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Last weekend, the 29th through the 31st of July marked the 9th Edition Release events. Of all the 285 cards in Beta, only 24 of them have been in every core set since Magic: The Gathering’s inception back in 1993. One of the most surprising drops in 9th Edition was the removal of Healing Salve, one of the 3 for 1 cards (also called the boon cards) made back in Alpha. Now, only Giant Growth is on the list, the others being too powerful, or like Salve, not very good. Ancestral Recall is now part of the Power Nine, Lightning Bolt was axed in 5th, and the last time Dark Ritual saw print was in Mercadian Masques. Another surprising cut would have to be, in my opinion, the other Circles of Protection. I mean, CoP Blue, White, and Green weren’t exactly the most played, but I thought they would keep the set together. Turning Enchant Creature cards to Enchantment - Aura cards seemed a little over the top at the beginning, but now that I’m getting used to it, I’d have to say that it is a good idea all around. It clears up a few questions I had when I was starting to play Magic such as why it was what it was, and how it worked. After all, you have to realize that the Core Set is for new players as well as the experienced. Along with the big changes, the may vs. can thing has been taken care of, so all in all, I think things are going to be a little nicer than before, especially for our Magic newbies. Some of the cuts were to be expected, but I never thought Healing Salve would go. Hmph. I guess that’s what I get for thinking.
Mortivore has always struck me as a good and playable card. For 2BB, you got something that could potentially be huge, plus, it only regenerated for a single black mana. It’s ability to stick around makes it a great choice, and in the right deck you can make it push through some major pounding. Another Odyssey Lhurgoyf that got printed in 9th was Magnivore. And, although I like Magnivore, the deck to build around him would be one with a whole different strategy. Perhaps we’ll save him for a different Raiding the Dollar Bins. So, with that being said, let’s get on with my deck, the Mortivore deck. A deck that actually makes Skulltap good. Woah. Skulltap.
The game starts out with a pretty decent curve. In earlier turns, use Careful Study to go through the cards in your deck to find a Mortivore if you don’t already have one. Plus, Careful Study is a good way to get creatures in the graveyard to pump up Mortivore. Chainer’s Edict and Diabolic Edict keep your opponent at bay by making them sacrifice their creatures. These two cards also make Mortivore a bit bigger, so all the better. Skulltap does two things in this deck: It pumps your Mortivore, and it draws you two cards, letting you search for more creatures or more Mortivores. All the creatures in the deck are nice utility creatures. Spiketail Hatchling keeps heavy spells at bay by offering up a basically uncounterable Force Spike for your opponent to worry about. Bile Urchin is a quick 1 drop that can go to the graveyard at instant speed, and take a little bit of your opponent with him. In the early game pre-Mortivore, your job is to keep pinging your opponent with your little men while you ramp up for a Mortivore. As long as you have A few Edicts in hand, don’t be afraid to go for the alpha strike (Magic slang for “attack with all your dudes”). Ravenous Rats provides hand control (hopefully your opponent would like to discard creatures?) and Kaijin of the Vanishing Touch steps in front of guys to make sure you can use either Edict to get rid of the creature you want. Your major goal is to control the board while you set up for a Moritvore kill, so keep that in mind. As far as strategies go, a little lost life in the beginning of the game is no big deal, but this deck can just as easily chump block your opponent’s creatures. You want cards in the graveyard, so let your opponent think he’s getting card advantage when you double block and whatnot. Another three creatures in the graveyard is no big deal. Mortivore is a black card, so you don’t have to be worried about cards like Terror or Horobi’s Whisper, but all the same, be cautious with it. Things to Remember 1) Regenerate taps your Mortivore. One of the basic rules that most people forget, Regeneration means that you remove all damage from the creature, then tap it. Keep this in mind when you’re playing, as you’ll probably need to regenerate Mortivore every once in a while. 2) Reuse those Chainer’s Edicts! With Flashback, you can reuse your Chainer’s Edicts, albeit at a really high cost. Don’t forget that they’re in the graveyard, because that simple fact can win you games. 3) Sacrifice creatures keep Mortivore alive. Bile Urchin comes to mind in this scenario. Suppose you have a 3/3 Mortivore and your opponent hits it for three with a Fireball. You can respond by sacrificing one of your creatures (Bile Urchin, Spiketail Hatchling) and make your Mortivore have one more toughness. This is a great move to pull if you don’t have the mana to regenerate, or thing that your Mortivore may be killed more than once in that turn. 4) Careful Study and Skulltap are for getting creatures in the grave. If you want better card draw, there is plenty of it. The problem here is, you need to get creatures in the grave for Mortivore, so not many card drawers do this. Use Careful Study to dump creatures and unwanted spells in the grave while keeping Edicts and Mortivores. Use Skulltap when you’re in a pinch for cards, as it’ll make your Mortivore a little bigger and get you two new cards. Suggestions for Card Additions
Creatures that have any sacrifice effects would be nice additions for this deck. You could go for green and use cards like Sakura-Tribe Elder and Spore Frog. Along with that, there are plenty of nice creature tutors in green, so you shouldn’t have any problems finding a Mortivore with a card like Worldy Tutor or Sylvan Tutor. Bifurcate would be a nice addition to grab more Mortivores if you already have one in play. Diabolic Intent is also a nice little gem from Planeshift, and it puts creatures in the graveyard! Double utility! A nice addition to this deck would be the Urza’s Destiny rare Attrition. You can use it to control your opponent’s creatures, and one use puts 2 creatures in the grave. Very nice indeed! Another direction this deck can go is a Madness type deck where you play cards like Ideas Unbound, Wonder, and Careful Study to put creatures into the graveyard. In this case, You may want to substitute Mortivore itself for Cognivore. Although it is much more expensive, it fits the Madness theme well, so it’s worth looking into. You could even do a deck switch with sideboard! (For those of you who don’t know, a deck switch is where when you sideboard, you fundamentally change your deck to make your opponent make mistakes.) In this case, you could pull out Mortivore and your creatures for Cognivore and cards like Circular Logic, Obsessive Search, and other instants. Well, that’s it for me this week. Join me next week... well, don’t actually, because I won’t have an article for you. But, join me the week after that for a deck that not only has spirit, it’s pretty sneaky about it too! ~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 be happy if you did. Most Popular
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But,
just like always, if you cut something out, you put something back in its place.
This time around, notable additions to the list are all 10 painlands. With a
multi-colored Ravinca coming out soon, R&D decided to put both the allied color
and enemy color painlands into 9th, and I couldn’t be happier about it.
Invasion’s taplands are just too slow for competitive play, and I’m looking
forward to getting my painland playsets. Another addition which I loved back in
Onslaught, is Weathered Wayfarer. His ability is huge, and it helps fetch those
Urza’s Lands and all those non-basics that people love and love to hate. Two
other notable inclusions are Hypnotic Specter and Biorhythm, which I am both
looking forward to playing with again. Along with all this, I’ve got one of the
implanted rares who made his debut back in Odyssey. Lhurgoyf ahoy, it’s
Mortivore!
Mortician's
Delight. 
A
new card I would like to look at for this deck would be Idea’s Unbound. It’s
costed at UU, so it’s a little harder to cast in the first turns, but it grabs
you 3 cards, and dumps three cards. That gives you plenty of digging power to
find Mortivores and Edicts, and it’ll dump creatures for you as well.