Magic the Gathering

Constructed

Magic the Classroom – Inspirations

By Dan Eckstein ⋅ January 13, 2010 ⋅ Post a comment ⋅

Today I really don’t have a solid les­son plan. When I started here at Man­a­na­tion Trick told me that he really liked my arti­cles that cover game play/ deck build­ing fun­da­men­tals. I like to write about strange and kooky decks that exist in the Tier 2 realm. We com­pro­mised and decided that at least every other week I would present a “les­son” and the other weeks I would have free reign. Turns out that even on weeks where I pre­sented a strange deck to you I was able to show some minor learn­ing theme as well. So I’m going to do a lit­tle craziness.

This week I am going to reveal not one but two decks that I really like. I have seen nei­ther any­where else but both use ele­ments of pop­u­lar decks. Because of the sim­i­lar­i­ties they are both easy to pick up and play. Also both have strengths in the right meta but unfor­tu­nately they still exist on the fringe of competitive.

The first deck started this sum­mer and I’ve already shared that with you here. I was really try­ing to make Warp World work. Turns out I was bark­ing up the wrong tree. I keep forc­ing more and more cards that gain per­ma­nents so my actual Warps were dev­as­tat­ing but the abil­ity to get to a Warp decreased. Thanks to a cou­ple of other decks I’ve dis­cov­ered a bet­ter way. Instead of max­i­miz­ing my Warps I’ve turned to min­i­miz­ing my opponent’s warps.

The first glim­mer of inspi­ra­tion came from Gerry Thompson’s ‘Spread ‘Em’ deck. If you are unfa­mil­iar with it, the basic idea is to use Spread­ing Seas and Con­vinc­ing Mirage to dis­rupt your oppo­nents mana base. Since so few decks at the time ran Islands it was rather pow­er­ful. Gerry also ran Cas­cade cards to insure that one of the Enchant­ments was avail­able on almost every turn. It was quite the deck in the Jund heavy envi­ron­ment since the mana base is prob­a­bly Jund’s biggest issue. I really thought this deck was unique and refresh­ing but I never played it. The mana base seemed to be hav­ing the same issue as Jund and I try to avoid incon­sis­tent mana.

The sec­ond deck that con­tributed to my final con­coc­tion was Mag­i­cal Christ­masland by Con­ley Woods. At its core the pur­pose is the same. Mana denial. Instead of con­vert­ing the color of mana avail­able it com­pletely destroys it. Once again demol­ish­ing many Jund hope­fuls. While its own mana base is more solid than Spread ‘em it has the speed issue. With­out a liv­ing Lotus Cobra the Land Destruc­tion pack­age can often land a turn too late.

Still I didn’t put two and two together until I saw this list from Con­ley him­self on another web site.

Spread ‘Em for Slime by Con­ley Woods

4 Acidic Slime 3 Borderland Ranger 4 Goblin Ruinblaster 3 Jace Beleren 3 Master of the Wild Hunt 4 Mold Shambler 4 Burst Lightning 4 Convincing Mirage 4 Lightning Bolt 4 Spreading Seas 3 Forest 4 Island 1 Kazandu Refuge 4 Misty Rainforest 3 Mountain 4 Rootbound Crag 4 Scalding Tarn

I really fell in love with this list. Now instead of stretch­ing our mana out to hit a turn 4 cas­cade into Seas we can hit a turn 4 straight up destruc­tion and a 2/1 hasty stick with it. I started build­ing the deck and then my only orig­i­nal thought hit me like a ton of bricks. There are only 3 cards that don’t stick in a Warp World cast­ing. One of them could be replaced by a Warp itself and the other two have plenty of strong Warp options. First and fore­most would be Siege-Gang Com­man­der. That leaves only one slot to fig­ure out.

Turns out I switched a few more cards but the basics play out like this. Early game drop Seas to limit your opponent’s options. Mid game hold you oppo­nent down by destroy­ing their work­able lands and adding a minor army of your own. Then finally either ride the back of a fin­isher or blast a very lop­sided Warp and estab­lish an even bet­ter field posi­tion. Here is my final deck that I affec­tion­ately call Warpsies.

