Pojo's Magic The Gathering news, tips, strategies and more!

Pojo's MTG
MTG Home
Message Board
News & Archives
Deck Garage
BMoor Dolf BeJoSe

Columnists
Paul's Perspective
Jeff Zandi
DeQuan Watson
Jordon Kronick
IQ
Aburame Shino
Rare Hunter
Tim Stoltzfus
WiCkEd
Judge Bill's Corner


Trading Card
Game

Card of the Day
Guide for Newbies
Decks to Beat
Featured Articles
Peasant Magic
Fan Tips
Tourney Reports


Other
Color Chart
Book Reviews
Online Play
MTG Links
Staff



120x90 Ad Space
For Rent!



BMoor's Magic The Gathering Deck Garage
The Crusher Engine
April 22, 2008

Hey

So I'm building a deck that to play in 3+ people games and (hopefully in 1 on 1 as well but this isn't it's main purpose) and I think i've come across a strategy that will be at least interesting to play if not a potent killer. Here is the deck:

4 condescend
4 Drift of Phantasms
4 boomerang
4 fabricate
4 Mana leak
4 Wall of tears
3 Arcbound crusher
3 Dross Scorpion
3 nuisance Engine
3 ashnod's Altar


24 island


The point of the deck revolves around the 4 cards at the bottom. The
idea is to generate an infinite amount of pest artifact tokens using
dross scorpion and ashnods alter. These will make my crusher
ridiculously powerful. The problem is that since it's a 4 card combo
i've gotta hold my ground until i can pull it off. So i've packed the
deck with control cards and the two tutors drift of phantasms and
fabricate. What do you think? is there potential here? should i splash
black for disciple of the vault and more transmute, white for that one
leonin, or something else entirely? Any and all advice is welcome.

-thank you

Phil
Ahh, the infinite-combo goldmine that was Mirrodin block.  How I miss it so...
 
The core of the combo looks good.  It is, in essence, a three-card combo.  Nuisance Engine produces tokens, and Dross Scorpion and Ashnod's Altar conert the newly spawned Pest into setting up the Engine for another go-round.  Three-card combos are fun, but they can be tricky to pull off.  Especially since the Big Three core of the combo don't win you the game.  Hence the Crusher-- you need some way to convert this endless stream of Pests into profit.  So it's in essence a four-card combo.  How do we make it work?
 
Well, the first method is with redundancy.  Say you're playing a "combo" deck of small flying creatures and Auras like Blanchwood Armor to put on them.  Well, if you have 12 creatures with flying or other evasion, you're almost guaranteed to have one when you draw that Armor, right?  This is the same concept.  Find a card that fulfills the same role as one of your combo pieces, and you can play both to increase your odds of getting an appropriate piece.  Nuisance Engine and Dross Scorpion don't have analogs that I know of, but you can achieve the same thing as Ashnod's Altar with Krark-Clan Ironworks.  And Arcbound Crusher isn't the only card that will trigger off of all these happenings, even if it is the only one that lets you name the deck, "The Crusher Engine".  As you mentioned, Disciple of the Vault in black or Leonin Elder in white will convert this into direct life loss for an opponent or life gain for you.  In green, Essence Warden will do the same thing as Leonin Elder, and Fecundity will draw you all the cards you need, allowing you to start going off before you draw an actual win condition and just draw your way to one. 
 
But you're already in blue, and adding colors just requires more deck space and valuable turns be dedicated to getting an even balance of colors.  And it's not like this can't be done perfectly well in monoblue, so I see no need to splash.
 
So how can we ensure that you'll get what you need besides finding redundant backups?  Well, blue's always been good at digging for what it needs, and your inclusion of Condescend suggests you thought of the same thing.  I'm not sure that Condescend is a good way to dig or a good counter, though, so maybe that can be replaced.  Good filter spells include Serum Visions, Telling Time, Ponder, Perilous Research (assuming you have a Pest token out), AEther Spellbomb, Foresee, or Sensei's Divining Top.  I'm obviously not suggesting that you use all of those.
 
Good counterspells include Rune Snag, Vex, Assert Authority, Wizard Replica, Hinder, Soratami Savant, Remand, Negate, and Dismal Failure.  Once again, I'm leaving it to you to choose your favorite of that list, not to use all of them.  I like to provide my clients with options.  And since I can't be sure if you're relying on Condescend as a counterspell or a Scry engine, I decided to show you options for both.
 
Next, you mentioned that you play multiplayer, but would also like this to be competitive in duels.  Well, you're definitely on the right track with Wall of Tears and Drift of Phantasms.  I know the Drift is intended to transmute for combo pieces, but having a 0/5 flyer can also be very handy when you need a few turns to assemble a combo and want to hold off the incoming army.
 
And that pretty much covers your deck.  Looks like there was nothing seriously wrong with it, but it's a cool idea and it'll be very satisfying when it goes off given that there's a decent chance that somebody will Shatter a key piece at the wrong time.  But then that's what the countermagic is for I suppose.
 
Good luck!
 
~BMoor


 

Copyright© 1998-2008 pojo.com
This site is not sponsored, endorsed, or otherwise affiliated with any of the companies or products featured on this site. This is not an Official Site.