When John Streetz and I first talked about writing this column for Magic Deck Vortex, he said that I could use the combo pages on MDV as a resource for my dollar bin decks. At the time, I thought, wow, that’s a good idea! And, so began the search. I was looking for something that you could find in “the bin” and still be fun and useable. It took a couple days of searching, deckbuilding, and trying again, to finally find the combo I thought would be a fun one for one of your casual decks. So, let me tell you right now, this combo I’ve built this deck around is fun, useable, and abusable.

Magic, The Gathering is a game based primarily on creature interaction. How do the creatures react to each other, and which creature does what to make the game work toward your favor? You’ve got decks that try to swarm your opponent with little creatures, decks that try to slip past with different types of evasion. There are decks that use big beefy creatures to pound face. At the other end of the spectrum is the type of deck that either controls all the creatures by use of cards like Bribery and Bringer of the Red Dawn, or makes sure there aren’t any creatures to control, with cards like Wrath of God or Final Judgement. Either way, these strategies have a big edge simply because they clear the board for your kill conditions or combos and whatnot.

Lately in T2, decks that use giant creatures with cards like Tooth and Nail, and decks that use swarms of weenies have been doing well. But, one deck that stands out to me is a mono-blue deck that uses Memnarch to steal all your opponent’s permanents and win the game. This week’s RTDB deck is one of these creature control decks. Instead of just killing the creatures, we’re going to take them, all of them, just like that mono-blue deck in T2. Added to that, we’re going to use them against your opponents, and smash face with them! How sweet is it to beat your opponent down with his own Kokusho? Pretty sweet.

This week’s deck combines cards like Prodigal Sorcerer and Rootwater Hunter with one of my favorite Mercadian Masques rares: Charisma. Enchanting a Prodigal Sorcerer with a Charisma, you can steal any creature with a toughness greater than 1 from your opponent in his turn, and then use it to attack him with it in your next turn! You can find the combo at the link: All Combos from 2004 on MDV.

Let’s take a look at the deck:

Your first few turns focus on using Wayfarer’s Bauble to get an extra land the second turn, or make a Fog Bank for some early defense. Fog Bank is an awesome creature to begin with, but it gets even better when your opponent can’t push through any damage in these beginning turns, only to have their creatures turn on them in the later game. Use cards like Mana Leak and Counterspell to keep big threat spells off the table until you can get your combo online and active. Your best option is to play Prodigal Sorcerer on turn 3 and then Charisma/ Cowardice turn 4, so the Sorcerer is ready to steal something right away. Your Psychic Membranes and Slith Striders are in place to get you some cards and hold off the early onslaught until you can get Prodigal and Charisma online. In case you can’t get a Charisma, Cowardice is there to keep your opponent’s creatures off the board while you ping them to death. Not the best way to win, but we’ll get to that in the card suggestions.

I got the chance to play a Tooth and Nail deck with Charisma is Greater.dec, and it was disgusting. By the 5th turn, when my opponent played his entwined Tooth and Nail, I had 2 Fog Banks, and 1 untapped Sorcerer/Charisma. When he brought out his Colossus and Kiki-Jiki, I stole the Mirrorbreaker, and doubled blocked his token, taking 7. Next turn, I stole his Colossus, and beat down with an 11/11 token. The game was done in another turn. It was just nuts. Creature decks are good. Very good.

The one problem this deck has is a deck that can kill your Sorcerer, or a deck with no creatures. If there aren’t any creatures to steal, you’ve got some problems. We’ll get to creature and other card suggestions soon, and I’ll get back to that.

Things to Remember

1) Cowardice is a good way to push through a Strider. Use the abilities of the Hunter and the Sorcerer to bounce opponent’s creatures, and then come through to make a huge Slith and beat down for the win. Darth Vader would be proud.

2) You don’t control those */1 creatures. A creature you target with Sorcerer/Charisma has to have a higher toughness than one. If you target a */1 creature, it’ll die before you can have it. Common sense for most, but it’s a good thing to remember.

3) Make the most of your counter magic. This is the first RtDB with counter magic in the deck. Make sure that you target key spells with your Counterspells and Mana Leaks. Counterspell is a good way to keep big threats off the table until you can set up the Charisma/Sorcerer combo, and then Counterspell works to make sure your opponent can’t hurt the combo after it’s already out.

4) By all means, let your opponent play those big creatures! Don’t counter his creatures! When you’re in the beginning game, chump block with Psychic Membrane and Fog Bank. Use these walls to keep back the initial onslaught until you’ve got your combo set up. Then, proceed to smash your opponent’s face in with his own creatures.

Card Suggestions

With Charisma, any creature that can deal damage to all creatures, such as Ronin Cliffrider or Thrashing Wumpus, is a good choice. These creatures let you steal all your opponent’s creatures in one fell swoop. With Cowardice, a wonderful card to use is Sway of Illusion. It’s blue, a cantrip (it draws you a cards), and it targets any number of creatures! Also, cards like Defender-en-Vec take care of pesty creatures in combonation with Cowardice. Cards like Echoing Truth help take care of pesky tokens that can get in the way of you winning, so a few of those in the sideboard might not be a bad idea.

Since you don’t have any big creatures or any other game winner incase you can’t finish the game with your opponent’s creatures, cards like Bringer of the Blue Dawn, Avatar of Will, and Keiga, the Tide Star fill in necessary slots in the beatdown department. They’re nice creatures that can end the game for you incase Charisma/Sorcerer can’t do the trick. The plus side to them is, you can enchant them with Charisma as well because most creatures aren’t going to be able to overcome that 5/5 body without a little help. Plus, Will and Keiga both have evasion, which tends to make short games.

Well, that’s it for me this week. Join me next week for a brand new deck competition, and a casual deck that’s sure to make your head reel.

And remember all you casual players; Magic bliss is only a dollar bin 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

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