So, here’s a funny story from the Darksteel prerelease. I can’t say it was my funny story, as I wasn’t involved.
I’m standing around, waiting for my flight to start, when rising voices at one of the other flights attract my attention. From what I could glean of the argument, somebody was not running a card in his deck, and all of his friends were mocking him for it. I moved forward to catch the details, and I saw the card in question: Darksteel Gargoyle. The guy was of the opinion that he could be dead by the time he could get the seven mana to play it. (Gee, I never hear that argument made in favor of cutting Grab the Reins; I wonder why?)
That story is basically my way of saying this: yeah, I know that the indestructible cards are good in Limited. Really good. Crazy good. But that’s not what this article is about. It’s about Constructed formats, and what we can do with these titanic trinkets on February 20 and thereafter.
The Obligatory Affinity Section
Okay, let’s just get this out of the way right now:
**Derf-finity
4 Broodstar
4 Myr Enforcer
4 Frogmite
4 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Thoughtcast
4 Mana Leak
3 Shrapnel Blast
1 Rush of Knowledge
4 Pyrite Spellbomb
4 Aether Spellbomb
4 Darksteel Ingot
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Great Furnace
4 Vault of Whispers
4 Glimmervoid
4 Darksteel Citadel
Sideboard:
4 Cabal Interrogator
4 Disciple of the Vault
4 Shatter
3 Pyroclasm
Personally, I like to go the aggro route with my Affinity decks. Control starts with land, and lots of it; if you look at some of the best control decks in the history of the game, you will see that they either ran boatloads of land, or a land tutor such as Thawing Glaciers, Land Tax, etc. No deck that runs just twenty lands and no tutors, as this one does, should be taking the”control” route. So, I prefer Frogmite and Shrapnel Blast above Override and Assert Authority.
However, I also cut Chrome Mox for Darksteel Citadel, which puts the deck a little at odds with itself. Any Dave Price disciple will tell you that aggro starts with turn 1 threats (which is especially important in Standard these days, since most of the Goblin decks run eight one-mana creatures). But without Moxen, a turn 1 Frogmite or Interrogator is completely impossible. I’m still trying to fit in the Moxen, but my only question is, what can be cut? Let me know in the forums.
Also, the Talisman-based acceleration of previous Affinity builds has been replaced with Darksteel Ingot. I can already hear people complaining that this will slow down the deck, but it provides so many important things. First, it straightens out your colors, which is even more important now that Citadel is around. It also doesn’t hurt your mana curve that much – one can still go turn 2 Frogmite and turn 3 Enforcer with this build, and most important of all, it gives extra outs against Akroma’s Vengeance.
I don’t know what things are like in your local metagame, and I don’t play on Magic Online, where I’m told that Affinity dominates… but I do know this: in the metagame at my local store, Affinity is considered little more than a novelty act, because about half the field is composed of W/x control decks with Akroma’s Vengeance. The Citadel is simply not enough, you need the Ingot as protection also. I will welcome any and all assertions that I am an idiot on the forums.
Other assertions which may prove debatable:
(1) It’s not that I dislike any of the Affinity creatures in Darksteel; I just am not yet ready to cut Frogmite or Shrapnel Blast for them.
(2) I think Darksteel Brute is not aggressive enough to have a place here; see below.
(3) I would run Lightning Greaves, but I had the same problem I always have with the Shoes: I would rather have a threat or Rush of Knowledge in its slots instead.
(4) This deck still just loses to Elves!, which was already an okay deck at States and may become more viable thanks to Viridian Zealot. [I will go on record here as saying Zealot is stupidly good in a variety of decks, and (along with Oxidize) will probably serve to drive Affinity out of the Tier 1 slot for Regionals. – Knut]
Et Tu, Brute?
At the prerelease, I heard someone compare the power level of Darksteel Brute to Mishra’s Factory, which is patently ridiculous – and not just because there is already a Factory in the set in Blinkmoth Nexus. It seems to me that having the Brute in your deck is kind of like having Ashton Kutcher in your movie – he may not be going away any time soon, but still, you could do a lot better.
