Magic Deck Vortex: Shifting Lineaments: Change of Pace

As you may know, if you are at all familiar with my work, I am a control player by nature. I don’t like trying to beat your head in with creatures, nor do I like making big explosions. I like to make and pilot decks that allow me to draw a card, stare at you for a few minutes, pretend that I am thinking really hard about my upcoming moves, then pretend to make a decision, and finally pass the turn back to you. I love control decks, but not traditional control decks, mind you.

I prefer to make up my own deck, or minimally spin your deck to suit me. A fair glimpse of some of my all-time favorites would be my Wizard-Opp lock deck, my Blue-White Onslaught Block Constructed (OnBC) aggro deck, and my Red-Blue Words of War deck.

Needless to say, people never saw my decks coming; thus, I would most enjoy the fact that they would rummage through their sideboard between games, and sadly set it back down, beginning to shuffle their deck without changes.

So what kind of deck would I make out of today’s Standard card pool? Would it surprise you at all if I played a Land Destruction deck? No? But, would it surprise you if I were playing my two least favorite colors while doing so?

That is right, I don’t like Green. It stinks, and I don't like it. Don’t get me wrong; it has some things going for it, thanks to Planar Chaos. However, in the long run, Green is still White’s little brother, and White is Blue’s little brother, so where does that truly put Green?

The other color, one that I don’t like, but have loads of respect for, is Black. I don’t like all the creatures, or the paying of life to get anything, but the obvious power has to be respected. There is not a color that hates creatures as much as Black does… so; I figure that I need to come to grips eventually.

What I wanted to do was design a deck that would allow me to play Land Destruction (LD), while not being predictable, which would be to play Red. Green currently has three different spells that pop a Land: Creeping Mold, Rolling Spoil, and Mwonvuli Acid-Moss. Add in the fact that Ghost Quarters can be Green, and I have four spells, which can become 16 lands destroyed.

Being an experienced LD player, I know that I don’t need to kill all the lands in your deck, merely hinder your ability to generate more than two or three mana. Also, having seen the Standard format, I know that the number of two casting cost spells is enormous. However, I also know that under normal situations those cards are not the game winners. It will typically be your four and five casting cost spells that I need to limit.

Dealing with those spells that are cast is the problem that Green deals with on a minute basis. Sure, play a Land, an Artifact, or an Enchantment and Green will squash it quickly; however, those too are not the spells that will end the game. They are the Sorcery, Instant, and Creature cards that win games; none of which Green can deal with alone.

That is where Black comes into play… which I will tell you all about, right after these important words.

Black has an amazing ability of becoming very annoying, very quickly. Take, for example, the number of discard spells. Spells like Mindstab and Delirium Skiens take a quantity of cards, while cards like Coercion and Nightmare Void take a precise card.

Black also offers the most complete collection of creature destruction spells. A deck running a playset of Cruel Edict, Sudden Death, Last Gasp, and Damnation has no fear of creatures doing them in. Of course, playing all 16 of those cards does not leave much room for other cards in the deck, so a Black mage must pick and choose which ones he will use. Typically, he would start with his Damnations, add in Sudden Death, and perhaps Cruel Edict or Last Gasp, depending on whether you want to sacrifice the speed of Last Gasp for the ability to kill an Akroma, Angel of Wrath.

With this information in mind, we can begin developing the deck of which we are speaking.

Here we have the beginnings of the deck. I started off with ramping up to 18 land destruction cards. I say cards instead of spells because I have elected to use Ghost Quarter as a card choice due to the fact that I can break up an Urza Tron connection without having to worry about Spell Burst locking me up in the meantime.

Old Aged Wisdom: Throughout the ages, people have always been stopped dead in their tracks by Islands and the power that they generate, namely, Blue mana. A common response to an Island being destroyed is that the targeted land will be tapped for mana.

Having been on both sides of this Island in my time, I know from experience that the majority of the people who destroy that land now anticipate a countering spell waiting for their next spell, as there is now a Blue mana floating around in the Control Player’s mana pool. The average player then gets intimidated, and shuts down his turn.

