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BeJoSe's
Deck
Garage
B/R Control
March 16, 2009
I realize I haven't written an article
in awhile, but uni (college in America?) has started and
trying to find a balance between that and work has been a
bit tough, nonetheless I'm back now.
Hey I have read
your articles for a while and now it seems that I might need
your help.
I have build the
deck shown below its for casual play:
4
Innocent blood B
2
Barter in blood 2BB
4
Nevinyral's disk 4
4
Tendrils of corruption 3B
2
Snuff out 3B / 4 life
4
hymn to tourach BB
4
Mind twist XB
4
Rise/Fall RB/BU
4
Blightning 1RB
2
Yukora, the prisoner 2BB
4
Animate dead 1B
4
Tainted peak
4
Crumbling Necropolis
16
Swamps
The strategy is slowing the opponent down with barter in
blood, innocent blood and the targeted removal while
ripping the hand apart with the discard spells.
When my opponent is down my goal is to drop a Yukora or
animate dead one of his discarded guys for a hopefully clean
kill.
nevinyrral's disk covers enchantments or artifacts that
might otherwise prove troublesome and can help deal with
rushes.
Against some decks it works well. most combo decks cannot
deal with my discard and a lot of control decks has the same
issues. most aggro decks are kept down by my creature kill.
My main issue is planeswalkers. They are not hit by creature
kill, they are not eaten by disc and they can win the game
on their own.
Luckily most planeswalkers are a bit expensive meaning that
i can often eat them before they get into play but when one
sticks it is often a troublesome process to get rid of it.
sometimes yukora can take it sometimes something else is
needed but what?
I
have considered the rack , but it seems kind of slow and
every extra top deck chance my opponent gets is a bad thing,
Animate dead is good if I can rip some useful dude from my
opponents hand what I usually can, but when I can't I need
to draw my Yukora which can take time living my opponents
more chances.
I'm on a budget, mind twist is the most expensive card in my
deck and I'll prefer to keep it that way.
Thanx for your help
-
Michael
B/R control can be
hard to pull off at times, but this deck looks like it does
it fairly well.
Your mana base is constructed fairly well with a good number
of lands and 8 sources of red means you should be able to
fairly reliably cast your red spells.
You say your having a problem with planeswalkers, that
shouldn't be too hard to fix.
In order to deal with the planeswalkers I'm going to suggest
adding in some more red cards. As such you'll need to devote
more of your manabase to producing red, Sulfurous Springs
fits the bill nicely. A set of Solemn Simulacrum is another
card you might want to consider, it accelerates your mana
and doesn't mind dying, a nice control card (just remember
to add in some basic mountains)
Another problem that I've found with B/R decks is that they
tend to suffer from a lack of card advantage, that is they
have to play from the top of their deck. I'm going to
suggest a few ways around this.
-
Titan's revenge allows
you
to repeatedly deal with creatures or burn your opponent,
the chances of winning the clash arn't terrible and it
gives you a slight form of library manipulation (even if
it gives your oppoent the same advantage)
-
The previously mentioned Solemn Simulacrum
-
Beacon Of Unrest could replace animate dead. There are a
few reasons for this. The first is that shuffles itself
back into your deck, obviously meaning you have the
chance to draw it again. Secondly it recur any relevant
artifacts your opponent may have used. Lastly if your
opponent manages to destroy animate dead you also lose
your creature, not the case with beacon of unrest
-
Arc-Slogger, a very powerful card in my opinion
providing you not only with a reasonable sized 4/5
creature but also on average 8 points of burn, that can
often end the game right there.
-
Phyrexian Arena, if your willing to incur the life loss
the arena can quickly let you get ahead on card
advantage.
Cards to cut
-
You have a lot of solid cards in this deck, but there
are a few I can see you removing
-
Since you'll have fewer swamps in your deck the tendrils
loses a lot of its power and can go
-
I've never found Rise/Fall to be that powerful of a card
and between blightning, mind twist and hymn you still
have quite a powerful discard suite to disrupt control
and combo decks.
Between titan's revenge, blightning and arc-slogger you
should easily have enough brun to destroy most planeswalkers.
A possible replacement for batter in blood is damnation.
Unless your group features a lot of indestructible creatures
or similar, damnation basically does a better job than
barter in blood for the same cost.
-
The disk is an excellent addition to a deck like this
allowing B/R to deal with their typical weakness,
enchantments. If you decide to add in the phyrexian
arena then the disk also gives you a way to destroy it
if the lifeloss is getting to much.
-
You've got the right idea in only including 2 creatures
in your deck, because you have some many board sweeping
effects. However I still recommend the slogger and
Solemn Simulacrum, slogger because of its raw power and
the simulacrum because it doesn't mind dying.
-
Anther creature you might want to consider is Undead
Gladiator. It cycles through your deck, trades with x/3
creatures and of course recurs itself over and over,
perfect after just playing a board clearing spell.
Good luck killing those 'walkers!
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