We start with the namesake creature Delver of Secrets which is one of the best one drop creatures, when build properly into its deck. With a 28 of the cards in the deck able to Transform him from the triggered ability you’re basically a 50/50 shot to be smashing in with a ‘flying lightning bolt’ every turn. He is paired up with the very tricky True-Name Nemesis which while not unbeatable demands an answer or will make short work of your opponent. They are both supported by Legacy staple Stoneforge Mystic which has options to tutor up either a Batterskull or an Umezawa’s Jitte to speed to victory. A heavy disruption package finds full sets of Force of Will, Daze and Spell Pierce to suppress any plans the enemy may try to push forward. There is also a set of Wasteland in the manabase to try and limit their access to crucial mana. For removal we have both Swords to Plowshares to exile any creature threats and Lightning Bolt which can go either to a creature or straight to the dome to finish opponents fast. Finally there is both Brainstorm and Ponder to ensure that there is no taking the foot of the pedal once we get up to speed by streaming constant gas directly to the hand, and fetchlands in the manabase help to reset the top of the library when necessary.
The most apparent difference in this list from those past is the exclusion of Nightveil Specter for a very different evil in Lifebane Zombie. It looks like taking the extra precautions to hedge against Green Monsters and White Weenies paid off. His removal package, which is usually constructed for what you’re idea of the meta calls for, consisted of a full four Hero’s Downfall, a trio of Devour Flesh and two copies each of both Ultimate Price and Bile Blight. The other interesting point of note is that he went for two sets of Temples for the Scry power, which is very handy in conjunction with Underworld Connections when you’re low on life but absolutely need to find something specific.
As I sit here writing we are slightly more than 6 months away from another rotation and seeing all those lovely cards from Return to Ravnica block disappearing from Standard. In the world of Magic, six months is an eternity as there are countless events across the world. The game will change week to week meaning that 6 months will take a very long time and there will be a near infinite combination of cards that can come together to redefine the game. However, in real terms, 6 months isn’t very long at all. In 6 months we’ll be finishing summer up and bracing for the return of cooler weather and another long bout of winter. My work will be restarting the cycle of the school year for school aged children. The new NHL or NFL season will just be starting. 6 months isn’t really that much time…and so it is the perfect time to be checking out those casual playable gems that may have been overlooked. Once again, today I will go through my pick for underappreciated card at each of the 4 card slots (common, uncommon, rare, mythic) in search of those hidden gems that a more casual player can make use of to help make their games fun and yet still keep an eye on their bottom line. Today’s set is Gatecrash.
While I was initially a little underwhelmed by Return to Ravnica (despite the high number of ultra powerful and valuable cards), Gatecrash was right in my wheel house and appealed to me straight away. Boros and Gruul were immediately colour combinations that I could get behind. The Simic colour combination was a little unusual, but the Evolve mechanic that they carried intrigued me and made me curious. Extort and Orzhov quickly proved to be a powerhouse mechanic in a duel and absolutely devastating in a multiplayer game. Dimir’s colour combination is always a force and some of the cards did not disappoint. All in all, it was a set full of terrific cards and some fantastic casual gems that a player like me can use to full advantage.
I also could fully get behind the set because this was the first time I had ventured into the realm of Limited play. I experienced my first ever Draft with Gatecrash and immediately loved the experience. Playing Limited is still my favorite way to play when I can find time to play at my local game shop. I don’t claim to be an expert but I really enjoy the challenge of card evaluation and selection and then building a deck that is hopefully strong enough to get some wins. Everyone is technically on the same even playing field and I have found that it makes for some great variety and fun games.
Common:
My common is a little guy that got overlooked for the most part but has time and time again proved to be a valuable little addition to most decks. Shambleshark is a 2 mana 2/1 creature with Flash and the Evolve mechanic. He isn’t going to wow anybody with his stats, but he is very versatile and a nice addition to decks running Green and Blue. Flash is his biggest attribute because it gives him the ability to sneak in at any time. Need a surprise blocker to mix up the combat math? Need an inexpensive trigger to boost another Evolve creature? He has a quasi-haste like ability if you drop him on your opponents end step. He trades favorably with “Bears” and can be used in all sorts of situations. Some will say that this guy saw Standard play and had his moment in the sun, and I fully agree. However, he is not omnipresent like Voice of resurgence, Blood Baron, Loxodon Smiter or some of the other powerful creatures in Standard. He had a role in one particular deck that made waves for about 2 weeks, or until everyone figured it out. However, the Standard format quickly recovered and is very much still defined by the three way dance that Mono-Black, Mono-Blue and Blue/White control. However, this little guy can still be a useful little critter not to be overlooked.
Uncommon:
While Gatecrash facilitated a super aggressive format, in no small part to the Gruul and Boros guilds being hyper aggressive, there are a few other cards that can allow for some interesting abilities. One such card starts to push into a hand disruption angle which can be very debilitating to players as the game moves along. Vizkopa Confessor is a pricey 5 mana (1 White, 1 Black, 3 colourless) for a 1/3 with Extort, that when it enters the battlefield you may pay life and your opponent will reveal cards in his hand equal to the life paid and then you get to select a card he will discard. This is an expensive card to play both from the mana invested and then in turn from the standpoint of the life paid to force him to reveal cards. However, if you have gone the route of playing an Orzhov deck you likely have multiple Extort triggers in effect, particularly by the time you hit 5 land to cast this bad boy in which case you could make up the life lost simply by casting spells. Also, if this is a multi-player game, the Extort triggers return an enormous amount of life points, so using life points as a resource to crush the hands of your opponent is probably just fine. The crushing of the hand is only escalated if you can flicker the Vizkopa Confessor with Cloudshift, or recently one of my new favorite tricks from Theros, Triad of Fates.
The biggest problem with this guy is the 1/3 body you get for your 5 mana. It isn’t very big, but you aren’t playing this guy to lay a beating on your opponent. I was running him in an Esper deck that was premised on destroying the hand of my opponent and this guy fit right in. However, while I really like the Vizkopa Confessor, I didn’t like the deck and took it apart. That doesn’t mean I’ve given up on him. What it means is that I am looking for another deck to make use of this guy and once I do I will use the ability to target hands of my opponents and leave them crippled and dejected.