This is where knowledge of the rules comes into play. You should definitely know that whether or not you have creatures in play, you are entitled to an Attack Phase. By leaving your Main Phase, and entering your Attack Phase, you are forcing the opponent to either use his floating mana now or take mana burn, as each time a phase ends, the mana pools empty. To do this, you simply pass priority to your opponent. Any time all players consecutively pass priority, the phase changes.

Game Situation:

My opponent has three cards in hand, Urza Tron (Urza’s Tower, Mine, and Power Plant) and Azorius Signet in play. I quickly feel the noose tightening around my neck, as he has already Spell Burst my previous turn’s attempt at killing a land via Creeping Mold. My Draw Phase nets me a Ghost Quarters. I begin my Main Phase by playing my one land for the turn, Ghost Quarters. I then tap that land and sacrifice it, targeting my opponent's Urza’s Tower.

My opponent does not have in hand a card to prevent the loss of the land, so in response to the Quarters, he adds three colorless mana to his mana pool. I know that by doing this, he is preparing to Spell Burst a spell afterwards, but without the Buyback payment. Instead of either walking into his trap, or conceding my turn entirely, I resolve the Quarters from the stack, and pass priority to my opponent. He now has the opportunity to cast any Instants or use activated abilities before the phase changes to the Attack Phase.

He decides to cast Mystical Teachings, and searches out an Instant from his library. Once he is finished, the active phase becomes the Attack Phase. I have zero creatures in play, and so we skip to my second, or Post Combat Main Phase. I now can fully assault his mana base, as he has no Blue mana available. So, I cast Mwonvuli Acid-Moss, targeting his Power Plant, and net an Overgrown Tomb for my troubles.

Now that we have 15 ways to destroy our opponent’s mana base, we needed to determine how exactly to stay alive in the case that we sit down across from an aggro deck. To do this, I have elected to go with a plethora of creature destruction spells. I decided that I am scared of Akroma, in the case that we don’t draw into our land destruction enough to stave off an opponent getting to enough mana to force Akroma into play. Since this is the case, Cruel Edict is a must. Obviously, it forces the opponent to sacrifice a creature, which gets around the Black targeting thing that Akroma hates so much. I have also elected to use Smallpox in the deck as it accomplishes a few things simultaneously.

First, it destroys a land. Next, it forces a sacrifice, which gets rid of Akroma. Thirdly, it forces a discard, which is just gravy, as it is an extra.

You may be wondering why I am afraid of Akroma, as I have mentioned her quite a few times now.

Let me start off by saying that it takes a real man to admit when something terrifies him. It’s true! I am scared of Akroma. I have found that it is better to be scared out of my mind about the worst case scenario, and then prepare for it, instead of being surprised when Akroma leaps out and lands on the table, flipping it upside down, and throwing my cards all over the room. By the time I find my hand, get it all sorted back out again, and look at my life points, it is too late. Oh, did I forget to mention that my hand helps me zero percent, because all I have is two Last Gasps and a Sudden Death? Now, I am forced to somehow have a conversation with Akroma, and sweet-talk her into not kicking my face in. How manly is that?

Instead, I will be scared beforehand and skin Akroma when she makes her triumphant entry. She may get in one attack, but that is all that she will get.

“But Chris, Akroma costs eight mana. You’re playing LD, they should never get to eight mana.”

The minute you plan for the best-case scenario, you are playing right into everyone else’s court. You must be prepared before entering the game. I have also found that while preparing for the typical worst case, you inevitably put to rest some lesser worries. Take, for example, a non-Boros aggro deck. Since I packed this deck full of creature removal, trying to kill Akroma, those decks are mere fodder, not really having a chance in game one.

At this point, I’d like to refer you to Rolling Spoil. This card is very amazing in terms of card advantage. For the cost of four mana, two of which are Green and one is Black, I trade you Sorcery for Land (mana) and then give all creatures in play -1/-1. That can easily be a board wipe against a weenie type deck. In a lot of cases, you will find yourself trading one card for three and four, which as we know is not too shabby. As you can see, I don’t like creatures all that well. I have 19 different ways to kill creatures in the deck, which if you consider that most creature decks only run 20-24 creatures tops, you begin to see that I have almost as many ways to kill your creatures as you have creatures in your deck total.

