![Daxos of Meletis - UWR American Bulk rares [Budget standard decks]](https://www.thebagofloot.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Daxos-of-Meletis.jpg)
Here’s a situation we all face in this game. Magic is a collectible card game. As such, you are always collecting the cards and looking for the next card you want and need to add to your collection. Some of those cards you want for a new deck, others you want because of the cool art, or because they are foils, and other cards are just cool to collect. Along the way you accumulate all sorts of other cards. Many of these cards are commons and uncommons that seem to multiply in short order. Others are chase rare cards that you REALLY want to add to your collection. Others are still rare, but aren’t very good…in fact, many of them are terrible. These are called Bulk rares. They are called “Bulk” because you can find them in the “bulk” bin at your LGS (Local Game Shop) and just sitting there doing nothing.
What to do with these bulk rares? For many they sit in a binder and just…be. They don’t get played. They hardly get LOOKED at. They just sit in their sleeve. No one will actually trade for them. Few stores will take them off your hands with their buylist. No…these are truly cast away cards. Even commons get more of a lease on life with Pauper formats. However, Bulk rares just sit and do NOTHING.
Well, this is where I come along. I’m always looking for some way to brew up a new deck without costing myself much in the way of money. Let’s be real here…I have BOXES of stuff that I’m not playing. That’s thousands of cards that are just sitting there and not getting played. Surely, somewhere in amongst all those cards there are 60 cards that I can eke out into a deck. Well, today I think I’ve managed to make it work…and surprise…I think I even found a way to slide in a couple of M15 beauties. I call this Casual Masterpiece…American Bulk (rares)…BEHOLD!
This deck is actually very simple in terms of game plan. Play a dude…suit him up with Bestow creatures. Smash. There are some of the best Bestow creatures in Hopeful Eidolon, Everflame Eidolon, Ghostbalde Eidolon and Thassa’s and Purphoros’s Emissaries that can all make combat just miserable. Fencing Ace is another unheralded critter with Double-strike that can just make an opponent cry if he gets suited up. The Ordeals have long been good, and Purphoros’s ordeal is a perfect fit. No, generally the game plan is very straight forward and not unlike the plan from many a Draft deck, however, mix in some bulk rares for variety’s sake and we can make for a spicy game with some interesting twists and turns.
The first piece of wonky deck-tech is Daxos. This guy is so close to being good…he can let you play your opponents cards, has a form of quasi evasion and a 2/2 for 3 mana is just a shade under the curve meaning he’s playable…sort of…but just not quite. However, suit him up with a Bestow creature and suddenly he becomes far more interesting and more of a nuisance. He can outclass 2 drops meaning your opponent will need to block with multiple creatures (which always feels bad) or have you start nabbing stuff off the top of their deck. Perhaps it says something about the sort of player I am, but I really, really, REALLY enjoy beating up my opponent with their own creatures and spells.
The second piece of truly bizarre deck choice is Fated Retribution. 7 mana board wipes are completely unplayable in 60 card decks right? Well, I for one am willing to give this one another lease of life. It’s actually a very powerful spell, and at Instant speed could really be back breaking. I’m willing to give this a try and see whether or not it can cut it.
Perplexing Chimera is another odd choice, but there’s no mistaking that the ability to switch owners of a spell is intriguing and the fact that it sits there as a threat, waiting to de-rail a spell is enough for me. I think this is a very funny card and really can shake things up as your opponent attempts to play around it.
Silent Sentinel is yet another odd choice but when you consider the context of the deck it quickly becomes apparent why he’s in this little build. Whenever he attacks you get to return an enchantment from your graveyard to your hand. This is quite a powerful ability when the bulk of the creatures in the deck are enchantment creatures. A 4/6 flier is also pretty handy even though he’s a greedy mana sync, but as a one of is quite reasonable.
Boonweaver Giant and Spectra Ward are my latest discoveries. This pair from M15 just scream “PUT ME IN AN ENCHANTMENT DECK!”. So I did. The absolute best part about this combo is that if you cast Boonweaver Giant you can tutor up Spectra Ward from almost ANYWHERE! Graveyard? Sure thing. How about in my hand? No Sweat! What about in my library? Go nuts! Then, once you get Boonweaver all paired up with Spectra Ward you have a 6/6 creature with protection from basically everything. It’s actually gross. Now people say “but it costs 7 mana!”…and I simply respond “it sure does…but when I’m digging up a 5 mana aura to attach to it, it’s like I’m casting 12 mana worth of spells and really only spending 7. That’s a bargain if I’ve ever heard one”. Besides, there are very few things that actually outclass a 6/6 creature with protection from EVERYTHING, 7 mana or not.
