Let’s face it.. the Vortexes in Magic stink. Thank God Streetz has created a Magic Vortex that is good, or we would always sit around wondering, "What would it be like if there was a Good Vortex?"

So then, what would it be like if there was a good Vortex? Well, going back to the definition of what a Vortex is:

Vortex: (per Dictionary.com) 1. A spiral motion of fluid within a limited area, especially a whirling mass of water or air that sucks everything near it toward its center. 2. A place or situation regarded as drawing into its center all that surrounds it.

Oh, perhaps since this is Avatar Week, we should make an Avatar of a vortex. It could be something like a tornado that whirls real fast and draws everything in to its core. Since I’d like to spice it up a little bit, lets make it an Avatar of Magic Deck Vortex!

It would undoubtedly be a creature, and I think it would have to be Red, or Streetz might get upset, since he is the man with the plan who decided on splashing the Red paint on the cardboard back. (I wonder if maybe he tripped and spilled it on there and that’s why we have the red backing, I’ll have to ask him one day.)

Since Red creatures require Red mana, we have a starting point! So far it is R, make a 1/1. That’s good stuff right there. Then I remember, we are a Casual Site, so I must make it a strong card… strong in the toughness! So lets add R to it, and make it a RR make a 1/3 creature. Now we are getting somewhere! Wait, we need a cool ability! Let’s see… sometimes, when I read the forum, I get a headache, so I must be discarding! And since I didn’t have control, it must be random! Oh nice…nice… so a random discard, that gets me… …nothing. Alright, here we go, R: discard a card at random. Sweet!

Sometimes, when I am working on my articles, I get really excited and can’t stop typing! So I should include this… R: add R to my mana pool. Great! The guys in the Writer’s Guild are going to love this. Oh, and when I watch a tornado on TV, I see it blowing everything up and I always thought that was cool; how can I instate that into the card, and still relate it to Magic Deck Vortex? I’ve got it! R2: Destroy target land, that land’s controller puts a 5/5 Red Einsteinmonkey token into play, that can not attack me. Oh, how my opponents will like me when I help make their deck work, and they can attack my other opponent’s with a 5/5 creature that I created for them, and it only cost me 3 mana to do it!

That’s a pretty good idea, let me expand on this! 4: Put a 4/4 colorless Tekk token into play under target opponent’s control, that creature has "At the beginning of your upkeep, sacrifice a permanent for each talking counter on Tekk. When Tekk deals damage, put a +1/+1 talking counter on it." Wow, I wonder if tokens can have flavor text…? What the heck, this is a fictional card anyways. "I say the most facinating things." (Yes that is a direct quote.)

Well, I probably should stop before I get someone offended right?

Anyways, as I was saying, Vortexes really aren’t that exciting, nor powerful, nor, much of anything. They are typically cards that don’t even get play time in a casual deck. So what I have decided to do is find myself a loop hole. Thanks to Avatar Week, I have found it! Eureka! I can tie this article into Avatars, due to the theme week, and then say bye-bye to Vortex forever!

So lets get to work kicking Vortexes off of MDV for good.

First, I have to pick one of the many crappy Vortex cards left. Then I have to incorporate an Avatar or two, then I can run wild and amuck around the other card types in the game! What a Diabolic plan, and in true bad guy form, I just spilled the beans of the whole plot to the good guy.

So I need a crappy Vortex… poof! Enter crappy Vortex:

Oh, that is what I am talking about. When searching the database for crappy cards, this one surely will come up. I can draw a ton of cards, but in turn I must discard my hand and sacrifice a land. Golly, sure am glad I paid four mana to wack myself in the eye with a stick!

As I sit here, trying to find a loop hole around the end of turn stuff, I realize that… there really isn’t much of a loop hole here. I can not duck the end of the turn, since I must end the turn eventually. I can’t use a Sacred Ground effect to save my lands, since its my effect making my lands go away. I can not use a Library of Leng effect to save my hand, since I would be continually drawing the same cards over and over again, and thus demeaning the purpose of Psychic Vortex’s draw ability.

