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12.13.04 Hey y’all, welcome back to the Deck Garage. This week, I have a deck sent in by Matt that looks like it focuses on making a lot of tokens and giving its opponents headaches. Here’s the e-mail I received.
my
name matt this my deck let's get straight to it
then. DECK: 22\forest 4\rampant growth 4\sakura-tribe-elder 4\kodama's reach 4\solemn simulacrum 4\sensei's divining top 4\tangle golem 4\eternal witness 4\rude awakening 4\beacon of creation 2\orochi hatchery SIDEBORD: 2\Dorsan the Falling Leaf 2/strength of cedars 2\Blasting Station 4/Joyous Respite 2\budoka gardener
3/naturelize as you can see the deck has only a couple of foes (land destrution ,affinty control and fast burn satus cards-1/-1)please help and this on a bugjet most of it ate most of mu cash!! thanks
Looking through Matt’s deck, there are a few cards that jump out at me as somewhat subpar. I don’t like Tangle Golem being in the deck; it seems like it doesn’t do enough. Also, with the amount of artifacts in the environment, Tangle Golem is just a target.
I’m also not a huge fan of a full set of Rude Awakening – you don’t really like seeing multiples of this card. During the course of the game, I have rarely cast more than one Rude Awakening – it is almost always enough to just finish the game when you cast it with Entwine, which is usually the only time it should be cast.
-1 Rude Awakening -4 Tangle Golem
A fun addition to this deck might be Extraplanar Lens. First of all, it helps fuel the somewhat expensive cards in the deck in the form of Beacon of Creation and Rude Awakening. Second, it provides a huge boost to Orochi Hatchery, which can be a monstrous artifact if you can get it to activate even once.
+4 Extraplanar Lens
Speaking of Orochi Hatchery, I think one more might be warranted. Matt’s deck has a massive amount of mana acceleration. With the addition to Extraplanar Lens, he should be able to get ten mana or so regularly, which means five tokens for every activation of the Hatchery.
+1 Orochi Hatchery
With all of these cards floating around that create a mass amount of tokens, I couldn’t help but think that there has to be a good card hiding somewhere that can abuse them. Not until I got down to Matt’s sideboard did I see that card: Blasting Station.
What Matt can do is create a horde of tokens with any number of spells in his deck, and then respond to multiple untap triggers from Blasting Station to sacrifice said creatures to deal a *lot* of damage. For example, say Matt casts Beacon of Creation, has five land on the board, and an untapped Blasting Station. Beacon resolves, and five 1/1 tokens come into play. Matt now puts five “untap Blasting Station” triggers on the stack. He then adds tapping Blasting Station and sacrificing a creature to deal one damage to his opponent to the stack. Once that resolves, he goes to the next item on the stack – untap Blasting Station. He then repeats. In the end, he should be able to deal five damage and still have an untapped Blasting Station.
How do we make room? Well, sorry, Sensei’s Diving Top, but the ability to deal massive damage is just too good to pass up.
-4 Sensei’s Diving Top +4 Blasting Station
Looking at the land, I think Boseiju, Who Shelters All might be a good addition to the deck. Beacon of Creation and Rude Awakening seem like pretty key cards, and I don’t think that one hiding in the deck would do too much damage to the curve.
-1 Forest +1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
Other than that, I think Matt has done a great job on overall deck construction. However, I noticed that Matt said that he was having some issues with Control, Land Destruction, Affinity, and anything with heavy removal.
For helping the fight against land destruction, I would suggest about three Crucible of Worlds. This deck should give land destruction headaches just on the back of Sakura-Tribe Elder, Rampant Growth, Solemn Simulacrum, and Kodama’s Reach. However, if Matt is having issues, then the Crucible should give him that little extra push that he needs to ensure that his spells go off.
+3 Crucible of Worlds
I completely agree with Dosan the Falling Leaf, so much so that I think another is warranted. Control doesn’t like to see this guy, since it means that they cannot counter anything on Matt’s turn. I also think a second copy of Boseiju, Who Shelters All would be a decent addition, for obvious reasons.
+1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All +1 Dosan the Falling Leaf
I think the Naturalizes that are currently in Matt’s sideboard really need to be either Viridian Shaman or Molder Slug. Affinity is going to be a horrendously rough match-up for this deck – it’s too fast, it can fly over any chump blockers, and Matt has no main-deck removal. Thus, not only am I going to cut Naturalize in favor of one of those two; I’m going to cut Joyous Respite to make room for the other.
-4 Joyous Respite -3 Naturalize +3 Molder Slug +4 Viridian Shaman
For mass removal, I don’t think Matt has a lot of options if it comes in the form of Wrath of God or any other card that reads “destroy all creatures”. However, since he is looking for protection against cards that give -2/-2 and such across the board, Coat of Arms could be a good solution. Orochi Hatchery makes a horde of Snake tokens and Beacon of Creation makes a horde of Insect tokens. Both benefit greatly from Coat of Arms.
+2 Coat of Arms
Finally, I think Troll Ascetic could help the fight against a burn deck. It can’t be targeted, it gets to regenerate, and it’s inexpensive. I can’t really say much more in its favor.
+3 Troll Ascetic
To clear out the rest of the sideboard, I am dropping Blasting Station (it’s in the main-deck, now), Budoka Gardener (its effect when flipped is pretty weak), and Strength of Cedars (just not enough gas).
-2 Blasting Station -2 Budoka Gardener -2 Strength of Cedars
Let’s look at the finished result.
CREATURES (12): 4 Eternal Witness 4 Sakura-Tribe Elder 4 Solemn Simulacrum
NON-CREATURE SPELLS (26): 4 Beacon of Creation 4 Blasting Station 4 Extraplanar Lens 4 Kodama’s Reach 3 Orochi Hatchery 4 Rampant Growth 3 Rude Awakening
LANDS (22): 1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All 21 Forest
SIDEBOARD (15): 2 Coat of Arms 3 Dosan, the Falling Leaf 3 Molder Slug 3 Troll Ascetic 4 Viridian Shaman
Hope that helps, Matt! I’ll see y’all next week.
-Paul Hagan |
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Paul Hagan's Magic the Gathering Deck Garage
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