On January 1st, 1997, the Prison was shut down, due to the departure of the Ice Age set and the resulting loss of the Icy Manipulator. There was much speculation that the Icy would make it way back into the 5th Edition card set, and the Prison would be reborn. Unfortunately, the Icy Manipulator has not found its way back into the card mix with 5th Edition, so "The Prison" will, for the time being, remain a historical piece. (N.B.- This deck was originally called "The Type II Prison" to differentiate it from Weissman's Type I Prison.)

Chris Cade (May '96):

I have won with this deck in tourneys here in the Bay Area, so it has proven to be viable. It also got me qualified for PT2. After playing against many Ernhamgeddon, White/Blue Control/Millstone, and NecroDecks, I can say this: I beat most of those type of decks consistently if I draw enough land. It seems that when I try to prove my deck to my friends that I can beat Necro, my deck consistently draws almost no land. Then they usually laugh at me and tell me my deck sucks. (The people I am referring to are Chris Pantages and John Immordino among others.) After showing Chris how my deck is supposed to work when it draws land, and why I know it can beat Necro consistently, he understood my position. He doesn't fear my deck, but many other people do. I haven't really thought much of a name for it yet, just what other people call it...

Chris Cade's "Type II Prison", May '96
	4 Armageddon 4 Disenchant 4 Swords To Plowshares 4 Wrath of God 3 Land Tax 1 Divine Offering 1 Balance 1 Recall	4 Icy Manipulator 4 Fellwar Stone 2 Millstone 1 Jester's Cap 1 Jayemdae Tome 1 Tormod's Crypt 1 Feldon's Cane 1 Zuron Orb 1 Ivory Tower 1 Black Vise
3 Strip Mine 4 Adarkar Wastes 2 Island 13 Plains	Sideboard: 1 Jester's Cap 1 Land Tax 2 COP:Red 2 Serrated Arrows	Sideboard (cont): 3 Divine Oferings 3 Sleight of Mind 3 Karma

Okay, here's how the deck works. The deck looks typical from the outside, but how it works is completely different. Basically, I use the staple cards for their face value. Wraths, Plowshares, and Balance for creature defense. Disenchants and Divines for Artifact/Enchantment defense. Land Taxes are nice to have early, but not necessary until later in the game. The Icy's I use to force my opponent to play more creatures, then I Wrath. The Fellwars and Icy's are key to this deck, along with Armageddon. When I conveniently clear the board of creatures, I then Armageddon (hopefully with Fellwars or Land Tax in play, but not necessarily). This is just for permanent control. I use the Icy's to tap their lands during their upkeep, meanwhile collecting and playing more annoying cards. I continue to tap lands until I draw another Armageddon. Then I Armageddon again, just for control over the board. My main kill cards are Millstone and Black Vise. The majority of games I win with Black Vise, and sometimes I run my opponent out of cards. The idea is to just control the board and stay alive. White/Blue decks use Counterspells to stop things they don't like - I use Armageddon to prevent it from ever happening. The one Jayemdae Tome serves multiple purposes. First, it can act as Disenchant bait early on in the game, or give me a jump on my opponent. Secondly, later in the game, it gives me a boost to finish off my opponent. The Tormod's Crypt is simply another way to ensure that my opponents land isn't coming back. The Jester's Cap is to analyze my opponents strategy to determine the correct sideboarding strategy as well as taking out their Cap(s). Now for my strategies on beating the typical decks:

Ernhamgeddon: Basically, I let them Land Tax early on in the game, meanwhile I set up my board with my own Land Tax, Fellwars, and Icy's. Then they start playing creatures, and I use my Icy's to control them. They Armageddon, and I plowshare their creature. Every time they Armageddon, that's one extra time that I will get to when they don't want me to. I usually hold land in my hand, and a Plowshares when I can. Then after they Tax enough, I drop in the Millstone and eat their good spells for lunch. Meanwhile, they probably discarded land early in the game to get a jump on me, so now they don't have much left between hand and deck... so I Armageddon and use Icy's for control. Hopefully drop a Vise this late in the game. Sideboarding against these decks varies - if they use Birds and Elves, I sideboard in Serrated Arrows, usually a Cap, and maybe the extra Tax for Disenchant bait. Also, if they rely on Fellwars and Icy's, and other Artifacts, I drop in the Divines instead of Arrows depending on their individual deck style.