Take White-based control decks, for example. Sure, they could use the Brute, as all of their board-sweeping spells wouldn’t touch him. But in which matchups would he bring something new to the table? He can chump-block goblins, but they’ll still eventually overwhelm him if a Wrath of God isn’t drawn. Akroma’s Vengeance and/or Oblivion Stone are still the keys against Affinity. In the mirror, the game is more often decided by who can recur more Eternal Dragons, a creature that laughs in the Brute’s face as it’s flying over him. As long as the Brute can’t act like a card-advantageous twelve-point Blaze, he’s not going to replace Decree of Justice.
I suppose we’re most likely to see the Brute in a deck that wants to sweep the board but doesn’t use any of the White cards mentioned above. For example:
**The Hans Call Me Dark Cloud
4 Consume Spirit
4 Darksteel Brute
4 Death Cloud
4 Extraplanar Lens
4 Oblivion Stone
4 Diabolic Tutor
4 Barter in Blood
4 Mind Sludge
3 Promise of Power
20 Swamp
1 Island
4 Polluted Delta
Sideboard:
4 Mind Bend
3 Dark Banishing
4 Cabal Interrogator
4 Phyrexian Arena (or Persecute, whichever you’d rather have for the control matchup)
However, even though the Brute perfectly suits the deck’s strategy, you can see that he’s still very underpowered. If MBC suddenly becomes a viable deck, it will be because of Death Cloud, not the Brute.
(Yeah, I’m getting my Master’s in Obvious Theory. My thesis is entitled”Zebra or Horse?: A Heuristic Analysis of the Stripe Dilemma.”)
Imagine playing this deck and saying to yourself,”Okay, I can make an artifact that doubles my mana, or I can Mind Twist my opponent, or I can do X damage to him, or I can cast a spell that does both plus Armageddon and Wrath of God, or I can draw five cards and make a flyer big enough to stomp his Exalted Angel into dust, or I can tutor for any of those things and do it next turn or… I can have an unkillable Grey Ogre until end of turn!” Which do you think you’ll choose?
The Brute’s anemic beatdown isn’t going to win most games. The only time it will is if you’re able to produce a massive Cloud that depletes all of your opponent’s resources and yet still somehow leaves you with three mana. A nice idea, in theory – in practice, you’ll probably be ending more games outright with Consume Spirit and/or Promise of Power tokens (this is why the Lens is in the deck).
To be honest, I’d much rather have Undead Gladiator on the team than Brute; the list above has no early-game card-drawing engine, and the Gladiator is a nice, cheap way to break the symmetry of Death Cloud.
And yes, I am wasting five sideboard slots with Island plus Mind Bend specifically to deal with Karma. I’ve already made my feelings on this issue very clear. Until you have a better idea, I suggest you direct all Karma-related complaints to [email protected].
Insert Overdone References Here
Myr Matrix scares me. Not because it’s especially powerful – five mana is a lot, and it can still be countered like any other card – but because it’s so damned unstoppable. If it resolves, you had better be able to kill the opponent in the next turn or two, because otherwise, the Matrix has you.
If you put your ear really close, you can hear it: the sound of inevitability. That inevitability is exactly the bonus of the Matrix over Darksteel Brute. Given time, the Myr will swarm your opponent, while the Brute can just be blocked endlessly by bad creatures. In fact, I would have put the Matrix into my MBC list above, instead of the Brute, if it were not for that pesky”sacrifice X lands” clause on Death Cloud.
Instead, the Matrix is obviously paired with decks that make boatloads of mana. It’s not like the Standard format hasn’t been bored to death by such a deck already:
**Cloudpost Much?
4 Wrath of God
4 Akroma’s Vengeance
3 Oblivion Stone
4 Eternal Dragon
3 Exalted Angel
2 Decree of Justice
4 Mana Leak
3 Rewind
2 Pulse of the Grid
2 Myr Matrix
2 Mindslaver
8 Plains
5 Island
3 Mirrodin’s Core
4 Flooded Strand
4 Cloudpost
3 Temple of the False God
Sideboard:
4 Weathered Wayfarer
3 Scrabbling Claws
2 Stifle
3 Circle of Protection: Red
3 Metagame Slots (I’ve lost a couple times recently to LD, so these are Sacred Ground. If MBC makes a comeback thanks to Death Cloud, they’ll be Karma. If Affinity takes over, then Annul. You get the idea.)
