Subject: Breaking Megrim Date: Wed, 18 Mar 1998 13:47:28 -0500 From: "Scott Monnikendam" To: Megrim Cost: 2B Card Text: Whenever any opponent discards a card, Megrim deals 2 damage to him or her. Zur's Weirding Cost: 3U Card Text: Players play with their hands face up. Whenever any player draws a card, any other player may pay 2 life to force the drawing player to discard that card. For the past two years I have been working to break Zurs' Wierding. My labors began when I saw a deck that used a lock set up with Land Equilibrium, Rukh Egg and Jokulhaups. I was so impressed that I tried to do something similar in type two. What I eventually came up with after alliances was a Jokulhaups/Wierding/Browse deck that tried to deny land until a threat could be reached with browse. My next attempt was a similar deck that used Sandbar Croc instead of Browse, but then the Wierding seemed unnecessary. After Weatherlight I came up with a crazy blue white thing that used Gerrards Wisdom and Rainbow Efreet. It was rather annoying. Now my efforts might actually result in something playable. When I saw the Stronghold spoiler, the first thing that struck me as odd was Megrim. After a little thinking I realized that when combined with Zur's Wierding you could create an effective card/life lock. Then I noticed that the actual card read Any opponent, not any player. Things just got a lot better. The effect in Zur's Wierding is a discard effect. I doubt that this is a well known because there were very few (if any) cases where it mattered that it was a discard. In combination with Megrim, the game is totally locked as you can prevent your opponent from ever seeing cards again if you are about equal on life. While this might seem strange, your opponent is losing just as much life as you are (more if he is making you discard) and is no longer drawing any new threats. Other forms of discard can be used to get in some extra damage while getting rid of anything you left him with. Lobomy or Coercion could be used immeadiately before the wierding to remove any way of getting rid of the combo from his hand/deck unless he topdecks a new way. If built and set up right, you might even be able to veil your strategy until you play the wierding and lock the game. The worst case scenario is that I get to draw a card but my opponent gets to take two damage and discard his draw while I pay two life. Best case scenario is that my opponent also pays the life to prevent my draw while losing life, accelerating his own demise. This combo provides an automatic endgame provided that your opponent has nothing in his hand to remove enchantments or kill you in the time it takes to kill him. My first impression is that the best shell for this deck combo would be to create some sort of hybrid with a steel necro/discard deck. The sustained discard is not as important here as is the immeadiate depletion of your opponents resources. Here is a possible deck prototype: 4 Megrim 4 Zur's Wierding 4 Diabolic Edict 4 Stupor 4 Coercion 4 Impulse 4 Bottle Gnomes 2 Terror 2 Drain Life 2 Corpse Dance 2 Funeral Charm 1 Lobotomy 4 Underground River 4 Island 10 Swamp 3 Bad River 2 Gemstone Mine Some other possibilities include more reanimation to take advantage of the fact that your opponent may be discarding creatures of all shapes and sizes. You could make the basis of this deck red and use Jokulhaups with megrim and wierding (its hard to set up, but it just sounds really dangerous) Think of it in type 1 terms. Turn 1: Mox, mox, lotus, land, megrim, wheel, Take 14 damage, go -Scott Monnikendam- Imagine a game where you win by trying not to win. But if you try not to win, you are actually trying to win, so you are making yourself lose, so you are really winning, but you are losing.. . What if there were no hypothetical situations? "Trying is the first step towards failure." (Homer Simpson)