Rare:
My rare card of choice appears on the outset to be a hyper aggressive card, however with a little adjusting it can far more than just be an aggressive beater. Rubblebelt Raiders is a 4 mana (3 hybrid red/green, and 1 colourless) for a 3/3 creature that gets a +1/+1 counter whenever it attacks for each creature you control that is attacking. Ok, in a straight Red/Green deck this card is monstrous. This card rewards R/G for casting dudes and attacking and in the process grows Rubblebelt Raiders into a gigantic monster. However, if left unchecked Raiders become an instant target for a removal spell and then all that hard works goes for nothing. So, how do you get more value for your Rubblebelt Raider? Here’s how.
Instead of looking at Rubblebelt Raiders as a R/G spell, look at the hybrid casting cost as being all Green and then slide Raiders into a Simic build. This will give you access to Zameck Guildmage and the very handy ability to transform +1/+1 counters into cards. So, swing in with your Raiders and friends (I like Elusive Krasis as a starting point, but the more the merrier) and have Raiders power up a bunch of counters. Eventually your opponent will play a removal spell to deal with the ridiculously large monster you have stomping around but this is when you start tapping your lands to turn those counters into cards. Also, you can protect your Raiders with a Simic Charm or Mizzium Skin to grant it hexproof and save your card draw engine. You may or may not lose the raiders, but you can absolutely pickup 2,3 or maybe even 4 extra cards in the process by using your Zameck Guildmage. Give//Take would afford you a similar ability if you lack a Guildmage. Or more enjoyable yet still, Bioshift those counters onto your Elusive Krasis and have your Krasis bring the pain. All those counters create so many possibilities and represent loads of resources that a Simic deck would love to rock. These quirky little relationships allow you to approach your casual game from a slightly different angle and presents you with more options, and potentially more ways to frustrate you opponents.
Mythic:
Once again, mythics are usually very strong and so it hard to identify one that is “underappreciated”, but in this set there is one that is ultimately quite playable, but never really fit anywhere. Borborygmous Enraged was very straight forward and difficult to cast at a massive 8 mana. Deathpact Angel wasn’t much different at 7 mana. However, Master Biomancer was a very reasonable 4 mana and provided for a very interesting ability.
Master Biomancer is a 2/4 creature for 4 (1 blue, 1 green, 2 colourless) that grants each creature entering the battlefield a number of +1/+1 counters equal to Master Biomancer’s power. So, at a minimum, your creatures enter the battlefield with +2/+2, but with the right deck this can result in creatures of a ridiculous size. Slam Master Biomancer in a BUG deck and scavenge an early creature or two on to Master Biomancer and watch your little 1 drops turn into massive bombs. Or, use the counters from Rubblebelt raiders and bioshift the counters onto Master Biomancer for a humungous boost. It takes time, but often in a multiplayer game you can find yourself with an extra turn or two to put this combination together and have it come off looking pretty amazing. Here would be a pretty fun example of how this might play out in a RUG deck rocking mostly Simic creatures:
Turn 1- forest, tap the forest, play experiment one.
Turn 2- island, tap forest and island, gyre sage, evolve experiment one (1 counter). Attack with experiment one
Turn 3- forest– tap your lands, Elusive Krasis (or Drakewing Krasis) evolve experiment 1 and Gyre sage. (2 counters this turn, 3 in total). Attack with Experiment one
Turn 4- forest, tap your lands, Rubblebelt Raiders, evolve Gyre Sage and Elusive Krasis (2 counters this turn, 5 total). Attack with Elusive Krasis and Experiment One.
Turn 5- Island– Attack with Raiders, Experiment one, and Krasis. Raiders get three counters. Second main phase drop master biomancer and bioshift counters off of the Raiders, and now Master Biomancer has 3 counters on it. With one remaining mana cast another experiment one. It comes into play with +5/+5 and is a 6/6 creature ready to lay down the beats…and the counter shenanigans start from there.
For some reason Master Biomancer was largely overlooked despite the obvious benefits it can provide. It takes a little work in order to get Master Biomancer where it can be suitably explosive, but once he comes online he is well worth the investment. You can trade the counters generated for cards, shift them around to make combat math a nightmare, or even use them in conjunction with Simic Manipulator to take control of creatures. This is the perfect casual card for someone who likes to play around with counters and can be very entertaining. Don’t overlook this guy in your trade binder. Instead, sleeve him up and take him out for a spin to see what he can do for you!
There we go…I have gone through my choices for common, uncommon, rare and mythic for Gatecrash that you should go and dig out of that box or that trade binder. Give them a second look. Maybe they can liven things a little the next time you sit down with some pals on a Saturday night. Maybe you can go one better and build them into a funny combination that can make life difficult for an opponent. Whatever you choose to do with them, I’m all ears…I love to hear about how those gems got used, or if you have some of your own that I’ve neglected. The beauty with playing Magic is that everyone has an opinion and every opinion has merit. So, drop me a line and let me know what you like, don’t like, or anything else that is on your mind. Once again, thanks very much and may your next Casual Encounter be loads of fun.
Bruce Gray
One of my favorite types of decks is full of big, green, stompy creatures. They have always been a thing, right from the days of War Mammoth and Craw Wurm right up to today. Other archetypes have changed enormously but the contents of the Mono-Green deck is basically unchanging…lots and lots of creatures. So, with everyone’s favorite creature heavy archetype in mind I thought I would take a moment and share with all of you my version of a Budget Mono-Green deck that is fun to play and ridiculously inexpensive to build.
Mono-Green decks are sort of like a big piece of artillery that everyone can see. You know that once the cannon fires, if it hits ANYTHING, it is game over, and there really isn’t much you can do about it. So, you can watch the Mono-Green deck load up and cast ramping spells and creatures and all you’re hoping is that you can disrupt the canon just enough so perhaps it mis-fires, or you can dodge the bullet. If you can’t shut the deck down it is just a matter of time before some hulking Green beast crushes you underfoot leaving you wondering what freight train just ran you over.
I’ve seen a number of iterations of Mono-Green stompy decks since the release of Theros and while I’m impressed I’m not satisfied. I want MORE. I want BIGGER! I WANT MORE DAMAGE! And Born of the Gods gives me the perfect tool to drop wild amounts of damage on my opponent and to push mono-green from good to ridiculous. Here’s how.
