probably one of the worst decks I’ve ever drafted and I too am puzzled by its success. Maybe I was just lucky, but I don’t think so, as my draws weren’t even very good. I won one game while stuck on two land for its entirety thanks to the garbage combination of Guardian of Solitude plus Student of Elements.
The reason I didn’t include the Hazes and Deceiver from the board was that I felt the deck would be more fluent if I just made it mono-Blue and I did already have two copies of Puppetry which were crucial in this deck.
2 Reach Through Mists
Ethereal Haze
Floating Dream Zubera
Consuming Vortex
Candles’ Glow
Soratami Cloudskater
Soratami Rainshaper
Ghostly Prison
2 River Kaijin
Callous Deceiver
Honden of Cleansing Fire
Harsh Deceiver
Mothrider Samurai
Jade Idol
Blind with Anger
Soratami Mirror-Guard
Strength of Cedars
Hundred-Talon Kami
Kami of the Painted Road
Petals of Insight
Uyo, Silent Prophet
8 Island
6 Plains
2 Mountain
1 Forest
This is one of the quirkier lists I’ve had since it incorporates a double splash for two strong Arcane spells. The deck ends up having a much more powerful endgame though because of it, and the Strength of Cedars is an excellent win condition in combination with a flier. One last thing I’d like to say is that if you’re observant, you’ll realize that I get Petals of Insight and Honden of Cleansing Fire far more often that I ever should. This is because people simply aren’t evaluating the cards right and shipping it instead of taking it for themselves. This deck is more like a Chad Ellis approach except that it isn’t based in Green.
I think that’s enough lists to give you a concrete idea what the final product should look like though, so now let’s get down to what you should be looking for during the draft.
Drafting the Deck
I know this has been said in other articles regarding Arcane decks, but I want to hit on it again just to make sure it’s fresh in your head. One of the main reasons this deck is so good is that a lot of the cards that make up the core of your deck are cards that most other people can’t ever use in theirs. Peer Through Depths and its brethren are garbage in a non-Arcane based deck and therefore you’ll get them relatively late and your deck will be much deeper because of it. Instead of doing a card by card analysis this time I’m going to go over the different parts of the deck and what you should be looking for during the draft to fill those holes.
Defense
There are plenty of cards to list here, and most of them you guys already know plenty about. I see no need to go over why Ghostly Prison or Honden of Cleansing Fire are nuts in this deck. Ethereal Haze is obviously a high priority if you look at my decklists above.
A couple cards that weren’t mentioned were Cage of Hands and Mystic Restraints. Cage is usually a pretty high pick for this deck, though I’d definitely take Candles’ Glow over it. The nice thing about it is that this deck generates time by refusing to die, so you’ll actually be able to move it around with ease. Mystic Restraints on the other hand is a waste of time if you ask me, and I’ll only run it as a complete last ditch effort (or if I’m mono-Blue) since it just isn’t effective enough. Honestly, I’d rather have a third copy of Psychic Puppetry in my deck than the first copy of Restraints.
Speaking of Psychic Puppetry, there are some things you should know about it. Don’t be afraid to attack the opponent’s lands with it early (i.e. Reach Through Mists splicing Puppetry on your opponent’s turn two upkeep) as it will really screw with his manacurve and give you even more time to set up. You can also use it to untap your own land if you’re casting it and splicing other things onto it. Lastly, running multiple Puppetries requires a heavier commitment to Blue land, especially if you’re going to be splicing them onto something like Sift Through Sands. Don’t skimp on Islands.
The last area of defensive spells is the bounce spells. While this block doesn’t have that many of them, Consuming Vortex is solid in this deck, even if it rarely gets spliced. It’s nice to cast a Vortex splicing Puppetry to return a guy and then tap the opponent’s only land of that color so that he can’t recast it that turn. Eye of Nowhere is playable, but less effective in this deck than in the Dampen deck because it doesn’t slow the opponent down that much since it’s a sorcery. At least in the Dampen deck, you are milling them while you do it, which makes it that much better. If you do happen to be in the Dampen deck though, I recommend having at least one after board because it’s a great answer to Reito Lantern.
