Welcome to MDV's Deck Clinic! This article is dedicated to Casual players who are having trouble with getting a good, working deck. For those who wish to enter their deck into the Deck Clinic, you must first have these three things:

1.) A deck of your own. I'm sorry, we’re not going to build a deck for you; we’re just going to improve on what you have.

2.) A couple of words on how you want the deck to run (i.e. Win conditions or style (aggro, control, combo, etc.)), what we can't change (like “you can't take X card out, just work around it”), and how you want the deck to improve.

3.) A cash limit (it would be great if this is in USD). This is a rule because I know that not everyone is rich, so I like to try and keep a deck as budget as possible when I build it. Also, tell us if the deck is for online play or not, and if so, which program (pricing varies between them).

Then, you can either post the deck with this info in the forums (forum rules apply) or E-mail it to me at Michael_Zeora(at)yahoo(dot)com (Use the title 'MDV deck clinic').

Due to the recent, dare I say, popularity of the Clinic, I’m allowing all members of the forums to help contribute to this Clinic (not just the Lorehold or the Deckmechs – who have been helping little by little (thank you Neuromancer and Yezzerdrix)). To do so, simply PM me with these things:

1.) A link to the deck you’re improving. (In the Deck Clinic, you can get the link of a single post by clicking on its post #.)
2.) Some info on what you’re going to do with the deck.
3.) Give it a test, and summarize your games (win/lose and why).
4.) Write about a page and a half with your testing, changes, and reasoning. Include all versions of the deck, but keep in mind that each deck is limited to four builds. (only at most four people can be doing a single submitted deck, each person in this case must do it differently)

Now that those things are out of the way, let’s fix decks!

Since I'm a man who likes to do things in an orderly fashion, I'm going to begin with the first deck submitted to the Clinic: Haggis's Rat deck.

This deck, with the exception of Nekrataal, Chittering Rats, and Ravenous Rats, is a Kamigawa-Block Rat Deck. This deck has two main options of winning: Swarm (attacking with many little creatures) and Recursion. However, it is unique in that rather than discarding your creatures and bringing them back, it discards the opponent’s creatures and brings them back under your control, which gives the hand disruption double duty. Since it plays a rather important part to this deck, I really felt there was one card, above all others, that would increase its power: Megrim. This way, when you force the opponent to discard, they lose a card, take damage, and if it’s a creature, you can take it! But first, let’s test this deck as is.

WU Bird Soldier Tribal
Lost twice and won once (1-2). The problem was lack of speed and the 'top.

Record: 0-1

RW Boros Magemark *Lite*
Won twice and lost once (2-1). In combat, the Boros build had more power, but this deck had enough removal and disruption to wear it down, allowing a nice alley for the Swarm to plow through.

Record: 1-1

GU Simic Graft
Won all three times (3-0) because of the power of recursion.

Record: 2-1

MBA (Mono-Black Aggro)
Lost three in a row to Shadow and pump creatures (0-3). Evasion is killer, and it dealt more damage than I could.

Record: 2-2

MGA (Mono-Green Aggro)
Over-powered and out-classed MGA took every game (0-3), though it was a hard won battle each time.

Record: 2-3

So as you can see, this deck fails mostly against fast opponents. The cure, then, will be to give this deck a good dose of speed, and a little extra power to force a turn of tables if needed (or to just pull further ahead). To begin, I’ll break this deck down into its three parts that make it work: Hand Disruption (discard-type effects), Recursion, and Support (other cards that help the deck, but aren’t completely necessary).

Hand Disruption
4 Ravenous Rats – CIP Discard
2 Nezumi Bone-Reader – Reusable Discard
4 Chittering Rats – To Top of Library
4 Distress – Selection Discard

Recursion
4 Nezumi Graverobber – Opponent’s Grave
2 Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni – Opponent’s Grave
4 Zombify – Your Grave

Support
2 Marrow-Gnawer - Swarm Win Condition, Bone-Reader Fueler
2 Nekrataal - Spot Creature Removal
4 Throat Slitter - Spot Creature Removal
2 Ratcatcher - Rat Fetcher
2 Eradicate - Spot Creature Removal (with added Split Second and Lobotomy Mech)
2 Sensei’s Divining Top - Card Advantage

