Hello, and welcome to my very first article. My name is Faulken, and over the course of my articles, I will be providing strategies on building Rogue Decks, and making Rogue Decks into tournament viable options. A brief summary of myself. I am nineteen years old and I have been playing Magic for over two years. Most of that time has been spent playing casually, and attending pre-releases. However, with the opening of a new card shop in town, I now have access to a tournament environment for one of the first times in my life. I hope to utilize the new shop as a testing grounds for future decks that I build through the course of my articles.

The lack of tournaments nearby wasn't the only reason I started to play casually. I primarily played in a casual environment because it allowed me a greater use of my creativity. I consider myself a very creative person and the ability to express my creativity in any medium is very important to me. The very first card game I ever played was Yu-Gi-Oh. Unlike Magic, there were several places in town that held tournaments, but I discovered that in tournaments, only two or three decks would ever be used. In addition, some were identical down to the very last card. To me, this made the game boring. What is the point of so many cards being printed if only about hundred would ever see play? When I turned over to Magic, I discovered that this trend continued. While it was at a lesser degree, there was still net-decking. That is, there were approximately five to seven deck archetypes that ever made it into the Top 8. These “Tier 1” decks, as they are often referred to, were all similar in construction as far as each archetype, or deck type, was concerned. Once again, I found this boring. In a casual environment I could build any deck I wanted, and have fun playing it. In a tournament environment, such decks were always crushed by the Tier 1 decks. Rather then sit around and mope about how unfair this was, I decided to look at what tournament decks did and why people were so eager to copy them.

So why can't Deck X compete with the current Tier 1 decks? Well let's look at a random tournament quality deck. The deck "My Fires" by Zvi Mowshowitz provides several key examples of what tournament decks do and why certain decks struggle in a tournament environment.

I picked Zvi's deck, one for the deck designer himself. Zvi is a featured writer on Magic's official homepage, and further more he writes an article dedicated to strategy. In short, this is a player that knows what he is doing. I also chose this deck for its simplicity. This deck easily shows the key differences between a casual deck and a tournament deck.

To start with, there are four Birds Of Paradise and four Llanowar Elves. That means that the deck will consistently produce 25% to 50% more mana then a deck that runs no acceleration. What that means, is this deck is fast. Next, let's look at three key creatures: Blastoderm, Jade Leach, and Two-Headed Dragon. The first two cards provide a 5/5 body for four mana. The final one provides a flying 4/4 body that can be powered up and even block multiple bodies at once. These three creatures represent the embodiment of power and versatility.

While I'm on the subject of power and versatility, take a look at Assault/Battery and Fires Of Yavimaya. Assault/Battery allows you to either Shock your opponent or put a 3/3 body into play. Fires Of Yavimaya allows you to give your creatures haste, and later, to power up those very same creatures. This is a condensed overview of Zvi's deck, but the key attributes I have covered embodies every tournament deck. These attributes are Speed, Power, and Versatility. To start your search on what tournament decks look like, look no further than this link.

Now that you have an idea what decks have won in the past, and what decks are currently claiming Tier 1 slots, let's move on to Rogue Deck analysis. First, let me start off by explaining just what a Rogue Deck is. A Rogue Deck is a deck that uses a concept unique to the deck's designer.

I will take a brief moment here to make an aside for those of you who have never thought about building a Rogue Deck. If a Tier 1 deck is good, then why would someone want to waste their time building something that may not even work? The answer varies from player to player. Some people will build a Rogue Deck just because they want to do something that no one else has done yet. Others will build a Rogue Deck to provide a greater challenge in a particular event, and thus a greater sense of accomplishment if they win. Still others build Rogue Decks just for the fun of it, just to see their opponent's reaction when they play an obscure card.

Now for the actual construction of a Rogue Deck. There are a few ways to build a Rogue Deck. The easiest way is to take a Tier 1 deck and modify it to be noticeably different from the net-deck. This will be covered in a future article. The second way is to come up with a unique concept from scratch. Now remember when you come up with a concept, it needs to be a concept that can be supported. To compete against Tier 1 decks, you will need a deck that can match a tournament deck's speed, power, and versatility. For instance, a Ferret deck would not be viable, because there is only one Ferret in Magic, and that is Joven's Ferrets.

In this article I am going to use the evolution of my Wolf deck to illustrate what I have been talking about throughout the course of this article. The conception of this deck came about because of my love of wolves in real life, and the deck name is derived from the abbreviation of a short story I wrote called After The Age Of Man.

