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BMoor's Magic The Gathering Deck Garage
Scheduled Upkeep
January 6, 2010

Hello once again, Pojo readers! I hope everybody had a good holiday season! Mine was hectic as all get out, which is why I haven't turned in an article for a while. I've also noticed I haven't had any decklists E-mailed to me in a while. Probably because everybody else had holiday plans too, or because I haven't put out a new article in a while. Well, it's 2010 now and this futuristic "electronic mail" is here to stay, so send me your deck lists! In the meantime, enjoy this little number.

Greetings,

I have been reading your site recently and I have enjoyed what I have seen so far. I though I would submit this deck idea to you and see what you think. I would be very interested to see what your thoughts about improving the deck will be.

I have been playing Magic since Exodus, but stopped for a number of years after the Masques block. I started again with the release of Lorwyn. I play mostly standard format, but now that Lorwyn is no longer standard, my friends and I have started making Extended decks so we can continue using the Non-standard cards we own. We play mostly casual and multi-player. I do not intent to take this deck to a tournament, but I would not be opposed to the idea assuming the deck is capable of performing. The following is my idea for an extended legal deck.

3 Darksteel Reactor

2 Doubling Season

4 Paradox Haze

3 Greater Auramancy

3 Copy Enchantment

1 Gate to the Aether

1 Energy Chamber

4 Path to Exile

4 Cancel

4 Sower of Temptation

4 Farhaven Elf

4 Followed Footsteps

2 Idyllic Tutor

10 Islands

6 Plains

5 Forests

I really enjoy finding interesting and unusual ways to win games. So, when I started reading extended legal cards and found Darksteel Reactor, I wanted to try and build a deck that used that card to win. I want to keep it extended legal and I have a reasonable budget to buy cards with.

The idea is to use Paradox Haze and Copy Enchantment to get multiple upkeep steps, and then use Doubling Season and Energy chamber to quickly add counters to the Darksteel Reactor.

The decks I play against mostly are Jund, Bant, Vampires and Naya. The only extended decks I have seen as yet, are a milling deck and a very good deck that uses Hypergenesis to win games by the 3rd or 4th turn regularly. I have yet to play those decks with this one as I have not completed building it. In addition, as my play group begins building their extended decks, I will likely see all sorts of new strategies. For that reason, it is not exactly clear where the decks weaknesses are. 

I am concerned about not having any backup plan if the Darksteel Reactor does not work out. This is mainly due to not finding room for many creatures (although I kind of like being light on creatures and still being able to win).

I have included some removal to try and deal with annoying creatures. To protect my enchantment cards in play, I have multiple copies of Greater Auramancy. I also have cancel to stop key cards a particular deck may use against me.

I hope to use Followed Footsteps in combo with the additional upkeep steps provided by Paradox Haze along with Doubling Season to create multiple copies of the 2 creatures, Sower of Temptation and Farhaven Elf. With the "come into play" ability on the elf, I hope to get a large amount of my mana out of my deck so I can draw more useful cards. With the Sower of Temptation I can simply steal the majority of my opponents creatures. If I have a copy of Greater Auramancy in play, my opponent will have difficulty being able to remove the Sower of Temptation to get their creature back. 

That is a fairly good backup plan in theory because my opponent will be unable to attack me if he has no creatures and I can use his creatures to attack and block with. In practice however, I am concerned that the combo will not be fast enough to be effective. It will also not be very effective if my opponent does not play many creatures.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and for any feedback you may have. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Ah, the Paradox Haze/Darksteel Reactor gambit. Looks like a blast to play, especially in big multiplayer games where 20 turns isn't too much to ask.

Well, first of all, if you're playing blue and green as your two main colors, then you're missing out on one of the most key cards you could be running: Gilder Bairn. I'll admit, in order to get the little trick-or-treater tapped, you have to attack with it or add in some tap effects (actually, Opposition or Glare of Subdual might help you hold opponents off...), but the ability to double counters is sweet enough to be worth it. Remember, if you swing with the Bairn, you can use its untap ability before blockers are declared, even if it's obvious your opponent will block and kill the Bairn. You could also add Curse of Chains, which is not only a great way to get the Bairn to tap, it's also a pretty good removal spell to hold off other people's creatures.

Also, in a deck of this nature, add Helix Pinnacle. Admittedly, it doesn't work with Gilder Bairn, Paradox Haze, or Energy Chamber, but it does work with Doubling Season. Okay, maybe you don't really need Helix Pinnacle. It's mostly just funny.

What you really could use, however, is Elspeth, Knight-Errant. Elspeth is a great card and in your deck it can effect some awesome interactions.

1) If Doubling Season is already in play when you play Elspeth, she'll enter the battlefield with double the loyalty. However, using either of Elspeth's +1 abilities will not cause Elspeth to gain two counters. Doubling Season works when an EFFECT puts counters on a permanent, and the loyalty counter you add is the COST of using her ability.

2) Doubling Season will double the number of Soldier tokens her ability creates, thus giving you more blockers to bide your time while upkeeps upon more upkeeps generate a lead for you.

3) If you decide to add Gilder Bairn, Elspeth can give it +3/+3 and flying to allow it to survive combat. She can also do the same for any other creature you might want to swing with.

4) While awesome, Elspeth is not exactly necessary. If your opponent decides to attack her instead of you, so much the better.

That's pretty much all I can say about spells to add. As for lands, try a few Saltcrusted Steppe or Calciform Pools.

Good luck!

~BMoor