From: paulcm@aol.com (Paul Cm) Subject: [deck] Mi/Vi/We PTQ winner [long] Date: 1 Aug 1997 03:20:11 GMT Here is the deck I won the 7/26 Lansing PTQ with. If you find this post useful, write me -- especially if you have comments/deck ideas for the extended environment. Acknowlegement: This deck was inspired by a deck which won a Detroit PTQ a month earlier, designed by Jose of Team Anonymous -- a strong player and a very likeable guy. Thank you Jose! His deck was green with red and white splash like mine. I improved (my opinion) it: he played with only two red spells (2 torches). The Thundermares are my own innovation. Also I play with 4 Rangers compared to his 2 -- for reasons I explain below. Also, thank you to everyone at Gotham City Cafe in Ferndale for playtesting and (mostly) good advise. 4 Quiron Ranger 4 Quiron Elves 3 Wall of Roots 4 River Boa 4 Llanowar Sentinel 4 Llanowar Behomoth 2 Arctic Wolves 2 Stameding Wildebeests 2 Thundermare 2 Uktabi Orangutan 2 Emerald Charm 2 Incinerate 2 Kaervek's Torch 2 Pacifism 14 Forest 3 Mountain 2 Gemstone Mine 2 Undiscovered Paradise Sideboard: 4 Honorable Passage 2 Tremor 3 Dark Banishing 2 Chimeric Sphere 2 Sand Golem 1 Disenchant 1 Uktabi Orangutan COMMENTARY: This deck takes advantage of the lack of Wrath of God or any other really good mass creature kill in the MVW environment. It is fundamentally a creature deck, capable of rapidly generating multiple creature threats, and featuring excellent synergy between the various creatures. The Rangers, Elves and Walls act as a mana engine. 4 mana on turn 3 is the norm. 5 mana on turn 3 can occur (approx 1 in 5 games): Turn 1 play Forest, play Ranger. Turn 2 play any land except Undiscovered, play Elves. Turn 3 tap both land and Elves, use Ranger to pick up Forest and untap Elves, play Forest, tap Forest and Elves -- 5 mana to cast a Behemoth, a Sentinel plus fetch another, an Artic Wolves, or a couple smaller creatures. Note that many of the common MVW decks need 3 or 4 land in the first few turns to function. This deck functions only slightly less than optimally with two land, and one Forest and a Ranger suffices in a pinch. Most decks experience serious mana screw 15%-20% of games -- too much! This deck gets seriously screwed about 5% of the time (haven't done the math). This makes a huge difference in match play. SYNERGY: The basic synergy is that you use the little mana producing creatures to get out big, threatening creatures fast and frequently. The little creatures serve to pump the Behemoths when they are no longer useful for attackers. But there's more! RANGERS: May be the best one casting cost creature in the environment. Play with four! They can: save forests from land destruction; give you an extra mana when you have no new land to play; combine with Elves for even more mana; untap a big creature that you attacked with as a blocker (almost a no-tap); kill Skulking Ghosts and Tar Pit Warriors. In this deck, they function in a big combo that will get you out of lots of creature stalemate situations. You have a Behemoth on the table. You play a Thundermare. You respond by tapping all your creatures (including walls and the Behemoth itself) to pump the Behemoth. You use a Ranger already on the table or one which you played this turn to untap the Behemoth (or any other big creature). Attack. Your opponents creatures are tapped. You do 10 or 15 or even more damage in one turn. With the Rangers, Thundermare becomes a viable card! If you have no Rangers, Emerald Charm can untap a creature as well. WILDEBEESTS: Pick up a green creature on your upkeep. Not a problem. This combines with Wall or Roots to reset walls. With Arctic Wolves to draw a card each turn. With Sentinel to grab another Sentinel. With Orangutans to generate repeated articfact destruction. Failing this, pick up a little creature to recast. HOW DOES IT DEAL WITH THREATS? Pacifism, Incinerate and Torch all help. You have 2 Gemstone Mines, 2 Undiscovered Paradise, 3 Mountains and 4 Quiron Elves to produce the nongreen mana. But fundamentally, you deal with threats by superior threat generation. Your opponents creatures get soaked off blocking your huge, frequently attacking (and with Rangers, untappable) creatures. In a pinch, Emerald Charm can take flying away from a creature so you block and kill it with one of your monsters. OTHER DECKS: I did well against the monoblue Floodgate/Man-o-War decks. They just don't have a good way to generate card advantage in the MVW environment, and almost everything in my deck is a threat. Abduction was a problem, though only one player I faced played it. I won by keeping the pressure on until he was forced to block with the Abducted creature. Necrotog decks I faced twice and beat surpisingly easily. Monored burn/Lancers, etc. could often beat me in game one with a good draw, but after sideboarding 3-4 Honorable Passages I had the edge. Discard/Burn and other Discard decks: problematic, but 2 Sand Golems and Honorable Passages give the edge. Equipose/Sands of Time: I didn't face this deck -- thankfully. I made a decision not to worry about these decks, figuring other players would, and would knock them out for me. In fact, a deck of this type made the quarter-finals and would have faced me in the semi-finals if it had not been knocked out by a Necrotog/Tombstone Stairwell player. Consider running more artifact destruction and possibly 3-4 Centaurs in the sideboard if you fear this deck in your area. Chimeric Spheres and Tremors can probably be tossed for this (I only used the Tremors once, and never used the Spheres). Dark Banishing goes in for Pacifisms against almost everything except black. Don't be afraid to play 4 colors if you need to side in both Honorable Passages and Dark Banishings (against a Counter-Burn deck, for example). FINAL NOTES: This deck is cheap, and proves that one need not be wealthy to compete -- there are only two rares in the deck (Thundermares). It is a *fun* deck to play. Sometimes it acts like a weenie horde, sometimes like a big creature deck, and a Torch or Thundermare to finish is always a pleasant (for you anyway) surprise. This deck is not one of the "standard deck types" in this environment, and often your opponent won't know what hit him, especially when you start using nongreen spells for the first time. Finally, a note of advise on the mental game from someone qualifying for the Pro Tour for the first time. At any tourney, don't get your hopes up too high. Magic involves a significant element of luck. Go with the flow. If you're thinking of the next round, you're going to make playing errors. You build a good deck -- you take your draws -- you do the best you can with the cards your dealt. Good luck to all of you. Paul Carmouche paulcm@aol.com Team Gotham City Cafe Ferndale, MI