Magic Deck Vortex: Wakey Wakey!

Well, Raiding the Dollar Bins has officially made it past the two month mark. This week’s article is the 9th RTDB, and I couldn’t be happier about it. It’s too bad I’m not getting any challenges from my readers to build around, but fear not! I’ve got a challenge for all of you this week! This week is the start of another RTDB Deck Building Challenge, and I’m gonna love to see what you guys do with it. But enough of that until later! Let’s get on with the deck!

Bounteous Kirin, as I mentioned in the teaser (I guess that’s what it is... I doubt it’s an introduction) is actually used in this week’s deck. I’ve always felt that since Saviors has come out he’s the one little Kirin who gets treated the worst. I mean, he’s just... bad. He costs 5GG, and his ability isn’t all that useful. If you want life gain, there are much better cards, like Hero’s Reunion and Ageless Entity, for example. But that’s a different deck and a different time, and Bounteous Kirin is a great card in this deck. Not because of his ability, but because of his abysmal cost.

The Kamigawa block has truly been a block dedicated to card advantage and hand size. Think about it for a second. Splice helps keep good cards in your hand, while Soulshift lets you get back your creatures after they’ve hit the graveyard, and do I even have to mention the abilities of the new Maros or cards like Akki Underling? Working with that theme in green gives you cards that really stand out such as Kodama’s Might and Kodama’s Reach, as well as cards like Haru-onna. Keeping that in mind, I’m going to bring this theme to play with this week’s dollar rares.

Slumbering Tora sound familiar, anyone? No? Anyone? You in the back, how about you? Well, besides being a semi-decent rare in limited, Slumbering Tora is an addition that this deck can’t ignore. It’s a fancy combat trick, win condition, and spirit dumper, all in one card. Tora can be used to dump cards like Kami of the Hunt and Haru-onna, only to get them back with Forked-Branch Garami or some other soulshifting spirit. It functions well as a surprise blocker and attacker, although, I am sorry to say, there is no awesome combo to go along with Tora (email me if you have one), it works quite well in this dollar bin deck. Along with it working well, you can get a playset for under a dollar at some card sites! Let’s take a look.

This deck is primarily about creature interaction. You want to try and get an early start by playing out Soilshaper and Traproot Kami. You’ll find that the little Traproot will be a great asset, as long as you keep it alive in earlier turns. It takes care of pesky Dragon Legends and other flying creatures, as well as gets completely ridiculous after 6 or 7 forests out. It’s a perfect blocker for this deck, and to make it even better, it’s abuseable by all the spiritcraft creatures in your deck.

In the way of spiritcraft triggers, Soilshaper provides a nice early offense and a little defense when things get tight. Bounteous Kirin, although basically Tora fodder, can be played out late game as a “I shall beat you better than I’m beating you now” card (also known simply as a ‘win more’ card). Kami of the Hunt provides a nice offense, and combos nicely with Kodama’s Might. Haru-onna keeps your hand chock-full of spirits, so it’s no wonder I’m playing it in this deck. You’ll find in later turns that Haru-onna isn’t actually too bad to cast. It’s cost can be a bit prohibitive in the early game. In your early game, Haru-onna, Bounteous Kirin, Jugan, and Masumaro are all Tora fodder, flying in for some more damage. Shinen of Life’s Roar makes sure that your opponents are going to take all the damage you can give them, and will often be a part of your win. Plus, the Shinen is also nice to use with Channel. You can often clear the board with a big Tora and swing through with more damage from the rest of your creatures.

Your win condition is creature swarm. By the end of the game, you are hoping to have set up a nice defensive barrier while creating a strike force of spirits to take down your opponent’s pretty quickly. Make sure that you pay attention to all your spirits’ abilities. They may be hiding ways for you to win the game, and all you have to do is realize it.

Oh, and I like to activate Slumbering Tora and say “Wake up little tiger!” It seems to annoy people. Not sure why though...

Things to Remember

1) Lifespinner has three targets. I know that your first thoughts when using Lifespinner would be either to go for Masumaro or Jugan, but in reality, Bounteous Kirin is another great possibility. His life gain abilities can help out a lot when playing decks that use a lot of burn, or one-hit creatures such as Blistering Firecat or Ball Lightning. Plus, it’s a respectable 4/4 flying body.

