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BMoor's Magic The
Gathering
Deck Garage
Maelstrom Nexus Contest Winner
July 29, 2009
We’re down to only two more choices in the Five Colors, Six
Choices contest, and today we’ll resolve one of them. Andrew
and George will go head to head in the Maelstrom Nexus
division! Which one will cascade into victory?
A side note: you may have noticed that the previous four
divisions all featured three contestants. It wasn’t because
I narrowed it down to the top three or anything like that,
it was because for those four divisions, there were three
entries. Well, Maelstrom Nexus only got two entries, so
today it’s a head-to-head faceoff instead of a three-way
battle royal.
We’ll start with George’s deck.
Here is the list:
The Breakdown: 60 cards, 24 creatures (16 cascading, 8 not),
8 instants (4 cascading, 4 not), 4
Enchantments, and 26 lands.
Creatures:
4 Enigma Sphinx
4 Enlisted Wurm
4 Gloryscale Viashino
4 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Boggart Ram-Gang
4 Jund Hackblade
Instants:
4 Bituminous Blast
4 Maelstrom Pulse
Enchantments:
4 Maelstrom Nexus
Lands:
4 Overgrown Tomb
4 Sacred Foundry
4 Temple Garden
4 Watery Grave
2 Vivid Crag
2 Vivid Creek
2 Vivid Marsh
2 Vivid Grove
2 Vivid Meadow
(the two main cards of the deck are bolded)
Two cards that I saw in Alara Reborn caught my eye,
Maelstrom Nexus and Gloryscale Viashino. I wanted to find a
way to (ab)use them.Gloryscale Viashino just needed a way to
play multiple creatures quickly and cheaply. Every time you
play a multi-color spell,
Gloryscale Viashino gets +3/+3! I wanted to find a way to
play multiple creatures with a very small amount of mana.
Cascade fit the bill nicely. Maelstrom Nexus just sweetens
the pot; it allows the cascading spells to cascade more than
once. So, I stuffed the deck with the best cascading cards
(in my opinion anyways). So, with all the cascading cards in
my deck, it is feasible to get a chain of 3-4 cascading
cards. Picture this:
Turn 4: Gloryscale Viashino
Turn 5: Maelstrom Nexus
Turn 6: Enlisted Wurm
Enlisted Wurm cascades into bloodbraid elf and boggart
ram-gang. Then bloodbraid elf cascades into the Hackblade.
Four multicolor spells equals +12/+12 until end of turn
making him a 15/15 creature, not to mention the hasty
creatures coming along for the ride. This deck runs kinda
slow in the early turns but starts really pumping out
creatures as early as turn 4. Cascade is amazing to get
multiple creatures out relatively cheap. Also, with multiple
Maelstrom Nexuses out, a single cascade spell will cascade
more at least triple cascade! Gloryscale Viashino can finish
a game in a hurry with all the spells flying around with
cascade. Also, the other hasty creatures, the ones being
cascaded into, also provide a large amount of unexpected
damage. Another fun little part of the Nexus is that you can
play an instant on your opponents turn and use the Nexus'
ability to cascade into another instant or a creature to
bash face next turn. Example: Bituminous Blast during their
turn into a boggart ram-gang and a jund hackblade. Next
turn: attack for 6 plus whatever else you have.
And his opponent, Andrew:
I decided to take the deck down a slightly (extremely)
different path.
Instead of just making a boring cascade deck, streamlined to
always hit some pre-designated bomby spell, I made my deck
to showcase the awesomely fun randomness of the mechanic.
The deck is a 100 card highlander build (singletons only)
with the exception of the required (and fun) 4 Maelstrom
Nexus. I wanted the deck to be fun to play, and to make
cascade extremely powerful and fun. With this deck, you are
bound to always hit something juicy with your cascade.
I was sure to include some of the most powerful and
versatile multicolored cards from magic's glorious history.
Gameplay:
You can start the game off building up a proper mana base
using the many dual and 5 color lands that make up the mana
base.
