Magic Deck Vortex Blog

Welcome back, to Day 2 of the Class-Wars Contest Results.  What you will be seeing are the Runner-Up decks.  During judging I chose to recognize  a handful of categories for winners - those categories included “Best Alt-Win”, “Best Deck on a Budget”, and “Most Original Combo Deck” amongst a few other surprise winners - but generally they were decks I thought really invoked the spirit of the casual player and MDV. 

Decks that were not picked for one of these unannounced and totally surprise awards, were in the running for the sole-contending spot of “Best Deck Overall.”  Today I’ll share the decks that stood a chance of winning that category and ultimately why they didn’t. 

#7 - Drake’s Wiz Kid - Human Wizard
Lands (20)
18 Island
2 Riptide Laboratory

Creatures (20)
4 Sage of Epityr
3 Crafty Pathmage
3 Information Dealer
3 Patron Wizard
3 Raven Guild Master
2 Fatespinner
1 Azami, Lady of Scrolls
1 Supreme Inquistor

Spells (20)
4 Counterspell
3 Brain Freeze
3 Brainstorm
2 Boomerang
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Distant Melody
2 Negate
2 Traumatize

Wiz-Kid attempts to do two things, and as such doesn’t do either to it’s best.  It’s mill game is a bevy of spells that really put a hurting on the game, and Raven Guild-Master combos.  The other game it plays is control games, utilizing Fatespinner and Patron Wizard to be downright evil.  The issue is, there isn’t enough control to fully control and there isn’t enough mill to fully mill. 

This is one of the many decks submitted that can take total control with the right cards in, but without will usually suffer.  It made the overall contest winner almost sheerly on how devastating Patron Wizard is in this format.  At first the creature choice seem rather random, but they all have a purpose and some of them I agree should never be run in more than one counts.  It probably could have done with a couple more Fatespinners and more draw, but this deck would do fairly well.  Two major issues are it’s low mana count may and lack of a non-mill finisher.  Shelldock Isle would thematically be proper and Lonely Sandbar is always good in mono-Blue.  There were lots of ways this could have been improved and surprised it didn’t make use of the Time Spiral Block Magi’s or Terferi.

#6 - Streetz’ Archers of the Temple - Human Archer
Lands (24)
7 Plains
5 Forest
4 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
1 Kor Haven
1 Krosan Verge
1 Vitu-Ghazi, the City-Tree
1 Yavimaya Hollow
 
Creatures (23)
4 Crossbow Infantry
4 D’Avenant Archer
4 Longbow Archer
4 Ranger en-Vec
3 Femeref Archers
2 Elite Archers
1 Lady Caleria
1 Rashka the Slayer 
 
Spells (13)
3 Harmonize
3 Rite of Passage
2 Disenchant
2 Loxodon Warhammer
2 Viridian Longbow
1 Sol Ring

Hmm, I had always heard the best defense is a good offense?  Yet, these Archers are far and long annoying to deal with and make attacking at all a pain.  Most decks that have been submitted would fail miserably against the Archers as they chose weenies, while some like Ryu’s Giants would have no problem eating the Archers for lunch.  It plays very simple, lay down your line and hold it.  Ping away at anything that attacks and pray you have more arrows than they have creatures to alpha strike for a glorious ending.

What this deck really needed though was a way to make the defense the offense.  A card I kept saying where are you to is - Bullwhip - it seemed like a match made in heaven, end stalemates with a simple “Red Rover, Red Rover, send Timmy on all over.”  Thematically though the Archers aren’t safe - they need to have some kind of wall to hide behind.  It would have been cool to have the field laced with Caltrops making targets much easier to pick off or a Moat allowing the Archers to hide behind as their arrows sailed into their targets.

#5 - Felipe Eca’s La Sombra - Dauthi Minion
Lands (20)
16 Swamp
2 Volrath’s Stronghold
2 Wasteland

Creatures (16)
4 Dauthi Cutthroat
4 Dauthi Marauder
4 Dauthi Mindripper
4 Dauthi Trapper

Spells (24)
4 Bad Moon
4 Dark Ritual
4 Duress
4 Nameless Inversion
3 Unholy Strength
2 Loxodon Warhammer
2 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Sword of Light and Shadow

This deck at first was one of my favorites.  I fell in love with the name and enjoyed the very straight forward - shadow through to deal damage.  It had the equipment it needed to work - UR Sword and Hammer for life gain and spot control and some very good support in Bad Moons.  

However, it needed some fairly good tweaking after I studied it further.  The first place is in the mana base, there is entirely too little mana for a deck whose average cost is near to three.  Legendary lands should also be one counts as they are vastly worthless if you draw a second even if Stronghold seems like an absolute winner.  The card choice is very good and can’t argue with things like Dark Ritual and Bad Moon here, but I’d like to see more draw in something like Night’s Whisper or a Phyrexian Arena to keep the tempo up and draw the ever important creatures. 

