Disclaimer time: “Turbo Commons” accents ‘casual duel’ over ‘tourney worthy,’ though I like to think that it could hold it’s own in the hands of an experienced player. Take it for what it is: a decent little weenie swarm deck built on the cheap. Would I be crazy enough to take it against the likes of Psychatog or Fires? Probably not, but when I’m in the mood to go gun slinging, this is my go-to deck.
Turbo Commons V 3.0 still has the same basic game plan as it’s predecessor: Go! Go! Go! Hit your opponent as fast as possible and don’t stop until one of you dies screaming. Red and Black have been Magic’s historically “fast death” colors and your army of creatures are backed up by the Dominarian equivalent of “shock and awe” (plenty of direct damage and creature kill.) Sell him enough damage to convince him to buy the farm, the Brooklyn Bridge or anything else you can think of.
Specific card combos/play tips.
1) Soul Burn, Scorching Lava and Shock: Advice for the new player: if you have a choice between frying your opponent or one of his creatures, nine times out of ten you should fry the critters. If his life total is in single digits, then by all means light him up like it’s July 4th.
2) Crypt Rats: Don't just blindly cast the Rats as soon as you can. The experienced player will paint the bullseye on them for you. Wait until you need to clear the board before you play it. Make sure you have enough mana to cast the Rats and wipe the board in one shot.
3) Ravenous Rats and Coercion: These are in here to try and knock out any nasty instants or enchantments your opponent might have in hand, a preemptive strike, if you will. If you find yourself facing a lot of enchantments, swap in the Bog Downs and consider paying the kicker cost.
4) Pyroclasm: Replacing Breath of Darigaaz entirely this time around, it still manages to fill the “mini-Wrath” function of the Breath. This time around, you can count on having a few kicked up Kavus and Duskwalkers survive the end of the world.
Specific sideboard tips: The Agonizing Demises work great against white’s protection from red critters. Nausea is for when you just can’t “Wrath” away a white weenie swarm fast enough. The pumpable Hematite Golem gets swapped in when those big green beasties start getting you down and Boil is there to spank the blue mage.
You may have noticed that the deck isn’t packing any Mirrodin cards. Being a relatively recent set, I haven’t had time to review all of the common yet, but my gut feeling is that this deck will LOVE the new set. Expect an upgrade to Version 4.0 in the near future…