Steps
to Creating a Rogue Deck Part 4
March 9, 2006
Welcome to my fourth and final article on creating
rogue decks. Originally I was planning on making the
string of articles longer, but I believe I covered
the main key points already, making it unnecessary
to write anymore. My last couple articles were about
putting some serious thought into the deck you
build. Whether you were using an off-the-wall card
that wins with a silly combo or a set of colors that
combines into a deadly battle for the opponent, the
deck could do what it needed to when you wanted it
to (excluding the unlucky mana screw and such). My
final article is probably the second most important
thing to me when I am making my decks for
tournaments. If this does not hold true when I’m
making or using the deck, I simply don’t use it:
4. Have fun. Don’t be afraid to go silly.
Don’t
be afraid to do something completely off the wall
with your deck building. Just because it doesn’t
seem like a good card/combo doesn’t necessarily mean
that it is. If cards were really as bad as people
thought they were, decks such as
Warp World wouldn’t have been created. You just
have to find a way to take a bad card and make it
good. For example, let’s take a look at
Izzet Chronarch. Right away, if you look at that
card and are a Johnny (a combo gamer who likes to
win on his own terms), you will think “Wow that
could be really good in the right deck.” But, if
you’re a Spike (a competitive player), you will look
at this and say to yourself “This is just a more
expensive, more restrictive
Eternal Witness.” While the Spikes will run off
to play with their
Greater Goods and
Glare of Subduals, you will stay with the
Chronarch and turn it into a superstar.
I also dislike the fact that
some
people take this game way too seriously.
I’m talking about those people who put so much
thought into their game plan that they forget one
simple thing:
It’s a
game.
Even though I play in the Pro Tour Qualifiers on a
regular basis, I don’t go to them purely because I
want to win the seat at the Pro Tour, even though it
would be nice if I did. I go to them because I like
to meet new people, enjoy the thrill of competition,
and overall just have a good time. If I wanted to do
well in tournaments I wouldn’t be bringing
my own
creations to tournaments, like when I brought
Battle of Wits to the Wisconsin State
Championships.
The ways you can break a card are only as limited as
your creativity. While there are cards that you will
not be able to break no matter how hard you think
such as
Sorrow’s Path (let the hate mail commence),
there are also cards that you will be able to break.
Let’s take a look at Izzet Chronarch again. Even
though the card has a great ability, most of the
time you won’t be able to abuse it as well as you’d
wish because of the mana cost. However, once he hits
play, there are a ton of fun things that you could
do with them. You could combine him with
Peel from Reality to create a loop, which will
keep an opposing creature off the field. Or, if you
do some digging, you can look into an equally
underestimated card,
Ghostway.
By combining Ghostway and Izzet Chronarch, You can
continuously remove your Chronarch from the game,
which allows you to return the Ghostway to your hand
when it comes back. Not only are you able to keep
your creatures from being destroyed by cards such as
Wrath of God or in combat, you are also able to
do an even bigger trick by adding on to the combo.
Let’s throw another Izzet Chronarch into play and
see how the situation changes. Now every time you
slide out your creatures with Ghostway, you will be
able to return the Ghostway to your hand and any
Instant/Sorcery of your choice that exists in your
graveyard. That could be anything from a mill card
like
Glimpse the Unthinkable, to life gain from
Presence of the Wise.
Yet again, I will not stress enough how important it
is to just have fun while playing the game. If
people didn’t play Magic to have fun, then it would
still not be around to this date. It’s gamers with
passion for the game that keeps the ball rolling
from year to year.
This concludes my final article on rogue deck
building. In my later articles, I will write about
my personal magic experiences. That can be anything
from tricks I’ve learned from other Magic players,
stuff I learned from playing and studying the game
so long, even things that happen at the card stores
I local at. Either way, I promise that you’ll enjoy
reading it as much as I enjoy writing it. And just
for yucks, I’m going to give you all a picture of my
ugly mug in my pimpin’ tournament outfit:
I wish you the best of luck with your rogue decks.
my own
creations to tournaments, like when I brought
