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BMoor's Magic
The
Gathering Deck Garage
Red/Blue Land Killer
January 28, 2013
That's right folks, two deck fixes from
BMoor in two weeks! I'm on a roll!
This week's deck comes from Dante, who's got
the makings of an Izzet deck, but no Return
to Ravnica cards. At least I had no trouble
finding suggestions for him!
This is a Red/Blue Land Killer based deck. I
just wanted to see if you had any
suggestions.
The basic strategy is simple - kill off land
quick, and slowly pry through any defenses
they may have gotten.
If the game lasts long enough, I can
literally have infinite turns, which is
hilarious. But, ya know, always room for
improvement.
Here is what I have right now:
Nucklavee
x2
Izzet Chronarch
x1
Gryff Vanguard x1
Mulldrifter
x1
Lunar Mystic
x2
Mist Raven
x2
Solemn Simulacrum
x1
Snapcaster Mage
x1
Arcane Melee x1
Dual Casting x1
Lost in the Mist x2
Ghostly Flicker x2
Temporal Mastery
x1
Into the Maw of Hell x2
Mystic Retrieval x4
Demolish
x2
Divination
x2
Stone Rain
x4
Devil's Play
x2
Ponderx2
Sol Ring
x2
Sulfur Falls
x1
Haunted Fengraf
x2
Island x8
Mountain
x8
Here is what I plan on getting to edit it,
but was curious if you had any suggestions:
Nucklavee
x2
Izzet Chronarch x2
Mulldrifter
x2
Mist Raven
x3
Solemn Simulacrum
x2
Goblin Electromancer x2
Arcane Melee x2
Dual Casting x2
Ghostly Flicker x3
Temporal Mastery
x2
Into the Maws of Hell x2
Mystic Retrieval x4
Stone Rain
x4
Devil's Play
x2
Ponderx2
Sol Ring
x1
Sulfur Falls
x4
Izzet Guildgate x4
Haunted Fengraf
x2
Island x7
Mountain
x6
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'm glad you came to me with this, Dante,
because I have quite a few issues with this
deck.
First of all, when you said that you can
have "infinite turns" with this deck, I of
course looked through to find what combo you
were using to do it. I couldn't find it.
Maybe I'm a fool and it's staring me in the
face, but the only card in your deck I can
find that gives you extra turns is Temporal
Mastery. Temporal Mastery exiles itself when
it resolves, Dante. That means Mystic
Retrieval, Nucklavee, and all your other
spell-retrieval
tricks won't work here.
The only way to reuse a Temporal Mastery
would be to use Dual Casting to copy it,
then counter the original. The original card
would then go to the graveyard, where you
could retrieve it, while the copy resolved
and gave you an extra turn. You'd need to
then Ghostly Flicker (copied) to flicker at
least two Nucklavee and an Izzet Chronarch--
the Nucklavee to get back Ghostly Flicker
and Lost in the Mist (your counterspell) and
the Chronarch to get back Temporal Mastery
(as a blue sorcery, Nucklavee can't get it
back). Given how few copies your deck has of
each of these cards, this will all come
together approximately never.
You'd have to do all that every turn to keep
it going, which raises the question of how
you're actually winning. Your only creatures
of note are the Nucklavees, Chronarchs, and
a handful of other creatures that have
useful abilities but are quite small for
their mana costs and would thus never hold
up in combat aginst whatever creatures your
opponent is playing by that point. The
Mulldrifters and Vanguards have flying, so
they might be able to plink away if your
opponent has no Dragons or Spiders, but all
your other dudes are just 2/2's that don't
hit the board until turn four, or later. And
since your creatures are so outclassed, your
opponent will steamroll you by the time you
have a chance to set up a combo.
But you've already thought of that, haven't
you Dante?
You've said it yourself. Your plan is to
"kill off land quick, and slowly pry through
any defenses they may have gotten." Which
means that, ideally, you'll cut off an
opponent's ability to do anything, then take
several turns to actually win while they sit
there, unable to do anything, and watch you
slowly take them over.