Warp­sies

4 Spreading Seas 4 Convincing Mirage 4 Lotus Cobra 3 Elvish Visionary 4 Goblin Ruinblaster 3 Master of the Wild Hunt 4 Acidic Slime 4 Siege Gang Commandeer 2 Rampaging Baloths 4 Warp World 4 Terramorphic Expanse 4 Scalding Tarn 4 Misty Rainforest 4 Rootbound Crag 3 Mountain 3 Forest 2 Island

Believe it or not this deck has game. Espe­cially if your meta is full of mul­ti­col­ored decks. I can hon­estly boast at least a 70% win rate vs. Jund and almost as good vs. Naya Lightsaber. I haven’t tested the Naya matchup as exten­sively as I have the Jund so those results maybe incon­clu­sive. Mono-red decks have demol­ished me repeat­edly. It’s still too early to tell about the RWU con­trol matchup but in the­ory I think I have the bet­ter game and I know a resolved Warp will win every time.

I really like this list but I am still toy­ing with a few slots. Mold Sham­bler was on the list for awhile and deserves a side­board slot if fac­ing any­thing that tries to abuse a Planeswalker. Turn­tim­ber Ranger was also con­sid­ered because of the cool syn­ergy with Mas­ter of the Wild Hunt so I have him and the extra Mas­ter in the board for crea­ture intense games.

I want to hear what you think! Please post com­ments. I would really like to final­ize the board and I ALWAYS appre­ci­ate hear­ing from my readers.

The next deck I want to show you today is in its infancy so be gen­tle. It is able to be both refined and scrapped. Once again com­ments will be appreciated.

At my Local FNM we were dis­cussing Extended as is most of the Inter­net com­mu­nity. My per­sonal thoughts are that some form of Zoo is the deck of choice for most play­ers. While our def­i­n­i­tion of what is a “Zoo” deck becomes more and more broad I think we can agree that Zoo has two major com­po­nents. A strong Crea­ture to Expected Turn of Play value and a good burn/removal game are in every deck. While some decks like Rubin Zoo have a slower clock for the Expected Turn of Play their crea­ture value is still well beyond the norm.

While say­ing my opin­ion a fel­low player men­tioned how dom­i­nant Mono-red Burn was online and how good of a match up it had against Zoo. That much is true. Zoo’s mana base places its life total eas­ily within range of Mono-red Burns capa­ble dam­age. This hap­pened last Extended PTQ sea­son as well. Peo­ple started play­ing Zoo because it won a lot and then a for­tu­nate few snuck in blue envelopes play­ing Mono Red because of the Zoo heavy field. At the one PTQ I attended that sea­son I antic­i­pated a lot of Burn Decks since it had one in the pre­ced­ing weeks. I was wrong on that account but the deck I played never lost to any Moun­tain based philosophy.

The deck I want to present to you today is a blend­ing of Zoo and the deck I played back then. It has the abil­ity to make up for Zoo’s self destruc­tive short­com­ings. How­ever the strength of crea­tures is weaker than reg­u­lar Zoo as is the burn pack­age used for removal. Because of that I’ll avoid call­ing it a Zoo deck. Instead let’s just call it a Pets deck since it has smaller cats. Here it is, remem­ber any feed­back would be appreciated.

Martyr’s Pets

4 Martyr of Sands 4 Steppe Lynx 2 Isamura, Hound of Konda 4 Path to Exile 3 Qasali Pridemage 4 Lightning Helix 3 Rhox War Monk 4 Woolly Thoctar 3 Oblivion Ring 4 Knight of the Reliquary 3 Baneslayer Angel 3 Marsh Flats 3 Arid Mesa 2 Misty Rainforest 2 Scalding Tarn 3 Emeria, The Sky Ruin 3 Temple Garden 2 Sacred Foundry 2 Hollowed Fountain 2 Plains

As I said before this deck is really untested and exists only in the hypo­thet­i­cal right now. I can envi­sion a week­end dur­ing the upcom­ing months where Mono-Red is on a tear and this ver­sion can raise it life gain­ing head. I don’t see it sur­viv­ing much in a var­ied field but it has poten­tial. There could eas­ily be games where its gain could just put it out of reach of Scapeshift. Recur­ring a Banes­layer through Eme­ria can win against slower con­trol decks. And its poten­tial speed can slip it under Fae’s capa­bil­i­ties. But can it do it every game. I don’t know but I’m think­ing about find­ing out. What do you think? Share in the comments.

Class Dis­missed. Remem­ber to post your ideas.

Dan is a High School Teacher who does everything he can to squeeze Magic into his schedule. Between being a Father, Husband, and Coach it’s pretty hard. Articles by Dan focus on tips and lessons for beginners that he has learned while teaching his students how to play their best. As a player Dan has a propensity to go Crazy For Combos so occasionally these articles happen as well.

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