#4 - Azrael Subucni’s Snakes on a Brain - Snake Shaman
Lands (22)
13 Forest
5 Island
4 Simic Growth Chamber

Creatures (20)
4 Chameleon Colossus
4 Orochi Leafcaller
4 Orochi Sustainer
4 Sachi, Daughter of Seshiro
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder

Spells (18)
4 Impulse
4 Stroke of Genius
4 Sosuke’s Summons
2 Overrun
2 Pemmin’s Aura
2 Worldly Tutor

Snakes on a Brian reminds me obviously of the deck Snakes on a Plane.  Of course it’s missing the whole Patagia Viper - Ninja connection, but it plays similar.  You drop down Snake Shaman make tokens then plop down more and repeat.  By sheer number and a timely Overrun or massive Colossus you overwhelm your opponent.

However, this was a deck that to me so obviously could have performed better!  One simple instance is Stroke of Genius for drawing.  There are no less than two other X draw that play faster and better - Braingeyser and Mind Spring jumping to mind immediately.  Then there is Overrun - why not stay in Snake Shaman and run Orochi Eggwatcher - sure there aren’t a lot of Snakes in the deck, but Sosuke’s will produce them en masse regardless.  I just think the inclusion of Orochi Eggwatcher could have vastly benefited this deck and given it that Gold Star status.  Could have varied on lands as well - Mosswort Bridge with Chameleon Collie makes almost perfect sense and Novijen, Heart of Progress with that many tokens being created by Summons is like “a duh.”

#3 YWN’s Rushing Rogues - Faerie Rogue
Lands (22)
20 Swamp
2 Mutavault

Creatures (19)
4 Nightshade Stinger
4 Oona’s Blackguard
4 Oona’s Prowler
4 Thieving Sprite
3 Cairn Wanderer

Spells (19)
4 Bitterblossom
4 Nameless Inversion
4 Peppersmoke
4 Terror
3 Cloak and Dagger

Much like La Sombra this deck is engines to max, full speed ahead!  You march your few quick Rogues straight across into the opponent.  Utilizing prowl and evasion things turn ugly fast.  Cloak and Dagger assists with cheap damage upping and providing Shroud to the better creatures.

You know though, I swear I’ve seen something like this before…oh yeah - Getting Classy: Rogues.  While developing a good Rogue deck is kind of a no brainer (there are so few Rogues!!) - I think some things are missing.  Morsel Theft is a whammy with Rogues (2 mana 6 point life swing and card draw!?!!) and Bad Moon is nice to up their small bodies a little bit.  This is by and large a Standard deck, or else you could further up the power level with things like Dark Ritual and Hymn to Tourach.  It’s still a strong deck however, whose only major weakness will be a Loxodon Warhammer or a beefy flier in this format - and much like La Sombra - really needed card draw.  

#2 - Bruce Flieger’s Mystical Fun - Human Nomad Mystic
Lands (21)
4 Flooded Strand
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Reflecting Pool
4 Tundra
2 Island
2 Plains
1 Gemstone Caverns

Creatures (16)
4 Mystic Crusader
4 Mystic Enforcer
4 Mystic Penitent
4 Mystic Visionary

Spells (23)
4 Mesmeric Orb
3 Divine Sacrament
3 Helm of Awakening
3 Intuition
3 Mental Note
3 Tolarian Winds
2 Gaea’s Blessing
2 Teferi’s Puzzle Box

This deck plays out very complexly, yet very simple at the same time.  Early creature casts become extremely strong and extremely hard to remove very quickly.  The goal is to build threshold within the first few turns so that the cheap creatures create a power gap your opponent can never really overcome.  Beyond the creature threat, Mesmeric Orb creates a massive effect that will really limit some decks from playing out how they might.

Now, let me be honest, for the first two days, this was your winner.  But on the third day I really took a good look at it and said - not anymore.  I’ve seen the deck in the past in other forms, and in a weaker form int he last class contest as well!  However, what really distracted me in this deck is it didn’t seem like the designer understood it fully - using cards like Puzzle Box and Helm of Awakening, when there were numerous better choices that didn’t help his opponent - simple stuff like Reclaim, Life from the Loam, and Cycle Lands.

#1 - ??????? - Stay Tuned!
See the deck that won on the last day and won the whole thing tomorrow (or the next day).  And by the way, if you entered and haven’t seen your name yet, congratulations! You’re a winner of something - whether it be an MDV Award or Best Overall. 

Discuss these results and the other results in the forum.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 13th, 2008 at 8:47 am and is filed under MDV Contest. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.