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BMoor's Magic The
Gathering Deck Garage
"Deck Ideas for returning Medic (UNCLASSIFIED)"
January 10, 2012
Normally I don't build decklists on
request for people-- I expect my clients to
at least make a token effort at building
their own deck before I come in to help
improve on the first draft. Normally I don't
go in for blind patriotism or military
worship, either-- I've had two family
members and one of my Magic buddies enlist
in the military, and I've seen firsthand
that active duty does not turn you into a
superhuman avatar of all that is good on
this Earth (as the recruitment commercials
would have you believe) it just gives you a
new set of jokes to make with your friends
about why you hate your job.
That said, getting an e-mail that appears to
have gone through the intelligence bureau is
a unique experience for me, and since
somebody apparently had the good sense to
determine that this army medic's email about
land destruction and zombie was not in fact
some sort of terrorist secret code, I
decided I had to give it an article.
-------------
Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE
Hey there Mr. BMoor,
I've been reading your website for a while now, iitching
to be in the game again. I say again because
I started playing in late 94 however lost
all of my cards to flooding of my storage
while on a mission in Bosnia some years ago.
My last couple of tours in Afghanistan,
people are still playing and so I borrow
decks and played too. I'm wanting to get
back into the game for good again but with a
military income and three kids I'm limited
now to a budget. I'm looking for two decks
to build but am not sure with all the new
stuff, where to start. I've always been a
big fan of LAND DESTRUCTION decks and ZOMBIE
decks. Sink Hole, Ice Quake, and Stone Rain
are gone, and the Zombie Master is retired.
Can you give me some ideas with these two
decks? I'm looking through cards for months
now and I'm not seeing that Land Destruction
is at all an option. Remember... I'm just
getting back in and Budget is the key word
here. I'd like to play Type II, sorry,
Standard if at all possible. Modern is good
too, I suppose if that's where the card pool
is.
Thanks for any ideas...
Mike
Detachment Sergeant/Facility Manager
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Well, Mike, I've got good news and bad news
for you. The bad news first.
You didn't mention how long you've been out
of the M:TG loop before coming back to it,
but I'm guessing you missed the Standard
season
circa
2006. Quick history lesson: the format was
dominated by two land destruction decks.
Magnivore decks used Eye of Nowhere and all
the Stone Rain variants they could get to
keep opponents on one land the entire game,
and Blink Riders used Momentary Blink to
cheat the echo cost of Avalanche Riders to
achieve similar results while they built up
to Numot, the Devastator. Since Wizards of
the Coast has instituted a policy of
clamping down on overpowering strategies
only if they're particularly frustratting to
lose to, and getting stuck on one land for
eight to ten turns is about as frustrating
as Magic ever gets, they decided that they
didn't want dedicated Land Destruction decks
to be viable any more. Your observation is
quite astute, Mike. Land destruction now
only exists in minor traces as a way to keep
powerful nonbasics like Emeria, the Sky Ruin
in check. Building a deck full of them just
isn't an option.
Now the good news. You mentioned not only
land destruction, but Zombies, and Zombies
are VERY viable! If you like Zombies, you
picked a good year to get back into Magic,
because Innistrad is the current hot set and
it's a gothic horror set straight out of the
black-and-white Bela Lugosi pictures! I have
no doubt that you'll be able to do a cheap
yet powerful Zombie deck, and make it
Standard-legal. Just one thing though-- you
don't mind playing blue and black, do you?
The Zombies of Innistrad fall into two
categories. First is the standard "swarm of
walking corpses" in black, and second is the
"Frankenstein's Monster" flesh golem type of
zombie in blue. You can make a monocolored
Zombie deck in either color, though a
monoblue Zombie deck will be fairly limited
in its scope. I'm going to be focusing on a
black and blue deck, but of course you're
the one playing it Mike and it's your
decision to make in the end.
When you said Zombie Master, I knew that the
best modern analogue was Cemetery Reaper,
currently going for between $2 and $2.50
each. A global +1/+1 is hard to ignore, and
the ability to make Zombie tokens is a very
nice feature. If you want more Zombie Lords,
Adaptive Automaton can do the job, but is a
bit pricier due to the high number of decks
that want copies of it. If you really want
to exploit your Zombie army, there's two
cards to keep an eye out for: Unbreathing
Horde and Undead Alchemist.
Unbreathing Horde is your quintessential
beatstick. It
rewards you for playing lots of Zombies,
whether they're still alive or not. Undead
Alchemist is trickier-- it turns you into a
mill deck, but rewards you for milling by
giving you Zombie tokens, which the Horde
will appreciate. And if you decide you don't
want to mill anymore and want to deal damage
with your Zombies normally, you should have
no problem sacrificing or killing off the
Alchemist. After all, what black deck
doesn't run a few kill spells? A singleton
copy of Grimgrin, Corpse-Born would give you
a sacrifice outlet and a heavy-hitting
Zombie, or a few copies of Altar's Reap
would give you card draw. The Alchemist is
going for 99 cents and the Horde for $1.50
thereabouts, so you should be able to afford
playsets of each no problem.
But high-profile Zombies won't get you there
unless you have plenty of troops to back
them up, as I'm sure you can understand,
Mike. As of this writing (before Dark
Ascension has come out) there are 29 Zombies
in Standard. Walking Corpse and Warpath
Ghoul are the simplest and the cheapest, and
it only gets better from there. Abattoir
Ghoul can be had for a quarter each and
gives you a way to gain life, or scare
opponents into not blocking. Diregraf Ghoul
is a great one-drop and costs less than a
dollar each. If you'd like to try infect,
there's Blackcleave Goblin, Contagious and
Toxic Nim, Scourge Servant, and Hand of the
Praetors to act as "infect lord". Skaab
Ruinator is a 5/6 with flying that makes a
great late game "mopper upper", but at $3.49
each it's starting to lean on your budget
and it doesn't synergize well with
Unbreathing Horde. Nested Ghoul is unlikely
to ever produce more than one Zombie token,
but that's still two Zombies gotten with one
card.
But really, it's Zombie tokens that are
going to give you the best results, as they
can be made cheaply. For this task, I
recommend Endless Ranks of the Dead. Because
it triggers every upkeep, it'll help you
keep up the pressure with no further
investment, and it gives you more tokens
each turn until someone plays a Day of
Judgment. Luckily, it also help you recover
from Day of Judgment, since the Day won't
kill the enchantment. Undead Alchemist is a
good choice here as well, especially if
you've got a Cemetery Reaper on the board.
All you need now is the basic support
spells. You're in black and blue, so you'll
want some countermagic and kill spells.
Ponder, Mana Leak, Vapor Snag, Dissipate, Go
for the Throat, and Wring Flesh are all
decent choices.
I hope that's helped, Mike. Remember, you
can build the final deck however you see
fit, but if I were you I'd wait a few weeks
for Dark Ascension to release. That set is
bound to have a whole host of new Zombie
cards!
Good luck!
~BMoor
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