Good day all, and welcome to the column that explores all things casual: The Kitchen Table. I’m your host, Abe Sargent. Everybody has been talking about the fact that Wizards was seriously considering a new color for a set, and I have to tell you that I absolutely adore the idea. Do it! Now! But enough of this… let’s build some decks!Good day all and welcome to the column that explores all things casual, The Kitchen Table. I’m your host, Abe Sargent. Everybody has been talking about the fact that Wizards was seriously considering a new color for a set, and I have to tell you that I absolutely adore the idea. Do it! Now!
I mean, seriously, if you want to print a new color, then print a new color! In fact, have a set that does not have the traditional five colors at all, but instead has cyan (between Blue and White), purple (between Blue and Black), brown (between Black and Red), orange (between Red and Green) and yellow (between Green and White). Create a brand new color wheel for a set or three. That’d be cool.
If you had gone with the extra color, it would have been really interesting. What do we do in Five Color? Online Prismatic? How about domain cards like Tribal Flames and whatnot getting an extra basic land to work with? Coalition Victory would become harder. Shyft becomes better.
Personally, I think the extra color should be Orange. You could have its basic land be a Garden with dual lands like Green/Orange as an Orchard and White/Orange as a Flowering Field. This would’ve been very, very cool.
Considering an extra color for a set or four? This casual writer is a fan. In fact, I like the idea so much that I e-mailed Craig to see if I could add the sixth color avatar to the end of each of my articles, but he never responded. Must not be much of a purple fan. [Heh. Okay Abe, just this once… – Craig.]
In other news, I’m still waiting for a counterspell named Veto. And doesn’t the name Big Game Hunter sound Green? (Master of the Hunt, Bounty of the Hunt, Caller of the Hunt, Kami of the Hunt, Pack Hunt, Hunting Grounds, Trophy Hunter, Thrill of the Hunt, a large number of actual hunters, and more all refer to hunts and hunting, and yet are Green.)
And that ends today’s discussion of the topic du jour.
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Today I want to build some coolyhigharmony decks around some even more coolyhigharmonier cards. I could write some fancy preamble and talk about little nothings for a page or more, but you know what?
I wanna build some decks!
However, I normally build four or five decks with new cards after each set comes out. This time, however, I want to build a few decks, maybe one or two, and then go over some core ideas for decks using other cards. In other words, you only get a couple of decklists, but you get more deck ideas. I hope that’s fair enough.
As such, I’m going to skip past the normal conversation about decks and head directly into the path of the Planar Chaos. Let’s go!
Let’s begin with a card that Evan wants me to build a deck around. I’ll accept the challenge, because it certainly is an interesting card. What can we do with it?
A few things first. It only affects Forests and Saprolings in play, so if you had a Saproling in your hand (via Conspiracy or maybe a Mistform Ultimus) you cannot play it as a land. Ditto to playing it as a land from the graveyard. Therefore, you cannot play creatures from affects like Crucible of Worlds or Budoka Gardener. You also could not use, say, a Mana Severance and pull out all of your creatures with a Conspiracy, nor would a Charbelcher stop at a Saproling creature revealed from the library.
What can we do with this card? It could be a new Living Lands, simply used to make your lands creatures so you can swing with them. This isn’t really that great, because it’s always made your lands vulnerable to removal. No one wants to walk into a Pyroclasm or worse yet, a Tremor or Dry Spell.
On the other hand, cards that make Saprolings make Forests. Think how good something like Aether Mutation is with a Life and Limb out. Even a humble Sprout becomes a solid card.
However, I think there is one card in particular that I like as a Life and Limb adjunct. What is this crazy card?
Supply, of Supply / Demand fame.
Wouldn’t you like to have a turn like this?
Tap ten mana or so. Make six lands after playing Supply. Since your lands have haste, tap the six lands for more mana. Then use an effect to untap your lands. Now tap all sixteen mana and you have enough mana to do something dangerous.
Let’s see what we can do.
Creatures (12)
Lands (26)
Spells (23)
With the deck built, let’s take a look under the hood.
We have six untapping effects: four Llanowar Druids and two Early Harvests. I like that sort of duplication of effect in a deck like this. The Druids’ tap abilities are mana-less, and don’t detract from the mad mana production, therefore they are the card in higher numbers.
There are also six Saproling-production cards. The four Supply / Demands that were mentioned above are the real power of the deck. As an adjunct, I’ve included a pair of Thelonite Hermits, which will both pump the Saprolings as well as make a few more. They can pump your team for when you make a big swing, as well as keep everybody steady by making more Saprolings.
Please note that this combo deck is interesting because when you combo out, you kill everybody at the table while also having a horde of creatures to kill anybody not killed by your normal method. This is a multiplayer deck, and you can tell because of Whetstone, a milling apparatus that will kill everybody. You will need to activate it between twenty and twenty three times to mill all sixty-card decks. Obviously, if your table is full of decks with a 250+ size, then you need to select other kill methods. I like the Whetstone because it takes out all players at the same time.
