|
Home Decks Combos Articles Visual Spoilers Features Art Links Search BLOG Forum |
|
|
|
|
Well, I don’t know either, but don’t let those naysayer get you down, because one of RTDB’s decks this week is a wonderful example of how this card can kick some major tush!
When I first started creating this deck, I was thinking to myself... “Ho hum, another Darksteel Reactor deck. Woo. Booooring!” So great! I mean, honestly, everyone knows about the Darksteel Reactor and Dismantle combo. It tried its hand in Standard, and just didn’t cut it. The alternate win condition involves Dismantling your own Darksteel Reactor. It’s indestructible, so it sticks around to get the 10 counters from Dismantle, so you win the game. You speed up the gaining of the 10 counters with Coretapper, Power Conduit with Mirrodin’s Core, and in some builds, Energy Chamber. It was fun, but it was pretty fragile, so with all the Ravager Affinity running around, and all that pesky artifact destruction running around after it, the deck sorta floundered around like a goldfish out of water. I’d just like to mention that Fabricate and Thirst for Knowledge are currently RTDB’s MVPs, since this is the third deck out of three that they’ve both been in. We’ll see how that changes in the future. Then I got to thinking, what would make it so that I could Dismantle one of my own artifacts that wasn’t a Darksteel Reactor and still win the game? My solution really ramps up the strangeness of the combo, and makes it a ton more fun to play, if that’s even possible.
If anything, this deck has the versatility to work with the
combo it gets in its opening hand, be it the Reactor or the Coils. You can go
either way, so whichever combo you have more pieces for, use that one, and
Fabricate accordingly. This deck stays true to the original idea of combo. I
ignore you until I kill you. It’s really that simple. The deck also has the
drawbacks inherent in an artifact deck; mass destruction spells, cards like
Splinter, and the like. Exercise caution with your cards. You don’t have any
answers to other decks, as most potential answers like Echoing Truth and Mana
Leak have been removed from the deck to make way for more answers and more
copies of key cards. If you wish to add Counterspells or Boomerangs to help your
combo, you may want to take out copies of whatever you feel necessary. Some of
my friends who have played a variant of this deck in the past have decided to
completely take out Fabricates and Thirsts and the whole blue aspect of the deck
for cards like Disciple of the Vault (A very good idea considering all the Myr
Servitors dying) and cards like Arcbound Worker and Frogmite. It’s no surprise
that they’re more focused on early damage, and then using the Coils as a win
condition. It’s quite potent that way. You could even go as far as to remove
either one of the combos from the deck to put in the counter magic or bounce
that you might want, or add that quick damage you’re looking for. Things to Remember 1) Combo is great, but it’s still combo. What I mean when I say this is that even if you have most of the pieces, you still need all of the pieces to go off. The Lightning Coils combo takes at least 2 Myr Servitors, a Lightning Coils, and either a Blasting Station or a Spawning Pit. The Myrs can’t put counters on your Coils if you can sacrifice them to something. 2) Coretapper is essential for the Reactor combo, and is pretty nice for Coils as well. A Coretapper, after everything is said and done, can tap for one counter, and die for another 2. That’s three. If Lightning Coils is in play, and you put those counters on it, you’ll get another counter because Coretapper went to the grave. That’s four counters in one turn! Good stuff. Don’t forget that you can Dismantle your Lightning Coils or Spawning Pits onto your Darksteel Reactor. It’s amazing what you go through as an original deck builder. I’m constantly surprised at how many great deck ideas there are out there, and how many genius concoctions are out there just waiting to take advantage of some crazy good dollar rare (Well, crazy good in that deck, anyway). Sometimes it feels like I’m competing against Mark Gottlieb and other deck builders, because each time he puts out a deck, (normally two or three a week), that’s one less combo that I can work with. I especially loved the Kitsune Sage // Autumn Tail, Kitsune Mystic deck he did. I even had some work done on a deck involving Fractured Loyalty. Oh well, back to the drawing board. Curse you MaGo and your rather large list of emailed decks! (If you have no clue what I am talking about, click the link found here.) And now, for the part I told you all about last week... dum da da dum dum dum! I proudly present to you the first RTDB Kamigawa block card: Chisei, Heart of Oceans.
What makes this gem so great? For starters, it’s a good sized
body and a good sized price. Plus, evasion gives it a plus. So, 2UU for a 4/4
flyer is good. The drawback? We can make that a plus. With all that said, let’s
go!