The last piece of truly bizarre deck-tech is the choice to run Pyxis of Pandemonium. This is usually a terrible card and something that you don’t really want to play…unless you’re simply using it as disruption to throw your opponent off their game plan. Many decks are developed to play a certain way and with a large number of Scry abilities want to set up their draw steps very carefully to maximize each and every time they draw. However, slide this card into your deck and just start screwing with their scrying and exile the top card of their library. You have no idea what you just exiled from their deck, but I bet they probably wanted it. As for this deck, with 28 permanents and 24 lands you don’t really care what gets exiled because when you sacrifice the Pyxis you’re reasonably assured to get most of it back. Besides, you’re playing a souped up draft deck with some bulk rares…who CARES what you exile…it can likely be replaced by something. I just think this card makes for a hilarious random game and just puts such a monkey wrench in the game plan of so many decks that I just need to find it a slot.
How does this deck fair? Well, as it is fairly experimental I haven’t had a chance to play it against too many people. I had one of my friends stop by to play one evening and the deck fared very well. The life gain that can be achieved by Bestowing a Hopeful Eidolon on something can really push a game and make it very difficult to dispatch this deck. Attach the Eidolon to something with Double Strike and things get even better. Also, the flexibility of having Bestow creatures actually lowers the curve where you can get out and play a number of smaller threats early and then later in the game, as you draw others, allows you to suit up one as you ready for the kill. Sea God’s Revenge is just a blow out waiting to happen and Voyage’s End is just a very versatile way of holding off an aggressive opponent. Is it a finely polished deck ready to take down a PTQ? No way…but as a cheap and fun casual brew I think it fits the bill and can do some funny things to keep things interesting.
Well, there we have yet another funny Casual Brew for you to test out at home. Give it a whirl…I’d love to know if you have the same success I’ve had. Also, go ahead and flip through that binder and see if there are any bulk rares you can use to spice up a deck. No one said that every deck you make HAS to be tier 1 competitive ready…sometimes brewing fun Casual decks like this can be just as fun.
Well thanks for reading and until next time, keep it fun, keep it safe…keep it casual.
by Bruce Gray – Casual Encouters @bgray8791
I love spoiler season! The new cards start to open up so many crazy and neat new ideas to make decks, revisit old ones, and brew up some silly things that I can take with me to my next Casual card night. Well, Journey into Nyx is no different and has offered up loads of fun new ideas already and I wanted to take some time to share some of the Casual new brews I’ve been piecing together even before Nyx drops in May.
The first deck I started brewing up was for our return to “Hobo” night at our Casual card night. I wrote about Hobo night in a previous article, but basically we all agreed that we would play no Rare or Mythic Rare cards in our decks, but we could play commons and uncommon from any set. This really challenges you because many of the most potent spells that we all like to play are Rares or Mythics, so to force ourselves to play commons and uncommon is healthy and refreshing, and usually evens out the power level of the various decks. Yes, this format is usually called Peasant, but that just sounds dull, so we opted to call it “Hobo” and the name has stuck.
My inspiration for the deck came from watching the coverage of the MTGO championships a couple of weeks ago where I saw a Standard take on a “dredge” style deck. The deck exploited the power of cards in the graveyard to deal some pretty healthy amounts of damage and looked pretty exciting, so I sat down to see if I could create something similar for Hobo night.
I started with the auto include cards for this sort of deck, namely Satyr Wayfinder and Grisly Salvage. These cards allow me to start to burn through the top of my library to find land or creatures and fills up my graveyard to be used at a later time. These are the “raison d`être” for this deck and need to be there in suitable quantities to fill up your yard, but more importantly ensure you never lack for land so that you can chain together powerful spells as the game moves along.
The next creature that is an automatic in this sort of deck, particularly in a Hobo variant, is Nemesis of Mortals. The 5/5 for 6 mana sees the cost to cast him reduced by 1 colourless for every creature in your graveyard. As a result, you could be casting this guy for much less than the 6 mana in the casting cost without much trouble. However, Nemesis of Mortals gets better from there because his Monstrosity 5 ability gets reduced in cost by 1 colourless for each creature in your graveyard. This guy can very easily get silly big for a bargain basement price thanks to all the graveyard shenanigans in your deck and makes the prospect of going into combat very difficult because it is such a huge monster.
