Lands:
9 Mountain
7 Swamp
4 Rakdos Carnarium
2 Rix Maadi, Dungeon Palace
1 Kher Keep
Creatures:
4 Mogg War Marshal
4 Stingscourger
3 Aether Membrane
2 Dimir House Guard
1 Hammerheim Deadeye
1 Subterranean Shambler
4 Kaervek the Merciless
Other Spells:
4 Dead // Gone
3 Rakdos Signet
2 Dread Return
1 Parallectric Feedback
1 Nightmare Void
1 Magmatic Core
1 Sudden Impact
1 Sulfurous Blast
3 Mindstab
1 Boom // Bust |
  Mercilicious.
Description of deck by it's author
(quoted):
Given my (unrequited) love for the betentacled
bouncer, it should come as no surprise that I have a similar fondness
for a certain 2/2 goblin warrior from Planar Chaos: Stingscourger. As
Matt Cavotta explained recently, the Stingscourger manages to do its,
uh, stingscourging with the aid of a Man-o'-War on a stick. Now, of all
the silly weapons employed by goblins throughout the years – like rocks,
kites, flamesticks, and something called a charbelcher – fighting off
your enemies with a marine invertebrate nailed to a twig has got to be
the most absurd. On second thought, maybe it's not such an incongruous
pairing, since goblins and jellyfish do have one thing in common: They
both lack a brain.
Now, the question becomes: How can you make
Stingscourger really sting?
I don't know, how about Kaervek the Merciless? Kaervek
has never been a very friendly fellow. He has a tendency to spite, purge,
and/or torch things without a modicum of compassion, an iota of kindness,
or a shred of clemency. Naturally, this hasn't endeared him to many.
Fortunately, he and Stingscourger have really hit it off. Maybe it's their
mutual love of jellyfish-based melee weapons, or maybe it's the fact that
Kaervek likes to punish people for playing spells and Stingscourger likes
to make people play the same spell a second time. More spells equals more
punishment. All of the red bounce spells from Planar Chaos go well with
Kaervek for just this reason.
To play, or not to play; that is certainly a question
(although it would be more obvious if there was a question mark at the end
there). It's the kind of question you ask when you're staring down Mr. the
Merciless. Obviously, you can't wait forever to play spells (he is a 5/4
beater, after all), but why not make the choice as excruciating as
possible?
To play: There's nothing like a suspended Mindstab to
encourage your opponent to play spells. A Nightmare Void sitting in the
bin provides another incentive for your opponent to empty his grip, as
does Sudden Impact. Worst of all, you don't want to be holding back cards
when the Bust half of Boom/Bust hits the stack.
Not to play: Kaervek the Merciless is a bit of
spell-deterrent, as is the one-shot Kaervek, Parallectric Feedback. Your
opponent might refrain from committing creatures to the board if you're
charging up your Magmatic Core, or if you've just transmuted a Dimir House
Guard for a Sulfurous Blast or even a Subterranean Shambler.
If you leave the cozy confines of Standard, you might
want to encourage your opponent to play spells with cards like Impatience,
Planeswalker's Fury, Blood Oath, and Desecration Elemental, while at the
same time discouraging them with cards like Oppression and Pyrostatic
Pillar. Heck, you can do both with something like Thought Prison. |
. |
