Good Deck Made Better...With A Little Help From Torment
Well
I just decided to write an artical on the last Type 2 deck I had together which
was pre-Torment, so I first listed the deck as it was with a description of how
it works and then the post-changeover including the new Torment cards.
The
record for this deck was 9-2-1 which is pretty good, and should only get better
with the inclusion of Torment.
Pyro-Braids
4
Braids, Cabal Minnion
4
Blazing Specter
3
Pyre Zombie
3
Flametongue Kavu
2
Mortivore
3
Duress
2
Innocent Blood
2
Terminate
3
Pillage
3
Stone Rain
3
Urza’s Rage
2
Fire/Ice
2
Price Of Glory
2
Tainted Pact
1
Skeletal Skrying
3
Sulfurous Springs
3
Shadowblood Ridge
2
Barbarian Ring
7
Swamp
6
Mountain
SideBoard
1
Pyre Zombie
2
Breath Of Darigaaz
1
Urza’s Rage
1
Price Of Glory
2
Void
2
Fire/Ice
2
Barbarian Rings
2
Terminate
2
Innocent Blood
OK
now how this deck worked/works:
*****
Discard-
(we all know why discard is good)
Duress-
hands down best 1st turn move you can make, get to look at your
opponent’s hand and make them discard lets just say a counterspell
*****
Land
D- (along with Braids, Land-D shuts down any deck, but you can’t flood a deck
with Land-D or it just does poorly)
Pillage-
not only is it land-D but it also takes care of Grafted Skullcaps,
Millstones...whatever
Stone
Rain- just good old land-D
Price
Of Glory- with all the bounce and counters and almost everyone playing blue,
should be main deck in any red deck, can always Sideboard it out if not needed
*****
Direct
Damage- (early game gets rid of annoying creatures, late game for finishing of
opponent)
Fire/Ice-
this card is a gem, often enough it takes out 2 birds with 1 stone or some
elves, just as good as land-D in this deck
Urza’s
Rage- Uncounterable damage, if you don’t understand why this is good stop
playing Magic now!!!
Barbarian
Rings- uncounterable damage (see “Urza’s Rage” above)
*****
Creature
Control- (with so damn many creatures out there you can’t make a deck that
can’t deal with creatures)
Innocent
Blood- 1 of the 2 best ways to rid yourself of the Atog problem, half the time
I only “lost” a Pyre Zombie out of the deal anyways
Terminate-
the other of the 2 best ways to handle the Atogs also probably the best way to
take care of Desolation Angel
*****
Card
Draw- (there is a reason why almost every deck has it, because every other deck
has it, soits more or less needed for survival)
Tainted
Pact- if nothing else it thins a few cards off the top of your deck that you
don’t want to draw anyways, its kinda an Instant Tutor
Skeletal
Skrying- Instant black Brainstorm, just a shame it hurts you, thats why there’s
only 1 in the deck
*****
Creatures-
(this is how the killing starts...and ends)
Blazing
Specter- haste—that’s why it works, with all the bounce out there haste is just
damn good, that and it gives card advantage
Braids-
sometimes its nothing more than destroy a land and chump block, but in the
right situation...well I think everyone has found themselves behind a
Braids-lock at least a couple times
Pyre
Zombie- now this here is the true gem of the deck, hard to bounce, I’ll just
sacrifice it, if its countered so what, it comes back again and again and
again, a little mana-intensive, but that’s ok
Flametongue
Kavu- beat down stick and creature kill in 1, no wonder there have been decks
made around these guys (Snake-Tongue)
Mortivore-
swing batter batter batter swing...comes out mid to late game and often acts as
the finisher, get it out early, it regenerates so just keep swinging, it just
gets bigger and bigger
*****
Side
Board
more
Terminates, Innocent Bloods, Fire/Ice, Pyre Zombie, Barbarian Rings, Price Of
Glory and Urza’s Rage
Breath
Of Darigaaz- mass creature kill and damage to the head (Earthquake is just as
good, but really...what can’t 4 damage take out???)