The problems that the Vortex gives me to solve, is that it is more than happy to give me all the cards I could possibly hope for, at the cost of not being able to keep those cards nor having the mana to be able to cast them. These problems and more are what we have to solve in this article, so lets get to work…

Oh and include a couple Avatars as well. *wink*

The easiest solution to our problem is not the most direct approach. Being one who enjoys the fact that I like to think outside of the box, I came at this problem from a different approach. I was not thinking, "How do I abuse this card?" but more like, "Man this card sucks, if only it didn’t make me draw so much and make me get rid of my stuff."

That is when it occurred to me. Can I make it affect them instead of me? Why… yes, yes I can. I can pair this little used Blue Enchantment with another little used Blue Enchantment, and I have a vicious little combo! With Shared Fate in play, now all the sudden the tide has turned. I begin to draw off of your library, and the cards do not even go to my hand, they are kept safely out of play, so I can not discard my hand, oh well! But what do I do about my mana supply? Psychic Vortex really doesn’t care about Artifact mana, so we should be good with that, and that ends up working out well with Shared Fate, as when the opponent is drawing off of our library, we really don’t want him to get anything good from our deck, so drawing a Sky Diamond doesn’t do him any good. So now, the crappy Vortex card isn’t looking so crappy. But wait! Isn’t that what we need now? Crappy cards to compliment our crappy deck? Lets look and see if we can find some more gems to pitch to our buddy!

First, I decided to go ahead and get my Avatars out of the way, and boy did I find two good ones, err bad ones, that fit great into this deck! First, hailing from Fallen Empires, the Ebon Praetor is just a below average card from the get go. However, in this deck, he excels! Your opponent will top deck this guy and groan. By casting him, suddenly the Preator becomes a liability, as he starts eating his own creatures. A dead draw for him for sure! However, if we draw him and cast him, he is a nice fat 5/5 wall that will deter an attack for a turn. The other gem I found was Herald of Leshrac. So let me see if I get this right. I cast him and I begin to steal his lands, and sacrifice a land at the end of the turn, and then when he leaves play, I must give my opponent’s lands back, if they are still in play. Dandy! Oh and it gets better! Once I have the Vortex churning, my lands will be eaten up, and when you draw my Minion, you can’t even pay his upkeep, so yet again, another dead draw… money!

Heading in this direction, you can quickly see what the win condition of the deck becomes. It is a ‘mill’ deck, in which your goal is to deck your opponent. Decking my opponent has always been a favorite past time of mine. I am not talking about hitting him or anything like that. I am refering to running your opponent out of cards and letting the old static rule of not being able to draw a card give victory to you.

The problem that we have is that we somehow have get rid of the Shared Fate once the opponent’s library is gone. Keep in mind that if I run the opponent’s deck dry, I do not lose the game, due to the fact that this is a substitution effect of drawing. Meaning, that I am not really drawing, I am taking the top card of my opponent’s library and adding it to my imaginary hand. If he does not have a library, I simply do not get a card any longer. Now it is time to get rid of the Shared Fate, so that my opponent needs to draw off of his own library, once it is empty, and thus lose the game.

As I scrolled through the card in my Magic Workshop, I chuckled a few times as I came across some older cards that I used to play with. I came across my old buddy Browse, and I began to reminisce about the olden days. About how quickly I could ransack my library, and keep only a few cards. Then that reminded me… don’t forget that you need the digger, or you will deck yourself… wait a minute! If I deck myself in this deck, who am I really decking? HIM! *Adds four Browse*

See, Browse solves a few problems for us. First, it gets rid of my library, so that we don’t leave anything in my pile of cards that he might be able to use. Secondly, it gives me access to my library on a consistant basis, even after I begin drawing off of my opponent’s library. Third, it gives me something to dump my mana into at the end of his turn, which I try to do a lot of the time, so I don’t feel like I am slacking off. Lastly, if I have no library, he gets no new cards, so removing my library from the game becomes a very good thing. At five cards per use, it only takes 6 uses to mill off 30 cards, not to mention four to five card draws, and you can see how quickly my library will be depleteted.