In the past, Mono-green has been afflicted by the reality that usually big creatures are expensive. So, Green mages have developed all sorts of ways to ramp out lots of mana and then cast their giant fatties. However, in today’s Standard environment green creatures are leaner and meaner than ever before but can still pack a mighty punch making Mono-Green really and truly something viable and fun. I’ll go through some of the all stars I’ve picked out for my deck and why you should consider playing them in your Mono-Green deck.
Voyaging Satyr– Is there a better, inexpensive Mana dork than this guy? Probably not. He’s just good, and super readily available as an inexpensive creature. Add in that he isn’t a 1/1 but a 1/2 and suddenly he has a little more upside as well. This deck needs 4.
Swordwise Centaur– He is solid as a 3/2 for 2 green mana …and a devotion engine in this deck. While I won’t call this a devotion deck, there are times when this is a useful attribute and well worth the time to put these guys in. They start the beat down early and give you targets for some of your spells later in the game. On a side note, you could just as easily play Kalonian Tusker as a 3/3 for 2 green, but I said this was a budget deck. Sure, Tuskers are only $0.50 a card on Three King’s Loot, but Swordwise Centaur is $0.15…and you likely have a million thanks to any drafts you’ve played or packs you’ve cracked. Save yourself the money and play the Centaur because you will rarely see any difference in terms of play.
Korozda Monitor– This 3/3 4 drop (2 Green, 2 Colourless) is the meat and potatoes of this deck. He’s 3/3 and has trample, making him ideal for a Stompy deck of any sort. Also, his scavenge ability is relevant because if your first one ends up in the yard, oh well, scavenge him onto something else (like another Monitor) and smash away. With 2 green in his casting cost he is also a solid contributor to devotion.
Thrashing Mossdog– This handy 4 drop gives you a 3/3 with reach. This is super relevant because this deck will struggle against decks that carry lots of fliers. The reach can help settle down your defence, and again, when he dies, scavenge his on to a Korozda Monitor and have the 6/6 bring the pain.
Nylea’s Emissary– The 3rd 4 drop in the deck is essentially because he can grant something else you control trample, contributing to the Stompy nature of the deck. If you need him on the battlefield as a creature, that’s fine as well, but he’s exactly the sort of creature this deck wants.
The deck is running a playset of Forced Adaptations. These can totally take your Korozda Monitor and turn him into an unstoppable beast very quickly and for 1 mana, who can go wrong.
However, the really spicy pieces are six cards that can only be described as back breaking. The first is one out of the M14 Core set that was largely overlooked. It isn’t flashy, but it just ends games. Yup, you got it…Fireshrieker. This seemingly innocuous 3 mana artifact gives something double strike. Now, we all know that Double strike is powerful, but how powerful is it? Trust me…on creatures with trample it straight up ends games…like…immediately. So, a pair of Fireshriekers make the deck and give you an enormous ability to do damage. The final 4 spells are from Born of the Gods and are one of the few spots where this deck actually cares about devotion. Aspect of Hydra gets good reviews at Draft, so why not apply the same logic to constructed and put 4 in this deck? It would mean that any creature with Trample would be able to do a devastating amount of damage and really turn the heat up on an opponent.
As a little demonstration let’s see what this deck can do.
Turn 1- Play Forest, pass the turn.
Turn 2- Play Forest, tap out, cast Swordwise Centaur.
Turn 3- Play Forest, tap out, cast Fireshrieker, Attack with Centaur.
Turn 4- Play Forest, tap out, Cast Korozda Monitor,
Turn 5- Play Forest, equip Fireshrieker on Monitor, cast Aspect of Hydra on Monitor, attack with the team. At this point The Monitor is 3/3 double striking and gets +4/+4 from the Aspect of Hydra…meaning he’s hitting for 14 points of trample damage. That’s huge! And if the Centaur can sneak through as well it’s game over…or at the very least you are in the driver’s seat. As always, this is against a goldfish with no responses, but the potential exists for this deck to deliver a wild amount of damage.
So, without further delay, here’s the deck list.
Mono-Green Stompy- Budget Standard
The nice piece with this deck is the cost to you in order to build. Many budget decks put the threshold for overall cost at $2/card or maybe $50-75 for the whole deck. This deck comes in at …under $20! Yup, for a crisp $20 dollar bill you to could be the proud owner of a ridiculously stompy mono green build. However, this deck is like the old beat up Honda Civic you bought as a 17 year old kid…it’s straight forward, it works, and it gets the job done. However, you could totally trick this deck out with some fun additions that will push your price tag up, but still keep it very affordable.
The first addition is a no-brainer…add in a couple of Arbor Colossus. This gigantic 6/6 for 5 (2 colourless and 3 green) is an almost automatic include once you are prepared to open up your wallet and go a tad pricier. He’s big, he kills fliers, he gets bigger when he’s monstrous, and is a huge devotion engine for your aspect of hydra. He’s the first guy off the bench for sure.
Next, if you want to go a little further, is the Bow of Nylea. This Swiss Army knife of an artifact does a little bit of everything with its various modes, but the real fun is giving everything you have deathtouch when you attack. Who really wants to put something in front of a deathtouch creature? Not me…so it makes combat super awkward and something most opponents will seriously re-evaluate.
The third addition is something that usually gets forgotten is Deadbridge Goliath. He’s big at 5/5 for 4 and when he dies (as you likely hope that he does) you can scavenge his +5/+5 on to another creature giving you an instant WMD that will need to be answered. Plus, he’s cheap to pick up because everyone has opted to play Poly (aka Polukranos) for the same 4 mana.
After that, the choices are up to you…do you want to play spells that draw you cards? Hunter’s Prowess or Warriors’ Lessons are options. How about just more damage? Don’t forget Giant Growth. Want to kill things in the air? Plummet is always an option. Are the Gods or other enchantments causing you grief? Fade into Antiquity. Need to kill a creature? Pit fight or Time to Feed. You can cover all the bases and the deck still doesn’t break the bank!
So, if you are looking for a very inexpensive deck to build and enter the realm of Standard, feel free to give this little guy a test drive and see what you think. He’s fared pretty well for me in a number of match ups, and when your big fat stompy guy flattens an opponent the satisfaction is well worth it. So, give it a try and let me know how it goes for you and what changes you made to the deck…I’m always keen to hear how decks change and evolve.
So, until next time, keep it fun, keep it safe…keep it casual.