Random thoughts: Although Vex is much better than Mana Leak in the late game, I would still go with Leak because I want to be able to counter turn 3 Goblin Warchiefs and Stone Rains when I lose the die roll. Last Word may eventually replace Rewind, but right now I still like the Rewind/Cloudpost combo. A warning regarding Pulse of the Grid: don’t plan on recurring it early, ’cause this deck does not empty its hand quickly. It’s intended to be a mid-range refueling method, like Whispers of the Muse was back in the day. I am not yet certain what the mix of Matrix/Decree/Mindslaver should be, so I’m going with two of each. Testing and your local metagame should determine your own choices. Isn’t”Willow” just a cheaper, condensed, crappy-dialogue adaptation of the Lord of the Rings books? [Sunday, Sunday, Someday! The ultimate fantasy battle royale! Viggo vs. Val! Liv vs. Joanne Whalley! Warwick Davis vs. Elijah Wood! It’s a battle for the future of the universe and You. Must. Be There!– Knut, channeling Strongbad]
Also, just for variety’s sake, let me suggest another strategy:
**Kiss Me, I’m Irish
4 Rampant Growth
4 Reap and Sow
4 Birds of Paradise (if you face a lot of Goblins, perhaps Vine Trellis instead)
4 Solemn Simulacrum
3 Plow Under
3 Oblivion Stone
4 Ravenous Baloth
4 Hystrodon
4 Troll Ascetic
3 Myr Matrix
15 Forests
4 Windswept Heath
4 Cloudpost
Sideboard:
4 Naturalize (also good vs. Astral Slide, which is a serious threat where I play)
3 Oxidize
1 Plains
3 Worship (a possible out vs. Affinity as well as Goblins)
2 Silklash Spider (unless you have a better idea vs. Exalted Angel)
2 Scrabbling Claws (damn those Eternal Dragons!)
My teammate Rick recently lost a duel in which, thanks to Rampant Growth and other acceleration spells, he got hit with Plow Under on turns 3 and 4 and Biorhythm on turn 6 (whenever I bring this up, Rick always hastens to mention that he won the match anyway). That inspired me to experiment with Green decks that try to beat W/x control by accelerating into ridiculous mana faster than the Plains mage can deal.
The acceleration can get out of hand quickly; one possible opening is turn 2 Rampant Growth, turn 3 Solemn Simulacrum, turn 4 entwined Reap and Sow, giving you +4 lands over a control deck that plays Draw-Land-Go every turn. If you can drop a Matrix soon after an opening like that, any deck not running Lightning Rift is going to have a hard time catching up to you.
Well, that’s the theory, anyway. If only it were that easy to ignore the deck’s faults. First, with the only removal spells being triple Oblivion Stone, it’s not easy for you to answer any opposing threats. Second, you have only one card-drawing engine, the Hystrodons, which can be killed by Terror, Wrath of God, or your own Oblivion Stones – so even if you obtain control of the game, you may not draw enough cards to keep it. Finally, this deck has no backup plan – if you get a slow start or a creature-light draw, you’re just basically hosed.
Still, even if this deck does not prove viable, it shows how you can use the Matrix to iron out many decks’ late-game problems. It’s almost enough to make me put Altar’s Light in my U/W sideboard… almost.
Conclusion
It surprised me how difficult it was to think of useful ways to utilize the new indestructible cards. Although they obviously will go straight out of people’s boosters and into their Standard decks, I had first thought that the mechanic could bust the format wide open, which isn’t the case. This may be a result of good design, or it may be because there are just too many stronger cards in the Onslaught Block; only time will tell.
Until next time, here’s hoping that your team doesn’t lose on its home floor to some unranked suckas on a last-second shot (as happened to my Kansas Jayhawks last week). [I’d throw a jibe in here, but Oklahoma hasn’t been playing well enough to talk smack lately. – Knut] I can be reached via email at [email protected] and I appear on the StarCity forums as Youngster. Later.