Magic Deck Vortex: Savvy Challenge!

So, finally it begins. The last set of the block, Saviors is here. You’re prepping up for new cards, and I’m sure there are quite a few people in your playgroups looking at the new cards with varying degrees of interest. Quite a few of my friends are really interested in the new creature/Legendary enchantment flip cards, especially the blue and green ones. With the new wisdom theme where cards in hand matters to the game state, things are going to be interesting in T2 and Block tournaments for a while.

But among friends and playtesters, the real interest, at least for casual games, is the cycle of epic spells. Let’s take a look at what Mark Rosewater says about epic spells in his article “Epic Struggles”:

And from the minds of Magic’s developers spring epic spells, designed to be powerful and game ending... sort of.

Epic spells are kind of strange in the fact that they happen over again in each of your upkeeps. They are also different in that they make it so that you can never play a spell after you play an epic spell. It’s quite confusing, but in the end it comes down to this: Can a card that doesn’t let you play any more spells ever be any good at all? Most people would say no, but last week we used Grid Monitor, so there is still hope for these epic beasts.

While my favorite epic spell has to be the one Mark previewed (Enduring Ideal), the one spell I’m working with this week that has epic is the green epic rare: Endless Swarm.

Endless Swarm has a good effect. It flows with the wisdom theme and rewards you for the cards in your hand by giving you one 1/1 snake token for each card in your hand every upkeep. Let me tell you something secret; that’s a lot of snake. So much so that there are some great cards that can make this pile of snakes worth some major hurt. And when I say major hurt, I mean major. Let’s take a look at the deck list.

The only thing I don’t like about this deck is the cost of Coat of Arms. At 8 bucks a crack, they aren’t cheap. The problem with replacing it is that there aren’t any cards to replace it just for terms of cost. Because of Endless Swarm, the card has to be a permanent, and setting aside cards like Leonin Sun Standard and Glorious Anthem, there isn’t a real way for you to do this permanently.

The idea is pretty simple. You use early Kodama’s Reach and Sakura Tribe Elders to ramp up your mana to play some of your bigger snakes like Seshiro. When Seshiro and other snakes you want to get out in play are all in play, use Endless Swarm, then use Seshiro’s ability to draw cards from the new tokens you have the next time you attack. Your number of cards in hand is influenced by the number of snakes that go through for damage, and so you can make up to 7 snakes a turn. With just one other snake and a Coat of Arms, each one of those snakes is an 8/8. That’s 8 8/8s, and let me tell you, that’s nothing to sneeze at.

Blasting Station also provides an interesting combo with Endless Swarm. Sometimes you won’t be able to win a game by attacking because of cards like Ensnaring Bridge. This is where Blasting Station comes in. As long as it is in play before Endless Swarm, it can act as, at max, a 7-damage pinger each turn. Since you put all the tokens in to play at the same time, Blasting Station’s ability to untap goes on the stack each time a token is put into play. That means you can sacrifice them all for damage if you want. This combo is sort of like the Blasting Station - Beacon of Creation combo. Along with that combo came the card Fecundity, and if you want to put that in, you’ll be adding even more cards to your hand, which, *gasp*, makes more snakes!!! This is so crazy; it’s exponential! (Not really, but you could see if it was, right?)

All your spells must be played before Endless Swarm. It’s epic, which means no more spells ever. Which means good game for you if your opponent can take down your 1/1 tokens with something like Night of Soul’s Betrayal. Be careful to use Endless Swarm only when you are sure that you have everything you want played.

All creatures get the +1/+1 from the Coat of Arms. This is a tribal deck to be sure, and other tribal decks will get advantage of it just as easily. This would not be my deck of first choice when playing elves or clerics.