To prevent the Whetstone from killing you, I’ve provided several options. You have one additional card, which may allow you to survive against sixty-card decks with just one card left in your library. I also have a single copy of Gaea’s Blessing. Mill it, and your graveyard is shuffled back into your library. If you draw it, put it back with a Scroll Rack before Whetting. Even if you mill all of your cards, everybody else who is milled will likely die on their draw step as they go to draw a card and fail. If nothing goes wrong, you everybody should die before you have to draw a card and die as well. Finally, if you have out Scroll Rack and at least one card in hand, you can never die from a single card draw, because you can switch the cards in hand with those in your library and add cards to your library.
Birds of Paradise and Skyshroud Elves are available to help speed up your mana development as well as to give you a solid chance at the White mana the Supply needs.
I wouldn’t drop a Concordant Crossroads early, leaving it until the very last minute, and then playing the Crossroads just before you go off.
To help you find the cards you need, I added the aforementioned Scroll Racks as well as a pair of Divining Tops. Hopefully you’ll get at least one of these artifacts out and working for you as you dig ever deeper in an attempt to get your combo on.
Life and Limb is an odd card, certainly. Building a deck around it is a lot of fun. Another option I was considering was to go the Fungal Bloom / Thallid path. However, I think the above deck is probably better. You could also explore a Heartbeat of Spring option.
Okay, time for a new deck.
This deck tries to slap a Mantle of Leadership down on an unblockable creature and then play a bunch of small 1/1s bodies, and attack with said unblockable and now giant creature.
The deck contains ten unblockable creatures. As they have protection from creatures, Beloved Chaplain and Commander Eesha are essentially unblockable in addition to everything else. In addition, Yuan Shao’s Infantry is unblockable as long as it is the only attacker. Don’t worry about the Three Kingdoms card, since it’s only a powered down uncommon. If you wanted some, you could easily acquire them. With ten such creatures, a lot of redundancy is built right into the deck.
After that, the deck has eight ways of making creatures, including a quartet of Firecat Blitzes and Decree of Justices. Each of these can make a nice selection of beats in addition to making a Mantled creature larger. Without a large amount of mana, it’ll be awhile before you can get a Mantle up to lethal damage in one hit, but that’s no worry. Hitting with 8, 10, or 12 unblockable is certainly acceptable, and if you get a pair of Mantles, you’ll be killing people with very little comparative mana.
Leaving open a pair of mana can allow you to Fling the giant creature if necessary. Fling is a great way to kill past defenses that might otherwise stop your deck from winning, like Island Sanctuary or Humility.
You also have the Goblin Bombardment in order to sac a bunch of creatures for the final kill. The combination of al of these ways of winning allows you multiple routes to victory in the game, and strengthens it in multiplayer.
For example, you can kill with unblocked creatures. You can also kill with a horde of creatures. You can also kill with a Flung giant Mantled creature. And you ca also win with a horde of Goblin Bombardmented creatures. That’s a lot of paths to victory in one little ol’ deck.
In addition, you have four Lightning Helixes and a pair of Orim’s Thunder as emergency removal options that should keep your deck from folding when something like a True Believer hits the table.
Okay, that was a simple enough deck, so what’s next? Let’s look at some deck ideas:
Deck Ideas
I want to explore the basic nugget of a deck and then leave the rest of the deck for you to build and explore on your own. Consider these to be little deck primers designed to ignite the idea. Here we go:
Braids, Conjurer Adept and Sunken Hope – During each upkeep, you have to bounce a creature through the Sunken Hope. Then you have to play a creature, artifact or land via Braids. With them both out, you can bounce a critter and then play the same critter again for free. This allows you to play things with really cool effects, like Avalanche Riders or Bone Splitter, or even use Wild Pair. I’m sure you can find lots of ways to abuse this combo.
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth and Karma – At the multiplayer table, show who’s boss by playing Urborg to give everybody a bunch of Swamps, and then play Karma. Please note that everybody will quickly die, including yourself, and that you will be attacked mercilessly. Circle of Protection: White will handle the first problem but not the second. You’ve already planned for that, right Worship Boy? Note you can also use Stern Judge to supplement Karma and Solitary Confinement to supplement Worship.
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth and Torment Cards – Now your X/B decks can play powerful cards like Mutilate and Mind Sludge. Also note that cards like the Tainted Lands become much more reliably useful. There’s a solid mono-Black control deck to be found here harnessing the power of Urborg. Remember, we now have both Cabal Coffers as well as the newly printed Magus of the Coffers to use Urborg with. See also; Blanket of Night and Bubbling Muck.
