4 Hunted Phantasm
4 Sleight of Hand
4 Remand
4 Exhaustion
4 Perplex
4 Hideous Laughter
4 Clutch of the Undercity
3 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Telling Time
3 Night of Souls' Betrayal
1 Reminisce
12 Island
10 Swamp |
  Night
Phantom.
Description of deck by its author (quoted):
Let me warn you: This deck can be as boring to
play against as it is stressful to play. The first several turns are all
about Sleight of Hand, Sensei's Divining Top, Remand, and Telling Time
to ensure that I hit two Islands and two Swamps as close to turn 4 as
possible. Perplex is usually a hard counter early in the game, but I
save it for really scary stuff that I won't be able to handle with my
four-mana spells.
Once the early game is behind me and I find myself with mana, it's time
to start messing with my opponent. Night of Souls' Betrayal will
hopefully kill a few of her creatures, and Hideous Laughter can often be
a board-sweeper. I hate to use Exhaustion or Clutch of the Undercity
this early to buy me time, but it's sometimes necessary. If I have a bit
more breathing room, I'll either wait until I have counterspell backup
for Night of Souls' Betrayal or start transmuting for my two key cards.
Those two key cards, of course, are Night of Souls' Betrayal followed by
Hunted Phantasm (or, less often, Hunted Phantasm followed by Hideous
Laughter). Once these two are in place, I now have an unblockable 3/5
that is meant to win me the game. Now my counterspells keep the Phantasm
alive, while Laughter, Perplex, Remand, Exhaustion, and Clutch frustrate
my opponent during the never-ending attack phases. Exhaustion turns out
to be the most important of these cards because of its ability to
essentially give me a Time Walk in most circumstances, though Clutch
obviously helps speed up my victory.
That's the deck, and there isn't a tremendous amount of variation in
strategy if everything runs smoothly. I say that Night Phantom can be
boring to play against because games with this deck tend to extend past
twenty turns even if things are going well, and two turns worth of
Exhaustion are enough to make anyone crazy. The Reminisce has really
helped me reload in games that go too slowly, since I've often either
transmuted most of my cards away or run out of good transmute targets.
Meanwhile, I say the deck is stressful to play because I almost always
feel like I am one card away from losing the game. The beauty of the
deck is that each card plays a pivotal role in its overall strategy, but
this also means that one or two misplayed cards and the whole game
crumbles away. In many respects, this deck has the strategic complexity
of a control deck with no true counterspells while incorporating many of
the elements of classic combo decks. Thus there's a lot to juggle at any
one time, and the deck barely manages to keep the balls aloft. Despite
the stress, it's a deck that can go toe to toe with lots of non-budget
opponents and it's always fun to hear the “oohs” and “ahhs” when Hunted
Phantasm resolves with Night of Souls' Betrayal on the Table.
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