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BMoor's Magic The Gathering Deck Garage
Standard Recursion
April 30, 2007

little while back, I fixed a reanimator deck based on the Rituals of Rebirth preconstructed deck.  Today's deck is also a tweaked Rituals deck, but its owner went in a different direction than the last guy, so I'm going to fix both for the sake of comparison.
Hial, gunslinger!  Wait... um... Hiya, Deck Builder!  Much better... sorry... reading The Dark Tower comic books too much...
 
Anywho... I've been playing Magic since 94, and while I am a decent player, I've never been very good at building decks.  The only deck I've ever build that has done well was a mono- blue Broodstar Affinity deck, but then, how many thousands of people build decent ones of them?
 
I've been working on a Type 2 recursion deck, based on the Preconstructed deck, Rituals of Rebirth.  I'll tell ya whats in my deck, and why (I'm sure you'll be able to figure it out without me telling you, thought), and then what kinds of problems I seem to be having.  As far as the kinds of decks I have problems against, there aren't any in particular.  Dimir decks, Urzatron, slivers... but then, who doesn't have problems with slivers, right?  My deck never seems to have issues with any specific kind of deck.  Its always itself that doesn't seem to do what its supposed to.  So, here is the deck, if it do ya fine.  :)
 
Type 2 Recursion
 
Land (20)
4x Plains
6x Swamp
10x Forest
 
Creatures (20)
4x Elves of the Deep Shadow (Mana Acceleration, used instead of Llanowars for use with Dread Return/ Vigor Mortis)
4x Greenseeker (Spellshaper for putting critters in Graveyard + Land Fixing)
2x Wall of Wood (Mana Acceleration + Early Game chump blocker if needed)
2x Jedit Ojanen of Efrava (Beef.  Can be Raised, or hardcast with relative ease.)
4x Phantasmagorian (More beef, plus has the added beni of Self Rez and allows you to put more creatures in graveyard)
2x Teneb, the Harvester (Beef + Flying + Recurring Recursion, also relatively easy to Hardcast)
2x Akroma, Angel of Fury (Lots of beef, trample, flying, plus easy to get in graveyard if played face-down.)
 
Non-Creature spells (20)
4x Evolution Charm (Land fixxing + semi- recursion + gives flying.  Whats not to like?)
4x Search for Tomorrow (Land fixxing, works well early game suspened, or mid-game hardcast)
4x Harmonize (Card Advantage.  Never hurts to draw more cards.)
4x Dread Return (Recursion card)
4x Vigor Mortis (Recursion card with a bonus)
 
Alright... I didn't plan for it to come out 20/20/20... thats kinda screwy.
 
OK... here are a few of my problems.  Many of these can be attributed to either poor shuffling, or just not good luck.
 
1) the only turn one I ever seem to get is Search for Tomorrow.  Not bad, but I'd rather see a turn 1 Greenseeker.
 
2) For some odd reason, I rarely see the big creatures early enough.  I can, in theory, have the on the table turn 3, but I don't hit them often enough.
 
3) I don't have enough ways to put them into my graveyard from hand, when they are there.  So I end up hard-casting them.  Who hard-casts Phantasmagorian?  I mean, really?  :)
 
4) I tend to start with 2 or 3 recursion cards in my hand, and I seem to draw too many.  I average about 5 per game with only 1 or 2 creatures to rez.
 
I have thought about simply cutting down the number of rez cards, but 4 is too few, and I don't see 6 making much of a difference.  Plus, I wouldn't know what to replace them with. 
 
As I have plenty of mana and color fixing, I've been dropping the number of lands.  I started with 24, and now I'm down to 20 and still considering dropping.  But I don't know if I dare.
 
The deck feels like it should go off fast enough.  Turn 3 fatty in Standard can be pretty scary.  I do recall when Temepst was type 2, seeing a Verdant Force early on hurt like heck.  But I just can seem to get either the card mix right, or my luck is just lousy.
 
If you could get a chance to look my deck over, and offer up some suggestions, it would be most appreciated.  I have access to most Type 2 stuff.  While I have very little 9th edition, I've got almost all the cards in there older formats... some still in Revised!  Yay for pre-errata!
 
Thanks much for your time.  :)
 
-Mike
 
The last Rituals of Rebirth deck ended up being black and white.  This one's predominantly black and green.  Both paths have their strengths, but I'm going to start off the same way I did before: by cutting a color of mana.  Currently, you have only one use for Plains-- hardcasting Teneb.  And the prescence of Akroma, Angel of Fury proves that you don't really care about being able to hardcast your big guys (and gals), so why bother with 4 Plains?  Exchange those for Golgari Rot Farm.  Yes I said Golgari Rot Farm.  The fact that each land taps for two mana means you're running the equivalent of 24 lands in 20 slots.  And the "return a land" clause means that you might find yourself discarding a card due to having more than seven at the end step.  And that card will likely be back in a few turns, if you get my drift.  Plus, bouncing a land works well with the Greenseeker.
 
Now, your biggest non-shuffling-related problem you mentioned is not enough ways of getting the fat into the graveyard.  You need discard outlets.  Luckily, you're running black and green; the colors of the Dredge mechanic.  Any good, cheap Dredger will work here.  My personal recommendation is Shambling Shell, a 3/1 with a sacrifice ability that lets you Dredge on command.  Moldervine Cloak would also be a great addition, turning even Greenseekers into 4/4 beatsticks.  Of course, there is the risk of Dredging away your Vigor Mortises instead of your big creatures.  A card that actually makes you discard cards would work better.  Try Avatar of Discord, a dangerous beater in its own right and a great way to make an opponent waste his kill spell and clear the way for your reanimated beater.
 
Now, you also mention not seeing enough rezz targets.  How many do you have now?  Ten: Jedit Ojanen, Phantasmagorian, Teneb, and Akroma.  And quite frankly Phantasmagorian isn't even worth reanimating.  It's a 6/6 with no abilities beyond allowing you to bring it back at the cost of counteracting that Harmonize you just played.  No trample, no flying, no regeneration, no anything.  Honestly, it pains me to see reanimator decks running this.  If you're going to cheat out a creature, make it a good one.  I know you said you don't hav much 9th, but you did say you have a lot of older cards and you remember how painful it was to get Verdant Force out early, so throw in Verdant Force.  Some other good ones?
 
Vorosh, the Hunter- With white mana taken out of your deck, Vorosh now makes just as much sense as Teneb as a reanimation target.  Granted, Teneb is both fatty and reanimation spell, but any flier with power 6 or more is worth looking at.
 
Tombstalker- Yes, its Delve ability is counterproductive, but so what?  You're not hardcasting it anyway.
 
Ancient Silverback- It regenerates and smashes face.  Probably the least powerful thing on this list, but better than Phantasmagorian.
 
Sisters of Stone Death- They fit with Teneb's plan of stealing your opponent's creatures.  At the very least, they can force bad blocks and pick of little creatures for G each.
 
Gleancrawler- Do I even need to explain this one?
 
I'd say bring the number of big, fearsome creatures up to about 15.  What can you drop for all these?  Well, you mentioned you had plenty of mana and fixers, and you were considering dropping some lands.  In a 60-card deck, 20 land is about as low as you ever want to go, so let's drop some mana accel instead.  Wall of Roots can go, I'd say, and so can Elves of Deep Shadow.  With those 8 slots, add in equal numbers of discard/dredge outlets and rezz targets.
 
That ought to cover your weaknesses (not that you had that many to start with).  As for your bad luck shuffling, well, I'm afraid you're on your own.  Maybe you could try having your opponent shuffle for you?
 
Good luck!
 
~BMoor


 

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