Vanguard: A format for magic which until the release of MTG Online, was seriously under valued and under appreciated. It’s true that the cards where hard to get a hold of; being as they were given out as promo cards and to tournament winners, but the information was there for those willing to look.

I first came across Vanguard in late February, 2003. And I must confess, I fell in love with the idea of the format. The simplicity of it and the myriad of combo’s that could be achieved without too much hassle were fascinating to me. I couldn’t wait to go to my play group and try this exciting format out.

This is when things went wrong; out of twenty veteran MTG players, only two of them had heard of Vanguard; and only one of them actually knew the rules for the cards! I was heartbroken, as nobody was willing to learn this format where you ‘Start with a card which isn’t a card’. Feeling defeated, I gave up on the format and put it to the back of my mind.

Then, a light was shone on my secret passion. MTG online reintroduced the concept of Vanguard to the Magic community; if only initially online. But it wasn’t long before the information was posted on the site, and players in their thousands took to this ‘new’ format. But they all forget one thing; there are avatars that are not represented by the online versions.

What had become of Gerrard and Volrath? Why had these key figures in the history of Magic been so casually discarded like yesterdays newspaper? Surely they deserve another chance? And that’s the aim of these articles; to give those cards of yore another day in the spotlight! I will be taking each of the cards and presenting you with a deck to go along with it. Should you wish to buy/see the cards, you can find them here!

So without further ado, let’s get to it!

Karn makes all those useful artifacts into creature, but we need to be careful of noncreature artifacts with a ‘zero’ converted mana cost, such as Chrome Mox; as they will simply kill themselves the minute they hit play. This is also true of artifact lands, as they have no converted mana cost they also pop on entry; this throws affinity into a bit of a pickle. So where do we go with this? Well the benefit of turning artifacts into creatures is that they can be affected by creature effects; sounds obvious right but trust me; we can have some fun with this. So we plan to make benefit of the fact that the artifacts are creatures, so what does that allow us to do? Well, asides from pump them up with things like Giant Growth, it allows us to make tokens of them! The minute I think of token, a particular match up of two cards comes to mind:

Kiki-Jiki and Intruder Alarm!

By creating a token copy of our artifact, we untap all our creatures; allowing us to reuse any tap abilities they may possess and that is the key to this deck.

This deck can do amazing things when it is pulled right. With the cameo’s becoming 3/3 creatures that produce two different types of mana for a tap, when the token producing engine comes into play you’ll never need worry about mana again. So why not make mana your opponent’s problem? With Tectonic Break, an unruly card at the best of times; you can squash all chance your opponent has of pulling any answer to your game play, then it’s a matter of whether you wish to blaze or ping your opponent for infinite damage?

Notice that not one basic land is used in this deck; this is due to the need to build speed fast. I love cloudposts, with just two in play you’re throwing around four mana, and in the best case scenario of all four you have a total of sixteen mana at your disposal. This allows you to drop the cameo’s quickly, while the other lands allow you to play Kiki and the alarm with no concerns. What does it matter if your opponent gets a 1/1 spirit token or your take one point of damage? With the increased life total coffered by your Vanguard Karn, you can stick it out for that little bit longer you need.

This ability looks really nice, until you realize this means you will always have an even amount of mana unless you use other mana sources. Not good news for cards like Birds of Paradise and Llanowar Elf. So we need to steer as far away from odd converted mana costs as possible. But the good news is we will always be ahead of our opponents for mana, so we should attempt to capitalize on this and go for the quick play before our opponent can catch onto our plan. It also allows us to play some mean creatures really cheap, as we effectively halve the mana cost. Suddenly, Guildmages can be dropped on turn one, the Myojins don’t seem so hard to drop as they once did and even Dragon Tyrant could be considered a valid choice of card. But we still want speed, so we should look further down the mana curve.

This deck hits the game running and doesn’t stop! This is a beat down kings’ fantasy, big creatures that get bigger and bigger each time they swing; and the best part of all is this deck its already up and running by turn three. There is only one slight design flaw in the deck and that is the Chords. Yes, they allow you to go and pull a big monster and ram him straight into play at instant speed, but it’s always going to leave you with an odd piece of mana, and life in not something you can afford to waste unless you’ve pulled some Streams for huge amounts of life. Then again, you could sink the odd mana left into the stream so it all works out fine.

So basically all my basic lands are City or Brasses without the pain? Can anyone say sweet! Mirri makes five colour decks a real possibility, no doubt about that! In fact, she plays beautifully with the Fist of Suns; you can get one of each colour no problem. So what do we go for, the world is our oysters. Well, our last two decks have really been creature heavy so lets steer clear of that and aim for something else, like an instant speed deck. What about control, five colour style! Each colour has its own piece of the field it can control, and with no issue to the colour of mana we can use them all.