(Notice that many of the creatures offer support as well as the win condition.) All right, so after the opponent is in a bad spot (that you put them in with hand disruption and removal), you kill them with creature damage. Another form of damage would be nice, just in case the creature option doesn’t work out. I know just the thing…

Support
+4 Megrim – Direct Damage
+2 Measure of Wickedness – Life Loss

For the Megrims, I'll cut all four Chittering Rats – they don’t actually cause discard, and so they don’t trigger Megrim. With all the discard running rampant in this deck, these will speed you up on your path to victory. Two Measure of Wickedness’s are fine. 16 damage (to the opponent's dome) is good, and I'm sure with Megrim and the Swarm (especially those with Fear), it will be just the thing to finish your opponent off. I'll remove one Throat Slitter and one Ravenous Rats for these.

I’ll make one final change to boost this deck’s raw power:

Support
Panoptic Mirror - Reuse Powerful Spells

Two Panoptic Mirrors are more than enough to get some mean things happening. I'll cut one Distress and one Zombify for them; you won’t need as many copies when you can play them every turn with the Mirror. The deck now looks like this:

Changes Made
+4 Megrim
+2 Measure of Wickedness
+2 Panoptic Mirror

-4 Chittering Rats
-1 Throat Slitter
-1 Ravenous Rats
-1 Zombify
-1 Distress

Cost of Changes (Based on Mint condition MTG Fanatic Prices)
$0.99 for each Megrim = 4.00 [9ED]{U}
$0.19 for each Measure of Wickness = 0.38 [SOK]{U}
$4.99 for each Panoptic Mirror = 10.00 [DS]{R}
----------------------------------------------------
$14.38 for all changes made to the deck

We played the same matches again after the improvements were made, and here are the results:

WU Bird Soldier Tribal
Won twice, lost one (2-1). Improvement, but once there were more Soldiers than Rats, and no Marrow-Gnawer to be found, the game was done. Mass removal may be needed.

Record: 1-0

RW Boros Magemark *Lite*
Three wins in a row! (3-0) I locked down the creatures with Distress and Panoptic Mirror, and then clocked the opponent down to 0 with Megrim. Smooth.

Record: 2-0

GU Simic Graft
Won twice, lost once (2-1) The deck ran beautifully until mana screw set in (the nemesis of any deck), but still pulled through for a match win. 

Record: 3-0, looking good.

MBA
Lost thrice once more (0-3). The evasion of shadow and usage of Dauthi's Embrace to block made the games that much harder. This is obviously tough match for this deck.

Record: 3-1

MGA
Wow, talk about a stalemate. Each game was won only by deck out, so I’m calling this match a draw (0-0).

Record: 3-1-1

Definite improvement; could possibly use some form of mass removal (especially one that allows regeneration, with the Swarmyards), but I will call this good

Final Words on this deck (and the Paragraph for the DDB): Rat Tribal + Discard and Recursion:
Simple deck that uses three winning conditions: Megrim, Measure of Wickedness, and Swarm with Marrow-Gnawer. Panoptic Mirror helps the deck get to a winning condition with extra use of the better spells (Zombify, Distress, and Eradicate) and the cards almost play themselves working off of a light synergy with no real combo in the deck.

My friend Haggis, I give this deck a clean bill of health.

Now, on to the next one!

Going by the decklist, and without testing, I can see that this deck has a lot of potential with the Fungus and Saprolings. So one card for improvement that I'm going to say right off the bat is Conspiracy. Set to Fungus, Thelon of Havenwood and Sporesower Thallid pump all your creatures each and every turn. Set to Saprolings, and you get the sacrificial effects on the Fungus so you can kill your own Protean Hulk without the help of Woebringer Demon. Hair Strung Koto is a powerful milling artifact that should be watched for in any swarm deck list. Many powerful cards, but also quite a few expensive ones. Let’s test this and see how it runs.

WU Bird Soldier Tribal
Lost all three (0-3). Flying vs. non-Flying = one sided.

Record: 0-1

RW Boros Magemark *Lite*
Won twice, lost once (2-1). Although the Boros Build has much aggressive power, this deck’s stall was just enough to dampen it.

Record: 1-1

GU Simic Graft
Won all three times (3-0). Combat was where the Simic fell short, trying to defend itself in the early game, which was nothing compared to this deck’s power. Needless to say, once Simic is stopped, it's dead.

