Subject: Strategy: Winding Canyons for critter decks Date: Fri, 03 Apr 1998 15:28:29 -0500 From: Bennie Smith Newsgroups: rec.games.trading-cards.magic.strategy Strategy: How about Winding Canyons for Green? Has anyone thought about using Winding Canyons in a deck other than a blue deck? Specifically, using it as a weapon *against* control decks. Here's my thoughts on it: If playing a deck that usually relies on creatures to win, what is the worst thing that seems to happen? You play a creature, say, a 4/4 Maro, and end your turn. Your opponant then plays a 4 point Earthquake and kills it (along with whatever else you had in play). Or, you've been pecking away with a Centaur and an Elf, but you feel time is slipping away and you really want to put the game away, so you go ahead and drop your Apes of Rath to put in the finishing blow next turn. Your opponant takes the opportunity to gain 3-1 card advantage and casts Wrath of God. Ouch! Global creature sweepers are the bane of critter decks everywhere. They tend to take out your precious critter resource before it gets a chance to do any damage. That's why creatures with Celerity are so good-- you can bank on getting at least one use out of them usually before they are neutralized. I'm thinking Winding Canyons could be used to an even better effect. Say it's your turn. You've been pounding away with an early Centaur and your opponant is playing a blue control deck; he's finally gotten rid of it with a Disk. He's got plenty of mana left untapped so you know he's perfectly capable of countering the Centaur or Boa you have in hand. At the end of *your* turn is when he will typically Whispers or Impulse or Book... but if you have a Canyons in play, you have the opportunity to drop something nasty in response to him using up his resources. A good control player will know this, and may hesitate to use his card drawing instants on your turn. Now *you* get to bluff *him*! Canyons can keep you in the game when it usually starts to slip away. Now *you* can do things during *his* discard, forcing him to counter and then giving you the opportunity to untap and cast what you really wanted to cast during your main phase (like, say, an Armogeddon). The thing to consider with the Canyon is that, to make it truly effective, you need to be playing either alot of mana, or alot of cheap creatures, or both. Here's a deck that could give control players fits: 4 Mogg Fanatics 4 Goblin Vandals 4 Muscle Sliver 3 Wall of Roots 4 Jolrael's Centaur 3 Uktabi Orangutan 4 Incinerate 3 Fireblast 4 Kindle 4 Cursed Scroll 3 Emerald Charm 1 Volcanic Geyser 3 Winding Canyons 4 Karplusan Forest 7 Mountain 5 Forest Once a Canyon is out, everything but the Scrolls can be played at instant speed. Play your Vandal at the end of his turn when your opponant taps out to play a Mind Stone. When your opponant blocks a Muscle Sliver with his White Knight, play your other Sliver as an instant to kill the Knight. Drop 2 Fanatics during your opponant's discard phase to attack for 2, sac 'em for 2 more, double Incinerate and Fireblast for a nice, toasty Sligh-like finish. Sure, this deck is pretty rough, but I just wanted to illustrate a deck using the Canyons to thwart the ever annoying control deck. If anyone has any thoughts or experience with this card, please share them! Oh, as a post-script: Has anyone thought about using Library of Leng as a way to eliminate your discard phase so if your opponant wants to do something during your turn, the last chance he has to do it is during your *main* phase? ie., if he wants to tap out and Whispers during your turn, he'd have to do it at the end of your main phase, which let's you back up and cast a critter or a Sorcery (say, Armageddon?) or even a Winter Orb. Some Scroll Fondler- I mean, blue mage- inferred earlier on this newsgroup that you can't play smart Magic if you are playing green. Let's talk some strategy and prove him wrong. Bennie Smith