Hello all! A while ago I was brainstorming ideas for my column. When I was
initially charged with writing this, I was told that all things casual were in my
purview. Yay! I can write on tribal, five color, peasant, highlander, set reviews,
multiplayer – anything I want!
I was also told that I should re-explore previous ideas that were years old, because
a newer audience may not have been exposed to them. In the past year, I’ve gone
back to write on topics like preconstructed decks, Shandalar, Equinaut (twice!),
highlander, and last week I hit on Portal again.
After creating a list of ideas for the column, I decided to ask the readers if you
wanted to see anything, and gave a few ideas. One of those ideas was a regular deck
doctor entry with a casual look to building good decks, not a competitive one.
I don’t think this is going to be a regular feature, unless you really, really
like it. I want to try it out to see how it feels. This is not the first time
I’ve taken decks and tweaked them (I’ve done it twice before in articles).
However, it will be the first time that I’ve done the ordinary deck doctor thing.
I’m getting these decks from submissions for an online deck doctor clinic in
the forums for my multiplayer group. All of these decks were submitted for help, and
I’m giving them that help, only in a more public place. That was, you can see how
I change decks to make them more multiplayer friendly, at least in today’s case.
Let’s take a look and see.
Patient the First
Bret’s Mill Deck
4 Lurking Informant
4 Dimir Infiltrator
3 Circu, Dimir Lobotomist
3 Millstone
3 Cancel
2 Consult the Necrosages
3 Extirpate
3 Traumatize
4 Last Gasp
4 Glimpse the Unthinkable
3 Mana Leak
4 Induce Paranoia
11 Island
9 Swamp
To begin with, the good thing about this deck is that you totally know where
it’s going. Sometimes you see decks and you wonder how it’s supposed to win
and disrupt. A sidelight here is that Bret does not have a whole mess of cards, so any
cards I suggest need to be cheap and readily available.
A basic problem with the deck is that, in multiplayer, it could use some serious
work, so let’s help Bret’s deck out a bit, shall we?
One issue that I see straight away is a fairly common problem in many, many decks.
It doesn’t have enough mana. Running just twenty lands in this deck is like
running your gym shorts up a flagpole. You simply must have more mana if you would like
to participate in this game we call Magic. Therefore, my first change is to add mana,
but what to cut?
In my opinion, the weakest card in the deck is the Lurking Informant. It
doesn’t really contribute as a creature in the whole combat phase, nor does it
really support the main theme of milling, since it only hits one card at a time.
Therefore, the first change I’d make is:
-4 Lurking Informant
+4 Lands (to be determined later)
My next thought is that this deck pushes milling too much. Traumatize and
Glimpse the Unthinkable and Millstone? That’s a lot of milling. With
that much milling, you don’t need adjuncts like Induce Paranoia and Circu. On the
other hand, Circu is actually a creature, and we only have a few of those. Due to
Circu’s legendary status, I’ll pull one – no sense you running three
and holding on to extras in your hands. I’ll also pull the Induce Paranoia.
-4 Induce Paranoia
-1 Circu
That frees up five spots. This deck needs creatures – real
creatures, not Merfolk Looters and their ilk. This deck could also use some more
creature removal – since Last Gasp is currently its only removal. It also needs
card drawing.
Creatures, card drawing, and removal, and I currently only have five spots to give
to these. A good creature choice here would be Guiltfeeder. It plays well with your
milling strategy and can kill in a couple of hits. At a table with 250 decks, the
milling strategy is weaker, so it’s good to actually have a winning condition.
However, remember, my earlier restriction on cards? It applies here as well. I
can’t add Guiltfeeder, no matter how good, because it’s a rare from an older
set. (See also: Mortivore – a solid creature to use to win with but another
rare)
I still have my five open spots, and needs for real creatures, real removal, and
real card drawing. Creatures should either be more defensive or game winning. Or both,
if that’s possible.
Other options that appeal to me include old school cards like Mahamoti Djinn and
Nekrataal, through to newer creatures like Avatar of Woe (since it’s shifted in
Time Spiral, very new!) or Body Double. Other options include cards like Visara, Keiga,
Kokusho, Serra Sphinx, and so forth. As a result, this deck has several directions that
it can explore in terms of its creature base.
