10.8.04  A FireLight deck for my deck garage

GenStd4@aol.com sent me a deck to fix up. Here's what he had to say about his Fire/Light deck.

Hello! Thanks for writing and stuff on Pojos, your very helpful! Anyway, this is my Fire/Light Deck. My strategy is pretty simple. Just defend with Light, and attack with Fire. I play aggresively a lot, and usually let a few of my shields break for more card advantage before the swarm. My deck also doesnt just swarm, but attacks with big double breakers, and set up a good defensive wall. I can put in whatever cards you think would do best, rarity and money not a problem. Also, I want to try and make my deck get out strong dudes quicker. I know evoulutions are good, but I dont know which ones to put in. Here it is:

Fire:
1 Gatling Skyterror
1 Metalwing Skyterror
2 Bolzard Dragon
1 Bolshack Dragon
1 Armored Groblav
1 Rothus the Traveller
4 Explosive Dude Joe
4 Mini Titan Gett
4 Immortal Baron Vorg
4 Deadly Fighter Braid Claw

4 Tornado Flame
3 Magma Gazer

Light:
4 Senatine Jade Tree
4 Emerald Grass
4 La Ura Giga, Sky Gaurdian

Well at first glance this looks like a Fire Rush with light added in to make up for Fire's lack of defense. I see that you are running a lot of mid-ranged double breakers. Most of your big guys are at 5000 to 7000 power. I think Magma Gazers work great in this type of a deck to help take out those bigger creatures. Just cast Gazer on a 4000 powered creature and then take out your opponent's evolution. La Ura Giga's along with Braid Claws are probably giving you some crazy turn two and three plays. Something along the lines of playing La Ura, and Claw on turn two. Or playing Gett and a one cost card all on turn three.

Anyway I don't think Bolzard Dragon is suited to your deck. Unless you play agianst a lot of tri-color decks he isn't going to help much. Over on the Light side I have noticed a lack of Holy Awes. In a rush deck like this Holy Awe is very good. You can use it to tapp your opponent's blockers and then go in for the kill. You can use it to tap your opponent's swarm of creatures, and then take them all out with your feild of blockers. Also Holy Awe can wind up as your last or second Sheild Trigger. Your opponent starts attacking your last two sheilds with his five creatures. He hits a ST Holy Awe. All his creatures get tapped. Now on your turn you finish him off. Holy Awe just saved you the game. Tornado Flames is good, but I think you should take them out for Holy Awes. Keeping both Flames, and Awe would be good. But I plan on giving you a few heavy hitters later on (four flames, four awes, and a few heavy hitters = too many costly cards for a rush deck). So for starters it's -4 Tornado Flames, -2 Bolzard Dragon, and +4 Holy Awe. Now I'm off to playtest your deck agianst someone online. Hopefully I'll get a feel for how it works.

*Goes to playtest online*

*Back*

At first your deck played a lot of blockers. Then it switched to putting heavy hitters into play. Lots of times I was forced to attack with Deadly Fighter Braid Claw, and Mini-Titan Gett. Most of the time they ran into blockers, and died. Many of the heavy hitters just came out so late that my opponent's just killed them easily. So the two main problems that I found with your deck are... needs early Double Breakers (you mentioned wanting early DB, and I must agree that you need them), and your blockers are preventing you from rushing. I also feel that you need a way of getting around blockers, so that your "must attack every turn" monsters don't run into blockers all the time.

Now for the first problem I am prescribing four Armored Blaster Valdios, as well as four Flametropus. Both cards have double breaker for very little mana. I am going to drop all your remaining Double Breakerish cards, to make room for your new double breakers. So it's -1 Gatling Skyterror, -1 Bolshack Dragon, -1 Metalwing Skyterror, -3 Magma Gazer, -1 Rothus, and -1 Groblav, for +4 Flametropus, and +4 Armored Blaster Valdios.

Onto the second problem. Ok so you are losing the blockers. Now what in Light is good for Rush decks? The first card that comes to mind is Larba Geer. Tapping all opposing blockers is a nice way to take some sheilds. Larba Geer can kill Barkwhip too. That's always a bonus. Now we need some evoluion bait for Larba Geer. La Ura Giga fits the bill so it stays. Resos Pacos is a cheap guardian so I think he'll work well to help you rush. So it's -4 Senatide, -4 Elmerald Grass, and +4 Larba Geer, +4 Resos Pacos. Now back to playtesting... *goes to playtest some more*

Ok this time around the deck ran a lot better. Two things seemed to not work well this time around. First Immortal Baron Vorg kept getting blocked by 3000 powered blockers. Second Explosive Dude Joe didn't seem to help out very much. Brawler Zyler seems to be a better card, since it won't get easily blocked by the 2000, and 3000 powered blockers. Meile Vizier of Lightning is a nice card to have in a Light/Fire build. Meile can come into play, and then tapp an opposing blocker. So it's kinda like Meile doesn't have summoning sickness. Just so long as your opponent has at least one blocker that is.

Well I know I really made a lot of changes to your deck. But I think this version will keep you happy, as well as annoy your opponents. Anyway I know that I've neglected my Weapons Lab for some time now folks. I'll be sure to make my next deck fix a lot sooner. Well anyways see you guys next time, and keep sending me those deck lists. (I don't throw away deck garage submissions, until a new set comes out, so all the people that sent a submission still have a chance to have their decks reviewed).