I’m going to start this off whining because the middle of the week sucked. And that’s when I wrote the beginning. I’m going to whine a little bit, then I’m going to get brighter, then I’m going to make you laugh (try, ha ha), and then I’m going to show you how I design the decks I come up with.
As was mentioned last week, some people are unfamiliar with me and my writing, so I want to throw out an explanation of sorts. Some back-story if you will. I’ve been to five Pro Tours. It’s not a lot but I’m very proud of that fact. One of them I just called a phone number to qualify. Just like everyone else. That was Pro Tour 1. I finished in the top twenty-five with a deck of my own design. Black Fat.
4 Terror
3 Nevinyrral’s Disk
3 Serrated Arrows
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Dark Ritual
1 Zuran Orb
4 Hypnotic Specter
4 Abysmal Specter
2 Hasran Ogress
3 Shimian Night Stalker
4 Sengir Vampire
2 Ihsan’s Shade
1 Nightmare
16 Swamp
4 Mishra’s Factory
4 Strip Mine
I qualified once on rating. The other three times, I designed my own deck and actually won a slot. Wacky little kid decks that no one with any skill believed would work. I actually qualified with a deck that used Carrionettes in it. Don’t try that at home kids, I’m a trained professional.
One time, I was working on a deck and discussing it on IRC. Famed strategist, internet porn star, Pro Player with over 93 pro player points and hat eater Eric Taylor (EDT) said in the chat room, “Wakefield, that deck isn’t even good enough for fun play.”
Then I qualified with it.
God, I love that quote.
The point of all this? At the end of the article is a walkthrough of how I come up with the little kid decks that I do. But first, the ranting, the bitching, and the moaning.
Last week —
As I type this, it is a bad day to be in Vermont. A horrendous bad luck storm has wiped out the hopes and dreams of many this weekend.
My housemate Doug has been taken out nine times in poker tournaments by guys who match his continual raises with pocket 6,8 and then catch a flush or a straight on the river.
It’s been insane.
How come everyone I play takes three minutes a turn? I wanted to ask one guy “Are you on dial up? Maybe you’re on crack? Taking care of a sick grandmother between turns? What the hell takes you so long?”
Josh has been playing TEPS and hitting Desires for six, getting four lands and two Rite of Flame. Yeah. All right…
I’ve been 0-100 in testing, always losing one turn before I win.
Dying to Goblins game 3 on turn 2.
While holding Hail Storm.
Getting into a creature stalemate and going ten turns without drawing Overrun, with three in the deck.
Getting a guy piloting a Black deck down to three life with him having a Dark Confidant on the board, and he pulls land off the Confidant four turns in a row. I outnumber him slightly with weenies but don’t want to attack for fear of killing the Dark Confidant and leaving him at one life. I get whittled from sixteen to zero without his Confidant killing him. With him pulling no life gain. He just ripped land after land after land.
There was an even bigger rant in here about Blue/Black and Blue/White decks, but I decided to delete it. WotC has earned my love for at least a few months. Let’s move on to the good stuff now, shall we?
As I type this, it is six degrees and snowing in Vermont. I just went to my folks house to make sure nothing has frozen or burst. They are in Florida for two months. Something they do every winter, and ever year the time spent there is longer and longer. Have I ever told you how… Never mind, I’ll just tell the story.
One morning, the phone rings. Mare and I are still sleeping and I blearily answer it.
“Hello?”
It’s my mom. “Jamie, you have to come over right now. Bring Marilyn.” I hang up the phone.
“Either my dad is having a heart attack or my parents just won the lottery.”
We throw on some sweats and head to my folks house. They are both still in pajamas and smiling ear to ear.
“You won. Didn’t you? You won the lottery.”
My dad raises his hands over his head in triumph. “One point three million dollars!”
There is much rejoicing.
Just under a million after taxes.
Better lucky than good.
My nose is cold from being outside in six degree weather. I stamp the snow off my shoes. My housemate Doug is getting ready for a Poker tournament online in five minutes, and I’m playing in a Magic tournament, waiting for the next round to start. The house smells like dogs and peanut butter toast. On the Discovery Channel is “The Ice Hotel.” A building made entirely out of ice in Sweden. I’m fascinated. Then they cut to commercial and hint about what is coming next on the show. I see melted walls and sunlight.
“What? It melts?”
“They build it in two months, use it for five, and then it melts. Then they build it all again the next year.”
I look at incredulously at Doug. “What a bunch of stupid f***ers.”