I’d look at something outside the box. You aren’t attacking with Circu,
and I’ll be pulling out the Infiltrator soon enough I suspect. As a result, there
is a certain creature, recently reprinted, with fairly cheap options available. I mean,
of course, the Evil Eye of Orms-by-Gore. It plays defense easily, it’s cheap to
find, and easy on the manabase. Let’s toss in a single Szadek. Yes, it’s a
rare, but I remember Bret had one at one time, so I’m comfortable tossing him in.
+4 Evil Eye of Orms-by-Gore
+1 Szadek
Okay, we still need card drawing and removal, and maybe a few more creatures. Now,
let’s keep looking at the deck. Dimir Infiltrator has transmute, and I’m a
big fan of that. What can we get with him? Glimpse, Last Gasp, Mana Leak, and
Millstone. There are a few good choices in there, but nothing good enough to play the
Infiltrator for. Let’s pull him out.
With that change, we can take a look at our creature removal section. I’m not
happy with Last Gasp. If you only have a bit of removal, then it should frankly be
better than Last Gasp at taking out threats. You don’t want your removal to be
laughed at by larger creatures. This is an easy change.
-4 Last Gasp
+4 Rend Flesh
Rend Flesh is way better than Last Gasp in most situations. It’s arguably the
best creature removal spell since Terminate. It’s sexy and kills problems raging
from Visara to Arcanis to Serra Angel to Red Akroma. Last Gasp is better at killing
things like, um, small spirits and small regenerators and small indestructible
creatures. So if Darksteel Gargoyle is all the rage in your multiplayer circle, leave
in the Last Gasp.
I appreciate the ability of Consult the Necrosages to be used as discard, but I need
the spots for my card drawing spells of a similar cost, so I have to pull them.
-2 Consult the Necrosages
+4 Compulsive Research
Compulsive Research is simply a better card drawing spell and easier on the mana. I
like the Consult’s ability to be a Mind Rot, but frankly, it’s so rarely
used that you might as well not even bother.
I still have two open spots. Another card I like for this deck is Spite / Malice.
Although it’s an uncommon from Invasion, it doesn’t have much value, so
I’m comfortable tossing it into our current open slots.
+2 Spite / Malice
Okay, the next thing I’m doing is taking a hard look at the counterspells.
Cancel is simply worse than other options available (like Forbid, Counterspell,
Dissipate and typically Hinder). Remember that in multiplayer, countermagic is bad.
The reason it’s not that great is because it is card disadvantage, whereas in a
duel it is card neutral.
This is extended multiplayer theory that had been proved in countless articles by
numerous writers before me, and it’s borne out to be true. In a duel, you spend
an entire draw step (one card) to stop your only opponent’s draw step (one card).
In multiplayer, however, you spend one of your draw steps to stop just one
opponent’s draw step. If you play a dedicated counter deck, you quickly run out
of spells while everyone still has threats. It’s fine to play a handful of
counters as emergencies, but you really need to steer clear of too much countermagic.
As such:
-3 Cancel
-3 Mana Leak
+4 Counterspell
There’s no reason not to run actual Counterspells here.
That leaves us with two slots. We have some creatures, some card drawing, some
countermagic, some removal and a lot of milling. Our last two current spots should be
given to something more useful to the deck.
+2 Persuasion
This card, although a rare, has very little value with the dollars. It represents
any stealing effect that you or Bret might have in your card stock from Control Magic to
Dominate to Confiscate to Dominating Licid – whatever. However, this is not only
creature removal, but an extra creature for you.
Okay, now we need to figure out what those extra lands are. Let’s just make
them Salt Marshes and move on, okay?
Here is the deck in its new incarnation:
Total – 60 cards
Now that is a much better-looking deck. I still feel the deck is playing too many
Glimpse / Traumatize / Millstone effects, but the deck is much stronger, with a better
suite of creatures, card drawing and removal available. Please note that there are
still only nine creatures (counting the Persuasion) so the first thing I’d do if I
continued to fiddle with the deck is pull a Glimpse and add another creature, then maybe
toss in a few man lands for current lands. However, this deck will do for now.