2) Forked-Branch Garami dying is not a bad thing. Seems obvious, considering it’s size, but letting your Garami die in combat is certainly no problem here. Attacking into your opponent’s hoard isn’t such a bad thing when you get spirits back from his dying. It’s nice card advantage, especially if you take a few creatures along with him.

3) Remember it’s may. Not the month, but a lot of spiritcraft triggers have the word “may” in them, which means you don’t just automatically do it. It has to be remembered, and if it isn’t, that’s your fault, and you have to deal with it. As a side note, Jugan’s counter ability is also a may clause, so if you forget, tough cookies.

Personally, I think there are plenty of good spirits to go in this deck. Among them would be the Phantoms from Judgement, such as Phantom Nantuko. While proving almost indestructible in combat, they also trip those spiritcraft triggers. I’d also love to see some more soulshifting spirits in the deck, but which ones you like are up to you.

I’d like Promised Kannushi a little more if there was some way to get her to interact with more spirits. She’s great for getting more use from your pitched spirits, but she doesn’t activate triggers or help the spirit theme much. It’s your call on her as to whether or not you like her.

Elder Pine of Jukai is a great spirit from Saviors, but I’ve cut him from the final build because he had the tendency to throw my key cards to the bottom of the deck. There is, however, no doubt that his ability is extremely helpful in the case of having Masumaro hanging around. A couple of copies more of him could be added with the removal of Kodama’s Reach or Kodama’s Might, especially the Reach because Elder’s effect overlaps its effect.

One thing I remembered most was a green and white version of this deck that I could never get running. White has more powerful spirits such as Hokori, Dust Drinker and Windborn Muse. It also has the limited powerhouse called Waxmane Baku, which is certainly a nice win condition. When 9th Edition comes back out, we’ll be seeing more copies of all Painlands, which may drop their prices a bit. That isn’t going to mean that they still won’t be expensive though. I found that Elfhame Palace is a bit too slow for my taste, although I’m sure someone out there can make a respectable build of a W/G Tora deck.

I’ve tried to build the deck like all other RtDB decks, and use a low cost build rather than a high cost build. There are certainly great spirits that can be used in the theme of this deck, but more than likely you’ll be shelling out some good cash for them.

In the Spirit of Saprolings and Squirrels
Deck Building Competition

Criteria:

The deck you create must be turned in by (1 week after initial posting which will be 7-29-05) 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 100 cards, and must have no less than 60. Any participant who has a deck that does not meet these specifications will receive a -2 modifier to their final score.

The deck you will be creating is a Post-Rotation Extended TOKEN deck. That means you are only allowed to use cards from Invasion onward. (9th Edition is not legal at the time of this writing. 9th Edition cards that are not in any other set from Invasion forward are not allowed to be in the deck.) Decks must be built around a token theme. Decks not following these requirements will be disqualified.

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. Explaining how your deck works is a surer way to score better in the competition.

If you can insert an infinite combo in your deck based around tokens and make it work, you will receive a +3 modifier added to your score. Any deck using the Stations from Fifth Dawn as their infinite combo will receive a -3 modifier instead of the +3 modifier. Please note that your infinite combo will count for the 5 deliberate combo count mentioned later.

If any participant can use Hidetsugu’s Second Rite in any token combination to win the game, that participant will gain a +5 modifier that will be added to their final score.

If any participant can make a deck with 5 deliberate combos in the deck, and explains them all in their deck explanation, they will receive a +3 modifier, and will receive a +1 modifier for each combo explained that is in their deck after 5. This modifier is capped at 10 explainable combos, or at a +8.

I will judge all submissions, graded on a scale of 30, with modifiers changing the final total score. In addition to the modifiers mentioned above, any participant who is given a perfect in any category will be given a +1 modifier for each perfect score. Any participant who receives a 0 in any category will receive a -1 modifier for each failing score.

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

There you have it! But do you have what it takes?

~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 ... We’re sure he’d love it.