As the program progresses I am exposed to lights made of ice, seats and tables made of ice, goblets made of ice, and beautiful ice sculptures dotting the entire hotel, my feelings change to “Now, that is just cool.”
By the time it finishes, I’ve concluded I want to get married there.
Doug is in good spirits. He won a hundred and fifty bucks at a tournament up the road last night, taking out eleven other guys to win first place.
I’ve been going insane on Magic Online. Is it possible for me to create a new Secret Force? Can I test and throw cards against the wall enough for some of them to stick and have me actually come up with a new deck that can compete? Can I do it without the help of the evil genius of Magic Alan Webter who is wintering in Florida?
Building a rogue deck is tough. Your rating suffers. You get laughed at a lot. Your opponents often just quit and ask for serious players when they see some of the cards you’re playing. And then you lose. And lose. And lose. Then you tune. And look over Top 8 stats every morning to see how you might modify your deck to beat those decks. And there are bouts of losing streaks so long that you are sure you should just give up and just play Boros or Affinity and hope for the best. And then you push ahead and play another five hours and get smashed some more. You pick up the keyboard and you smash it on the desk. You go for a run. You take a shower. You get a new keyboard and do it all over again.
That’s what building a rogue deck is like for me. I’m sure for many people a lot smarter than me, it isn’t nearly as hard. I don’t have the brains. I have persistence and no children. Luckily, sometimes persistence is enough.
“Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination are omnipotent. The slogan ‘press on’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.”
Calvin Coolidge
Wanna take a look at the process I go though?
I start out with this —
4 Brushland
4 Overgrown Tomb
4 Temple Garden
4 Llanowar Wastes
1 Pendelhaven
4 Chrome Mox
4 Withered Wretch
4 Elves of Deep Shadow
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Hypnotic Specter
3 Loaming Shaman
4 Call of the Herd
4 Allosaurus Rider
4 Mortify
4 Putrefy
4 Crime/Punishment
Sideboard
4 Gilded Light
3 Leyline of the Void
4 Rule of Law
4 Krosan Grip
This deck ignores the overriding principal that answers are not as good as threats. While a Withered Wretch is good against Loam and, if allowed to live, possibly Boros or Tooth, it doesn’t really serve for ten. It is in there as an answer. Same with Loaming Shaman. Elves are enablers, not threats in and of themselves. Hypnotic could be a threat if it had pro Black (Smother) or pro Red (insert infinite cards here.)
Notice the Mortify and Putrefy? Those are answers to artifacts, enchantments, and creatures. Crime / Punishment is in there because I’m not going to pony up 220 bucks for a play set of Pernicious Deed.
Funny story. I’ll just reduce it to the punch line — Crime / Punishment <> Pernicious Deed.
I post the deck on my private forums. “There is no reason to not run fetch lands in this deck, especially given how few lands you have. You want to have the right color on turn 1, no matter what.” – Ben
“I don’t own any fetch lands. And while I could buy them, I don’t see them as worth a hundred a set.” – Me
See, there’s a ton of good cards that I should own if I want to play online. While I do have plenty of money in the bank right now I just can’t force myself to buy Deeds, Fetchlands, Wishes, Terravores, and Orim’s Chants. My decks are consistently a cross between Building on a Budget and, well, people who consistently win off the backs of such cards.
I play a dozen games with it and am reminded that answering some decks threats with maindeck sideboard cards is not an effective strategy. TEPS will blow this deck away. So will Tooth and Nail. So will Boros. And playing three colors sucks. Sometimes I don’t get the mana I need, and that always annoys the crap out of me. This happens twice in succession, and I dump the Mortifies and the almost essential White sideboard. I change it to just two colors and try that for a bit.
BEAST ATTACK! Version .003
4 Overgrown Tomb
4 Llanowar Wastes
4 Chrome Mox
1 Pendelhaven
6 Forest
4 Swamp
4 Elves of Deep Shadow
4 Call of the Herd
4 Beast Attack
4 Eternal Witness
4 Ravenous Baloth
4 Hypnotic Specter
4 Putrefy
4 Duress
3 Cabal Therapy
Sideboard
4 Crime/Punishment
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Loaming Shaman
4 Krosan Grip
Despite the fact that Crime/Punishment isn’t Deed, it is still very good against Affinity and a few other decks. Like Goblins. Or TEPS after they play Empty the Warrens for a billion.