Record: 2-1

MBA
Lost thrice (0-3) to shadow and pump creatures... again. Evasion is still killer, and it dealt more damage than I could take. I think I might remove this deck from further testing.

Record: 2-2

MGA
Mono-Green Aggro wins undisputed against the unedited version of the deck (0-3). The fungus had little to no time to get big enough to beat Trample creatures like Kamahl, Fist of Krosa and Super-Trample creatures like Thorn Elemental and Tornado Elemental.

Record: 2-3

Above all, this deck needs more defenses against evasive enemy creatures. A little extra oomph couldn’t hurt, either. For this deck, I’ll look into the other colors to see if any good options arise. Green, of course, has to stay, but Black could be optional if another color shows enough promise. There are disadvantages and advantages to each color, so I’ll break down all the possibilities to see what’s best.

White (without Black) - Two of the new White Planar Chaos cards happen to have the Fungus ability of making Saprolings, plus there are many powerful options with GW in Standard. Sadly, by cutting Black we lose the powerful sacrificial abilities of Woebringer and Deathspore.

White (with Black) – This gives access the Orzhov “Bleed” spells, the Selenyan’s strength in numbers, and other powerful GW spells. This also allows the running of Teneb, the Harvester. Mmm, dragons.

Blue (without Black) - GU Fungus has a good game plan; Blue denial early game protects you while your slow-working Fungus make saprolings. With Blue, you lose speed but gain stability.

Blue (with Black) - I like the thought of adding Dimir Mill (i.e. Glimpse the Unthinkable) as a weak but potential Plan C, and including Vintage cards such as Sigil of Sleep and Shadowmage Infiltrator for control. However, that takes away from this deck’s plan.

Red (without Black) - RG Fungus isn't a good idea, but I suppose it would work losing the sacrificial power for burn potential. Isn't there a Red version of Browse nowadays?

Red (with Black) – This seems only to add sacrificial power to the deck, and although Goblin Bombardment would be a fine add-in, it would be only a weak splash for it and the Rakdos Kite Knife. (Note: This is only my personal opinion and not that of the rest of the forum. I'm sure it could work, I just don't like it.)

I chose to go with the WBG approach, since some Selesnyan cards as well as White PC cards offer quite a bit Saproling-wise. Mycologist grants staying power against evasive rushes, Selesnya Evangel grants more tokens at a respectable rate, and Pollenbright Wings can just about end the game itself. It also gives flying, which helps against evasion. There are already many token producers, so one Evangel will do, and I’ll add two Mycologists – not too many, not too few. Even though Pollenbright Wings is pretty powerful, it does cost a lot (to play), so I’ll only add two.

For other additions, I’ll add one Damnation as somewhat of a reset when things get dire, a Living End to get extra use out of Protean Hulk and Essence Warden (which also acts as a last resort), a Tormod’s Crypt as protection against resurrection decks and to combo with Living End, a Recollect to reuse these new, powerful cards (among others), and finally, a full set of Terramorphic Expanses to prevent color-screw.

Now, what to remove? The original deck began at 66 cards, so I’ll trim it down to 60. The land count should remain the same – 24 is a good number to have, so no touching any of those until later.

With 3 colors, double mana costs (like in Woebringer Demon) are dangerous, so those and the Sudden Deaths can go. This new version will focus more on stall and less on removal. Saying that, I’ll remove 2 Deathspore Thallids as well. Kor Dirge is unneeded; it’s 3 mana to save 1 creature and maybe kill another. Both of those can go. Thelon, being legendary, is better off at 2 so we don’t end up with one we can’t play. So far, that’s 9 cards removed, and 6 more to go.

Since we’re adding the Wings, we can take out the Fists of Ironwood because both produce tokens, and there’s no need for both.(Although, if you are willing to run both go and do so, just without my blessings) The Wings just do it better. The last Fists I’ll remove simply because it’s an aura. We have many creatures that make tokens, and don’t have much need for another aura that makes them. The final 3 cuts are difficult.

Now we must accommodate our new token generators, so it makes sense to remove other lesser token generators. All of the thallids have their upsides; it’s hard to really pick one above the other. Well, variety is fun, and this is casual, right? So I’ll take out one Thallid, one Thallid Shell-Dweller, and one Sporesower Thallid.