However, what happens when some of my key components end up in the graveyard because I’ve put them there myself? There are a number of ways to return lost creatures to your hand and have them be available to you again. Now, I will be honest, this isn’t the same dropping them onto the battlefield and cheating big fatties into play because you still need to cast the spells again, however it does ensure that you have access to the creatures and a chance to re-use them, which is very helpful. Pharika’s Mender, Odunos River trawler, and other “Raise Dead” effect cards allow you to get your most potent threats back again and force your opponent to burn more removal spells on things that just don’t stay dead.
The final piece is the plethora of Bestow creatures that this deck packs. Bestow has proven to be a very valuable ability in Limited formats, and once again this is a form of limited format. Baleful Eidolon and Nyxborn Wolf can come down early as blockers to plug up the ground and play solid D to get us through to the point where our bigger bombs can take over. Nyxborn Wolf, at 3/1 can trade up to take out larger creatures, but the Eidolon can shut down attacking by virtue of the Deathtouch ability. Once they have served their purpose they can then be brought out of the yard and used to Voltron up another threat and really do some work.
Here’s the deck list.
Hobo – G/B “reanimator”
So, people will point out that this decklist isn’t Standard and my response is, you’re 100 percent correct. However, without much trouble you could make this Standard playable. A few minor adjustments like replacing Sign in Blood for Read the Bones would be the first switch. I could absolutely replace the Disentomb, and Raise Dead with Treasured Finds. So without breaking the spirit of the Hobo deck I could make some adjustments and make it completely Standard Legal, but sifting through my boxes I came across these cards and they did the job just as well and for less mana. It can also be ramped right up to match the Standard “Dredge” decks running around these days making this a decent skeleton upon which to build a more robust Standard deck.
The next deck is entirely Casual based on one of recurring theme in Theros block on Kraken, Octopuses, and other sea creatures. Whelming Wave was given to us in Born of the Gods, and now with the spoilers from Journey into Nyx we have Scourge of Fleets. With these two sweeper effects in Blue’s arsenal the possibility exists for a viable Kraken/Control deck. Don’t believe me? Check this out.
Mono-Blue Kraken Control
The idea behind this deck revolves around the interaction between Archaeomancer and Mnemonic wall and Whelming Wave. When you hit turn 4 you are banking that you have Whelming Wave in your hand and return all creatures that aren’t Kraken, Leviathans, Octopuses or Serpents to their owners hands. Then on turn 5, cast your Archaeomancer or Mnemonic wall, buy back your Whelming Wave and restart the cycle. You will continue to cast the wave and buy it back with the Archaeomancer/ Menmonic Wall interaction as you stall looking for one of your bigger Sea critters. So, hit the Sealock monster and when you wash away your opponent’s creatures Sealock Monster stays and can now attack into a open board. If you get stuck, Sea God’s Revenge approximates the same effect as you wait to piece together the combination and the dissolves are there to protect your creatures, should things get ugly. Scourge of Fleets is another possible sweeper condition that comes with a huge body and is asymmetrical in design, so he’s sort of like Plan C if you need to go down that road. The last pieces of this deck, the Hypnotic Siren and the Voyage’s End are to play some early interference as you set up your board.
Now, you may have missed it, but I stated that this was a Casual deck list. There is no way I’d even attempt to play a Tier 1 Standard deck with this list, but the hilarious interactions between Archaeomancer and the Whelming Wave are well worth the risk. I can’t wait to see the face of my opponent when I repeatedly wash away his stuff as I stall…and then swim across the table with my Sealock Monster and crush him. That would be priceless. It would certainly be entertaining and very flavourful with all that we have seen from Standard.
So, there you have it. Some fun deck ideas that are flavourful, relatively inexpensive, and fun to play. By all means, give them a try and see what think. The Hobo Dredge deck might be really good for a player who isn’t convinced playing B/G Dredge is for them, but once they get the hang of it with this less high octane model might be willing to speed matters up and go play with the big boys of Standard. The Wave deck is just funny and I can’t wait to put it together.
If you have other ideas or more fun ideas for funky decks I would love to hear about them. I`m always working on some new deck ideas that could make playing at my Kitchen table fun, entertaining, and fresh.
