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As you progress through your life, there times that you will come across where all you have time to do is think. During those times, you can sit around and think about important things like, when is my mortgage payment due, or do I need gas in the car, or maybe I should do laundry tonight. Then there are other times where you completely flush those important things and simply reminisce about stupid things that are most likely, best left forgotten. Most of my Magic career usually ranks in the later of the two options provided, but since I brought it up, I decided to spring into a deck I used to love to play with. It was my multi-player deck of choice, that is when I wanted to play nice and not just Tradewind Rider-Limited Resources lock every-one down (Story for another day). The deck was centered around my favorite little Druid in the whole world, the Avenging Druid.
This little guy is one of those creatures who are just screaming to be Lightning Bolted. If this guy gets past summoning sickness, and then past someone’s defenses, its lights out! The ‘specialness’ of this Druid is that, he really is not one who cares about being fair, which is most likely why I love him so. He doesn’t care if the next land card on the top of your deck is a Swamp, Forest, a Tolarian Academy, Island, or a Mountain, put it into play! He doesn’t even care if you have already played a land this turn, put it into play! He doesn’t even care if you have no more cards in your library, just put it into play! On top of all of that, those precious lands do not even come into play tapped! He loves the land so; and I love mana so. So do Sliver Queen and Verdant Force. Don’t forget about Multani, and Thorn Elemental. Oh, and Serra Avatar is a fan of mana too. Shoot, don’t forget that since your throwing your critters into the graveyard at a rapid pace, that Lhurgoyf really doesn’t mind mana so much, but loves to munch on dead creatures heads.
However, since we are busy just haphazardly throwing our libraries away, it might be smart of us to have back-up plan, just in case our buddy gets carried away and plows our lands into play, and our decks into the grave. My solution of choice was to use Gaea’s Blessing. The Blessing works wonders with the AD because when it is sent to the graveyard by the effect of the Druid, then you shuffle your graveyard into your library. Lhurgoyf may not appreciate it much, but I certainly did. Now you may be sitting there wondering to yourself, “But Chris, what happens if the Druid never gets active?” I am so glad you asked! See, there are a huge number of druids in the game of Magic, and it just so happens that there is another druid that I am a fan of, the Hermit Druid.
The Hermit Druid is a little different than the Avenging Druid, in the respect that instead of it throwing the land into play, it puts the land into your hand. He, however, is a little more selective. He only wants basic lands and will put the Lake of the Dead into the graveyard right along with your Palinchron. “So what exactly made your deck fun? And why did it win?” I am so glad that you are such an astute learner and so good at asking the right questions! The deck basically was fun because it was a race to see if I could get my druids into play, and keep them alive long enough to make them active. Then it turned into a political game of, “Hey Sam, let me hit you a few times, and I will team up with you against Dave.” Throw some lands into play, toss a Sliver Queen on the board, and play the counter-spell-backup game for a few turns to get the infestation of sliver tokens maxed out (not to mention getting my other buddy Seedborn Muse out for extra fun). Then attack Sam with my swarm and high five Dave.
The unseen secret of the deck came to be the Hermit Druid. I could use him without having to make enemies, and get the lands out of my deck. I mainly only had about 7-10 other creatures in the deck besides my druids, and the rest was bounce and counter spells. With few lands left in my deck, each time the Druid would activate, I would hit a Blessing, and shuffle my used up countering spells back into my library. Since my hand was always full, I would make sure to run Forbid, and discard some land to pay its buyback cost, and when the Blessing would be hit, I would get some land and countering spells freshly cycled back into the deck. Once my foes figured out to kill my druids, they had to decide between killing a Sliver Queen, 45 sliver tokens, or a Druid. It was a tough decision, especially knowing that I held counter power in my hand. The Hermit Druid’s strength lies in its ability to sit back and wait tactics. It makes a good compliment to your Birds of Paradise; sitting back there and avoiding traffic until its time to throw them under the bus tire and dodge to safety for a turn. The most fun aspect of the deck was that I normally played 4-5 colors in the deck. Each time I went to play it, I could swap out and mix and match different cards. As a matter of fact, I carried around with me a box of around 100 cards that were not in type 2, but were pretty strong in there own ways. Cards like Kirtar’s Wrath, Rout, Ray of Command, Sunder, Radiate, Evacuation, etc. were among my favorites. Mostly because even though a lot of the cards are not so good on their own, I was able to take advantage of them due to my ability to recover at the speed of light. Even Armageddon was not much of a threat. This most likely would not have been possible to do if I did not have the mana stability that the druid duo provided to me.
In conclusion, these two Druids are truly amazing at their ability to manipulate the game state. They add to your card/mana advantage, and can get in front of a 12/13 Nantuko Shade with the best of them. Long live the Tree-huggers! Cpn You can discuss this article in the MDV forums here. Most Popular
Articles of 2006 |
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The
Avenging Druid’s strength mainly came into play if you were able to cast him on
turn two, and attack on three; or if you can simply force this little guy
through with a full out attack. In a multi-player game, most likely your
opponents are playing a slower deck, or a weenie deck, and don’t forget, the
Druid is also a good weenie blocker at a 1/3.