Please note that the above deck is Magic: the Electronic playable.
Next deck?
Jason’s R/W/B Deck
Not a very original name, I know.
4 Plateau
4 Scrubland[/author]“][author name="Scrubland"]Scrubland[/author]
4 Flagstones of Trokair
1 Sacred Foundry
6 Swamp
4 Mountain
3 Plains
3 Orzhov Guildmage
2 Teysa, Orzhov Scion
2 Balthor the Defiled
2 Sunhome Enforcer
2 Ghost Council of Orzhova
3 Dimir House Guard
4 Firemane Angel
1 Netherborn Phalanx
4 Lightning Helix
1 Demonic Tutor
3 Vindicate
2 Dimir Machinations
3 Wing Shards
1 Return to Dust
3 Wrath of God
3 Void
2 Peace of Mind
2 Recurring Nightmare
2 Searing Meditation
2 Sword of Light and Shadow
2 Well of Lost Dreams
That’s a grand total of 75 cards with just 26 lands. Now, I’m not above
building a deck that’s larger than 60 cards when needed, but is this deck an
example of need? Let’s find out.
First of all, the land base is too small. 26 lands in a 75-card deck is way too
few. I play 24 lands in any 60-card deck by default unless there is a reason to go up
or down. I don’t play enough 75-card decks, but I’m confident that if you
add 15 cards to the deck, more than two of them should be lands.
Note that, like the previous deck, this deck already has an established theme. It
wants to use life as a trigger. And yet there are only four cards in the deck that use
the life gain. Just two copies each of Searing Meditation and Well of Lost Dreams are
included, which leads me to wonder why we fit more of our core card in a 75-card deck.
That means my first change is to strip down to a 60-card deck, and my second change
is to find space for more of our core cards.
Let’s strip down first:
-2 Lands to be determined later
-2 Dimir Machinations
-1 Netherborn Phalanx
-3 Dimir House Guard
-2 Sword of Light and Shadow
-2 Void
-3 Wing Shards
A lot of these cards are duplicative. How much creature removal does one need in a
deck built around an admittedly minor combo? How many transmute spells does it need?
The massive difference in transmute casting types tells me that the deck has too many
cards to want to tutor for of different casting costs, and you can’t fix that with
transmute cards.
With only a handful of creatures, the Sword isn’t doing you all that much good
to begin with. At the same time, it prevents you from drawing cards for your combo,
removal, mana, or creatures and anything that does that in this deck should be pulled.
Void is solid, but in this deck, I think mass removal would be preferred, like Wrath
Okay, time to fit in a few more of the key cards. I think you need at least three
of each to make the deck work. There’s an easy way to guarantee that happens:
-2 Recurring Nightmare
+1 Well of Lost Dreams
+1 Searing Meditation
Recurring Nightmare falls into the same trap as the Sword above. It is not mana,
nor a creature, nor removal, nor a combo element. Therefore we should pull it.
Let me ask a simple question. This deck includes Red and White. This deck is
easily hosed by enchantments and artifacts (like Rain of Gore or Ivory Mask). Why would
you not run one of the best artifact / enchantment spells of all time? I have no idea,
but I’m correcting that flaw right now.
I wrote the above paragraph and was about to toss in Orim’s Thunder of
Destruction and Card Advantage when I remembered the theme. Don’t go against the
theme. With that in mind, I made the following changes.
-1 Return to Dust
-1 Peace of Mind
+2 Terashi’s Grasp
Peace of Mind is a great card, but all it does is gain you life. I’ll be
putting enough life gain in the deck that you won’t need to artificially inflate
your life total with cards like these. Instead, you can do something else and at the
same time, gain life, and Terashi’s Grasp is a great example of that.
Another example of a great creature that would slide in perfectly into this deck is
Temple Acolyte, from the Portal article a few weeks ago. A two-drop that provides a 1/3
blocker while also giving you three life is pertinent early as well as late in this
deck. It’s a lot better than Orzhov Guildmage, which is a bit slow with its
ability.
