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BMoor's Magic The
Gathering
Deck Garage Well, good afternoon once again to my Deck Garage. Today, or tonight if you prefer since it's almost 2AM as I write this one, I'll be "tinkering" with a quirky little machine that's one part mainspring and one part mischief. It's a cute idea, but success in Magic is as much about the execution as the theory. I'll let Matt explain things.
> Hey, so I've found myself in a similar situation to the person you > responded to in your article "Deck building 201"...and by similar I > mean my problem however not my history. I have only been playing Magic > for about 3 months now. Although I am new I have worked very hard to > research as far back as I can and learn about old combos and > strategies in an effort to gain some wisdom. I play at a local store > for FNM and I play magic with a lot of people who have been playing > since alpha. Instead of asking an open ended question, however, like > how do I get better I do have a specific deck I have "built" and wish > to perfect or get feedback on whether it's worth toiling over at all. > The deck is built around the three part combo (which in itself makes > it hard to even try for) involving Immortal coil, Puca's mischief, and > Relic of Progenitus. The idea is to give Immortal coil to an opponent, > and using it's second effect, win by removing the graveyard. I played > with the idea of using cards such as royal assasin and Hypnotic > spectre to control the field/oppenents hand but in testing it proved > very weak. I'm not really worried about cost more about accessibility > so anything you can suggest is super helpful...here is the deck as it
> stands: > > Creatures: > > Tidehollow Strix X 4 > > Artifacts: > > Immortal Coil X 3 > Relic of Progenitus X 4 > > Spells: > > Put Away X 2 > Remove Soul X 3 > Cancel X 4 > Terror X 3
> Boomerang X3 > Mind Spring X 3 > Infest X 3 > Ponder X 3 > Diabolic Tutor X 2 (need more) > Puca's Mischief X 3 > Memory Erosion X 2 > > Total Non-Land = 42 > > Land: > > Swamp X 9 > Island X 11 > Arcane Sanctum X 3 > > Land Total= 23 > > > Thank you for reading through this, I really want this deck to work > out but I get a gloomy feeling it won't. Please help me give the deck > a little more life. > > P.S.-In case you haven't guessed, this deck is Type 2...if at all > possible would like to keep it type 2 =) thx > > Matt, > Calgary, Canada
All right then, Matt, take heart. We can make this work. Combo is always a deck type worth trying, and don't even worry about it being three cards. Relic of Progenitus, as a one-mana artifact that cantrips, can be used to dig you to your other pieces and will almost always already be on the field by the time Puca's Mischief and Immortal Coil are in play.
So, what's the problem here? Well, when your deck revolves entirely around winning with a two-and-a-half-card combo, what do you do with the rest of your cardslots?
Devote ALL of them to getting your combo cards.
Right now, the rest of your deck is counterspells, kill cards, some card draw, and Memory Erosion. Instea-- wait, what? Memory Erosion? Your main win condition requires you to remove your opponent's graveyard from the game, and you added a card that puts MORE cards there? Okay, I get that you thought that it might be nice to have a Plan B in case the combo doesn't work, but your two Plans actively hinder each other! If you draw one and it looks like it's going to work, then drawing the other will slow you down! Pull that out!
Not that it matters, since you can pretty much pull out all the cards here that aren't your combo. What to add in their place?
Ponder, Telling Time, and Oona's Grace. Four of each.
You may think Oona's Grace is an odd choice of card draw spells. Well, it works nicely alongside Raven's Crime to guarantee you never choke because of land flood, and it works nicely with Immortal Coil. Once the Coil drops, you can't Puca it away until your next upkeep at least. Meaning that your opponent will have at least one turn during which he or she can kill you by hammering away at your graveyard. If you haven't burned through a good deal of your library by then, you may find that you've effectively put yourself at 3 life-- and left yourself vulnerable. Thus is the value of lots of cheap instants and sorceries that you can burn through, and discard, to draw more cards. Thus also why I'm keeping your mana curve low-- you ideally want to be able to spend two cards a turn sculpting your hand, or damaging your opponent's, as early as turn three. For this reason, don't be afraid to drop Immortal Coil even when you don't yet have the rest of the combo. If you're at 6 life and have 13 cards in the graveyard, dropping the Coil is like gaining 7 life, and you can use its draw ability to hunt for the rest of your combo even faster. Then after you make the ol' switcheroo, suddenly your opponent has spent the last four turns swinging away at a faux life total which now has no relevance. This is looking good for you.
Since you now have no creatures at all, Infest can come back
in as insurance against quick beater decks like Kithkin.
I personally also like the idea of a singleton Beacon of Unrest as a Plan B. With all this draw power, one is enough, and it not only gives you something to throw back at your opponent, it could also revive (repair?) a broken Coil if your opponent guessed your plan and had a Smash handy, as well as keeping your opponent's graveyard one card lighter for when suddenly he's the Immortal One and you, perhaps not having a Relic handy, suddenly find yourself the proud owner of a 5/5 and him with only five cards in the graveyard.
Another card you can add is Traumatic Visions. I do concede that having countermagic is useful in such a deck, but so is being able to filter your deck. This card does both. You have no good reason not to play it.
What else, what else? Countersquall is good as well, if you insist going down the control route. You've got Arcane Sanctum already, so you could splash Esper Charm for extra draw/discard plus enchantment hate if needed. And then there's Grixis Battlemage, which is another means of filtering your deck. Although if you're going down that road, Merfolk Looter is better, faster... but not stronger, interestingly.
That should be enough for you to wind your mainspring around for now, Matt. The basic premise is: don't stave off your opponent while you wait for your combo to come to you. Get in there and find it yourself!
Good luck!
~BMoor |
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