Dormant Sliver and Hivestone and Donate – Using a donation effect like Donate or Juxtapose, give away the Hivestone to your opponent (or Conspiracy naming Slivers). Now your Dormant Sliver makes turns all of your opponent’s creatures into creatures with defender. Sure, the opponent can draw a bunch of cards, but with no way to attack, I think you can find a few ways to grab victory. I hear Blue has some unblockable creatures.
Shivan Meteor and Earthquake and Stuffy Doll – Lots of people have pointed out the synergy of Stuffy Doll and Shivan Meteor, but combine with effects like Earthquake to both hit your opponent, and clear out creatures and hit your opponent again with Stuffy Doll out, and your deck can really come together quickly. You still need the Meteor as the kill card, but watch out for opponents with burn.
Wild Pair and 187 Creatures – A ton of 187 creatures have a combined power and toughness of four. Use Wild Pair in a deck loaded with creatures like Ghitu Slinger, Uktabi Orangutan, Aven Cloudchaser, Avalanche Riders, and so forth. You can even supplement with cards like the new Whitemane Lion, which comes into play from your library, and then bounces a 187 creature and allows you to replay it.
Volcano Hellion and Stuffy Doll – Another Stuffy Doll idea from the new set is Volcano Hellion. If you have more life than your opponent, then this simple two-card combo will kill them. In multiplayer, this is only good if you have a lifer deck and can afford the 15 or 20 life to kill a player straight out. I think your can build a deck like that, right?
Tooth and Nail and Akroma, Angel of Vengeance and Akroma, Angel of Fury – Don’t you want to be the first one at your table to get both Akromas in play and attacking at the same time? Then polish off your Tooth and Nail decks and start modifying the creature base, because you are about to teach opponents to fear the Twins of Fire and Sun.
Body Double and Phage the Untouchable – Before, if your Phage died, you were screwed, because someone eventually would play Living Death or something. You also could not play a Phage reanimator deck. Now, however, a creature has been printed that is essentially a Zombify but doesn’t die when you target Phage. Feel free to use all of your reanimator tricks, but now Body Double can be your spell of doom. See also: Volrath’s Shapeshifter.
Retether and Auramancer’s Guise – No one wants to play Auramancer’s Guise for fear that all of that mana that is played to make it big will be gone when the creature dies to a simple removal spell. Now you can play a deck full of nifty auras combined with cards that search deep and discard well like Attunement and Careful Study and the new Magus of the Bazaar. Then, once you have a graveyard full of goodies, including a Guise, just Retether them onto the creature of your choice. Now you have a gigantic creature of significant proportions in play. Make sure at least some of your auras are Diplomatic Immunity so that the creature cannot be easily killed. Other good choices include cards like Flight of Fancy. Combine with an unblockable creature like Metathran Elite and you are good to go.
Braids, Conjurer Adept, Oversold Cemetery, and many Fog Frogs – A Fog Frog is a creature that can Fog, getting its name from Spore Frog. Other examples include Spike Weaver and Kami of False Hope. Use your Braids to put one into play every upkeep, and then sac it (or for Spike Weaver, remove a counter) to Fog during your opponent’s turn. Once you have lost enough creatures, use Oversold Cemetery in each upkeep to return a creature and then use Braids to drop either that creature or another. By recycling Fog Frogs, you can keep from taking combat damage until your opponent can successfully disrupt you or the game ends. If you Oversold Cemetery / Braids a Spike Weaver, then you can spend the next two turns putting out something else, like a winning condition (see Triskelion, for example). This would be a fun deck to play. If you want something a bit more mana heavy, take a look at use Genesis or Tortured Existence.
Weird Harvest and Treacherous Urge – If you like Treacherous Urge, then encourage your opponent to have a good creature in hand by casting Weird Harvest prior to playing the Urge. Then when your opponent gets a likely large and playable creature, you defeat his plans by playing the Urge and getting said creature for yourself for a turn before he hits the ‘Yard. All told, you’re pretty happy and now he’s feeling the Weird Harvest Blues.
Dash Hopes and Mages’ Contest – I obviously like both, and playing them together in a Black/Red control deck can force an opponent to being allowing countermagic through after taking a few hits. Both are solid, and when combined with solid early damage spells like Lava Spike and Flame Rift, then they become more powerful. See also the new Time Walk, Temporal Extortion and the punisher Hymn to Tourach, Skullscorch, and the Wrath of God, Breaking Point. Eventually your opponent is going to have to let these resolve, and in this deck, that should happen quickly, allowing you to possibly burn them out.
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Enjoy some of these new ideas, and I hope that you either use of the early decklists or one of these later mini-primers to build a deck around. I’d love to see one of these ideas fan a spark in your deck building consciousness and result in a nifty deck that scares opponents. Or makes them laugh. Either is good.
Until later,
