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BMoor's Magic The Gathering Deck Garage
Mishra's Booby Trap deck
June 29, 2007

BMoor (I Spelled it right!)

My friend and I are trying to work out a deck around Booby Trap. Basically we are trying to get it to stall until we can cast out Mishra, Artificer Prodigy to put out extra booby traps to send 20 dmg to the opponents face. Problem is that during FNM we either get over run before we can do anything or we end up timing out and getting a draw. I don’t know what to do to speed this up. Any help would be great thanks.

 

PS- We like to call this deck “Boobies to your face”

 

The Deck list

 

Land

 7 Islands

 4 mountains

 6 swamps

 2 Rakdos Carnarium

 2 Izzet Boilerworks

 

 Creature

 4 mishra, Artificer Prodigy

 4 wizened Snitches

 3 (funny AE thing)ther Membrane

 

 Spells

 4 Diabolic Tutor

 2 Dimir Machinations

 4 Temporal Eddy

 4 Dark Banishing

 4 Mark of eviction

 

 Artifact

 2 Mizzium Tranreliquat

 4 Mishra's Bauble

 4 booby trap

 

We would really like to fix this up to be a contender between the two of us we have a lot of type 2 cards we just don’t know where to go from here. Please help us get Boobies in as many faces at our FNM as possible.

 

Thanks a TON,

Booby Fan

Uhh.... okay, sure, why not?  This might cause Pojo to lose its G-rating, but I guess if Wizards can name a card "Booby Trap", it's all good, right?  So, you use Mishra's ability to get a pair of Traps to go off after sneaking a peek at the top of people's decks.  A sound idea, but let's see if we can make it sound even better.  I may not be a real mechanic, but I can appreciate the metallic ring of metal on metal as well as any Artificier.

Now, the Mishra-Trap combo has a certain number of elements involved.  Step One, play Mishra.  Step Two, find out what your opponent's next draw wil be.  Step Three, play a Trap before your opponent can draw the card you've seen and use Mishra to fetch another one.  There are inhernt problems with this strategy, however.

Problem One: Your opponent can change his top card before his next draw.  This is actually fairly easy to do.  Telling Time and Truth or Tale can do it, since even if he puts the named card in his hand, he isn't "drawing" it, and the Traps won't spring.  Seek (of Hide//Seek) can do it, since he can Seek out a card from his own library (possibly the named card), and then shuffle his library, re-randomizing his next draw.  Any card with Scry could ship away the named card as well.  This is unlikely, but worth keeping in mind.

Problem Two: Your opponent has gained life before the Traps went off.  This is the main problem with Dragonstorm combo decks as well, but at least Dragonstorm leaves itself with four 5/5's.  You sacrifice your big hitters when your combo goes off.  of course, Mishra himself is a 4/4, worthy of a few punches to the face, but you don't want to have to resort to that.

Problem Three: Drawing the combo.  You need Mishra and mana to cast him, at least one Booby Trap, and a means of seeing your opponent's top card that doesn't cost so much mana that you won't be able to cast the Trap the same turn.  Wizened Snitches and Mishra's Bauble are best at this.  Your other means are a bit expensive.

Enough pessimism, let's get to the fixing!  You say that you want to speed this deck up, so as not to "time out and get a draw" or "get run over before we can do anything".  Easily done.  I think your first issue is the three-coloredness of your deck.  Necessary with Mishra, yes, but still a hindrance.  In order to ease the pressure, take out every card that requires more than one of a specific color (except Diabolic Tutor; that's helping you too much).  AEther Membrane and Temporal Eddy come out.  Next, take out Mizzium Transreliquat.  A fun card, but you can't copy Booby Trap effectively because it didn't come into play AS Booby Trap, therefore there is no named card (or chosen player).  Dimir Machinations helps the combo but is too inefficient, and there isn't much to Transmute for.  Finally, take out Mark of Eviction-- it's just too slow.

Now, what to add in?  Well, to speed up your deck (and to ensure you can actually cast Mishra), you should have 4 each of Prismatic Lens and Chromatic Star.  The Star works especially well here since it helps you draw cards, and because Mishra's ability states that you can get your second artifact from your graveyard as well as your library, meaning plenty of reuse.

Now, I also removed AEther Membrane.  I'm not sure if you're using it because you want to bounce your opponent's permanents or to block flying creatures, but we can find a replacement.  Preferrably an artifact replacement, so playing one post-Mishra will get us two.  I like Junktroller and Dancing Scimitar, personally.  But if we're working on the theory of "self-sacrifice = reuse", then Bottle Gnomes is a good choice as well.  Then there's Cryptic Annelid, whose super-scry can help you find the cards you need.

Now, I also dropped Temporal Eddy and Mark of Eviction, leaving you with precious few ways to control the board.  I don't know of any Standard legal artifacts that can do thos things, so we'll use a colored spell.  Personally, I find Surging AEther a good call; it doesn't require double of any color of mana, it works well with Wizened Snitches, and if necessary it can be used to bring back a disarmed Trap (if your opponent manages to change the top card of his library).  Time Ebb can also serve a similar job as Temporal Eddy for one less mana.  You might also use Wrecking Ball to outright destroy creatures, or make your opponent discard them.  Blizzard Specter would help too, it seems, and Rise//Fall is potent disruption no matter which half you cast.  And you're in the position of being able to cast either half, so why not?  Consult the Necrosages is also pretty versatile, as it can throw an opponent off-kilter or help you dig for the combo.  If you're interested in using discard as your disruption of choice, I highly recommend Disrupting Scepter-- it's a repeatable effect, and it's an artifact.

That pretty much covers everything.  Good luck to the both of you in bringing that Admiral Ackbar moment to your opponent's face.

~BMoor