White/Blue Control: I use the Icy's to control their blue mana sources during upkeep. I Disenchant their Fellwars, and proceed to cast Armageddon as often as I can. I play the Millstone usually for Disenchant bait, and kill them later in the game with Vise (ideally). If they play with creatures, I use the "End of your turn Plowshares/Disenchant" bait to force Counterspells meanwhile tapping blue mana sources. Then on my turn I tap more blue mana sources and Armageddon. I have found that White/Blues biggest weakness besides Necro, is Armageddon. Blue relies on Counterspells often too much, and without the land to cast them, a Counterspell deck gets cooked. My sideboard strategy usually takes out some Wraths of God, and replaces them with Divine Offerings, a Jesters Cap, and sometimes the extra Tax as Disenchant bait.

White/Blue Millstone: Same strategy as above, however I sideboard out all Wraths, and 1 Plowshares for 3 Divines, 1 Tax, and an extra Cap.

NecroDecks: The first game usually depends on luck. If I can survive the early Hymns and get enough land out, I just use Icy's to tap creatures. Then I Wrath when multiple creatures are out. I let Necropotence stay on the board, and I Disenchant the Disks. I Armageddon often to keep them playing land because at that point they usually only Necro for one card because they have to play a land, and don't have enough land to do anything else. I then proceed to tap lands during upkeep to prevent anything from coming out. Basically, the Necro player is paying a life for one draw each turn that I get for free. When I draw the Vise, I play it immediately. Also, I continue to Millstone to the end if it goes that long, and then Disenchant Necropotence. Unfortunately, if the early Hymn gets land, then I have a problem - I need land only to beat Necro. My sideboard strategy changes the kill/ratio of my deck dramatically. I remove the 4 Armageddon's, the 2 Millstones, and the Tormod's Crypt. Then I sideboard in 3 Sleights, and 3 Karma's. I also sideboard in an extra Land Tax to help recover from Hymns, and sometimes Divine Offerings to deal with the Disks. I sideboard the Sleights against all NecroDecks to counter Gloom. If I am holding more than one Sleight, I will sometimes use the Sleights to be able to Plowshare their Orders and Knights. Then they know I have Sleights, and make sure they don't have Glooms in if there is a third game. I keep them in though, just in case. I have found that although many players do not realize it, the Disk is what drives the NecroDeck - without the Disk, Necro has no defense besides the Hymn. I destroy the Disks, and let Necro cook quickly to my Karma's and Vise. As I said before, as long as I can get past the first few turns with land in play I will probably win.

After people look at my deck, they often don't know why it wins. My opening draws are usually not very good either. But as long as I have a few lands in my opening draw, I can usually win. This is because I built my deck on the premise that almost every card should be useful at any given time. My deck capitalizes on the weaknesses of typical Type 2 decks - especially the land part. Because I use 4 of many key cards, I should be able to deal with everything that comes my way when it comes my way. I have 13 ways to defend against creatures, 4 against enchantments, and 5 against artifacts. 4 against land... Basically, when I am in a losing situation, there is usually something that can save me within a few turns. Many people call me lucky - maybe I am. However, there are so many cards concentrated in my deck, that it is inevitable that I will draw something to get me out of the situation at least temporarily until I can recover my position. Besides, when good players play against one another, the difference is usually in who makes the last mistake, and who gets luckier.

My deck is slow to start, so direct damage sometimes wins first games against me if I don't get off an early Armageddon. Many decks are able to deal a lot of damage to me, however, because my deck is designed to win both from winning and losing positions, I can often recover from losing positions fairly quickly. My deck is based purely on permanent control. If I can control what you can and cannot do, then I control you. I do not need Disrupting Scepters to work your hand, or Counterspells to stop unwanted spells. They shouldn't ever have the mana to cast them. The card I fear most is the Jester's Cap. Fortunately though, not many people can figure out what exactly to Cap out. Everything in my deck is so important to my winning, that what you Cap will really depend on what type of deck you play and your playing style.

I tested my deck with an extra Cane in the sideboard, and realized that my deck doesn't usually need to go through even once to win, so I took it out. That is the same reason I took the extra Tormod's Crypt out of the sideboard. The extra Cap in the sideboard is often used so that I can get the first Cap off to take out my opponents Cap, and then other stuff. I also experimented with an extra Recall in the deck. After playing in a few tourneys, I realized that my deck is not graveyard reliant, and too often I was holding a Recall with not enough mana to use it due to my Armageddon's. One Recall and Cane are all I need. It seems that people often sideboard in the Tormod's Crypt against me. I kind of laugh, because that shows that they do not know my deck very well. They think my graveyard is important to win - it's not. All that I need to win is usually what's on the board - because that is what I can control.

-C.Cade

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