Currently in Magic, there are thirteen creatures with the creature type “wolf”. Out of these thirteen, six of them made it into the deck. Out of the seven cards that were excluded, two were black and one was red. Since I knew from the start that I wanted a green deck with a splash of white, these were automatically excluded from the very beginning. Next I excluded Arctic Wolves for its costly cumulative upkeep. Ultimately Howling Wolf and Wolf Pack both proved too costly to run as well, and were also cut. Remember, as I stated earlier: Speed is a key component to any deck. If a card doesn't do enough to warrant its mana cost, it should be cut from the deck. The final wolf to be cut was Dire Wolves. That left Wyluli Wolf, Tundra Wolves, Timber Wolves, Lone Wolf, and Tel-Jilad Wolf.

Then Watchwolf showed up as a preview card on the official Magic site. Coincidently it was Zvi who previewed it. A 3/3 body for two mana. Speed, power, and versatility were embodied in this card. As soon as I saw that preview, I wrote four of them into my deck list and eagerly awaited the release of Ravnica. Afterwards, I begin thinking that this deck would be one that I would like to enter in a tournament in the future. Now suddenly the deck had to do a lot more then just put a bunch of wolves on the field and pray for the best.

My first task was to go about finding cards that rewarded creature types. I used Shared Triumph and Alpha Status to fill these roles. Both of them were cheap cards that allowed for large boosts during the mid and late games. For additional power I included Rancor, which is probably one of the best green creature enchantment, and Symbiosis. I chose Symbiosis over Giant Growth and Monstrous Growth because of its ability to boost multiple targets, which helped increase the deck's versatility.

This deck is all about swinging with creatures, so originally I had placed three Serra's Blessings in the deck to give all my creatures Vigilance. However, if all my creatures were lost due to blocking, the deck was as good as dead. The obvious answer was to prevent my opponent from attacking in the first place. Ghostly Prison filled that roll perfectly. A low costing card that restricts your opponent's creatures from attacking is another example of adding speed to your deck. While it doesn't make your deck any faster, the fact that your opponent's deck is now forced to run slower still accomplishes the same goal: It gives you more time to play your spells. Now you may wonder what this deck can do against Burn and Control archetypes. I will get to that when I cover the sideboard.

I had my mana sorted out already, and four spell slots remaining at this point. At the same time, the first spoilers for Guildpact were arriving on the Internet. I saw Predatory Focus and I dropped two into the deck to work as a finishing spell to force the final damage through. While the spell was almost twice the cost of any other spell in the deck, the power it added to the deck was worth it. It was at this point a friend of mine looked over my deck list and then stared at me. What he said to me next, has continued to influence my deck building. He said: “You have gone out of your way to make sure nothing but a wolf is in your deck, and yet you missed one of the most beneficial cards that could be in this deck.” What was this card he was referring to? Tolsimir Wolfsblood. Suddenly all my creatures were bigger, and my Watchwolfs were of epic proportions. In my quest to build the ultimate wolf deck, I had automatically excluded cards that might be the key to making my deck viable. This is a lesson that you should make sure to learn now. A theme is great, but if you exclude cards automatically because they don't fit your theme perfectly, then the deck may never become viable in a tournament enviroment.

Now, the mana base. You will hear many good players say that a mana base will make or break your deck. The mana base I have chosen for this deck includes four Windswept Heath and two Temple Garden. The two Temple Gardens allow me to have a higher level of versatility in my mana base, while Windswept Heath allows me to pick out the land type I need at the moment, or to pick up one of my Temple Gardens. In addition, they thin out my deck too. Once again, all this translates into a faster deck that can pull the cards you need when you need them.

Finally, we have reached the sideboard. A good main deck can do a lot, and it can do so against a lot of different archetypes, but no deck can do it all on its own. The sideboard was designed to stop specific threats and aid in specific situations. For example, two Dryad Sophisticate were included since most decks presently run non-basic lands, either in the form of the bounce lands, or the shocklands. I then added two Scion Of The Wild for additional power. In both cases, these are primarily meant to replace Tolsimir or Predatory Focus if they slow the game down too much. Tel-Jilad Wolf is in the sideboard specifically to help against any Affinity decks that one may encounter. Naturalize and Wing Snare are straight-forward utility spells that I included to help add more versatility to the deck. The final card that I decided to add was Steely Resolve. This card is meant to stall Burn and Control decks. As a side note, when developing a sideboard, make sure the cards in it match the speed of your deck. A slow sideboard, that is one with all high costing spells, will obviously make your main deck slower. Now let's look at the deck.

Before I get into deck notes, let me take the time to explain just what the point of a mana curve is. A mana curve is the analysis of the converted mana cost of all the spells in a given deck. In other words, what the cards in your deck cost. While some decks have unique mana curves, a good rule of thumb is: the higher the peak is to the left of the chart, the faster your deck will run. Keep this in mind when you are thinking of the goals of your deck and how you expect it to win.

Okay, so I have covered the backgrounds, fundamentals, and construction of this deck, how about the most important part: How does it play? Well, I don't have tournament results for you. The next Legacy tournament I can attend is a few months off, and I have only ran this deck against my friends decks. Additionally, none of those decks have been entered into any tournaments either. Basically, what this means is: I do not know how viable the decks ATAOM Bomb has faced are, and so I have no idea how viable the deck itself is. Please keep all this in mind during the following summaries.