This deck is simplicity at its best, throw out the mask and storm and watch your opponent fold. With no creatures to target, and unable to target you with the burn that the storm will provide him/her with he’s looking at a pretty wasted turn. And even if he has some big creatures in his hand, or someway of killing you; you’ve got the counter spells and creature remove you need to control the field. But why make use of each basic land you say? Because of cards like Choke and Flashfires my friends, we need a wide range of lands so as not in inbreed weakness into our deck. This deck is also a bit of an oddity for me, as I have never made a deck that didn’t feature one creature; Hurray for me!

Hmmm, a howling mine at the cost of hand size. Well, that’s easily overcome but how to take advantage of this additional draw? Well, there are a few options; creatures such as Maro that take advantage of the number of cards you hold or we could match the ability up with some form of deck sorting mechanic like Sensei’s Divining Top. Maybe both, or even just use it to pull our important cards for an otherwise normal deck. The possibilities are endless, but we must settle on something….

Well I’ll say one thing; if this deck gets up to speed your opponent is in the deep end. Oh he’ll get the cards he wants, but at the cost of having to ditch everything else just keep a hold of it! And on the plus side you can sort your deck, pull half of it in one go and then keep it! You will always have an answer to his play if you think out your turns logically. Who’d have thought it; Gerrard is a wizard’s best friend! I did consider splashing some green into this deck to put in Gaea’s blessing, so even if you did have to let go of your key cards, you could get them back, but it seemed to dilute the deck to much.

So you can always see what is coming you way hey? But the same is not true of your opponent? This has got to be abusable, it simply must! Without even thinking about it, black loves Squee; what with all those cheap, type specific discard cards you can actually make a guaranteed action each time! I feel a deck formulating! It goes without saying that if we plan to take advantage of discard, Megrim cannot be far away; and because we have a graveyard to pick at we can run resurrection!

Okay then, it is not the greatest discard deck out there but it has it is all my own work and it has its advantages. The ability to recycle the Thrulls with both the Unearths and Debtor’s knell for serious discard power is always a good thing, and all that discarding makes your Abyssal Nocturnus bigger and scarier. And the ability to see what your opponents holding allows you to tailor the amount of discard and the type of discard you wish to pull on him/her.

This guy lends he’s strength to one kind of deck: Beatdown. But where to get our beatdown flavour? If we are to make advantage of this haste effect then we need good creatures and we need them fast. There is one deck that was widely loved and hated that screams for this bonus to make it truly sick; and I fear I may receive a large number of boo’s for this but….

And I’m on the defensive: this deck will produce a threat fast, which can swing the minute it hits play. It makes for a good deck. Yes, most of the cards where banned from Standard because they were consider ‘Way over the Average Field of Play’ as one Wizard’s spoke person said. But come on, what else was I going to do with haste? Goblins?! They could have worked but we all know how to make a mono-red goblin deck and if you don’t hang your head in shame; or ask me for help, which ever you prefer.

Untargetable creatures, with no physical target to remove this protection so your opponent cannot get around your protection that way. Short of Wrathing the field every time you build up a little army, your opponent is going to have trouble with your creatures; so we can field delicate combo pieces on the field with little fear of they dying.

These deck makes use of two of the most well know black ‘combo-play’ systems, allowing you to put big, nasty creatures into play. And thanks to your protective shield, you opponent’s chances of killing off your key combo pieces is seriously reduced, but it is important to know that it hasn’t completely gone. Make use of your tutors and rituals and play fast, before the other guy figures out a way around your shield.

Okay, there is not a lot to say about this card. He helps creatures, simple as. Okay, all you people who admitted earlier you don’t know how to build a mono-red goblin deck (I can see you hiding at the back there!), watch and learn!

Now all those weak little green skins have a little extra punch; and thanks to a mixture of brightstone ritual, Goblin offensive and Goblin warrens, you will have huge numbers of the little pains in the kneecaps. But remember the golden rule; more is better. Even the Trumpeter is fuel to the fire and if all else fails; bomb your opponent to death with the Siege-Gang Commander. No fuss, no mess and no real style; but it gets the job done and can do it fast. I mean look, Raging goblins will swing for two damage on turn one; it’s a shock on legs! And when you start dropping the caves and shrines your little weenies aren’t so weak anymore are they? So go out there, you expendable little munchkins; and give them a fight they’ll never forget!

Well, I'm going to take a quick break from all this deck building; when you start seeing black spots in your vision, it's generally a bad thing right? Anyway people, this is Luthervamplord; signing off.

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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