NecroDeck, Chapter I: Aug '95 - Mar '96
| Introdution The Necro deck can be viewed as an off-shoot of the Type I Handelman School (offensive overkill/anti-card advantage, created by Frank Trollman and others, circa Oct '95), but has it’s own important branch in Type II because of the Necro’s uncontested card drawing power in Type II. Since the split of Type I/II and the loss of cards such as Ancestral Recall, Timetwister, Wheel of Fortune and Braingeyser to the Type II environment no other card offers card drawing power like Necropotence. That NecroDecks are an off-shoot of the Handelman School is an important point, since the Handelman School’s initial impetus to genesis was fighting the “Weissman” deck a.k.a., “The Deck”. That Necropotence would be recognized as a worthy Type I card to offset the card-denial of ‘The Deck’ speaks well for its power, and helps in part explain why the Necro Deck so completely dominated Type II tournaments between Feb-Sep of 1996, affectionately known as “The Black summer of ‘96”. With the restriction of the “Hymn to Tourach” and the “Strip Mine” in Oct '96 the NecroDeck lost 6 of its core cards. Fortunately for the Necro-Player - and unfortunately for everyone else - the Mirage expansion has mitigated this loss by the addition of “Stupor” and "Coercion", reasonable replacements for the Hymn. So Necro lives on, and has done well in the last major Type II tournament it was be seen in, PT Dallas. Early History, Summer '95 - Mar '96 When Ice Age was first released there was quite a flurry of speculation as to which cards were going to change the tournament scene, and what deck types would emerge from the new card set. The Vise-Age deck aside (most of which the DCI has now banned), no other deck was made quite as viable by the Ice Age set than the NecroDeck. One card, three mana, and you too can draw as many cards as you have life to spend! During the summer and autumn of 1995, many players experimented with this neglected card. First it was added to black weenie decks as a quick way to end a mid-game stall. It was seen as a strong card, but further development was inhibited by the ever present first-turn vice and skyfire of the Vise-Age deck. With the restriction of the Black Vise in January of 1996, the field was left open for the full development of the NecroDeck (and not incidentally, the Land Tax deck). After PT I came the fine tuning. In the hands of various players such as Lindback, Immordino, Weissman, Justice, Stern, Bentley and McCabe, the NecroDeck has evolved from its black weenie deck beginning into a shrewdly crafted control deck, stressing obscene card-advantage and lightning quick “controlled” mayhem, i.e., severe game disruption. At PT 1 (NYC, February '96), the archetype NecroDecks were all present, and all did well. Let us now look at these decks as described by Chris Pikula: The three types of NecroDecks present at PT1: Leon Lindback/Thomas Andersson: This deck was the best of the PT1 Necrodecks and is built on the card-advantage school of thought. This deck was a blatant attempt at using the card Necropotence in a deck designed to use it to its greatest effect, rather than merely adding Necropotence to a previously constructed deck. Cards such as Soul Burn and Jalum Tome are perfect examples of this deck's card drawing obsession. This deck is also the most similar to the classic NecroDeck. David Price: Dave Price's PT1 deck was simply a modified black weenie deck- modified by the addition of 4 Necropotence. The deck featured Bad Moons and tons of creatures (even Wisps) and had no Strips and no Disks. Even the Hymns were a late addition to the deck (at the urging of David Bartholow and me). This deck was very effective (5-2 with losses to Andersson and Andrea Redi). The interesting thing is that Necropotence was somewhat of a side consideration, it was simply a black weenie (this concept was revived by Brian Hacker at PT5). The PCL deck: This deck featured only 1 Necropotence in the main deck, but it was built on the theory that Necro would live by for the next few months: disruption. This deck had 4 Strips, 4 Icequakes, and 4 Hymns along with a variety of strong creatures. I've been told that midway through the tourney they figured out that they really should be sideboarding in the extra Necros. The deck also had no Drain Lives. (As Mario Robaina would later say, "First he drained me for five, then Necroed for 5... 5 for 1 card advantage! I realized I had just been 'Drain-geysered', and I thought to myself 'hrm, I think I better add Drain Lifes to the main deck.'" - C.Pikula Here is the Deck that almost made it to the top at PT1:
And a look at Dave Price's Weenie NecroDeck:
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