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BMoor's Magic The
Gathering
Deck Garage
Conflux Contest Winner
July 22, 2009
Last time, in BMoor’s
Deck Garage, we witnessed three men and a baby (of Alara)
and what they could do when denied monocolored spells.
Today, three more will attempt to gain glory by pulling it
all together with Conflux. Let’s meet our confluxing
contestants!
First up, according to his Gmail tag, is Skyler.
"Confluxicated"
4x Conflux
2x Cruel Ultimatum
4x Vengeful Rebirth
3x Punish Ignorance
3x Reborn Hope
3x Countersquall
3x Soul Manipulation
4x Wall of Denial
4x Winged Coatl
4x Tidehollow Sculler
4x Howltooth Hideaway
4x Shelldock Isle
4x Rupture Spire
4x Vivid Creek
4x Vivid Marsh
This deck is built around Conflux (obviously). The main
combo with Conflux is to pull Vengeful Rebirth and Cruel
Ultimatum. Using Conflux you search up five cards: 2
Vengeful Rebirths, 2 Cruel Ultimatums and 1 Conflux.
Alternatively you can get rid of 1 of both Ultimatum and
Rebirth to pull either Soul Manipulation or Countersquall to
ensure your cards will make it regardless of what the
opponent may have. The deck is built to counter and block
until you can pull the cards, hence the huge blockers.
Thankfully, they shouldn't die to a measly Volcanic Fallout.
The hideaways make it possible to play parts of the combo
earlier than originally planned. I wanted to throw in some
lands that could become creatures, like Fairy Conclave, but
I decided against it in an effort to keep the deck smallish.
Reborn Hope is there to pull out Conflux or Rebirth in case
they were actually countered, but can also be used on the
limited number of creatures the deck has.
-----
Next up is Karl.
Hello BMoor,
I’m just going to sort of ramble out an explanation of cards
and strategy in little clumps since I can’t really think of
what other angle I could tackle this thing from, so here
goes.
Creatures: 0
Other Spells: 37
[4x] Conflux (3WUBRG)
[4x] Chrome Mox (0)
[3x] Cloven Casting (5UR)
[4x] Cruel Ultimatum (UUBBBRR)
[4x] Fist of the Suns (3)
[4x] Glimpse the Unthinkable (UB)
[4x] Glittering Wish (GW)
[3x] Lim-Dûl's Vault (UB)
[4x] Manamorphose (1 R/G)
[3x] Supply / Demand (XGW / 1WU)
Lands: 23
[2x] Blood Crypt
[1x] Bloodstained Mire
[1x] Breeding Pool
[1x] Flooded Strand
[2x] Hallowed Fountain
[1x] Overgrown Tomb
[1x] Polluted Delta
[4x] Reflecting Pool
[1x] Sacred Foundry
[1x] Steam Vents
[1x] Stomping Ground
[3x] Temple Garden
[2x] Watery Grave
[2x] Windswept Heath
Sideboard: 15
[4x] Blightning (1BR)
[2x] Gerrard’s Verdict (WB)
[4x] Lightning Helix (RW)
[1x] Mind Funeral (1UB)
[4x] Reborn Hope (GW)
Conflux, Fist of the Suns, and Cloven Casting: The meat of
the deck. Conflux (the uber tutor) can easily search out a
variety of continuous threats to throw at my opponent(s).
Ordinarily this would be rather difficult due to that nasty
8 mana cost but that’s where Fist of the Suns steps in. FotS
decreases the cost of Conflux down to a much more manageable
WUBRG and has a similar effect on Cloven Casting. Cloven
Casting is probably the least necessary part of the deck but
has a dramatic impact when included. Cloven Casting turns an
ordinary conflux from a WUBRG tutor (with FotS) that gets
you five cards, to a 1WUBRG tutor that gets you ten cards.
Chrome Mox and Manamorphose: The first of these works mainly
as mana acceleration. A single Chrome Mox can almost always
guarantee a second or third turn FotS and thus a third or
forth turn Cloven Casting or Conflux. It also provides mana
fixing depending on what you imprint onto it. The second,
Manamorphose, provides modest mana fixing to accompany the
deck need for all five colors a large portion of the time.
It also combos onto a Cloven Casting since it becomes a 3
mana cost spell that produces four mana and draws two cards
to replace itself, a positive swing of resources all around.
Supply / Demand and Lim-Dûl's Vault: Both of these tutor up
individual pieces of the main combo or simply whatever may
be needed at the moment. Demand is the simplest of the two
guaranteeing a multicolored card from the deck (most likely
a Conflux or Cloven Casting) in your hand (as a side note,
Supply can be used in order to create temporary protection
or offense through tokens but generally of the two Demand is
probably what will be used 99.7% of the time). Lim-Dûl's
Vault, on the other hand, is mainly used for searching out
FotS, Chrome Mox, or whatever else you may need. As an added
benefit Lim-Dûl's Vault also can be played earlier and often
times in a more effective way than Demand since it can fix
the top of your deck.