Then, transition smoothly into the middle phase (the control
phase) in which you play the charms, cascade spells, and
other 3-4 drops to gain an incremental advantage over your
opponent. Next, if possible, drop a maelstrom nexus to make
the game extra fun and get
even more mileage out of your following few turns. Then
comes the fun step: drop a large dragon, and proceed to flip
over cards from your deck until you hit some free spell
goodness.
Last But Not Least: The Deck!!
// Lands
1 [GP] Godless Shrine
1 [GP] Stomping Ground
1 [GP] Steam Vents
1 [RAV] Sacred Foundry
1 [RAV] Overgrown Tomb
1 [DIS] Hallowed Fountain
1 [RAV] Temple Garden
1 [DIS] Breeding Pool
1 [DIS] Blood Crypt
1 [TE] Reflecting Pool
1 [ALA] Seaside Citadel
1 [ALA] Savage Lands
1 [ALA] Jungle Shrine
1 [ALA] Crumbling Necropolis
1 [CNF] Exotic Orchard
1 [DIS] Pillar of the Paruns
1 [RAV] Watery Grave
1 [OV] City of Brass
1 [LRW] Vivid Grove
1 [A] Plateau
1 [A] Bayou
1 [A] Badlands
1 [LRW] Vivid Meadow
1 [LRW] Vivid Marsh
1 [A] Savannah
1 [LRW] Vivid Creek
1 [LRW] Vivid Crag
1 [WL] Gemstone Mine
1 [ALA] Arcane Sanctum
1 [ON] Wooded Foothills
1 [ON] Windswept Heath
1 [ON] Polluted Delta
1 [ON] Flooded Strand
1 [A] Scrubland
1 [ON] Bloodstained Mire
1 [A] Underground Sea
1 [A] Tundra
1 [A] Tropical Island
1 [A] Taiga
// Creatures
1 [ARB] Kathari Remnant
1 [ALA] Sarkhan Vol
1 [ALA] Ajani Vengeant
1 [SHM] Kitchen Finks
1 [RAV] Loxodon Hierarch
1 [LRW] Doran, the Siege Tower
1 [ARB] Enigma Sphinx
1 [ARB] Enlisted Wurm
1 [ARB] Bloodbraid Elf
1 [REW] Psychatog
1 [OD] Shadowmage Infiltrator
1 [IN] Dromar, the Banisher
1 [IN] Crosis, the Purger
1 [PLC] Oros, the Avenger
1 [PLC] Intet, the Dreamer
1 [PLC] Numot, the Devastator
1 [DRB] Nicol Bolas
1 [TSP] Scion of the Ur-Dragon
1 [AP] Spiritmonger
1 [AP] Cromat
1 [IN] Captain Sisay
1 [DRB] Rith, the Awakener
1 [PLC] Teneb, the Harvester
1 [IN] Darigaaz, the Igniter
1 [PLC] Vorosh, the Hunter
1 [IN] Treva, the Renewer
// Spells
4 [ARB] Maelstrom Nexus
1 [RAV] Putrefy
1 [ARB] Captured Sunlight
1 [ARB] Demonic Dread
1 [ARB] Deny Reality
1 [ARB] Stormcaller's Boon
1 [ARB] Violent Outburst
1 [ARB] Maelstrom Pulse
1 [CNF] Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker
1 [ALA] Brilliant Ultimatum
1 [ALA] Cruel Ultimatum
1 [ALA] Titanic Ultimatum
1 [ALA] Violent Ultimatum
1 [ARB] Bituminous Blast
1 [PS] Dromar's Charm
1 [RAV] Lightning Helix
1 [ALA] Blightning
1 [ALA] Bant Charm
1 [PS] Crosis's Charm
1 [PS] Darigaaz's Charm
1 [ARB] Ardent Plea
1 [ALA] Esper Charm
1 [ALA] Grixis Charm
1 [ALA] Jund Charm
1 [ALA] Naya Charm
1 [PS] Rith's Charm
1 [PS] Treva's Charm
1 [PS] Terminate
1 [AP] Pernicious Deed
1 [AP] Vindicate
1 [BOK] Genju of the Realm
1 [FUT] Glittering Wish
Now, let’s see how these two stack up against each other.