As always Keep it fun, Keep it safe…keep it casual. Until next time!
Bruce Gray
Off to battle I went with my red white deck of unsurmountable speed. I know, that’s a big word for me, but I figured why not try and make my deck sound better than I anticipated it would be. To be honest, I didn’t really like my cardpool, not when I compare it to what I had at the pre-release. But that is my first problem. I’m comparing it to my previous sealed pool and I can’t do that. I have to look at this with fresh eyes, and so with a bit more analysis I went into my first match.
I had ten cards I could cast on turn one, six cards on turn two, one on turn three, and so forth. Sounds like I have a good curve. I have nine humans to abuse with the pegasus, I have five heroic creatures with XX spells (bestow and otherwise) to be able to trigger them, including some pretty cool combat tricks (coordinated assault is cute). And I have a removal suite that can range from the little guys to gods. Maybe I didn’t have such a bad pool afterall. But there was only one way to find out. And that was to take it into the field.
So my first opponent for the week was Robert who was playing a Blue/Green deck. His seeded pack was Green and so he had the Nessian Wilds Ravager in his pool and he was boasting a bunch of fliers. And he also had the Legendary Kraken. I had a feeling that my little army was in for a big fight.
Match one started with me on the play, dropping a Priest of Iroas, into his island. Then I swung for one damage before dropping a Priest of Iroas. He presented a second land, played an Kiora’s Follower – Game Day Promo passed. I swung in with both my guys and he blocked the priest. Unfortunately for him they planned a Coordinated Assault and the follower fell. He played a third land and passed, to which I responded by hitting him again uncontested and then played out an Akroan Phalanx. His next turn saw another land and another pass. I swung in again and he flashed a Horizon Chimera in, which would explain his lack of tapping, but unfortunately for him I held my mana open and had a Lightning Strike to answer that threat. He sucked up the damage before I played a Cavalry Pegasus and he scooped. Game one down.
Game two started with him having to mulligan down to six on the play and starting with an island. I played a plains and put down a Nyxborn Shieldmate, by far one of my favourite commons of this set. He played down a forest and like deja-vu he played down Kiora’s Follower again. My second turn met with a mountain and a bestowed Nyxborn Rollicker to make my shieldmate ⅔ and swung past the Follower unblocked. His next turn played down an Ordeal of Thassa on his Follower and swung in for three. This is when I almost started to panic, until I drew into a Lightning Strike. I swung simply and did my damage, leaving all my mana open. He took the bait and declared attackers, which forced the Lightning Strike out of my hand to a combat trick I wasn’t expecting. He played Retraction Helix on his own creature and responded by bouncing it back to his hand, ending combat and playing it back out. But at least the bounty was gone. By my next turn I was ready to swing again but this time he blocked. Then I played another Akroan Phalanx to end my turn. He played a land and passed. I drew, played a land, attacked and the Phalanx met a Voyages End, only to be played out again. This same thing happened the next turn, except after I played the Phalanx again I played a Pegasus that was met with an Annul, all the while whittling down his life. Unfortunately this was where things started to look bad. He finally had enough mana out to throw down his Nessian Wilds Ravager. I knew I couldn’t let him destroy one of my guys so I let him have the counters and stared down a 12/12 hydra. Not the most pleasant thing in the world to say the least. I went to my turn, and played an Akroan Crusader and passed, knowing that nothing I would be able to do would get past the Nessian. I needed him to attack with it and I could crack back to hopefully finish him off. Which is how it played out with a little bit of a twist. After he attacked with the hydra and dropped my life total down he played a Thassa’s Emmisary, nearly foiling my plans until I drew into one of my two Revoke Existence’s. I cleared the way and swung in to bring him to within an inch of his life before playing down a Favored Hoplite just to make sure that I had more than one chump blocker back in case he had any tricks. He drew up but couldn’t find an answer and said “good game”.
First match of the league in the books and I felt good. Not entirely confident in the deck just yet. Always found I had more mana than I needed and I am thinking about dropping one mana for another combat trick. But I can still be happy being off to a good start.
I also took the time to look over Roberts pool and noticed that he went the wrong way. Even with all of his blue control he had more in black with Hero’s Downfall and Asphyxiate, along with Pain Seer, and a Reaper of the Wilds. I convinced him to maybe try out Green/Black for next week, might be a better challenge.
~ Gerald Knight