Bruce Gray
The opening that this deck wants to see everytime it starts a new game is turn one Thoughtseize into turn two Pack Rat. So often this will rob the opponent of a key defensive piece which will allow the Pack Rat to get to work multiplying itself until it has gotten out of control, which tends to happen very quickly. The synergy with Mutavault which also happens to be a rat is another factor in boosting the lowly rats to monumental proportions. The secondary line of attack comes with a curve of threats starting at the three drop with Nightveil Specter a formidable Flying attacker which has the added value of not only stealing life from your opponent but also can steal cards from the top of their deck, which can even be played as long as the specter remains in play. Then at the four drop we have Desecration Demon which is quite simply a beat stick which you’ll use to grind the opponent to dust. Finally we get to Gray Merchant of Asphodel which has a very useful Devotion ability that will drain the life from your opponent and add that amount which is based on your total Devotion to Black mana. To help boost your Devotion count the deck also has Underworld Connections which provides a steady stream of cards at the price of some life and also a misers copy of Whip of Erebos that helps regain lost life point with Lifelink and will raise your dead creatures from the grave for a turn to fight for you again. As is typical with a Black deck removal is a key element and this deck is no different. There is a varied spread of spells but the key one is Hero’s Downfall which can deal with problem creatures and planeswalkers alike. This is complimented by Devour Flesh and Doom Blade to vanquish other creature problems. Then we round out the package with pseudo-sweeper Bile Blight which is capable of removing some very significant threads but you must be mindful of its use in the mirror. As mentioned before there is also Thoughtseize which not only takes care of any otherwise hard to handle problem but also provides very valuable information about the opponents plans.
In my never ending quest to dig up some fun cards that I can use to spice up my next casual card game I turned my attention to my box of Return to Ravnica and rooted through to see if there was anything else that I could dig out. Return to Ravnica was a terrific set that will be known for a few things.
Return to Ravnica brought back the 10 guilds of the original Ravnica set which is immediately a fan favorite. This interesting new twist made the set rich and very flavourful as each of the guilds got their own mechanic to make them interesting. It also brought back the shocklands, which in my estimation, are the 2nd best set of dual lands printed. Obviously, the best set of dual lands is the original set with no drawbacks at all, but the shocklands are intriguing in their own right. The shocklands present the option of coming into play untapped at a cost and are quite skill intensive in order to balance the need for untapped land with taking damage from shocking yourself. The shocklands also have the two different land types in the description (island/ mountain etc.), just like the original dual lands, making them very appealing in other formats where having untapped land is paramount regardless of the cost. As a casual player I can fully appreciate why these lands are highly coveted and extremely useful and pick them up whenever I can. Return to Ravnica also introduced a whole swath of terrific cards like Jace, Architect of Thought, Sphinx’s Revelation, Supreme Verdict, and Loxodon Smiter. These cards have seen extensive play in Standard since their release and with good reason.
Now, I’d like to take a moment and dispel a notion. I’ve played at my fair share of drafts, sealed events, and the occasional constructed event at the local gaming shop. The usual players consistently talk to me like I haven’t got a clue what is going on and like I have no idea how to play. Just because I usually play casually doesn’t mean I don’t understand what is happening, or that I can’t identify what is the difference between a powerful card and a weaker card. I actually have a very good idea what the difference is and it isn’t that I choose not to run the powerful card…it’s that I can’t play with them because I don’t have them. Many casual players operate on a budget and picking up the high end, pricey cards isn’t feasible. In my case, I crack a relatively small number of packs each month…that’s it…and I have to play with whatever I find. So, while I would like to play with all the best cards, I am forced, out of necessity, to get the job done with other things.
So, while Return to Ravnica yielded some terrific cards that are run extensively in Standard, it had some quieter gems that I would encourage you to dig up and give them a try, if only to diversify your next casual encounter.
Common:
The first card s exactly what the player of a White “weenie” or a control/tempo deck wants to run. It is cheap, suitably aggressive, and plays into the strategy to tempo your opponent to slow them down. Who is this guy? Why it’s Azorius Arrester. This guy is a staple in White. He is clutch in the late game to remove the opponents’ best creature for a turn. He is key in the early game to get out in front of the race by clearing the road for early damage. He trades up to take out “Bears” quite favorably. He is just a useful and versatile 2 drop and a nice addition to the deck. My friends often choose to ignore this little guy, but I’ll run a full playset every time. He’s just a meat and potatoes type of creature that doesn’t get much love and is often passed over for flashier cards.
Another favorite of mine is in a very different colour. I rarely choose to play Black, but this common has helped me to feel more comfortable because it allows me to play a little more aggressively. Sewer Shambler is a 3 drop (1 black, 2 colourless) for a 2/1. This is hardly earth shattering and is in fact a little overpriced for what you get. However, the real beauty of this guy is the Scavenge ability on this card. When I saw the Scavenge ability I was intrigued. It made creatures in your graveyard very useful and potentially explosive sources of damage. Some of the Scavenge costs on some of the creatures in Return to Ravnica are really steep and provide very little benefit (i.e Drudge Beetle). However, the Sewer Shambler has a very reasonable cost of…exactly what you paid to bring it into play. So, for 3 you get to give another creature in play +2/+2 (Sewer Shambler’s power)…wait…isn’t Sewer Shambler a 2/1…so by scavenging this creature I get MORE than I would if I had the creature in play? Wow…um…ok! Thanks. So, this inexpensive common can do double duty in a deck as a) a creature to apply pressure, but more accurately to block and die and b) a reasonable costed pump spell to boost another creature you control once it is in your graveyard. This is very applicable and sometimes the difference between finishing off your opponent or giving him an extra turn to dig up an answer.
Uncommon:
At the uncommon slot there are a lot of choices, but the one that I always like seeing turn up is Thoughtflare. This 5 mana draw spell (1 Blue, 1 red, and 3 colourless) makes my opponents chuckle because it seems so ridiculous, but every time I see it I’m always thankful it comes up. It’s a massive hit. Let me explain why. Invariably I get stuck where I’ve got 1 or 2 dead cards in my hand. They just aren’t helpful at this point of the game and are sitting there and I need answers! Divination is ok…but it’s a sorcery and can be slow and clunky. Opportunity draws me 4 cards, but that may put me into the situation where I’m at 8 or more cards and need to discard anyway…plus it’s 6 to cast instead of 5. Thoughtflare acts like Opportunity and the discard ability is not unlike that of Faithless Looting. So, Opportunity AND Faithless looting…for 5…at instant speed. Sounds good to me! It is even better if the cards you discard have flashback or can be recurred by some means (Archaeomancer, Auramancer) so that you still have access to them, making this a very valuable way to draw cards. So, all in all, drawing 4 cards off Thoughtflare and then discarding two is just fine by me most times. It digs me far enough that I can usually find something useful. It slims my hand down by making me discard a pair of cards I don’t need that I can usually get back if I’ve planned for this. It can be cast on my opponents turn at instant speed. It also makes me laugh because no one else ever thinks to run it. Try it out yourself and you’ll see what I mean.