I’ve constructed this deck in T2 format, so if there are snakes like Tangle Asp you’d like to put in for cards like Orochi Eggwatcher or Orochi Ranger, go for it. Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers is an extra add in, and can easily be replaced by another Forest if you’re worried about the budget aspect of the deck. Going back into Mirrodin, if you are into an artifact heavy environment, you can grab cards like Tel-Jilad Chosen and play off of Sosuke, Son of Seshiro’s warrior ability. You could even grab Mirri, Cat Warrior back from Exodus for a couple of copies, playing off of the Warrior ability on Seshiro. Plus, she’s tutorable with Time of Need, and is a 2/3 first-striking, non-tap to attacking, forest walking 1GG. Not shabby at all. Of course, some of you may just like the picture. Another card to consider may be something like Spellbook. Having no card in hand limit means you can really ramp out the snakes.

Now, stepping away from the Dollar Bin for a look at a deck that’s crazy... about land. It’s so crazy that it’s made me step back and look at it just a little closer, and let me tell you what, it’s a fun fest waiting to happen. Elliot, also known as gamefreak on the mwsplay.net site came up with this doozy of a deck, and for the first time ever on RTDB, he’s letting me show it off to all of you loyal readers!

This deck is clearly about land production. Cards like Summer Bloom and Exploration allow you to play extra lands each turn, and Clear the Land and Burgeoning help put even more lands into play. While all this is happening, you’re constantly drawing more cards and more land with Horn of Greed. Finally, you animate your lands with Living Lands, and then Echoing Courage or Overrun for a lot, and I mean a lot, of damage. Scroll Rack is used to move enormous hands back and forth between your deck, letting you stack things so that every land you play you draw a good card or what ever you need to do.

Everything looks good on paper, but then you realize something... It’s a 90 card deck! There are just that many lands, and you really do go through most of them to get to the end of where your deck needs to be. Things are crazy when things go right. Sounds like fun, yes? Well, it is. The problem is, it only works every once and a while. When this deck goes to town, you’ve got a lot of fun on your hands. If it doesn’t... well, you end up with a lot of lands and not much else. I was truly impressed when I played this deck the first few times. Steam rolling your opponent for excesses of 50 damage is always fun, especially when it’s trampling damage. (It’s no infinite damage combo, but your only attacking with lands, so that counts for something, right?) The next few times after that, I got nothing. Absolutely nothing other than a lot of lands. There are no creatures! No early defense? Nothing. Late game-enders? Nada. Utility beasts? Zilch. I love this deck, but I think it’s time to take it to the deck shop!

But... here’s the catch. I’m not going to fix the deck. This is the first deck ever from Raiding the Dollar Bins to deserve a rework. And you get to do it.

Deck Rebuild Competition For LandSavvy.dec

Criteria:

The deck you create must be turned in by (1 week after initial posting) All decks must be sent to deathbybeebles@yahoo.com . A deck that is late will be disqualified from the competition. All decks must have an original name that describes in short the deck, or is memorable in some way. Please do this, as it is easier for me to judge since I will know which deck belongs to who.

The deck must have no more than 120 cards, and may have no less than 75. You will get a -2 modifier on your final score if you do not follow this criterion.

The deck must focus on land in some way, and must have a land-based theme. If your deck does not have a land-based theme, you will be disqualified. Players using any Land Destruction spells as their theme will receive a -4 modifier that will be added to their final score.

The deck must be T1 legal, minus the Power Nine. Any person who puts any Power Nine in their deck will be automatically disqualified. (For those who do not know, the Power Nine are Ancestral Recall, Black Lotus, The original Mox set, Timetwister, and Time Walk).

Please send with your deck a paragraph or two describing the deck and what it does. Participants who do so will get a +1 modifier added to their final score.

If you can put 3 or more land-based combos in your deck without exceeding the 120-card maximum, you will have a +3 modifier added to your final score.

If you can incorporate Mudhole in a meaningful way into your deck (it has to do something to help the deck) you will gain a +5 modifier that will be added to your final score.

I will judge all submissions, graded on a scale of 30, with modifiers changing the final total score. (If you score perfect on all 5 criterion, and attain all the modifiers, you can have a final score of 39!)

Focus: 6/6
Cohesivity: 6/6
Balance: 6/6
Creativity: 6/6
Overall-Playability: 6/6

Well, that’s it for me this week. Check back next week as I dive into some dollar rare craziness that happens to be very good at switching things around.

And remember, casual magic bliss is only a dollar bin away.

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