1: How does each deck win?
George wants to win by making his Gloryscale Viashino as big
as possible through doubling up on cascade abilities and
unleashing an avalanche of multicolored spells, hopefully
overwhelming his opponent with free spells and huge
Viashinos the turn after the Nexus hits play.
Andrew’s plan… is to not have a plan. By running pretty much
every gamebreaking multicolor spell in the history of Magic,
Andrew’s philosophy is that once he starts being able to get
a free spell every turn off the Nexus, the sheer power of
his cards and the discount he’s getting them at will
overpower the opponent and the inconsistency of his deck
will stop his opponent from figuring out his plan (because
he actively avoided having one) and render any
countermeasures ineffective.
2: What is each deck’s flaw?
George has chosen as his win condition a creature with no
evasion and no self-preservation ability beyond increasing
its toughness. A decent supply of tokens or a well-timed
Path to Exile or Doom Blade could render the Viashino
irrelevant, leaving him with little more than Ram-Gang aggro
with a shakier mana base.
Andrew’s greatest strength is his greatest weakness. With a
100-card deck, so few low-cost spells, and no way to search
his deck for anything, he’s going to experience a lot of
manascrew, have difficulty casting anything before turn five
even when he isn’t manascrewed, and most games he’s unlikely
to ever see the Nexus even with four copies.
3: You never draw Maelstrom Nexus. Now what?
George would probably be alright if his opponent’s deck has
few sweepers, since he can basically play like an aggro
deck. However, Gloryscale Viashino becomes little better
than a Woolly Thoctar in this case—worse since Bloodbraid
Elf can’t cascade into it.
Andrew would be alright, if only because all his other
spells are basically the all-star hit parade of Magic’s
history. As long as his deck gives him the lands he needs to
cast whatever spells it deems fit to give him, and he
doesn’t get landflooded (a deck with 38 lands is more likely
to have a string of 8 or 10 lands, even though
proportionally that’s a good number for his deck), he can
just outmuscle his opponent off of sheer card quality.
This is a really tough decision—Gloryscale George and Random
Andy have built decks so different, it just doesn’t feel
fair to compare them; they do such different things. But
compare them I must, and so I’m going to give the nod to
Andrew, for finding a deck that actually wants to play the
Planeshift dragons, the Planar Chaos dragons, both versions
of Nicol Bolas, and four of the five Ultimatums. Alas,
nobody wants to play Clarion Ultimatum. Congratulations,
Andrew!
With that tough decision out of the way, it’s my turn to
build a deck. My first thought of how to exploit Maelstrom
Nexus revolves around the phrase “each turn”. Meaning I get
a free cascade on my turn, and then another on your turn. If
I play an instant.
From there I resolved to build a deck consisting solely of
Maelstrom Nexus and instants. Unfortunately, that leaves you
with precious few win conditions, so I saw I’d have to
settle for a few noninstant spells as well.
Creatures:
4 Enigma Sphinx
2 Sen Triplets
Spells:
4 Maelstrom Nexus
4 Breath of Malfegor
3 Offering to Asha
4 Memory Plunder
4 Esper Charm
4 Flurry of Wings
4 Terminate
4 Agony Warp
Lands:
3 Terramorphic Expanse
4 Island
4 Plains
4 Mountain
4 Forest
4 Swamp
So, the plan here is to either win with Breath of Malfegor/Enigma
Sphinx beats, or whatever you can “borrow” from your
opponent via Memory Plunder or Sen Triplets. Terramorphic
Expanse is the perfect mana fixer here—you can’t cascade
into it when you need a business spell. You just need to
remember, all your two-mana spells are removal, so when the
Nexus is out, don’t cast a three-mana spell as your first of
the turn unless your opponent has a creature for you to
kill.
Be sure to tune in on Friday when we finish the contest once
and for all with the super-heavyweight division—Progenitus!
~BMoor
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