Finally, the mana. There isn’t much White being added, and with the Terramorphic Expanses, 4 Plains is good enough. For these 8 lands, I’ll remove 5 Swamps (since so many black cards were removed) and 3 Forests.

Changes Made
+4 Terramorphic Expanse
+4 Plains
+2 Mycologist
+2 Pollenbright Wings
+1 Living End
+1 Damnation
+1 Recollect
+1 Selenya Evangel
+1 Tormod’s Crypt

-5 Swamp
-3 Forest
-3 Fists of Ironwood
-2 Deathspore Thallids
-2 Woebringer Demons
-2 Kor Dirge
-2 Sudden Death
-1 Thallid
-1 Thallid Shell-Dweller
-1 Thelon of Havenwood
-1 Sporesower Thallid

Cost of Changes (Based on Mint condition MTG Fanatic Prices)
$0.59 for each Terramorphic Expanse = 2.36 [Time Spiral]{C}
$0.15 for each Mycologist = 0.30 [Planar Chaos]{U}
$0.25 for each Pollenbright Wings = 0.50 [Ravnica]{U}
$0.99 for each Living End = 0.99 [Time Spiral]{R}
$20.99 for each Damnation = 20.99 [Planar Chaos]{R}
$0.25 for each Recollect = 0.25 [Ravnica]{U}
$0.19 for each Selenya Evangel = 0.19 [Ravnica]{C}
$3.49 for each Tormod’s Crypt = 3.49 [Time Spiral]{R}
----------------------------------------------------------
$29.07 for all changes made to the deck (I pray you have a spare WoG or Damnnation running around)

I still don't think it's right personally, but I sent it to battle and it did improve where it needed to.

WU Bird Soldier Tribal
Fungus one, Birds two (1-2). The Fungus got the lucky (and very rare) combo of Living End/Damnation/Tormod's Crypt, and topdecked next turn with Strength in Numbers, but the Birds’s evasiveness was too much.

Record: 0-1

RW Boros Magemark *Lite*
Fungus two, Boros one (2-1). Damnation and Recollect made a mess of the opponent’s setup as Scion of the Wild took it to them three times at 8+ damage. Youch!

Record: 1-1

GU Simic Graft
Fungus Victory times three (3-0)! Pollenbright + Verdant Embrace + Sporesower Thallid all coming online ended the game quick with Swarm and Beatdown.

Record: 2-1

MBA
Yeah, I'm removing this deck from testing from this point on; this deck uses some unbalanced evasion ability, and breaks it with Dauthi’s Embrace.

Record: 2-2

MGA
(3-0) Late Damnation made MGA look bad, really bad, and the Koto got a chance to take the deck to nothing in a few turns.

Record: 3-2

I would say that’s a winning score.

Final Notes:
The deck is solid to start with; personally I wouldn't change a thing and just work on other ways to improve it. I'd say go with Spore Frog and Haunted Crossroads to get a permanent stalling effect going while you get more and more tokens. I do recommend the one Damnation and Green spell recursion (Reclaim or Recollect), as the two of them together completely pown. (I know pown isn't a word, it really just sounds good)

Clean Bill of Health, though barely. Keep tweaking it and keep testing, Red might be the answer over White after all if you are dead set on splashing a third color. Let’s keep those decks coming…

Ok, one from the E-mails is a nice change of pace.

I've seen this deck before. My friend who plays T2 had a successful Kamigawa-Ravnica Caretaker deck just like this one... and as long as this one wins games I don't think I'd want to change it. But this is the list of my friend’s deck (quite expensive), so I'll change it to suit a little lighter budget.

Simple deck design, the changes would be the addition of Basic Lands from the original (where he had all of the Ravnica dual lands, and foil nonetheless), the top is given more priority, and Creeping Mold and Voidslime are there for annoyance. The deck goes off with a Caretaker and any of the Dragons (2 would be preferred, but only one is needed) or another Caretaker to really lay the smackdown. The Empath can get any huge monster you like so the Piper can get them into play nice and cheap. Fetching would be something to consider adding to the deck (i.e. Tooth and Nail), but I didn't want to overhaul the idea. As for the big guys themselves, they’re somewhat of a preference which ones you use, but these are among the best of the best.

Check ups are good. You, sir, need no changes, so good work! Clean Bill of Health for you.

MZ is off to the Aether...

~MZ~

You can discuss this article in the MDV forums here.
Find other articles by this author here.
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