Rare:
There were some bomb cards at the Rare slot in Return to Ravnica, but one of them that never saw Standard play just screams Casual Card. Perhaps it speaks to a little bit of my personality, but nothing makes me happier than taking my opponents creatures and then beating my opponent with them. Grave Betrayal is a hefty 7 mana Black enchantment that whenever a creature your opponents control dies, the creature returns to the battlefield under your control AND gets a +1/+1 counter at the next end step. If I’m running Black I’m packing as much removal as I can find slots in my deck and this card is great. It is even better in a multiplayer game, because the wording on Grave Betrayal stipulates when a creature of ANY opponent dies I get control of it. That includes board wipes, spot removal, combat or another form of removal, and they come back bigger thanks to the +1/+1 counter. It basically means you have a pile of creatures from your opponents’ graveyards in front of you and get to smack your opponents with them. Priceless! This is a perfect casual card and can take a multiplayer game from boring to ridiculously funny!
Mythic Rare:
By the time you get to the Mythic rare spot it is hard to actually pick something that is “underappreciated”. Most Mythics find a home somewhere, but the one that lends itself to the most silliness and fun combat choices is Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius. He’s hardly overlooked by players who know their stuff, but he never really found a deck in Standard and still hasn’t, which makes him a candidate to slide into some sort of casual build. His casting cost of 6 (2 blue, 2 Red, 2 colourless) can be a bit steep, but hey, I’m the guy playing 7 mana enchantments and 5 mana card draw instants…so 6 is totally in my wheel house. You get a 5/5 flying dragon, which is always cool. These stats are largely on par with the classic dragon, Shivan Dragon. However, the ability to draw cards and deal damage without combat that accompany Niv-Mizzet make him an awesome addition to a deck and a real menace. Evasion, range, good stats, card draw…this guy does it all and sadly makes Shivan Dragon look like a powder puff. So, really the only drawback is the 6 to cast him, but I an a world of 5 mana draw spells and 7 mana enchantments, this can work and make your game all the more enjoyable.
No article would be complete without a deck list highlighting how some of these pieces can go together into a casual deck. The one I’m showing here is for what my friends and I called “Hobo night” where we couldn’t play any rare cards. Common and uncommons were allowed from any set, but no rares at all. Yes, this is usually called “Peasant”, but we preferred “Hobo”.
U/B “Hobo deck”
This deck is premised on building your own hexproof, unblockable creature and then dropping your opponents to the floor as quick as possible. Many of the creature can’t be blocked already (Keymaster Rogue, Deathcult Rogue) and Elgaud Shieldmate soulbonded provides the hexproof. The other option is the Mask of Avacyn which is surprisingly useful. To speed up the clock on your unblockable creatures, the scavenge ability of the Sewer Shambler and Zanikev Locust can be used to boost the crunching power of your attackers. The other cards are mostly removal (murder, ultimate price, devour flesh etc) or cards that allow for deck manipulation. Brainstorm is an all-star, but Sage Aven is extremely useful, Diabolic Vision is extremely powerful for a mere 2 mana and Pilfered Plans is an improved Divination thanks to milling of your opponents’ deck. All in all, a fun, very inexpensive deck to put together that has lots of interesting lines of play and provides for lots of options.
So, next time you go to sit down and play a game with your friends at your next casual encounter, take a moment and look for a few little treats that you can do to liven up your playgroup, bring some fresh cards to the table, and take the evening from the usual, to the unusual. Once again, thanks for reading and enjoy your next Casual Encounter.
Bruce Gray
Montreal is a fantastic city. There are lots of interesting things to see, do, and experience around every corner. It’s extremely diverse meaning you can find almost any language on the planet , and almost as many delectable foods to try and smells to discover. The city is crazy for their favorite hockey team, the beloved Canadiens de Montréal, and the shopping is first rate. The city is a first rate city right up there on the world stage and when the latest GP descended on Montreal I knew I had to attend.
I had never been to a GP before and when I was taking stock of where all the GP’s were being held, the dates in Montreal all but jumped of the page. Here was an opportunity to experience something new, something unique, something truly special in a special city and I was going to be darned if I missed it.
So, I rallied a few of my friends and left my house at 5:30 am looking to make the 2 ½ hour drive to arrive at the GP in time for the morning events. I really had no intention of playing in the main event (the side events appealed just as much) but I wanted to witness the mass of humanity gathering to play Magic . So, after 3 stops to collect my friends, and another stop for breakfast/coffee at the local Timmies, and then another stop for a bathroom, we finally pulled into Montreal at 9am ready and raring to go.
My first impression of the location was full out awe. I’ve seen big crowds before, that wasn’t a concern, but to imagine all these people gathering to play Magic was something I’m not sure I could fully comprehend. The room seemed to be wall to wall people paired off and ready to play Magic. There were pros and Magic personalities that I recognized from a range of spots and they were rubbing elbows with regular players just there for the day. The organization of this many people must have been astronomical. I give kudos to everyone for the monumental task and I was very glad to see the event kick off because I was anxious to play on some of the side events.
Once I got my fill of the spectacle I turned my attention to the side events. My friends and I opted for the 10am sealed side event, which seemed like a solid idea. I like to play sealed as it forces you to think creatively and to play some cards you wouldn’t normally play. So, we signed up and then we waited. This was one of the hardest waiting games I’ve ever played but I suppose the process of organizing a venue as large as a GP has logistical issues. Our 10am event didn’t start until almost 12:30pm and our first game wasn’t until well after 1pm by which point I was hungry, a little annoyed, and eager to get my games in.
My sealed pool seemed solid to me with some really top notch cards like Anger of the Gods, Courser of Kruphix, Soldier of the Pantheon and Temple of Plenty. All the signs pointed to a solid G/W deck with some fun Heroic creatures, nifty enablers and some reasonable removal. So, I set about building my deck and sleeved up my cards. I was ready to rock and roll!
