4 Hapless Researcher
4 Thought Courier
2 Ovinomancer
2 Hell's Caretaker
1 Wonder
4 Magus of the Jar
1 Magus of the Mirror
1 Cabal Patriarch
3 Hoverguard Sweepers
4 Chainer's Edict
3 Crippling Fatigue
4 Think Twice
4 Dawn of the Dead
11 Island
10 Swamp
1 Miren, the Moaning Well
1 Riptide Laboratory |
  Shear
Genius.
Description of deck by it's author
(quoted):
The blue Magus didn't really excite me at
first. I couldn't think of any exciting uses for it, any particularly
spicy combos. Then it hit me like a ton of zombified bricks: Dawn of the
Dead! I immediately put in my DVD copy of the George Romero classic. And
then it hit me: Dawn of the Dead is also a Magic card, and it works
wonderfully with Magus of the Jar! Thanks, Football Zombie!
Dawn of the Dead is like a free Corpse Dance every turn.
That's the upside. The downside is that you lose one life per turn and the
creature that you return to play is removed from the game at the end of
the turn. This would normally prevent you from recurring the same creature
turn after turn. You can circumvent this in couple ways. You can play with
creatures that can be sacrificed (Magus of the Jar, Cabal Patriarch, any
creature by way of Miren, the Moaning Well), or you can use creatures that
can be returned to your hand (any Wizard by way of Riptide Laboratory).
Either way, the creature won't be in play when Dawn of the Dead instructs
it to be removed from the game.
The other advantage to Magus of the Jar is that it can
fill your graveyard, making Dawn of the Dead even more powerful during the
next turn. Hapless Researcher and Thought Courier also help you fill up
your graveyard with creatures like Hoverguard Sweepers and Wonder.
Chainer's Edict, Crippling Fatigue, and Think Twice don't mind spending
some time in the bin.
Most creatures get better when you give them haste, but
some get better-er than others. One such card is the “timeshifted”
Ovinomancer, who goes from unplayable to darn near amazing when you can
use it the turn it comes into play. The sheep-maker has one of the
nastiest drawbacks ever conceived. When it comes into play, you have to
return three (!) basic (!!) lands (!!!) to your hand, or sacrifice it.
That's the price blue has to pay if it wants to destroy creatures. Sorry I
killed your Angel. Here's some Sheep. If the Ovinomancer has haste,
however, you can use its creature-destroying ability while its
comes-into-play ability is stuck on the stack! Your opponent will end up
with a Sheep token and you will end up with an Ovinomancer in your hand.
Pitch it to Thought Courier and you can make another Sheep the following
turn.
Another card that loves haste is Magus of the Mirror.
Unfortunately, you can only play its life-total-switching ability during
your upkeep. Fortunately, that's precisely when it will come into play
with Dawn of the Dead! The same goes for Hell's Caretaker. One nice thing
about the Caretaker is that you can reanimate it with Dawn of the Dead,
activate its ability (sacrificing itself), and the creature you return
will not be subjected to Dawn of the Dead's remove-from-game clause. This
can be useful in situations where you need a blocker.
Without a doubt, there are more “broken” things you can
do with seven extra cards per turn. There's the Storm combo approach, of
course. With all the drawing and discarding you and your opponent will be
doing, you might turn to cards like Underworld Dreams and Megrim (Memory
Jar's original tag-team partner). |
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