Beast Attack? Wakefield, what the… Beast Attack? Yes, Beast Attack. I was out of Magic when this was printed and just discovered it. Look, I don’t care what anyone else says, a 4/4 for five with buyback and flash is good. Then you combine it with Baloth so you can get a possible eight life out of it and it looks pretty… janky? Sure. Jankfield. That’s me. Joshie comes to my office in the morning.
You know what card I love right now?
What?
Beast Attack.
God! Why do you make me so angry in the morning?
What?
Why don’t you just play Hunting Pack?
Because it costs seven.
Beast attack costs five.
Yeah, and for two more mana you could get two beasts
A guy Wrathed, I tapped two elves. Wrath resolves, I cast Beast Attack. Untap. Swing!
Josh grabs a piece of paper and pen and starts to scribble furiously. He writes “Dear WotC, can you please ban Beast Attack? Save Wakefield from himself, he won’t listen to me.”
God, why do you play these bad cards?
Maybe I’ll play Junk fires. I have all those cards.
No, that deck is bad. Just stop.
Anger looks sweet. Look, 4 Duress, 3 Cabal Therapy!
Stop. Just stop. There’s one deck in the format, and it’s TEPS.
What about Aggro Loam? I love Devastating Dreams.
I don’t know, why don’t you just play Thallids?
Thallids! AHAHAHA! Hang on, I gotta write this down. It’s going in the column.
…
Hey, Dragonstorm is making a showing in Extended.
Just play TEPS.
Look, all these G/B decks have 4 Duress, 3 Cabal Therapy.
Just play TEPS.
….
Just play TEPS!
Hunting Pack! See, they do their big storm combo, you have a Ravenous Baloth in play, they go off, you go Hunting Pack! Thirty guys! Each worth four life!
And they go Brain freeze and you die. What the hell is wrong with you?
See, I know I’m bad, but I can’t help coming up with these little kid decks. Here’s how I picture a game going. I play out a Call of the Herd. Then I play out a Witness and get it back. See, three for one? Now add a Ravenous Baloth, two beasts for Beast Attack, and you have twelve life for aggro, and with the Hypnotics, the Duress, the Cabal Therapy, the Leyline of the Void, you’re just prepared for so much! You’re set for Boros, you can tear apart the TEPS hand! You can empty the grave of Aggro Loam! It’s not quite a thing of beauty, but hey, I like it.
And it doesn’t work. I don’t know why. It just doesn’t. Mana issues or some crap. Beast Attack continues to shine every time I draw it though. I love it versus aggro and I love it versus control. Another thing I love is the fact that all my stuff comes back. I love having flashback + Eternal Witness to make a lot of threats. More threats than a few decks can counter or kill before the card advantage starts to overwhelm them. And not that lame card advantage of Think Twice or Remand where you draw cards. Bah! Drawing cards is for sissies. You know what real men play for card advantage? BEAST ATTACK, that’s what.
Alan Webter is the evil genius of Magic, and I’m the evil moron of Magic.
Persistence. It’s all about Persistence.
I start to just write down all manner of crazy deck lists at work to try when I get home. Little notes like:
4 Beast Attack
4 Call of the Herd
4 Eternal Witness
4 Duress
4 Hypnotic
4 Mindslicer
4 Delirium Skeins
4 Putrefy
4 Sudden Death
4 Llanowar
Land –
See, discard both your hands, but your stuff comes back…
Or
How about Light Land Green? Land Destruction + quality draws + reusable threats + Overrun + Free Creatures like Allosaurus?
9 Forest
1 Pendelhaven
4 Ghost Quarter
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Bloom
4 Search For Tomorrow
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Boreal Druid
4 Call of the Herd
4 Beast Attack
4 Eternal Witness
3 Overrun
4 Allosaurus Riders
4 Creeping Mold
4 Mwonvuli Acid-Moss
Sideboard
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Loaming Shaman
3 Tormod’s Crypt
4 Moment’s Peace
TEPS isn’t a big fan of Ghost Quarter. Not a huge fan of turn 1 Allosaurus Riders either. And hey look, you can play only a few land, and use your land destruction to get you more land, and you’re prepared for Jitte or Worship or Counterbalance or Cranial Plating. And all the while backing up the land destruction theme.
And then you Overrun.
And then you win.
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
Mohandas Gandhi
Oddly enough, I start to win some games with this.
(Does anyone know a way to strip the numbers that follow each card out of these games? Such a pain. Example — 6:24 MLGreen plays Forest654400593,412:.) [Welcome to my world… – Craig.]