Glittering Wish: While it may seem odd to separate the other
tutors from Glittering Wish, since they essentially do the
same thing just with different sets of cards, Glittering
Wish deserves its own explanation anyway. Glittering Wish, I
would almost go as far as to say, is essential to the deck’s
function but, since it isn’t quite that important, I won’t.
It is however very useful. Glittering Wish basically gives
the deck access to a variety of cards that would ordinarily
overextend its self-imposed sixty-card limit. More
specifically it can keep the flow of threats constant at a
low cost.
Cruel Ultimatum: Among the threats the deck has this is by
far the nastiest. Ordinarily getting hit with a Cruel
Ultimatum means your going to lose or your going to have one
heck of a time trying to recover enough resources to win.
This deck takes advantage of that by hitting with more than
one thanks to Conflux’s ability to search for up to three at
a time. The basic idea would be to (once you’ve either drawn
it or searched it out) play a Cruel Ultimatum for five mana
(thanks to FotS) then duplicate it with Cloven Casting for
one more mana and watch as you either devastate two
opponents or utterly crush one opponent beyond any possible
chance of recovery.
Glimpse the Unthinkable: While this is not in any way a
Cruel Ultimatum it is almost as destructive a force. The
real magic behind this card is the boost it gets from
Conflux and Cloven Casting. Conflux can get out two Glimpse
the Unthinkable while Cloven Casting turns each into a 1UB
sorcery that mill 20 cards. After playing two Glimpse the
Unthinkable and Cloven Casting them most opponents would be
too shut down to be any real threat.
Blightning, Gerrard’s Verdict, Lightning Helix, and Mind
Funeral: These last four are the final threats the deck has
to muster. All of these can be swapped into the deck or
pulled in through Glittering Wish in order to counter the
general problems that creep up. Blightning and Gerrard’s
Verdict both perform about the same task; they both force an
opponent to discard (disrupting any nasty plans they may
have) while either dealing them damage or recovering life.
Lightning Helix is an awesome card for handling creatures or
finishing off opponents while also gaining life at a low
cost. Finally Mind Funeral (the one seemingly random card)
reinforces the secondary mill strategy and can be very
effective since it has to hit four lands before it stops.
Much like Cruel Ultimatum and Glimpse the Unthinkable all of
these are also turned into even more monstrously efficient
cards when you can throw in the one extra mana needed to
copy them with Cloven Casting.
Reborn Hope: The last card and another hidden jewel. Reborn
Hope really shines here because it can recover any of the
decks various dangerous cards and can also be utilized with
Cloven Casting to great effect. In the late game a deck like
this might begin to run out of things to hurl at its
opponent’s but Reborn Hope easily prevents this and more.
With a Reborn Hope in a graveyard and one in your hand you
can use Cloven Casting to copy it and then get back two
cards, the Reborn Hope in the graveyard and something like
Glimpse the Unthinkable. You can then proceed to hit them
with the dangerous card and then next turn repeat the
process until you’ve won.
-----
And finally, Zachary.
Creatures
4 Composite Golem
2 Copper Myr
2 Gold Myr
2 Iron Myr
2 Leaden Myr
3 Silver Myr
Other Cards
4 Conflux
4 Backlash
3 Gerrard's Command
4 Surge of Strength
3 Black Lotus
Land
4 Acadamey Ruins
4 Crystal Quarry
3 Deserted Temple
4 Fire-Lit Thicket
4 Graven Cairns
4 Mystic Gate
I'm not sure if I really need to explain the strategy of
this deck, but just in case I do, here it is. Alright, so
it's a whopping 60 cards strong. As you might have guessed
this strategy actually only works on an opponent who puts
out a creature. If mono-colored were allowed I'd sideboard
some donate just in case. For this strategy I have to have
conflux in my hand in order to win the game, I actually need
two of them and having one will get me the other two. You
see it yet? That's right I play Conflux as quickly as
possible and get out two more Conflux (white and blue), two
Surge of Strength (green and red) and one Backlash (black).
I play the two surge of strengths on their creature and
discard the two conflux's as part of their cost. (If that
rule wasn't on this contest I would search for two
Progenitus and discard them instead for +20/+0) Their
creature gets jacked up +16/+0 and then I backlash for their
creatures power +16. Best case scenario: They use it for
something allowing me to untap it with Gerrard's command.
The lands are there to help me play the multicolored cards I
need to play and the academy ruins to get composite golem
back if need be or if they try to rush.
There we have it. Now to evaluate them!
1: How does each deck win?
Skyler’s plan is to Conflux up Cruel Ultimatums and Vengeful
Rebirths, plus a second Conflux. Each Ultimatum will do 5
damage, as well as crippling their board position, and then
each Vengeful Rebirth (returning the Ultimatums) will do
another 7, for a total of 24 damage. If the opponent somehow
survives that, Skyler has his Ultimatums back in hand for
another go-round. He also seems to be trying to cheat the
mana costs on these back-breaking spells by hiding them
under Howltooth Hollow or Shelldock Isle.