Everything else has pretty much been covered, as Mr. Ellis made sure to point out that Candles’ Glow was infinitely better than Haze.
Card Drawing and Counters
First up are the two main counters that I use in this archetype. Hisoka’s Defiance and Hinder are both excellent control measures to stop something that you otherwise have no answer to. The nice thing is that once the board is locked up and you are waiting to find your win condition, these serve as insurance against anything that you would otherwise have no answer to (Master Yamabushi for instance). I personally like to have one of each, but wouldn’t be that unhappy to have two of either one of them if I needed another card. I’d run one of each maindeck though and then board in more if you find someone with lots of Spirit or Arcane spells (Defiance) or bombs (Hinder). One card I haven’t played very often is Thoughtbind, though it was decent the few times it did make the cut. It’s just a worse version of Hinder and should remain in the board until you see a reason to bring it in.
As far as card drawing goes, there is a lot of it. Petals of Insight is obviously the cream of the crop here serving many purposes at once. Interestingly enough, you will rarely go into splice lock with it in this deck unless you’re splashing a Glacial Ray. This is because most of the stuff that the deck plays is only effective to splice on your opponent’s turn. Anyway, Petals is great and grab it up if you see one.
Reach Through Mists is clearly an excellent tool for splicing Puppetry. I wouldn’t run more than two of these unless you were in Dampen.dec, because they simply cut down on the number of good spells you can play and cause you to manaflood more easily. Peer Through Depths has been talked about plenty already, and is certainly the best of the “Unspeakable Trio” and multiples are welcomed. Usually in this deck I like two, but three is okay too if you have enough targets to support them. Missing with a Peer isn’t fun, trust me.
The real discussion here is between Counsel of the Soratami and Sift Through Sands. I think that both are pretty close in value and it should show you just how valuable it is to have the word “Arcane” written in the spell type. Compare Sift to Counsel – you’re paying an extra U, and you have to discard a card just so you can splice onto it! Really though, I think these are deck dependent. If you’re lighter than usual on Blue mana, then you go with the Counsel, and if you have more splice stuff than usual, you go with the Sift and so on.
Creature Base
Generally you want a lot of good defenders in your deck. River Kaijin and Kitsune Blademaster are clearly the best of these, as they can stop almost any groundpounder. Harsh Deceiver and Kami of Old Stone are also welcome. I’m not a huge fan of the Zuberas in this deck as they haven’t really done enough for me to justify taking up a slot. I’d much rather have a Callous Deceiver, who is decent at defending and can also go on the beatdown later in the game than a lowly Floating-Dream Zubera. I will still play a Blue Zebra from time to time, but I’d usually rather have something else.
After you get a solid foundation in ground defense, you need some fliers. Pretty much any of the U or W fliers is solid in this deck, with the best of them being Teller of Tales. Generally you’ll need enough that you can guarantee you’ll find one to win the game, since the rest of the deck is based on locking it down to begin with.
Kill Conditions
Any bomb will work here (Uyo is my personal favorite). You can also still win with the Dampen Thought plan of course, but fliers are the usual path to victory.
Some other ways would be double Glacial Ray and plenty of things to splice onto (Petals is recommended here). You can even go more elaborate and go for the Jushi Apprentice kill. This requires either Graceful Adept to get your hand big enough for him to flip, or something like Soratami Mirror-Mage. Once he flips, you just target your opponent with him twice and it’s curtains.
Final Notes
Hopefully this article has given you a good overview on what to do when Dampen.dec goes bad, and also how to draft a new archetype using lots of sub-par cards. I’m guessing that it’s going to be much harder to do this now, so you’re going to have to pick your spots and if you started getting passed lots of good Arcane stuff then you can dive in and try the deck out. Many people are going to be doing this though, and many others hatedrafting, so try not to get addicted like I have and try forcing it every draft because it’s just not going to work anymore.
Nick Eisel
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