The other thing about Browse, is that if my opponent draws one, he most likely will be hesitant to use it for his own purposes, especially once he realizes that I am trying to mill him out, and he would just be helping me.

Back to the problem we have at hand, I still need to be rid of Shared Fate, in order to win the game! So back to the card database for me…

Again I came across a card that sparked memories. I found Howling Mine. While I thought for a second about using it to increase the draw rate, and burn through the libraries, then reality hit me… NEVER use Howling Mine unless you are playing Stasis, or that type of deck that can force your opponent to not be able to afford the cards he is drawing. Howling Mine is your opponent’s best friend. However, what it did do, was remind me of Stasis decks, and this brings me to the point. I need to be able to kill the Shared Fate on my time, and not use a card that my opponent can also use to eliminate my Shared Fate.

Back in Stasis’ hay-day, some people tried to use Despotic Scepter to wack their own Stasis, instead of using Boomerang on it to reset their lands. This typically was not the best way to run that deck, as Boomerang proved to be right decision time and time again. What this did do, was give me the answer to, how to get rid of my Shared Fate and not give my opponent the Boomerang. But, I still was not convinced that I had the best option available. As history has shown, most good options that were created back in the day, have had improvements or upgrades created years later. So I began to hunt and came across a Zuran Orb / Despotic Scepter hybrid that is exactly what I need. Enter Caws of Gix.

Claws of Gix has very good synergy with the Herald of Leshrac, as I do not have to give the lands back once I can’t afford it, and if I don’t have the Vortex munching their lands, I can eat them myself, for they are high in fiber, and I could use to lose a pound or two. The Claws also are important, as for a single point of mana, I can eat the Shared Fate, and gain one life, and watch as my opponent struggles to draw another card during his next draw step.

While I was looking at the Claws, I just so happen to see a card from the same time period that people tried so hard to use to their advantage, but it never really panned out well for them. This deck, however, does not have many permanents or cards for that matter that go to the graveyard, so Energy Field is godsend for us.

At this point, I realized that I need to somehow stay alive! Energy Field will work well, but all that has to happen is a stinking Disenchant of a Fellwar Stone, we will get to the stone in a moment, and I am defenseless! So we need to keep creatures from messing up our hair. The easy way would be to drop a few Propagandas in here, but I decided to do some handicapping, and go with cousins instead. War Tax is basically the same thing, except that I can determine how much the opponent needs to pay before they attack, and also there is Web of Inertia. This was by far my favorite Odyssey block draft selections. While everyone was busy either drafting White and Green or Black, I was busy scooping Webs from packs that drifted around. There was not much Enchantment hate to go around, so people would just sit and look at me, un-able to attack as I flew over their heads with little bitty Blue flyers. Good ole days!

So I decided to go with a few copies of both cards.

Finally, I would like to be able to have mana acceleration and have some left over mana, once the Vortex begins it’s duties. So we need to be heavy on non-Land sources of mana. I chose Fellwar Stone right out of the door, because it gives me the proper colored mana to operate my opponent’s spells once I start to draw them. In addition, I have grabbed four copies of both Charcoal and Sky Diamonds, giving us 12 sources of Artifact, colored mana. Won’t our opponent be happy to draw his first four cards from our library and get: Island, Charcoal Diamond, War Tax, and Claws of Gix? That will definitely give him the advantage!

