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Peasant Magic Decks - 2009

/////Black-Green Recursion - Robert Barone

Lands-21

4 Golgari Rot Farm

10 Forest

7 Swamp

Creatures-19

4 Eternal Witness*

4 Golgari Brownscale

4 Avenging Druid

4 Phyrexian Rager

3 Desecrator Hag

Instants-5

4 Muscle Burst

1 Naturalize

Sorceries-11

4 Unearth

1 Demonic Tutor/Regrowth*

4 Mind Burst

2 Consume Spirit

Enchantments-4

4 Rancor

Overview

This is a fun and decently powerful Peasant decklist.  The main objective of this deck is to continuously recur cards from the graveyard.  This strategy can be very frustrating to your opponent and builds up eventual card advantage that will win the game.

Creatures

The creatures all contribute to the graveyard strategy or gain some form of card advantage.

Eternal Witness is the purest embodiment of the decks strategy.  It’s basically Regrowth, but for G more you get a 2/1 creature.  Eternal Witness also gives you card advantage, because when you play it you get a creature and another card as well.  It may seem like there are other, more powerful uncommon options, but Eternal Witness makes the deck.

Desecrator Hag is like an Eternal Witness for creatures.  Since every creature except Avenging Druid has a power of 2, Desecrator Hag’s drawback of limited choice is virtually meaningless.  This creature is great for retrieving an Eternal Witness.  Like Eternal Witness, you are gaining card advantage when you play it.

Golgari Brownscale is a nice recurring creature that can function without the aid of other cards.  This fact is important for the deck because although it has a lot of synergy, it needs cards that can work on their own as well.  The dredge mechanic is also a positive for the deck because it loads the graveyard for a better Unearth or Eternal Witness.  The gain of life for every dredge is nice too.

Phyrexian Rager is a simple creature that draws a card as it comes into play.  Fair and straight forward, it was put in the deck after a lot of playtesting.  The deck had a great ability to abuse the graveyard, but it didn’t draw enough cards to fully initiate its strategy.  Using Phyrexian Rager provides some needed card drawing while not having to dedicate slots specifically to it.  It also works well being played multiple times throughout the game via the graveyard.

Avenging Druid may seem like an odd choice but it synergizes really well with the deck’s strategy.  An avenging Druid that damages the opponent has the potential to add a lot of cards to your graveyard before it finds a land.  For this deck, the more cards in the graveyard the better.  The extra land helps too because the deck likes to have a lot of mana for pulling its graveyard shenanigans (multiple Unearths and Eternal Witnesses being chained together).  Additionally, Avenging Druid does not have to be unblocked, but simply deal damage to an opponent.  The +2/+0 trample bonus from Rancor makes the ability a lot easier to trigger.

Enchantments

Rancor is the only enchantment in the deck.  The +2/+0 ability is vital to the deck’s creatures because there is no large creature in this deck.  The extra power helps the deck trade one-for-one with large creatures instead of double blocking.  Also, a traded creature is easy to recur.  Overall, it’s a great fit.  The fact that it recurs itself is simply an ironic coincidence.

Sorceries

Unearth is a primary recursion card in the deck.  The only creature with a converted mana cost of over (3) is Desecrator Hag, so Unearth will always have a multitude of available targets.  A line of play like this is pretty common:

-Unearth targeting Eternal Witness

-Eternal Witness targets another Unearth in the graveyard.

-Unearth targeting another Eternal Witness

-Eternal Witness targets the first Unearth used that is now in the Graveyard.

-Unearth another available creature.

~~Three creatures for BBB.

This isn’t just an impossible dream scenario or something that never happens, either.  This line of play occurs quite often with this deck.  The cycling ability on Unearth is also a nice bonus.

Mind Burst takes advantage of the amount of cards that the deck puts in the graveyard.  Avenging Druid loads the graveyard while seeking a land and Golgari Brownscale’s dredge mechanic consistently adds cards to the graveyard as well.  Mind Burst grows powerful quicker than usual and adds card advantage with at least 1 Mind Burst in the graveyard already.  It is also possible to recur a Mind Burst from the graveyard and replay it for 3 or 4 late-game too.

Regrowth/Demonic Tutor are a tie for inclusion in the deck.  Since the graveyard gets relatively large in this deck, Regrowth can at times be better than Demonic Tutor.  However, I usually use Demonic Tutor because it is more powerful early-game while Regrowth becomes more powerful late-game.

Consume Spirit serves as both a finisher and targeted removal.  The deck tends to draw the game out more than other decks due to its ability to survive and rebuild, so Consume Spirit has the potential to be large.  Also, Avenging Druid fetches extra land cards as well.  A large Consume Spirit targeting your opponent doesn’t need to win the game, because it can put you so far ahead that you can take the game.  Consume Spirit gives the deck the ability to deal with large creatures too.

Instants

Muscle Burst is similar to Mind Burst that it gets more powerful and can be recurred late-game for another large play.  Muscle Burst packs a punch and is another way for the deck to deal with large creatures.  An unblocked 2/2 that gets a muscle burst for +5/+5 can be game changing as well.  Overall, between Avenging Druid, dredge, and recursion, Muscle Burst fits in well.

Naturalize is simply a silver bullet for the deck to dodge a lethal Skullclamp or Isochron Scepter.  You may have noticed that the deck does not have a sideboard.  This is because causal competitive decks in my meta go without a sideboard, so feel free to substitute another spell for Naturalize if you play with a sideboard.  I always like to have a silver bullet maindeck anyways as it’s almost never totally irrelevant. 

Lands

This deck has a lot of GG mana costs, so there are more forests and swamps.  Golagi Rot Farms are in the deck because Ravnica Karoos are great for most two-color Peasant decks.  It only slows down the deck the turn it’s played which isn’t too bad for the benefit of having both appropriate and abundant mana later on.

Gameplay

The deck is incredibly fun to play.  It is also a powerful casual Peasant deck.  It is really unique to play as I can’t seem to classify it as either aggressive or conservative.  All I know is that its ability to reuse and rebuild wins games, and does it with style!

Feel free to send me your ideas and feedback at rbarone293@gmail.com