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Space for Rent!

Paul Hagan's Magic The Gathering Deck Garage
Green / Blue Type II
6.24.05

Hey y’all, and welcome back to the deck garage! Regionals are just a few days away, so I guess I should wish everyone luck; it’ll take a lot of hard work over a long day. Saviors of Kamigawa also went legal this week, so I’m looking forward to seeing what effect that has on the Type II metagame – it should be interesting.

With that said, I guess I should just jump right into the e-mail.


I brought a deck to FNM last week and although it went 1-2 in matches (it lost against Tooth and 5cG Gifts), I wasn't displeased. Can it be tuned, either for T2 or KBC?

Blue Molder

4 Vine Trellis
4 Troll Ascetic
3 Shimmering Glasskite
3 Kodama of the North Tree
3 Molder Slug
2 Meloku
3 Jetting Glasskite
3 Keiga, the Tide Star

4 Echoing Truth
4 Naturalize
4 Kodama's Reach

12 Forest
11 Island

Sideboard

4 Defense Grid
4 Mana Leak
4 Humble Budoka
3 Dosan the Falling Leaf


Looking over the deck, I’m initially very pleased. It seems like it has good synergy, the card counts on individual cards are high (no 1-ofs), and the land looks good. This week’s deck garage looks like it will be based around small adjustments.

The first cards that jumped out at me were the Glasskites, both Shimmering and Jetting. To be honest, I had to go look up what they did, and when I saw it, I was a bit disappointed. Why play a single creature with that ability in a deck that doesn’t have too many cards that target its own creatures? Instead, why don’t we cut both of those and throw in a couple of copies of Kira, Great Glass-Spinner? She is smaller, and she is a legend, but she also grants the ability previously limited to the Glasskites to all of the creatures in the deck.

-3 Jetting Glasskite
-3 Shimmering Glasskite
+2 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner

I’m slightly concerned with the number of big creatures in this deck, or more, high casting-cost creatures. In the current set-up, we have Kodama the North Tree (five mana), Molder Slug (five mana), Meloku the Clouded Mirror (five mana), and Keiga, the Tide Star (six mana). Although none of these creatures are necessarily *bad*, they combine to make a mana-hungry deck. Why don’t we trim it down a bit? I’m going to go down to two copies of Keiga, the Tide Star and cut out Kodama of the North Tree altogether. This was a somewhat difficult decision, but I think it will help the deck run more smoothly in the end.

-1 Keiga, the North Star
-3 Kodama of the North Tree

I can’t help myself – the following card must go in every deck that can possibly play it. You don’t necessarily have to play four copies of it (we will here, though), but it cannot possibly hurt to have at least two. It gives you the ability to fix a mistake made without a targeted removal spell, make a chump blocker, return a creature from the grave, and many, many other things.

+4 Eternal Witness

With the lowered mana cost of the creatures in this deck, we can probably get away with losing Kodama’s Reach – only to replace it with Sakura-Tribe Elder. I’m not overly concerned with hitting a ton of mana, as the rest of the deck is more than capable of surviving until more is found.

-4 Kodama’s Reach
+4 Sakura Tribe Elder

We now have four slots remaining in the deck which can likely be filled with some sort of counterspell. I can’t really decide between Mana Leak or Condescend, so I think this is one of those situations where you can get away with two copies of each.

-2 Mana Leak [SB]
+2 Condescend
+2 Mana Leak

Since there are six legends floating in this deck, I think that is more than enough justification to put at least one copy of Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers and Minamo, School at Water’s Edge. I’m also going to adjust the mana, since the new build focuses a bit more on green.

-5 Island
+2 Forest
+1 Minamo, School at Water’s Edge
+1 Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers

That should wrap up any work we have to do on the main deck, but I’ve made at least one hole in the sideboard, and it probably deserves at least a quick glance.

I suppose this deck could occasionally need to turn itself into a slightly more controlling mode, especially if it has to deal with combo decks. With this in mind, I’ll replace the two Mana Leak that can’t be played (due to the Mana Leak in the main) with two Condescend, allowing the deck to play eight counters post-sideboard.

+2 Condescend [SB]

Honestly, looking over the cards hanging out in sideboard, it looks like there might be a bit too much hate against mono-blue. Let’s first replace Defense Grid with Pithing Needle, which has uses in a lot of matches.

-4 Defense Grid [SB]
+4 Pithing Needle [SB]

As the last change, I’d like to get rid of Humble Budoka. I can only really see that coming in and being effective against mono-blue and their Vedalken Shackles, which have been taken care of to a degree with Pithing Needle. In its place, I’d like to put in a full set of Plow Under. Siding them in will swing the mana-curve of the deck back up, but they should help the fight against Tooth and Nail.

-4 Humble Budoka [SB]
+4 Plow Under [SB]

Here is the finished product…

CREATURES (25):
4 Eternal Witness
2 Keiga, the North Star
2 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
2 Meloku the Clouded Mirror
3 Molder Slug
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Troll Ascetic
4 Vine Trellis

NON-CREATURE SPELLS (12):
2 Condescend
4 Echoing Truth
2 Mana Leak
4 Naturalize
LANDS (23):
14 Forest
7 Island
1 Minamo, School at Water’s Edge
1 Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers

SIDEBOARD (15):
2 Condescend
3 Dosan the Falling Leaf
2 Mana Leak
4 Pithing Needle
4 Plow Under

I hope that helps out, and good luck at Friday Night Magic. I’ll see y’all next week.

-Paul Hagan