Here is my final product for this deck:

*Note: if this was not Avatar Week, I would have replaced the creatures with something usefull… like Urza’s and Mishra’s Bauble. That is not sarcasm by the way, those would be awesome card slots… but alas.*

I playtested this deck a few times, and I have to say that our deck turned out to be not too bad. I discovered that normally, I end up milling my own library first with Browse, which disables the opponent, and then begin to let the Vortex do its job. This actually reminds me a little bit of the old Stasis locks, because at moment a Stasis player gets a Howling Mine, Stasis, and Kismet into play, and then you have tapped all of your permanents, the Judge could call the game to save time. I bring this up, because once the Shared Fate is in play, you have Browsed your library away, and they do not have a Disenchant type spell in thier hand or play, they might as well concede the game. They will be empty of graveyard by then, and they can not attack. More than likely, they wont have a direct damage spell to finish you off, so they will be sitting there for the next 15 turns, watching you draw 2 cards, then 3 cards, then 4 cards, then...etc., until they get to see the end play out. This is a fine 'Old School' lock-deck.

The fact that typical casual decks will not have much Enchantment or Artifact hate makes this deck very tough to deal with, as they probably won't be able to deal with this deck the first few times you play against them. As a matter of fact, they probably won't be able to even break an Energy Field, let alone deal with this deck. You should definately build this deck if you have an annoying friend, that you don't want to come around for a little while. *wink* If you do, and would like some play tips for the deck, feel free to PM me in the forum.

Well, the deck is done, the article is complete, yet I am still writing. I'll bet my last dollar that you are sitting there thinking, "Why...? Idiot! Quit writing so I can go to the forum and tell you how good your deck is!"

Not yet! Not so fast! I still need to have something to build off of for my next Shifting Lineaments article. I accomplished my task of breaking off the Vortex and sliding Avatars into its place. The only problem left is that all the Avatars are being cover this week by the other writers, so my material would be old!

Soo….. my bonus deck for you… which will break me away from Avatars is… *drum roll*

This deck is basically a straight forward ‘send creatures at your opponent, and hope that they don't Wrath of God’ style deck. There is a little bit of shenanigans going on with the Aetherplasm, as he has good synergy with the Avatars, especially Woe and Praetor. Your opponent attacks when he thinks he has the upper hand, and all you have played so far is little tiny Mist creatures, and when this guy, the Aetherplasm, blocks, then the switchero goes on and he becomes an Avatar of Woe, a 6/5, or an Ebon Praetor, a 5/5 First Strike, all the sudden he starts to rethink his strategy. The good part of this deck, as far as making the Praetor not suck so bad is that your Mist creatures can pretend to be Thrulls long enough to satisfy the Praetor, and he gets stronger, instead of weaker. Having 32 creatures in the deck, you should not have too much trouble keeping his appetite fed.

Next, I really came to like the Halcyon Glaze while messing around with this deck. Once he hits play, this Wrath of God-proof creature hangs out in the back, waiting for you to trigger him, and then he flies over and pecks your opponent in the head for four, then returns to hang out some more. The other creature that I found a liking to is the Krovikan Mist. For only two mana, this flying creature really racks up the damage. Once I started to cast more Illusions, he got bigger and bigger, and couple that with the Glaze coming to life and becoming an Illusion, the Mist really became a problem that had to be dealt with. Unfortunately for the Mist, he is not Wrath of God-proof, and neither are all his friends who make him big, so over extending to make the Mist big can be a problem, but if you played him in a control style deck that ran Meloku, then the Mist is a very nice kill mechanism, while keeping Meloku in the back to churn out Illusion tokens.

There, all done again. Join me next time when I figure out exactly what the heck I am going to do with Illusions, and see where we go from there.

As they say… Peace Out!

You can discuss this article in the MDV forums here.

Articles Spotlights from 2006
The Games People Play - Tactical Magic.
If I worked at R&D
The Beginner’s Guide to Rogue
Druid Week Primer
Opting In: Ravnica
MDV Idol: Finale!
Avatar Week Primer
Delusions of Mediocrity: Getting Stuffy in Here.
Raiding Ravnica: Guildmages and You!
Lands-More than Mana: Part One