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Pojo's MTG
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Mattedesa's
Deck
Garage This reader sent in an e-mail a few weeks back, and more recently a follow up e-mail. Below are the two notes I received: Hey, I'm an avid reader of yours and finally i decided that I needed help with a deck. So without further ado, here is the deck. 4x Cryptic Annelid  4x Narcomeba 3x Stinkweed Imp 3x Golgari Thug 1x Tombstalker 3x Tunnel Vision 4x Think Twice 4x Foresee 4x Dark Ritual 1x Bitter Ordeal 2x Reminisce 4x Perplex 4x Dimir Signet 4x Dimir Aqueduct 8x Swamp 7x Island The deck basically works by Tunnel Visioning the bitter ordeal (or if i have it in hand, tombstalker) and then playing Bitter ordeal the same turn to really disarm the opponent. The reminisces is so that my deck can literally reset after burning through half of it or so. To make sure i DO burn through a lot of my deck, I have scry cards to put the bitter ordeal on the bottom of my deck. I would like to keep the Vision and the Bitter Ordeal, along with the scry. As for the dredge and other dudes, they can just go away if thats what the need is. The problems this deck has, is that it activates on turn 6 to turn 8 and more likely on turn 9 - 11. That is very slow and i wish i could speed it up a bit. In addition, the tunnel vision puts in on TOP of my deck, which is a hassle because I have to draw it the turn i use vision and then use it. I hope this wasn't too long. An avid reader Hey, After realizing that Bitter Ordeal's gravestorm activated when permanents hit the graveyards, I was sourly disappointed. Nonetheless, I decided to forge onwards and create another deck, this time adding in Future Sight. Here's the deck list. 2x Jhoira of the Ghitu 4x Jhoira's Timebug 4x Cryptic Annelid 4x Drift of Phantasms 3x Obliterate 1x Bitter Ordeal 4x Seal of Fire 4x Perplex 4x Mana Leak 4x Rune Snag 1x Paradox Haze 4x Foresee 4x Terramorphic Expanse 3x Izzet Boilerworks 2x Rakdos Carnerium 5x Mountain 6x Island 1x Swamp The deck works by getting Jhoira and then suspending an obliterate and Bitter Ordeal on the same turn. Then the OBliterate will go through clearing the board followed by the Ordeal which will ransack his deck. The deck has one BIG problem. Its slow. Ideally, I want a turn 3 Jhoira, turn 4 suspend both cards and then use things like the timebug and paradox haze to make the cards come in on turn 5 or 6. I was not sure about adding green for mana accelerants or not, and i have some transmute to get a lot of my cards. The only thing that i really want to keep is the Jhoira/Obliterate/Bitter Ordeal combo. I love your articles and thanks for the help! Sincerely, An avid reader First off, I want to say how exciting it is that I have an avid reader! I didn't realize I'd been around here long enough for that! Secondly, I am sorry that your combo didn't work. I read your e-mail when you sent it, and was mulling over the best way to break it to you and what I should suggest for you to do to keep somewhat of a similar deck. That's when you returned with a second e-mail, and made my job a bit easier! Just as a side note to my readers here, I printed both e-mails for a reason. I'm sure my 'avid reader' learned a valuable lesson after building version 1 of his deck. The lesson here is simple: understand your cards. Make sure you read every line of every card you want to use. If you're not sure about something, find a judge to ask. If you can't find a judge, drop an e-mail to me or BMoor. We're not tournament judges (I'm not anyway, someone correct me if BMoor is), but most likely we can get you the answer you need. You can save yourself a lot of heartache by doing this BEFORE you try out your illegal combo on someone! So, anyway, what do we have here on Bitter Ordeal v.2 (we'll call it Bitter Obliteration)? It looks like a fun deck to play. The first thing to mention is to up the count of Jhoira to 3. Normally, a card that you build a deck around needs 4. But with Jhoira being legendary and having some ways to tutor her up, we'll go with 3. Also, Bitter Ordeal needs to come up to 3. I know it's a rare, but if that's what the deck is about, that's what the deck needs. +1 Jhoira +2 Bitter Ordeal To make room, I think we can do without Perplex. I realize it has dual purpose here for countering spells or transmuting for Jhoira, but I think it's just not a strong enough counter, and we've got other ways to tutor out Jhoira and Bitter Ordeal, and now more copies of each. Also, Paradox Haze can go. I see the synergy with Jhoira, but other than that, it does nothing. And with only one copy, you can't count on it. -4 Perplex -1 Paradox Haze After this, it gets a bit harder. My next drop would be Cryptic Annelid. Not because it's not a good card, but because something's gotta go - we've got more important things to do with four mana than cycle through a few cards and get a blocker. Your deck is shaping up to be a control deck, and you don't want to tap out for a creature. You want to leave your mana open, making your opponent think you have a counterspell in hand. -4 Cryptic Annelid Now, it took me a minute to notice this, but I had to stop and ask the question: exactly how does this deck win? I see how you decimate your opponent (hint: if you're not already, take out their land with the Bitter Ordeal. If they don't have land, they can't play anything!), but how do you beat them? Jhoira and her Timebug? That's a slow process, and a savvy opponent is going to find a way to come back before they get beat down by a 2/2 and a 1/1. So what's the answer? What's the one thing Obliterate doesn't take out? That's right, enchantments. Can we win with an enchantment? Well, maybe. There are a few options here. I didn't find anything that would fit perfectly here, but I would like to suggest this is a place for a Future Sight card called Shapeshifter's Marrow. Early in the game, it can be used as a pre-emptive Confiscate. Later in the game, it can provide you with a win condition straight out of your opponent's library! I'd try putting in 3 of these. +3 Shapeshifter's Marrow How to speed this all up is now the question. I think we can do this and give you another possible win condition at the same time: Rift Elemental. You can potentially power out your suspended cards in half the time, all while giving you an intimidating blocker, able to kill most ground creatures they might throw at you! Seems like a good fit, doesn't it? +3 Rift Elemental I was really wanting to find room for a couple more lands, because with a controllish deck like this, you need to make sure you don't miss a land drop. Perhaps you could try dropping 1 each Timebug and Foresee. If you don't have lands, you won't stand much of a chance! +1 Mountain +1 Island -1 Jhoira's Timebug -1 Foresee If you were to adopt these changes, your deck would look something like this: 3x Jhoira of the Ghitu 3x Jhoira's Timebug 4x Drift of Phantasms 3x Rift Elemental 3x Obliterate 3x Bitter Ordeal 3x Shapeshifter's Marrow 4x Seal of Fire 4x Mana Leak 4x Rune Snag 3x Foresee 4x Terramorphic Expanse 3x Izzet Boilerworks 2x Rakdos Carnerium 6x Mountain 7x Island 1x Swamp Without playing this deck, it's hard to know exactly how this will work, but on paper, I think this will work out better for you. Thanks so much for writing and for the kind words about my column. I'd be interested to hear how this works out! -mattedesa
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