I swear to you that this deck is like Michael Jackson’s nose. It’s been fixed so many times it feels and looks like nothing the original version was like. The first version had 12 counterspells, and bounce to spare. It also focused on destroying all Islands at the peak of Quicksilver Fountain’s ability with Boil so that you had a clear path to victory with Chisei, but it was confusing and hard to play. Scrap it, try again. Second time around, some bounce and countermagic went out, and the Zubera went in. Not a good idea. Not a good idea at all. Callow Jushi came into the decklist for a while, playing off of Zubera and Eye to Nowhere. It was terrible. Peer Through the Depths to search a Counterspell? Nah, I’ll pass. Hope third time’s a charm. Third time was definitely not a charm. Red came out. Green went in. We’re doing better here, but it’s not a fix. Sakura-Tribe Elders go in to accel Quicksilver Fountain, which is great against mono-colored decks. Only 8 counterspells are left, 4 copies each of Hinder and Mana Leak. Zubera are still in there for some strange reason, even though Callow Jushi got voted off the island. Nice try, no cigar. Finally, finally, the fourth build came to shape. I was pulling out the stops. Wall of Blossoms went in, and stayed. Iwamori of the Open Fist went in to fill another 4 mana spot. He’s quite excellent, and his drawback isn’t as severe if you aren’t playing Kamigawa block. Sun Droplet, an amazing card in multiples, went in when I needed more counter producers in testing, and it works like a charm. Chisei feeds off of it, and you can still gain life from them. Great stuff. Eternal Witness went in to fetch back dead things like Chisei or the Fountain, and at times, Thirst for Knowledge. In this deck, the Vial is beautiful. Played out on the first turn, it makes your Chiseis and Iwamoris unaffected by that nasty blue counter magic, and lets you leave mana open for other cards. It’s also great with Chisei if you don’t have the Fountain out yet, since you can keep the counters at the same level while keeping your Chisei alive with it. Wall of Blossoms provides an extra card while putting down some early defense, while Sakura-Tribe Elder chump-blocks and searches for land, or just searches for land. Thirst for Knowledge digs down into your deck for copies of cards that you don’t have, and can get rid of extra Vials and Fountains.
The great thing about this deck is that it uses some of the
best dollar rares in the Kamigawa block. Kiega the Tide Star isn’t exactly a
star on the competitive field, but let me tell you that a 5/5 beater that flies
that can take away opponent’s creatures is nothing to scoff about. Four turn
win? Sign me up! Most of the time, by the time you draw into it, you’ll be able
to Vial it into play. Life is good. 1) Focus on getting an early start. Wall of Blossoms and Sakura-Tribe Elder play a big part in your early game. You’re going to need chump blockers and early defense so you can ramp up your mana and get ready for your Quicksilver Fountain and Chisei, Heart of Oceans lock. Plus, both of these cards net you another card, which is pretty nice. 2) You’ve got the Beef, use it! You’ve got copies of some pretty big creatures, like Iwamori and Chisei, and even Keiga. All of your big beefy creatures have some form of evasion, so use it! You’ve got all these big creatures. Can you race your opponent in damage? This is an aggro type of deck, so you need to make sure to get all the damage you can out of your creatures. 3) Keiga’s ability stacks. If you play two Keigas, they both die to the new Legends rule, but you still get 2 of your opponent’s creatures. That’s a plus. Big plus. If your Keiga is targeted for removal, and you have 6 counters on your Aether Vial, you can respond by putting in the other Keiga to steal two of your opponents creatures. And, if you don’t like that, you could always just Aether Vial in your next Keiga after the first dies. Well, that’s it for me this week. Visit next week when I use a defensive card to deal a lot of damage with a surprising Core Set dollar rare. Until then, don’t ever forget; Casual Magic bliss is only a few dollars away. ~Death_By_Beebles~ If you have a supposed junk or dollar rare that you would like Death_By_Beebles to cover in Raiding the Dollar Bins, contact him at : deathbybeebles@yahoo.com You can discuss this article in the MDV forums here. Most Popular
Articles of 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Last
week I said I would be working with Kamigawa dollar rares. Well... I lied.
Actually, I didn’t really lie, but the first deck I’m going to feature today is
a deck that is totally not Kamigawa. Yep. Not a single drop of Kamigawa in it.
100% Kamigawa free. Maybe they should make soda with a label like that. I’m
getting off topic, but it’s no surprise that I like the Mirrodin block so much.
There is so much to work with! I mean honestly, who doesn’t like Arcbound
Ravager? Err.... bad example. There are tons of great combo cards in the set,
along with some beautiful dollar rares that no one ever seems to want. Like for
instance.... Lightning Coils. How can you not see the beauty of it? At least
five 3/1s swinging at your opponent’s head, or his wonderful board position! How
can you not like that? A 3/1 is nothing to sneeze at. Especially if you’re
attacking with upwards of 8 to 9 of them. So why doesn’t anyone use it?
In
case you haven’t seen them poking their cockroach-like heads out of the
deck-list to look around, there are 4 Myr Servitors in this deck. The extra
combo works out something like this. You get more than 1 Servitor in play, and
something to sacrifice them to (Fabricates come in handy here to pull out pieces
of combo). There’s a little combo with Servitors that lets you sacrifice them
multiple times a turn, where you stack all of your Servitors abilities, and then
in response, sacrifice all but one Servitor. You get them all back, and wash
rinse and repeat. 2 Myr = 2 sacrifices, 3 Myr = 6 sacrifices, and 4 Myr = a
whopping 12 sacrifices a turn. Using that, you can put up to 12 counters on a
Spawning Pit and Lightning Coils a turn, creating 12 3/1 critters each turn to
attack with, or 6 2/2s that stick around. But wait, it gets better! Blasting
Station also works with the Servitors, and can allow you to deal up to 12 damage
a turn. Along with that combo, we’ve added the original Dismantle plus Darksteel
Reactor alternate win condition! It’s double the fun, double the trouble!
This
deck primarily sets up a lock on your opponent’s side of the table by turning
all of their mana blue, while still being able to beat down at them from your
side. Quicksilver Fountain puts a flood counter on non-Island lands right? Well,
Chisei, Heart of Oceans takes a counter off of something at the beginning of
your upkeep. By stacking Chisei’s ability first, then stacking the Flood counter
second, you can resolve the flood counter and then take it away from your Forest
or Core with Chisei. You can effectively keep your mana open to play cards like
Iwamori and Eternal Witness while making your opponent very blue.