The countdown continues today with our fourth place entry.  When I first saw the combo card this guy/girl thought of, I originally thought he/she was going to win based solely off of how original the idea was.  It was so unexpected I laughed out loud!  However, as I got into the judging process, reading other decklists and examining them closely, I found a few issues keeping this deck down.  It still makes the top five though on surprise value alone.

Brainspoil and shred memory are there for the transmute. Ideally you get simulacrum on a scepter early on, put out stuffy and then consume spirit or stick out a few bullies. Or just laugh as your opponent tries to hit you. Dark ritual and coffers in there for mana acceleration, so the combo or just stuffy gets out pretty fast. Enough tutoring power and other copies to pull out anything you need if something gets destroyed. Tried the whole Tutor-discard-exhume route. Pretty fast, but couldn't seem to make it fly. Probably a crude deck with some proportions off, but a learning experience for me.

// Lands
    20 [PR] Swamp
    4 [TO] Cabal Coffers

// Creatures
    4 [TSP] Stuffy Doll
    4 [NE] Spiteful Bully

// Spells
    4 [MI] Dark Ritual
    4 [4E] Simulacrum
    4 [VI] Vampiric Tutor
    4 [MR] Consume Spirit
    4 [RAV] Brainspoil
    4 [RAV] Shred Memory
    4 [MR] Isochron Scepter

You may need a moment to go look up what Simulacrum and Spiteful Bully do.  Once you do, you’re in for a laugh.  Simulacrum is an old card that essentially lets you use one of your creatures as a decoy—dealing all the damage you took this turn retroactively to a creature you control.  And Spiteful Bully is a 3/3 for 1B that deals 3 damage to a creature you control (itself if you have no other creatures.)  I like this idea a lot—it’s much more creative than the black deck I built, I have to admit.  That’s part of the reason I didn’t specify what format the entries needed to be.  By including every (nonred) card ever printed, a few obscure gems were bound to surface.

Now, on to the analysis.  Is this a well-built deck?  Well, it has two combos with Stuffy Doll; Spiteful Bully (a two-card combo) and Simulacrum on a Scepter (a three-card combo, although you could play Simulacrum from your hand too).  That’s 16 cards of combo.  Four of them you have to draw one of, the other twelve you can draw one of four, or two of the other eight.  To aid this, another twelve cards in the deck can search your library for them—one can search for Stuffy Doll, another for the other three combo pieces, and a third that can search for anything.  Brainspoil can also kill a creature, and technically Shred Memory has another use (though you’ll almost never use it for that.)  That’s 28 cards devoted to getting one or both of these combos out.  The rest of the deck is nothing but Consume Spirit—the classic black mage’s Plan B—and mana (including Dark Ritual).  That’s a completely dedicated combo deck; it can’t really do anything but combo out.  In decks like that, the combo really needs to win the game and it can’t be easy to disrupt.  Spiteful Bully only deals 3 damage a turn, and isn’t too hard to deal with.  Isochron Scepter can be destroyed, but most people don’t maindeck artifact hate.  And once you get Simulacrum online, you’re likely to win since you’re not only dealing damage as good as you’re getting, but you’re regaining all the life you lose.  An opponent would have to kill you in one hit to thwart Simulacrum, which an aggro deck could probably do if they can get your life total down low enough before you combo out.  But then, you do have Consume Spirit life gain as a backup plan, so I’d say this is a well-built combo deck; it will very likely win IF it can assemble the combo, and it will almost certainly lose if it can’t 

Is it an original idea?  My goodness yes!  Most players barely remember Simulacrum and Spiteful Bully.  Simulacrum hasn’t been printed since 4^th Edition, and Spiteful Bully was a Nemesis card that probably only got used in conjunction with Will-o’-the-Wisp.  It’s nice to see someone make good use out of them.

Will the victory this deck achieves be surprising and unexpected?  Well, when you put Simulacrum on a Scepter, most players are going to wonder what you’re up to unless Stuffy Doll is already on the board.  Once the pieces fall into place, however, it’ll likely be a few turns of waiting for the inevitable or finding an answer.  Tapping out the Scepter only to have the opponent fall prey to the other Simulacrum in your hand could be the play of the week, but either way it’s quite likely your opponent will be talking about your deck for a while.

Can this deck actually win?  I think I already went over that—it needs its combo to work or it’s in trouble.  It has eight creatures.  Four of them cost five mana and can do one damage per turn.  The other four cost two mana, but will die on your next upkeep unless Stuffy Doll is already out.  But then you do have the “fail safe” Consume Spirits.  So, as I said before, a win is neither too difficult nor too easy, but the potential exists.

That’s all I can say about this deck: one really clever idea, and a lot of cards to support it.  It’s a good deck, but if you think there’s no way anyone could’ve topped it, you’re in for a rude awakening next time!

~BMoor