Void-
good against Mystic Enforcers and Sabertooth Nashiba and any other
pro-black/red creatures...and it can take cards out of your opponents hand as
well if played right
*****
what
to do against certain deck-types:
Togs-
easy...with 8 good ways to kill 4 togs (usually there only 4 creatures,
although some have 4 Finkles or Nightscapes as well) between main deck and SB
this deck has never lost to a Tog deck, the Price Of Glory’s and other Land-D
certainly help too, as well as the uncounterable damage recurding creatures and
hastey Specters this deck is a Tog decks worst nightmare
Enforcer-Go...um...1st
game...just cross your fingers and hope you pull thru, in the metagame around
here most have the Sabertooth Nashiba’s in the SB, so 2nd-3rd game can be rough
as well, just hope you can overwhelm them and hopefully the 4 Ibs and 2 Voids
are enough, this deck is probably my worst matchup, I’ve tried to build my SB
accordingly but its hard to get arround really BIG pro-black/red
creatures...suggestions would be appreciated
R/G
beats- can be tricky, just cause this deck is so fast, but with all the Direct
Damage and Creature Control in my deck its not really that much of a chalange,
just have to be sure to put the Land-D in the SB for this matchup as its pretty
useless against speed decks like this...probably my 2nd toughest
matchup...but still not to difficult
Desolation
Angel- just make sure to save a Terminate in your hand just in case they do
manage to get the Angel out, not really too difficult to play against...oh yeah
and hold back some lands too
Blue-Green-Upheaval-
Mongooses can’t stop the specters...werebears fall easily to burn, and should
be killed ASAP hopefully by the time your opponent casts Upheaval he shouldn’t
have any creatures left to recast, and just be sure to hold back your Innocent
Bloods if you can until after the Upheaval goes off so you can take out any of
the 3/3 Mongooses or 4/4 werebears immediatly before the start beating on you
Blue-White
control- haven’t come up against any of these, but I’d imagine between the
land-D, burn, discard and Pyre Zombies things shouldn’t be too difficult
Red-Agro-Burn-
well I’ve got enough burn of my own to hold my ground, and put the land-D in
the SB, kinda useless in this matchup
Land-D-
who the hell plays land-D??? well besides me and my deck isn’t that land-D
heavy anyways...never came across this matchup so I couldn’t really say what to
do against it
am
I missing any decks??? If I am...sorry, its not intended
*****
THE
TORMENT STUFF:
Laquatus’s
Champion- wow!!! is it just me or is this the best black creature ever? Well
maybe 2nd best (can’t forget good old Hypnotic Specter) can you say
BROKEN?
Chainer’s
Edict- 1-sided Innocent Blood with flashback, just damn good
Tainted
Peek- with no life-gaining cards in the deck easily a good replacement for the
Sulfurous Springs
and
after making a few changes this deck is easily just as good for the new Type-2
enviroment as it was in the old, if not better:
In
The Void
4
Blazing Specter
3
Braids
3
Pyre Zombie
3
Laquatus’s Champion
1
Trench Wurm
4
Duress
2
Price Of Glory
3
Pillage
2
Stone Rain
3
Urza’s Rage
2
Fire/Ice
3
Chainer’s Edict
1
Terminate
2
Tainted Pact
1
Skeletal Skrying
4
Tainted Peek
2
Shadowblood Ridge
2
Barbarian Ring
10
Swamp
5
Mountain
SideBoard
3
Terminate
1
Chainer’s Edict
2
Breath Of Darigaaz
2
Fire/Ice
2
Void
1
Barbarian Ring
2
Flametongue Kavu
1
Trench Wurm
1
Mortivore
ok,
how the deck is supposed to work:
1st
turn, um...play a land, hopefully play Duress as it’s the only 1st
turn move and a damn good one at that
2nd
turn, no turn 2 moves unless you really need to Chainer’s Edict, Terminate or
Fire something away and you can always play a Tainted Pact (end of opponents
turn though)
3rd
turn, you generally want to play a land-D spell as usually it will be your best
play the Pyre Zombie is a good 3rd turn move as well, and against
Blue...DO NOT play Price of Glory yet, toss some bait at your opponent 1st,
and then force it thru turn 4-5
4th
turn, kinda depends on how the game is shaping up at this point, but probably a
good time to play a Blazing Specter, also a good turn to play more land-D if
you have it in hand, also Trench Wurm is a good 4th turn move
there’s
a general idea of how the deck works, although I can’t say for certain what
will be drawn in the opening hand so its hard to say for certain, this is just
a general idea of how it starts off.
You
can leave the Pyre Zombies in the graveyard for a few turns if you need to,
unless your opponent is playing Haunting Echos the you get it out of your
graveyard ASAP because the last thing you want is a deck completely lacking
Pyre Zombies.
You
really only want to drop Braids when you can get a sure lock on your opponent,
unless you really need a chump-blocker which tends to happen but thats ok
because its not your major win condition, the best thing about it in this deck
is that it throws your opponent off and they start to play as if it were, waste
burn on it, better there then on the Specters
If
your opponent bounces your Specter, just keep playing it building up your hand
while they use up valuable resources trying to stop it, even if it doesn’t get
thru its still giving you card advantage.
The
deck used to work mostly by beating your opponent down with creatures throwing
some burn at them and finishing them off with a Mortivore, now that the
Laquatus’s champions are here, you don’t even have to worry about getting thru,
all you have to do is get your opponent down to 6, drop the
champion...WIN...just make sure to leave Mana open to regenerate it if you are
playing against a burn-heavy deck, you don’t want them to be gaining the 6 life
before they loose it do you? But I did leave 1 Mortivore in the SB because nobody
ever sees that big bad-ass coming and when it does it puts them on a fast
clock.
I
put the FTKs in the SB...basically for the element of surprise, if your
opponent doesn’t see them 1st game, he won’t necessarily expect to
see them 2nd game.
Against
fast creature decks there’s a reason for the 2 Breath of Darigaaz and the 2
more Fire/Ice in the SB
I
don’t really think there’s anything else that needs to be explained for this
deck, if there’s something you don’t understand, e-mail me.
I
guess the only true way to know for sure how this deck does, is to play it, I
have yet to play in new Type-2 enviroment, but I have scoped out what’s out
there as well and think this deck will do extremely well in the new Type-2
enviroment. I guess we’ll find out soon enough won’t we?
Writen
by: Peter Kvetkosky
please
e-mail me with any questions/suggestions/anything else:
crisis909@hotmail.com