MLGreen joined the game.
jemiky chooses to play first.
jemiky keeps this hand.
MLGreen keeps this hand.
jemiky skips their draw step.
jemiky plays Swamp.
jemiky plays Duress targeting MLGreen.
MLGreen discards Call of the Herd.
Turn 1: MLGreen.
MLGreen plays Forest.
MLGreen plays Llanowar Elves.
Turn 2: jemiky.
jemiky plays Godless Shrine.
jemiky plays Dark Confidant.
Turn 2: MLGreen.
MLGreen plays Boreal Druid.
MLGreen removes Search for Tomorrow from the game with 2 time counters.
Turn 3: jemiky.
jemiky plays triggered ability from Dark Confidant.
jemiky reveals: Swamp.
jemiky plays Swamp.
Turn 3: MLGreen.
MLGreen plays triggered ability from Search for Tomorrow.
MLGreen plays Forest.
MLGreen plays Mwonvuli Acid-Moss targeting Godless Shrine.
Turn 4: jemiky.
jemiky plays triggered ability from Dark Confidant.
jemiky reveals: Gerrard’s Verdict.
jemiky plays Godless Shrine.
jemiky plays Duress targeting MLGreen.
MLGreen discards Beast Attack.
jemiky plays Gerrard’s Verdict targeting MLGreen.
MLGreen discards Beast Attack.
MLGreen discards Eternal Witness.
Turn 4: MLGreen.
MLGreen plays triggered ability from Search for Tomorrow.
MLGreen plays triggered ability from Search for Tomorrow.
MLGreen plays Search for Tomorrow.
MLGreen plays Ghost Quarter.
MLGreen plays activated ability from Ghost Quarter targeting Godless Shrine.
Turn 5: jemiky.
jemiky plays triggered ability from Dark Confidant.
jemiky reveals: Stuffy Doll.
jemiky plays Swamp.
MLGreen plays Beast Attack from the graveyard.
Turn 5: MLGreen.
MLGreen plays Overrun.
Dark Confidant blocks Beast token.
Playback finished… Exiting
Turn 3 my hand was empty. Turn 5 I won.
Okay, yeah, I admit, I’m not sure what the Stuffy Doll was doing in there either, but who am I to talk about odd cards? Right. Game on.
MLGreen has won 1 game.
MLGreen joined the game.
jemiky joined the game.
jemiky chooses to play first.
jemiky mulligans down to 6 cards.
jemiky keeps this hand.
MLGreen keeps this hand.
jemiky skips their draw step.
jemiky plays Godless Shrine.
Turn 1: MLGreen.
MLGreen plays Forest.
MLGreen plays Boreal Druid1.
MLGreen plays Chrome Mox.
MLGreen plays triggered ability from Chrome Mox.
Turn 2: jemiky.
jemiky plays Duress targeting MLGreen.
MLGreen discards Call of the Herd.
Turn 2: MLGreen.
MLGreen plays Ghost Quarter.
MLGreen plays Mwonvuli Acid-Moss targeting Godless Shrine.
Turn 3: jemiky.
jemiky has conceded from the game.
jemiky has left the game.
This deck fulfills everything I need in a unique design. It smashes face. It gets lucky sometimes and just wins. It plays big creatures. It plays cards that make your opponent type “LOL” and “Omg are you awful.” You’re rarely drawing land late in the game instead you’re drawing business cards. It has the ability to beat TEPS, Boros, and Loam. Yes, really. Okay, Loam can be hard, but it happens.
Sunday morning, in an eight-man, I beat Aggro Loam and Trinket Mage and drew in the finals. I couldn’t test more that day because Joshie, Doug, and I went to a 136-person poker tournament, and when we got home the internet was down.
Monday morning I entered another eight-man and won in the first round against Affinity, ran to take a shower, came back downstairs and found I had lost the first game for being late. In the second game I had a suboptimal draw, and my opponent was playing a very interesting B/W deck with Smallpox, Gerrard’s Verdict, Vindicate, Racks, and Dark Confidant. Don’t know how I would have done if I hadn’t started the match with a game loss. Lost the second one handily though.
This is the current version.
Creatures (19)
Lands (14)
Spells (29)
- 3 Overrun
- 4 Call of the Herd
- 4 Creeping Mold
- 3 Beast Attack
- 4 Chrome Mox
- 3 Moldervine Cloak
- 4 Mwonvuli Acid-Moss
- 4 Search for Tomorrow
Sideboard
Enjoy.
Jamie