VS ELVISH HOARD
Deck Theme: Elves. ALL of them.
Key Notes: With four Llanowar Elves along with four Fyndhorn Elves and several Elvish Pioneers, allow this deck to be very scary very fast. The deck has its own set of Alpha Status. The four Wellwisher can result in nearly infinite life gain as well.
Results: This game was pretty even. I played a Plains and Tundra Wolves, and she played a Forest and Llanowar Elves. Turn two I played a Forest and cast a Watchwolf. After the swing from Tundra Wolves, she splayed another Forest and cast another Llanowar Elves and an Elvish Pioneer, putting her mana count up to five by turn two. I cast another Watchwolf, and put Rancor on the first one. I swing and she lets it through. She casts Wellwisher and there are several turns of small swings back and forth until I cast Predatory Focus and pushed all my damage through.

VS ZOMBIE RECURSION
Deck Theme: Reanimation.
Key Notes: Brutally fast. Deck dumps things like Akroma, Angel Of Wrath and revives them.
Results: While this deck was the one I was the most worried about facing, it actually gave me the least amount of trouble. I led with Tundra Wolves. He used Dark Ritual to bring out to Festering Goblins and put Unholy Strength on one. I casted another Tundra Wolves and a Timber Wolves. I held off a turn and let him go. Another Unholy Strength was all he had. I dropped a Watchwolf and sent Tundra Wolves and Timber Wolves over in a band. First Strike took out a Goblin and let Tundra Wolves die to the effect. He played Hymn To Tourach and I lost a Plains and Watchwolf. After that though, his deck stalls and I get several easy hits. On his last turn he succeeds in Entombing his Akroma and reviving it, but the six points aren't enough to save him.

VS PERMISSION DECK
Deck Theme: Control. On a stick.
Key Notes: Counterspell. Boomerang. Stick: Isochron Scepter. Four creatures in the entire deck: Sage Owl.
Results: I hadn't thought this “mother-may-i” deck would give my wolves a run for their money, however it did prove to have its annoying moments. I would like to point out that I did not have my sideboard in during this game. We were playing back-to-back games, just randomly pitting this deck against others my friends and I had built. This deck runs almost every hard counter printed in Magic. On my second turn I played Watchwolf, on his second turn, he Boomeranged it back to my hand. He then got Counterspell on a stick. With that, it became a race. He had two Sage Owls in play that I could do nothing about, as far as damage was concerned, several of my lands had been bounced, as well as most of my creatures. The deck however runs on enough small creatures that I managed to outcast his counters and start swinging. Another victory, but a very close battle. I ended the match with one life remaining.

VS ORZHOV
Deck Theme: Lock, discard, bleed.
Key Notes: Pacifism, along with plenty of other binding spells. Pillory Of The Sleepless, Souls Of The Faultless, Cry Of Contrition, Castigate, and Hissing Miasma.
Results: This deck hit me out of the blue. It was a brand new creation that I was not prepared for. I over extended myself (one of this deck's weaknesses) and found all my creatures bound down before they could do much of anything. Two Hissing Miasma hit the field, and Castigate hit my hand. Two Cry Of Contritions sealed my fate and a few turns later I was dead. Once again, the sideboard was designed to protect against these very things.

So there are some of the decks that ATAOM Bomb has faced. As I said: I am aware that the above matches aren't particularly useful in analyzing ATAOM Bomb's tournament viability. A quick note: Like any creature based deck, overextending and allowing untargeted mass removal to wipe out all your creatures is the biggest threat to the deck's wellbeing. If I can get this deck entered in a Legacy tournament, I will come back with proper results.

A final note for those of you on a budget. The two Temple Gardens in this deck were obtained by trading a Steam Vents and Brushland for them. I tell you this to illustrate a point. I understand not being able to buy four copies of “chase rares”. A chase rare is a card that everyone wants, or is chasing after. A good current example is the set of shocklands. However that is one of the beautiful things about Rogue Decks. Most of the time they use few, or no chase rares at all. In fact, ATAOM Bomb is over my typical deck budget. In the end though, I love wolves, so I made some sacrifices in order to save up for some of the cards on the list. I will always try and be budget conscious. Even if the deck itself is not budget oriented, I will always try and provided some budgeted solutions within the article whenever possible.

I hope that you can take the points illustrated in the creation of this deck and apply them to the creation of your very own Rogue Deck. Thank you very much for your time and I hope that this article has proven insightful to you.

Please post some feedback on the forums. Tell me what you liked, what you didn't like, or just discuss the article in general. The only way these articles will improve in quality is if you help me help you.

--Faulken

You can discuss this article in the MDV forums here.

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