The problem? Neither land destruction nor
extra turns actually bring you any closer to
winning. They make it dang near impossible
for the other guy to win, but they don't get
you any closer to winning, they just push
everybody else further away. They're like
life gain.
That might be fun for you, but for the guy
on the other side of the table it's like the
days of the Sega Genesis all over again,
where your friend would invite you over to
play video games, but you'd get over and all
he'd have are single-player games and what
he really meant was that you and him would
have to take turns playing. And of course
it's his Genesis and his games, so he's
better at them than you are, and so he can
go longer without dying and that means his
turns are longer and so you spend a good
part of the afternoon bored and silently
hating your friend while it never occurs to
him what a terrible host he's actually
being.
Let's see if we can't fix this deck up so
that it wins you games AND friends, shall
we?
First of all, your creatures are too slow
and too expensive for their stats. Five mana
2/2's just don't win games, especially when
they're 2/2's that don't do anything combat
relevant. The Nucklavee, Snapcaster, and
EITHER Mulldrifter or Gryff Vanguard (your
choice) can stay in, but cut out the rest.
We will still need targets for Dual Casting
though, so bring in some Goblin
Electromancer, a few Nivix Guildmage, and
most importantly, Guttersnipe. Now THERE'S a
card that gets you closer to winning! If you
like having flyers to swing with (and play
with sleeves) then Delver of Secrets is also
a good beater for a spell-heavy deck.
Now for your spells. The biggest problem
with the Red/Blue Sorcery/Instant decks is
that so many of the cards that benefit
sorceries and instants aren't themselves
sorceries or instants, so you're torn-- you
need enough instants and sorceries to make
the Guttersnipes worth it, but you need the
Guttersnipes or you've just got a deck with
too many spells and not enough creatures.
For that reason, I'd say don't go above 2
each of Arcane Melee or Dual Casting. And
honestly, if you've got a playset of Goblin
Electormancer (and you should) you don't
need Arcane Melee. I'd rather see you
replace it with Pyromancer
Ascension.
You also need to make sure you've got enough
spells worth retrieving/copying. Having
pulled Izzet Chronarch, Mist Raven, and all
those enter-the-battlefield dudes means you
don't need Ghostly Flicker. Temporal Mastery
can come out too-- you can't combo with it
effectively, and one extra turn isn't worth
that kind of mana if all you're getting is
one extra turn of swinging with 2/2's. And
since we're backing away from strategies
that make your friends want to punch you,
out come the Stone Rain as well, but not
Into the Maw of Hell. Why not?
Because Into the Maw of Hell isn't just a
land killer, it's also a burn spell! That's
how red/blue "spells" deck usually win, with
burn! Burn is a much more tolerable way to
win than land destruction, because instead
of the other guy sitting there with a hand
full of cards he can't play, he gets to play
his cards, and then watch them all die!
That's why you should definitely add in some
more burn spells. Devil's Play was a good
choice, and to it I'd add Mizzium Mortars,
and a few good old Lightning Bolt.
Really, any spell with Overload would be
great for this deck. You'd never have to
worry about casting it too early and missing
out on the Overload, because you can Mystic
Retrieval it back once you have enough mana
to Overload it.
Cackling Counterpart would be a nice choice
too. You can copy a Nucklavee for extra
spell retrieval, an Electromancer to boost
the discount on the rest of your spells, or
a Guttersnipe to make every spell you cast
hurt that much more.
Flashback plays especially well with
Pyromancer Ascension, as does Rebound. For
your deck, Surreal Memoir would be the best
of the Rebounders. At this rate, you may
never run out of spells.
With enough copying and retrieving of all
your instants and sorceries, you can
generate amazing card advantage without
having to lock out your friends from playing
their spells. And nothing feels better than
having a mitt full of spells, knowing full
well that you can cast them all copy some of
them, and eventually get them all back. Why
slog through infinite turns when you can
have infinite spells?
Good luck!
~BMoor
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