From this point on my games went terrible. At every turn I got smashed, by every manner of deck of almost every description. Sure, my deck would get the pieces together to win a game here and there, but never enough to win a match. I spent my afternoon getting drubbed over and over again and wondering what went wrong. I kept flipping through my extra cards wondering what I could side in…and saw no obvious answer. So, what was I missing?
It took 3 days after the GP for me to sit down and really reflect on what transpired during the sealed event we played. First off, there were a few errors during game play that I committed that I will need to correct, but I think those are manageable. What really sat with me were the errors I made in deck construction. Some of these lessons are things that I already knew and forgot about and others are newer issues that will need to be corrected for the next time.
1- Keep an open mind! The first issue was that I limited my card pool too quickly. I evaluated my cards and identified that Green and White were by far my best colours and immediately set about building a two colour deck. In some situations, if your sealed pool is deep enough, this can work just fine, but in my case after the first couple of cards the pool in both Green and White dried up significantly, meaning I was playing some suspect cards. The problem was that I was overly committed, in my own mind, to playing only two colours that I blinded myself to other options, and so instead of playing strong cards, regardless of colour, I forced myself to play substandard cards of only 2 colours. The lesson learned is to slow down and to be flexible when building your deck because three (or maybe 4 colours) is not the end of the world if they have the cards and abilities you need.
2- You can never have too many creatures! The second lesson I re-learned was that in limited format it is all about creatures. Rarely do you have enough strong combat tricks that you can full on trade your creatures for tricks in your 23 card slots. I routinely got stuck looking for creatures to cast my tricks on, but my creatures were too few and far between. Even if I was able to cast a couple of creatures they usually got targeted with the removal straight away meaning I was still looking for creatures. In some sets I would have been stuck running creatures OR spells. However, with Theros/Born of the Gods sealed I didn’t HAVE to choose because I could have opted for Bestow creatures that would have offered me benefits while enchanting my creatures and left with a body once the enchanted creature died. However, I was limited in terms of the number of Bestow creatures in Green or White, but had several in other colours. Once again, I should have opted to add a third colour, but this time for the benefit of the Bestow abilities.
3- Run as much removal as you can find…of any variety! The third lesson I re-learned is that removal, even if it doesn’t look like removal, is vital. Case in point is Griptide. This was one of my extras in Blue and I opted not to run it. It wasn’t really removal because the creature didn’t die, right? Wrong. What Griptide does do is it does remove a creature from the battlefield, even if only temporarily giving me a chance to find a better answer to deal with the threat or to change the board state suitably that my opponent no longer wanted to cast the spell. So, I needed to take off my blinders and allow myself to see that there were spells available to be used as removal, even if they weren’t the most conventional methods.
4- Play spells that will improve your board state in all situations! The final piece I learned is that cutesy spells like Warrior’s Lesson really have no place in a sealed deck. It neither provides damage or protection to my board state and at no point did I lack for cards so the card draw it afforded would be of minimum value. Quite the opposite, my hand was routinely well stocked with cards and filling my hand with more cards was not needed. It did make for a nifty Heroic trigger, but it was too infrequently used and would have been better off with another body instead. The question I should have asked myself is this: “In what situations do I want to top deck this spell?”. If the answer isn’t “in almost every situation” then I should be looking for something different. So, while the ability would have been neat, the fact remains that I was not well served by spells of this nature and would have been better off with spells that offered more.
Needless to say, it was a very humbling experience for me as I’m not accustomed to losing that frequently and it was a tad embarrassing. The long car drive home with my friends was hard to stomach as they chatted away merrily about the games they played and the wins they scrounged together. I ended up just having to bite my tongue and take their ridicule. The only real saving grace of the experience was that the other players I met were all very nice guys just looking to have some fun. Up and down the table there was not a single guy who acted like a jerk and many of them actually helped out their opponent by pointing out triggers that may have been missed. All in all, while the experience of playing with a bunch of decent guys was refreshing and lots of fun to meet the new guys, it was tough to accept being beaten as soundly as I was all day long.
So, in the end, I have to say I did enjoy the experience of attending my first ever GP and it was even better in Montreal. I didn’t get the results I was looking for from my matches, but I did enjoy the first hand experience and taking in the ambiance of the event. It was something I’ve never seen before and something to behold. I have absolutely no regrets about going and in fact will happily go again when there is a GP close to home again to get just a little taste of the event again. However, until then, I will need to content myself with some smaller events and to take the lessons learned in Montreal moving forward to the next I sit down to play in a limited format.
So, until next time, keep it fun, keep it safe…keep it casual.
Bruce Gray
Welcome back to Knight’s Booty. I’m sorry but I don’t have a short story for you this week. Instead I have a deck that I’ve been testing out in Modern that fills a gap that is missing in the current metagame. Now the reason for designing this deck is taken from Chapin’s “Next Level Deck building” eBook, which I highly recommend to anybody who wants to take that next step.
See, if we take a look at the current metagame (using mtggoldfish.com as our baseline) we are sitting in a very combo heavy environment. Splinter Twin is sitting at 13.26%, with Melira Pod at 12.14%. That’s only two decks and already we are covering a quarter of the metagame. After that we look at UR Storm at 5.43%, Scapeshift at 4.15%, Ad Nauseum at 2.24% and after that it peters off. So add all those percentages together and we are sitting pretty at 37.22%. Up from a quarter to a third of our current metagame is made up of combo decks. Which when you think about it is pretty amazing really.
So how do we go about punishing this combo dominant metagame? We could try going to go aggro and beat them to the punch. But most of the above decks are ready to “go off” by turn 3, and can aggro decks really beat that clock? I don’t know, but even with the power of Zoo and Affinity I can’t be comfortable in saying that they have faster clocks. And do we really want to try and compete with other aggro decks? I personally don’t.
So the next level up is control. In which we have UWR and Hatebears as your big bad guys. Combined however they only take up 7.98% of the metagame. Something is seriously lacking there, don’t you think? Even if you add in UW Midrange you are only looking at 10.86% of the metagame being control decks. This just doesn’t seem possible. Especially when you have Esper control eating the standard environment alive.
So what does this mean for us? It means that we can open up a whole new can of worms by moving into an area that is seeing very little love (control) and a colour that is notorious for it (black). That’s right, I’m talking about Mono-Black Control, with a focus on discard. But why discard you ask?