Next, I turn to the mana base to show you my Million Dollar Land Base. Considering that Overgrown Tomb is going for $13.50, Llanowar Wastes rock at $6.00, Ghost Quarters are huge at $0.75, and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth goes for $4.00 (prices via Starcitygames.com), we can see that without even counting the Basic Lands, I am looking at $85.00 in lands for the deck… well, let’s just say thank God for Magic Workstation! I’ll just playtest to my heart’s content.

Once you get your deck stabilized in the respect of being able to survive the initial rush of creatures, which we have done, and then have launched your own form of aggression, which we have also done, you now have to decide on the best way to kill your opponent, and thus win you the game.

We only have a few precious card slots remaining. Let me at this point refresh your memory of the current decklist.

If you are keeping count at home, that leaves us with a whole ten cards left. Ugh! We have much to do in ten cards. I feel a deck cleaning coming our way in a minute.

Green was granted card-drawing power in Planar Chaos, and I think we would be foolish not to take advantage of it. So, I will add four copies of Harmonize. Next, I really find myself liking the card Moonlight Bargain. It is instant speed ‘card drawing’, which is not really drawing a card at all. Black seems to like sucking the life from itself to net a card or two, but lets face it – normally, when you draw a bunch of cards, only a few of them are useful at that moment. By the time I can afford the five mana needed to cast the spell, I don’t need lands anymore, so I can dump the land (minus Ghost Quarters of course) in my grave and not pay life for it. If I am not playing against aggro decks, I don’t need to pay for creature removal, and after all the dust clears, you may pay four life to get two cards of the top five from your library. I have found the card to be to my likings, so I put a couple copies in. No, more than a couple, let's add three. (Which nervously gets us to only three cards left.)

I still want to force a few copies of Farseek into the deck to help increase its speed. We need to achieve four mana as fast as possible, and Farseek allows us to get four mana on the board in time for turn three, which is typical Stone Rain speed, so I am ok with that. (Inserts four Farseek into sleeves.)

Finally, I still need to kill you somehow. The easiest and perhaps most helpful way that Black offers is Consume Spirit. I will add four of these to the deck, and then add four Magus of the Coffers.

If you read my First Impressions article about Black, you remember my dilemma in deciding if the Magus was a utility card or beat stick. In the end, I decided to just say screw it and use him to make a ton of mana, and then beat someone in the head with him. This is precisely what I intend to do. My plan is to whittle at your mana supply while playing tons of Swamps (thanks to Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth), tap my Magus for 9,000 Black mana, then Consume you for 8,998 points of damage.

Anyways, back to what I was saying… I need to make some serious cut decisions now. Here is the current list:

Wow, the latest additions bring us up to 45 spells, and we can only have 36. We are nine cards over; someone get the scissors ready, it is cut time.

Since we have 19 ways to kill creatures, we can safely bring down the count on Sudden Death, so I will reduce it by two (+8 cards). Moonlight Bargain, while I like it, does cost more than Harmonize, and is inferior to it, so I will drop one copy (+7 cards). We are also including almost as much land destruction as they are playing lands; so, I will move a copy of Creeping mold into the sideboard, leaving two copies in the main deck and two in the side (+6 cards).

The rest of the cards become difficult, as I don’t want to get too low on any one card, and I want to be sure to draw into that card. I will drop one Magus (+5 cards) and one Farseek (+4 cards). Since we added Consume Spirit, I can probably lose one Cruel Edict (+3 cards). Then… ahh… crap… screw Moonlight Bargain. We will rely on Harmonize alone. (+1 cards).

That brings us to 61 cards. Something I realized while I was looking at the decklist is that I would rather have four Farseeks than four Consume Spirits; so I will flip flop that count. Finally, to bring our decklist down to 60 cards and avoid the coming assault of readers saying how immoral it is to have 61 cards, I will drop a land… a Forest, as 23 lands in a control style deck is borderline acceptable. I am also playing eight cards that fetch lands (Farseek and Mwonvuli Acid-Moss), so I feel safe that I can stabilize my mana base.

That’s it! Join me next time when I do something else cool and breath taking.

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