Karl’s plan is to knock that [3] off of Conflux’s cost with
Fist of Suns, which will then allow him to afford the cost
of Cloven Casting to make copies of his Conflux, as well as
whatever instants and sorceries he chooses to search for
with them.
Zachary has discovered a combination of cards that will
allow him to win the very next turn for [1BRRRGG], assuming
his opponent controls a creature. And two of those cards are
Conflux itself.
2: What are each deck’s flaws?
Skyler’s biggest problem is undoubtedly his lands. He only
has twenty and eight of them don’t provide more than one
color of mana, in an all-multicolor deck. His Vivid lands
are going to run out of counters, and unless he has multiple
Rupture Spires to back him up, I can just see him with a
grip full of spells he can’t cast. Not even Conflux itself
can find him any mana-fixers.
Karl’s problem is that he seems primed to end up with a ton
of cards in his hand. If he can’t muster enough mana to cast
them all, he’ll be discarding down to seven at end of turn.
Copying a Conflux to get ten cards, only to discard three of
them?
And Zachary, as he admitted to me himself, is completely
dependant on his opponent having an untapped creature when
he goes off. Since his only creatures are mana-producers,
it’s likely any creatures the opponent does have will have
attacked him, thus needing him to use Gerrard’s Command.
Also, his combo gives the creature +16/+0 (without the
Command) before dealing its power to the opponent. Assuming
he can find a creature with nonzero power to target, that’s
still 3 damage short, which means he needs the Command to
guarantee a kill, or he needs to attack a few times with his
artifact mana producers.
After thinking about it, I realized that Zachary could’ve
eliminated these problems fairly easily. By using Forbidden
Orchard as one of his nobasic lands, he could give his
opponent creature tokens. And including a single copy of
Autochthon Wurm in his deck would let him use that as the
white card he Confluxes for, discard it to a Surge, and then
he could give his Backlash target +23/+0. They’re small
oversights, but they add up.
3: You never draw Conflux. Now what?
Skyler would just have to hold an opponent at bay with his
counterspells until he draws an Ultimatum, most likely using
Vengeful Rebirth/Reborn Hope on a counterspell or two in the
process.
Karl would be drawing a slew of the muscle spells he has to
Conflux into, and possibly Cloven Casting to double them.
He’d have mana issues trying to accommodate so many
different casting costs, but with all those power cards he
might flail out enough potency to win despite his spells not
really having a common theme besides “sucks to be you if I
resolve it”.
Zachary would have to hope he draws his combo naturally, or
else try and win with Composite Golem beats and Academy
Ruins recursion. Either way looks like a long shot.
This one’s a pretty tough call. Zachary has definitely
impressed me by finding five gold cards that cover all five
colors between them and kill the opponent in one glorious,
if easily disrupted, combo. Skyler’s more direct focus looks
like it would be pretty savage if he’d built a better mana
base for it. And Karl’s “brute force” approach of copying
Conflux, searching out the most painful gold spells in
Magic’s history, and then copying them for massive damage
looks like a nightmare to go up against, but I can’t tell if
Karl is taking a stance of adapting to his opponent’s
strategy, or just can’t decide what he wants to win with.
He’s gone part mill and part… Ultimatum. It literally took
me hours to try and decide which deck was the best. But for
most thought evidenced in which five spells to Conflux up,
I’m going to give Zachary’s Surge of Strength/Backlash win
condition the nod as winner of the Conflux division!
Congratulations, Zachary! Send me your address in an E-mail
to claim your prize!
Now, it’s my turn to whip something up. My plan is similar
to Karl’s, only instead of Fist of Suns to make Conflux
easier to cast, and Cloven Casting to copy it, I’ll use
Panoptic Mirror to cast it for free every turn.
4 Panoptic Mirror
4 Conflux
2 Call the Skybreaker
2 Spitting Image
2 Worm Harvest
2 Titanic Ultimatum
4 Flame-Kin Zealot
4 Esper Charm
4 Exploding Borders
3 Flurry of Wings
4 Darksteel Ingot
4 Grixis Charm
4 Rupture Spire
4 Terramorphic Expanse
3 Plains
3 Island
3 Swamp
3 Mountain
3 Forest
The theme here is to get Conflux on a Panoptic Mirror, then
search for some of your big token producers, Flame-Kin
Zealot, and Grixis Charm or Titanic Ultimatum. Then imprint
the biggest one, Call the Skybreaker or Spitting Image, and
cast the others. Now you can make a suitably large token
creature every turn, or search your deck for five spells
when you’ve played out your hand. Once you’ve got a suitable
amount of tokens, use the Zealot, Ultimatum, or Grixis Charm
(Trumpet Blast mode) for a lethal alpha strike. Flurry of
Wings makes a decent Fog effect, or a supply of tokens.
Esper Charm is pure support, but can help you draw into a
Mirror or a Conflux.
There you have it, folks. Two down, four to go. Come back on
Friday, and we’ll see what people did with Fusion Elemental.
You know you’re dying to see what people figured out to do
with a vanilla 8/8 for [WUBRG]!
~BMoor
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