Because, just because. Seriously though, if over a third of the decks you are going to be facing are combo decks, you can easily pick them apart by removing their combo pieces from their hand. And aggro? Back up your discard with removal, another thing that Mono-Black Control is famous for, and you can take control of the board as well as their hand. Not to mention that the deck gets monumentally better whenever your opponent mulligan’s. If their deck punishes them before the game even begins, then we are going to be in an even better position to win.
Now, that is not to say that the deck doesn’t have it’s weaknesses because it does. It suffers in the fact that despite all of it’s abilities to disrupt the field and the hand, it can’t stop a topdeck. It also stalls out late game with a lot of dead cards in hand. But compared to the benefits, I am willing to overlook that little matter.
First off, the deck list as it currently stands:
The one card that it is missing is Thoughtseize, which can easily be put in place of Duress. But only if you have that kind of money. Now the one thing you might immediately note is that I am running a splash of Red in there. This is because Black has no inherent artifact hate, or nothing that is cheap enough to warrant being included in the build. But red does in the form of Smash to Smithereens, which in my past experience playing burn in Modern is a fantastic sideboard card. And having immediate access to Red does give some interesting options if we ever wanted to include a devastating card like Blightning, or Rakdos Charm. But I am focusing more on the Mono-Black version.
I want to talk about each card individually, but it will probably be easier if I break it down into each suite of cards, with the obvious Discard being the first.
First up is Inquisition of Kozilek. This card is a very powerful discard spell as the name of the game in any deck that isn’t control based is speed. Which means that cards are going to be cheap. Tarmagoyf only costs two, Kitchen Finks costs three, Pyromancer’s Ascension costs two, and so forth. So Inquisition of Kozilek has the ability to hit a lot of the cards out there that can cause problems.
After that I will address Duress. It’s not Thoughtseize, that’s for certain, but it can come in handy where Inquisition can’t. It can hit the higher costing cards, such as Splinter Twin, Birthing Pod, and Scapeshift. But because it can’t hit creatures it loses playability. That is the reason why I am only running a single copy in the mainboard, with more in the sideboard for when you do come up against decks like Twin, Pod, and Scapeshift. It can be an easy swap out of Inquisition for Duress and you don’t set off your card balance.
Next is Raven’s Crime, which I am honestly thinking of upping to three copies. The card is incredibly good in the late game when you’ve setup your win condition or are waiting to do so and you need to empty out your opponents hand. It turns every late game land draw into another discard spell, and it works in conjunction with Smallpox when you will have to discard something. I can’t tell you how many times I have been happy to have a Raven’s Crime in my graveyard and how many times I’ve been sorry to not have one.
Last, but not least in our spell slots for discard is Wrench Mind. This is about as close to Hymn to Tourach as we will ever see again. Sure, it doesn’t discard at random, but it is a straight up two cards for two mana. And when you can play this on turn two after your opponent has already played a land or two, plus an early drop from their hand, it seriously wrecks your opponents game. The earlier you can see this card the better your chances of victory will be.
The next section I am going to address is the removal suite, but first I need to talk about a card that fits between the two, and that is Smallpox. I don’t quite know how I feel about the card itself. It is very punishing to both players, but usually more so to our opponent. I mean I love the card. It has performed amazingly well in the early game against decks like Storm and Pod. As an aside, it is a fantastic turn two play against Pod as it removes two sources of mana available to them, and slows them down significantly. Storm is another matter, in that they need three mana to “go off”, unless they get a two mana “god hand”, and using Smallpox to slow them down to a crawl can hurt them more than it will us. Like I said earlier, we can discard a Raven’s Crime to it or any excess discard spells that aren’t doing us any good. And we are running a minimum of creatures so there is very little chance that we will be hurting our board state. Again, I love this card, but when I read it in a bubble it makes me cringe.
Now onto the removal suite.
Victim of Night is the first one up, and it can kill just about anything. In the current metagame there aren’t many Zombie creatures, nor are there Vampires or Werewolves. So there isn’t much that it can’t take care of, plain and simple, and because we aren’t worried about colour restrictions we can carry the two black in it’s mana cost with ease making it a superior choice to Doom Blade. There is only one other kind of creature that this can’t hit and that is one who has protection from Black, but we have a spell to deal with that.
Geth’s Verdict is the answer to “protection from black” and furthermore Hexproof. Now I’ve talked about Hexproof in a previous article and it is probably one of my favourite all-time decks to play. So I know how much of a pain in the butt it can be. Now, when I was regularly playing pauper and running Hexproof the worst thing in the world I could run into was Mono-Black Control because they had the one answer that could get around that restriction and that was Geth’s Verdict, because they were targeting me and not the creature. So unless your opponent is going to side in Leyline of Sanctity, you can be pretty sure that Geth’s Verdict will take care of what Victim of Night can’t. Oh, and it also hits your opponent for one life to boot. And yes you can kill your opponent with it, even if there are no creatures on the board, so it is never a dead card.
The last card in our removal suite replaced Doom Blade and has tested out fairly well so far. Sudden Death. It is more expensive, but it can do some things that a lot of removal cards can’t. It can take out creatures that are indestructible to start, as long as you can get their toughness down to four or less, which means that a few of the newly printed “gods” are even threatened by this card. And there is no fear about not being able to kill most creatures, because outside of Tarmogoyf and a pumped up Hexproof dude, there aren’t any creatures currently being run with more than four toughness. Four is the magical number in Modern because it can beat Lightning Bolt, and Sudden Death can go above that number. Now the last thing about the card, and by far it’s the most important aspect of it, is that it has an ability called Split Second.
This mechanic deserves it’s own little section. Split Second is a fantastic ability and a powerful one that isn’t utilized often enough in my opinion. First off I want to ask you a question. Have you ever been playing against a blue player and tried to kill their Delver of Secrets only to have them Counterspell or Mana Leak your spell? It sucks doesn’t it? Well because of the way Split Second works the spell can’t be countered. You see as long as the spell with Split Second is on the ‘stack’ no other spells or abilities, that are not mana abilities, can be played. Meaning no counterspell. And furthermore it can disrupt a combo like Deceiver Exarch and Splinter Twin. if by some chance they managed to land Twin you can kill the creature in response and they don’t have the opportunity to make their infinite army, nor can they cast a counterspell to prevent it from happening. The same goes with Pod and the infinite combo of damage and life gain through a sacrifice outlet. You can kill the outlet before the chain has a chance to go off and by doing so at least buy yourself some time. It can also affect Affinity, a deck I haven’t mentioned yet. Normally if you were to kill their powerhouse Arcbound Ravager they could sacrifice a bunch of artifacts to it to make it’s Modular ability huge and then when it died they could just redistribute them anywhere they wanted. Well, with Split Second they don’t have that option and Ravager just straight up dies.
