Subject: Analysis of the top decks: Part ?
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1998 11:05:21 -0400
From: mark.spano@fiserv.com
To: webmaster@classicdojo.org

Well, it appears that a few more decks have popped up into the Magic scene,
so for those of you that attempt to follow me ramblings, I will attempt to
look at these decks and dissect them for you.

First off, I want to look at a very interesting type of deck, the "Battle
Broach".  This deck intrigues me, to say the least.  At first glance, it
looked like the rival of Stompy, but when I took a closer look, it is only
half of that.  O sure, it can come out with some pretty fast speed, and
that is good, but it also has something that green rarely ever has,
control.  Yes, you did hear me correctly, Green Control.

A nice base of 8 mana produces help to get the speed of this deck started
(4 Llanowar elves with 4 Quirion Rangers), while River Boas, Trained
Armadons, Fallow Wurms, Mirri the Car Warrior, and Lhurgoyfs round off the
creature base.  All of these creatures are added for a specific reason.
The River Boas give Blue a headache, while Trained Armadons are almost
sacrificial lambs to bust through some of it's opponents defenses.  The
Fallow Wurms are excellent for the casting cost, and few times will this
deck need more than just a little bit of mana to cast everything in the
deck, so having land in your hand will happen quite often.  Mirri the Cat
Warrior is just an all around great creature, and with a lot of the top
decks using a little bit of Green (Recurring Nightmare being the biggest),
she becomes a 'must deal with' card.  Finally, a little bit of fat needed
to be added, and a way to make the Recurring Nightmare decks a little
hesitant on performing like usual.  The Lhurgoyf becomes increasingly HUGE
as the game continues, and will definitely stall the RN player.

Finally, the interesting part of the deck is the other cards that it choose
to use.  4  Cursed Scrolls are no surprise, as any deck that drops their
hand quickly will always use these.  But 4 Null Broaches add an element of
control that was previously unheard of from Green.  Couple this with
Creeping Mold, the utility killer, and you have a very good control base
that can be used to counter almost all types of threats.  Quicksands were
added to deal with the shadow creatures (a definite must with all of the
Black and White decks that use Shadow), and 3 wastelands to handle all of
the multi colored decks.  Surprisingly, this deck is not as weak as it
looks, and I would not underestimate this deck for it can play in both the
short and the long game.

Another type of deck that arose from this month's Decks to Beat is the
Static Oath.  To be honest, this was a brilliant idea to combine the power
of the Oath of Druids deck (using Gaea's to recycle, see Analysis Part 1)
with the Static Orb to lock your opponent down.  The same basic deck design
is used, with the massive counter spell base (9 in this case), deck
manipulation (6 total), creature control (a surprising 8),  and a wide
variety of lands to help the casting of all of the types of spells.  The
deck is pretty strait forward, and is extremely similar to the original
Oath of Druids deck, except now, there can be no Counter Spell wars with
your opponent.  The Static Orb prevents this from happening.  It also
prevent massive and continual creature rushes.  Mana Leak becomes virtually
a true counter spell under the orb (which is surprising that there is only
2), and the Oath's players creatures continually beat down their opponent
with either a Spirit of the Night or an Archangel (which doesn't tap to
attack, so it is immune to the Orb's effect).  This version of the deck is
extremely superior to the original, and I would not be surprised to see it
at a major tournament.

It's biggest down fall is when it goes against a creatur-less deck (or a
creature-few deck).  This is where the Verdant Touch helps out.  Here, the
Oath player can simply turn one of their lands into a creature, and now use
the Oath as usual.

Finally, the last deck that has been added to the Decks to Beat page for
Sept. of 1998, is a deck that we saw a few months ago, Counter Sliver.
This deck attempts to take advantage of the low casting cost and shared
abilities of the Slivers, while keeping behind a control base.  Muscle
Slivers, Winged Slivers, Crystallines and Victals help to keep the assault
going (with the help from a fatty in Maro), while Tradewinds, Stasis!?!,
Lobotomy, Armageddon, and Counter Spells round off the control aspect of
the deck.

Personally, the Sliver deck has always impressed me, I just felt it needed
a little more tweaking to become an extremely formidable deck.  The choice
of Stasis in this deck is extremely risky in my opinion.  There is no way
in the deck to support the card's longevity, so the assumption that must be
made is that it is used to just slow down it's opponent enough to take more
control of the game.  Shadow also appears to be a problem with this type of
deck, relying on Tradewinds and Stasis to keep the damage down.  Also, the
choice of lands in this deck seem to make it a little on the weak side.  I
feel a more solid base of City of Brass, Undiscovered, and Gemstones would
be more suitable for the multi-colored environment this deck creates.

Finally, how do you deal with the 3 decks that I have explained?  Well,
Battle Broach seems to be extremely vulnerable to it's arch enemy, Blue.
The amount of control that this color can generate, even if not a heavy
counter spell deck, would seem to be too overwhelming for this.  Also, the
slimness of the attackable creatures creates another weakness, not to
mention the amount of dependability that is needed by the Wild Growth,
LLanowar Elves, and Quirion Rangers to produce the mana that is required
for this deck.  This cross between Stompy and Control seems to be too weak
over all to be able to contend with the big boys, and should easily be able
to be dispatched by a good, solid deck.

Static Oath on the other hand is extremely strong.  The best way to handle
this deck would be to take out the Oath, if possible.  Now, this isn't
always easy, and perhaps you don't have the cards to combat it.  In that
case, you are probably playing with Black and Red  :).  If you are playing
Red, from the beginning, you must direct all of your Direct Damage to the
Oath player himself, and if you must, sacrifice creatures to do a little
extra damage during the attack phase (like attack with 3 creatures, when
you for sure that one of them will die, while the other 2 get through).
Red's only chance to attempt to get to this deck before it begins, because
once it begins, it will become extremely difficult to win against.  Black
on the other hand has a few other choices.  It's biggest friend right now,
is good old Ebony Charm again (as I mentioned in a few other previous
articles).  Here, you can use, the ever useful, Diabolic Edict, to get rid
of the creature (which the Oath player will usually gladly sacrifice,
knowing he can just retrieve it again with the Oath), and then you can
attempt to remove it from the game with the Charm.  Risky, yes, but in my
opinion, about the only choice Black has, and still the best card to combat
graveyard manipulators (of any kind) in the T2 environment today.

Again, we come to the Counter Sliver deck last.  This deck, in it's current
status, seems a bit weak.  A single massive creature control card (like
Wrath of God) will spell complete doom for this type of deck.  Even if you
are just getting rid of 2 creatures, this will greatly hurt the slivers.
Remember, slivers thrive on unity.  The only way they become strong is if
there are many of them, in that case, look out, you will probably lose the
game soon.  Any solid deck should be able to defeat this deck, since it has
neither the speed to compete with the true Speed decks (WW, SB, Sligh) nor
the control ability to battle the Control decks (Cuneo Blue, The T2 Deck,
CMU Blue), or the utility that the Recurring Nightmare decks have.  With a
bit of focussing though, this deck could become deadly, but a single theme
would have to be established, not a cross between beatdown and control,
that (in my opinion) is not solid enough.

Well, thanks again for reading this very lengthy article, and I welcome all
comments and critiques that you may have.

Mark R. Spano  --  The Sniper
mark.spano@fiserv.com