-3 Orzhov Guildmage
+3 Temple Acolyte
If you are going to be gaining life, it’d be a sin to not include a copy of
the life alternate win conditions in your deck, just in case your life total escalates.
You aren’t playing any Congregates or anything, but I’d still play one as a
surprise.
-1 Vindicate
+1 Test of Endurance
We’re almost there. I need some better life-gain-oriented removal. This
removal is worse than Vindicate, obviously, but increasing your life gain takes
priority. Exile will remove a non-White attacker from he game while giving you some
life. It’s a fine answer to something like Darksteel Colossus, although it will
not kill Akroma the Elder (Or the Junior with its Pro White for that matter). (Neither
would Vindicate, so that’s no loss.)
I still have a pair of slots left, let’s see what I can do with them:
-1 Void
-1 Peace of Mind
This deck needs a little more defense. That could be in the form of mass removal
(think Damnation), or it could be more pinpoint removal (think more copies of Exile), or
it could be more tempo defense (think Ghostly Prison), or it just be good defensive
creatures (think Tormented Angel). All of these types of cards could fit here.
Remember that we need life gain. It can be extemporaneous life gain, sure, but we
need it (using extemporaneous under the fourth definition on Dictionary.com, to be made
for the occasion or to create a shelter). In fact, I know precisely what this deck
needs. This deck needs more Kokusho. With Balthor recursion and a paucity of
creatures, this deck could use some serious Kokusho. Now, Jason probably doesn’t
have Kokusho’s just sitting around, unused, but I don’t know. What I do
know is that anyone who can afford eight real dual-lands for this deck should be able to
handle a pair of Kokusho the Broken Star. This is not the same player of the first
deck.
Alright, with that done, let’s take a look at the deck in its final form: I
tweaked the manabase a little in addition to removing those two lands, and added a Kor
Haven.
Creatures (17)
- 2 Kokusho, the Evening Star
- 2 Balthor the Defiled
- 3 Temple Acolyte
- 4 Firemane Angel
- 2 Sunhome Enforcer
- 2 Ghost Council of Orzhova
- 2 Teysa, Orzhov Scion
Lands (24)
Spells (19)
Okay, and with that we have a much nicer and cleaner deck, with more life gaining,
fewer mana issues, and more creatures per capita than the prior version.
Lessons Learned
Now that we have seen a couple of decks get doctored, what can we learn from these
two examples?
Mana, Mana, Mana – It sometimes is all about the mana. When
someone hands me a deck and asks me to review it, I almost always find the mana out of
whack. Maybe they use the ancient 40/20 ratio for lands, or maybe they have way too
much mana, but I find it to regularly be an issue. For more info, check out this article from
just a days shy of being a full year ago.
Calling Mr. Creature – This is another issue, especially in
multiplayer. Many players think that because there are multiple targets in multiplayer,
that they don’t have to worry about defense as much. This is untrue! When I go
to attack someone with a creature, one of the criteria I look for is a successful
attack… and if you have no creatures, then that appears to be a successful attack.
If you are wondering why you get hit early on by various creatures, you need to look at
your defense and creature ratio.
Focus on One Problem – A common issue among casual deckbuilders is to
toss in good cards that do not support the theme, simply because they are good cards. A
classic example of this trap is the R/B/W deck that used cards like Return to Dust
instead of Terashi’s Grasp, when the Grasp supports the theme by allowing you to
gain life. You see this trend again and again. You need to cut cards that do not
support the theme. Umezawa’s Jitte doesn’t belong in every deck.
Cut to Sixty* (*Unless There is a Reason Not To!) – Some decks need
to be more than sixty cards (see my own Nexus, or Bear Beats, for examples). Sometimes
deck themes are larger than sixty cards, and you need more to fully explore them, and
The Nexus is a classic example where to explore these multiple creature tribal themes, I
have to go outside of 60 cards. However, I have built hundreds of decks for
StarCityGames.com readers, and only a handful have ever been above sixty cards.
Sixty-plus card decks should be the exception, not the rule. (Barring formats like Five
Color obviously, or maybe a Battle of Wits deck).
…
So, there you have a few guiding principles to consider. Good luck to all of our
deckbuilders out there!
Until later,