After our removal suite we throw in a splash of utility with Sign in Blood. A good little pay two life draw two card spell. Or at least that is how it is read most of the time. And it is a good payoff. Late game it can let you dig for the answers you want or need and early game it can simply refill your hand after annihilating your opponents. Not to mention that because it reads “target player”, you can use it to finish off your opponent as well. And a lot of players out there will agree that there isn’t much out there that is more disgusting that being killed with a Sign in Blood.
Now a deck wouldn’t be complete if it didn’t have creatures. Well, that’s not entirely true as there are creatureless decks out there, but this isn’t one of them because if we ran only discard and removal we would easily lose any ground race. Now we aren’t running a lot of creatures, but the ones we are running have an immediate impact on the game.
Ravenous Rats is the first one that I’m going to address, and it is the weakest one by far. We are paying two mana for a 1/1 body that isn’t good for a whole lot other than chump blocking. But it can chump block like a champ! What’s special about him is that when he enters the battlefield he makes your opponent discard a card. It’s not random, but it’s still something. So early or late game this creature can disrupt the hand, clog up the board for a turn, or maybe even eek out a few points of damage on the attack.
After the rat we have Liliana’s Specter, a flying rat one could say? She does the same thing as the Ravenous Rats, in that she forces your opponent to discard a card, and sadly she also shares the same toughness quality seeing as she is only a 2/1 body. But she does have flying which can help gum up the air if you need a easy blocker there, or she can fly over anything on the ground that is waiting to eat your face.
The last creature to enter into the fray is a personal favourite of mine, and he is none other than the Chittering Rats. Yes, another rat. But he is a good rat. Well, for a common he is a good rat. Correction, he is a great rat! I mean, he is below the power curve of being only a 2/2 bear for three mana but when he enters the battlefield you Time Walk. Not familiar with that card? It’s an old card that was printed only up to Unlimited and it is banned in everything, except in Vintage in which it is restricted. Because it gives you an extra turn for two mana. That’s powerful, no matter what stage of the game you are in. An extra turn? Hell yes, I would love to take two turns in a row! It can be a huge tempo shift! But now you are asking how does the rat give us an extra turn? Well when he enters the battlefield he forces your opponent to take a card from their hand and place it on top of their library. Effectively making them ‘re-play’ their previous turn. This is even more effective when you have already chewed apart their hand with your suite of discard spells. And it’s even more effective when you work it into our “win con”.
Shrieking Affliction. A single black mana for an enchantment that will punish our opponent for playing their hand out too fast, as Aggro decks are known to do, and reward us for emptying out our opponents hand. The best part about this enchantment is that if you can empty their hand entirely, and this is if they do not have card draw in their suite of spells (but nobody runs Divination), then there is an almost guaranteed six damage over two turns, in which they either allow the clock to continue or they buff up their hand in hopes that they can outlast the effects of the Shrieking Affliction. This of course only works if you don’t draw up into one of our many spells that force our opponent to discard.
Now, you might be asking yourself why we aren’t using something like Liliana’s Caress (a strictly better Megrim). Well because with the way that our deck is designed we don’t want our opponent to have any cards in hand, and in order for Caress to affect our opponent they have to have those threats. Once we get our opponent into “topdeck” mode, he is simply going to play out whatever cards he draws into without fear of taking the two damage from the Caress. Making it a dead card on board once we are done destroying their hand.
And the last card to make it into the deck is one that I’ve been experimenting with as a real late game kill card, and that is Haunting Echoes. See, the deck will regularly go into the late stages of the game with ten and twelve turn games, as we either wait or dig for our win con or beat our down slowly with creatures. What this means however is that we will usually be filling their graveyard with a ton of cards, either from hand removal or board removal. Now imagine if their graveyard is full and you are now both playing the top deck game and you pull Haunting Echoes. You cast it targetting their graveyard and suddenly their deck has shrivelled down to almost nothing but basic lands. I’m pretty confident that at that point your opponent won’t have enough answers in their library to deal with you.
Sounds fair enough, doesn’t it? Well, I’m not done yet. I’m going to do something that I don’t normally do and go into the sideboard.
If you go back and look at the list there is red splashed in there, and I think I said something about Black not having any inherent artifact hate. A simple splash of Smash to Smithereens works to alleviate that problem, and this card is good against several decks. Obviously you want to side it in against Affinity and Pod, but you can also use it in the fringe match ups where Aether Vial shows up, as in Merfolk and G/W Hatebears. The other card that isn’t in the main board is Leyline of the Void. An enchantment that gets around Abrupt Decay and can destroy several different decks at the same time. Storm is one of the key matchups as both Pyromancer’s Ascension and Past in Flames require the graveyard in order to function. That’s not to say that a storm deck can’t “go off” without them, but you would be smart to mulligan into seeing this in your opening hand. Another big deck that it can come in against is Pod. It shuts down the infinite damage and infinite life combos, and forces them to move into a mid-range beatdown deck. Not the best of solutions, but it makes the matchup very playable. The last one I’ve added in is a personal preference in Echoing Decay, which is fantastic against tokens, but it really should be traded in favour of Infest or another “sweeper” type effect.
And so there you have it. A deck that is reasonably affordable compared to other decks that are in the metagame right now (I mean, come on… Pod is almost $2100?) and is suited to fight a lot of the popular decks.
Until next time,
~ Gerald Knight
Extra Booty: Now this is purely speculation, but there is another reason why I am investing in building this deck and that is because of a card that is being released in M15 which I think can put this deck over the top. Waste Not. The community designed card. For those of you who haven’t heard about it or don’t remember what it does, it is a two cost black enchantment that has three different effects when an opponent discards a card, depending upon the card type. A creature card will net you a 2/2 zombie token, a land card will net you two black mana, and if they discard anything else you get to draw a card. All said and told I don’t know how this card wouldn’t be a beast in the deck and I am planning on pre-ordering at least four of them.
