Subject: More New T2 decks Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 16:22:24 -0400 From: Zack Weintraub Yea, I know what you're thinking right now. "This guy, why won't he just give up yet? How many janky decks does he have?" Well, quite simply, more than too much. Anyway, here's some more Stronghold impressions after the first week of sanctioned play with it for constructed. Certain cards are beginning to stand out as real winners in this set. I'm probably missing the next Ophidian or Impulse, but here are some of the better cards of the set: Mulch. This card is AMAZING. With a Sylvan, Scroll Rack, or whatever out, this thing becomes an Ancestral. With a Blessing it becomes an Ancestral AND a Feldons. It gets you out of mana screw early, gives you protection against discard mid-game, and feeds your living death for the finish. This is nice. Also great with Disturbed Burial in limited. Wall of Blossoms. This will be seen a LOT in Stompy and G/U Tradewind. It's a powerful card drawing engine with a Wildebeest or Tradewind, serves as serious defence against another Stompy or weenie deck, and doesn't cost a card to use. Shock. I was finally convinced today that it is better than Kindle. Mathematically it seems like it should be worse, because what is one more mana? But from watching it play, it is much better. It is a lot easier to get under a Scroll, and works better against mana denial type decks (Armageddon, Winter Orb, Pox, etc...). I even heard a couple people talk about it replacing Incinerates in some decks (not mono-red obviously). Think about it. How many real dangerous creatures out now are killed by an Incinerate, and not a Shock. Boa, Ophidian, Flunkie, Rouge, and not much else. Mana Leak, but everyone knew that already. Mind Games. More on that later. Mox Diamond. When this card first came out, I was one of the people that believed this would see as much serious use as Grinning Totem or Balduvian Hordes. Boy was I wrong. This card has proven to work great in two types of decks. The first is decks that don't need more than 2 or 3 land mana sources to operate. Stompy is the obvious use, but 5cg (especially with geddons) could really use this well. The second deck is decks that play with 24 to 26 land to make sure they get it. The Diamond is great for speed here, as there is a very small chance of it forcing you into a mana screw. A version of The Trap using a couple Moxes won a local 30 man tournament yesterday, and I could see it being used it hammerpost (w/o the posts, obviously) ever makes it back into the environment. Shard Pheonix. This card is not very good in the environment now, but it is a card to watch for in the future. Geddons and WOrbs are everywhere. That is the only thing that truly stops this flying buyback Pyroclasm. Where hammer was used both as single creature elimination, it's main purpose was to kill the opponent. The Pheonix works nicely in that although it doesn't hurt your opponent, it gets rid of all weenies in one fell swoop. And if nothing else, it is still a 2/2 flyer that is almost immune to creature destruction. After the first week of constructed play, there don't seem to be too many real new inventions. So far there is mostly old strategies with a couple Stronghold cards thrown into the mix. Here is a sampling of the decks I saw at yesterday's tournament: Blue/Green Tradewind Bounce (Mana Leak) Stompy (with Wall of Blossoms) The Trap (Mox Diamond) Pox (Bottomless Pit in sideboard) Mono-red (Mogg Flunkies) Static Orb/Mind Games (ok, fine, that was me :) White Weenie (didn't see any Stronghold, maybe Leaks) There were two original Stronghold created decks there (aside from SOrb/Games). Neither played in the tournament. One of them was mine. Come on people, get some original decks!! They do work!! My deck went 2-2, but that's just cause I'm an unlucky bastard. One round was a loss to a deck that should beat mine, played by a better play (Brian Fletcher playing WW), but a mana screw 2nd game didn't help. The other was just cause I can't top-deck. About 40 cards left it my library. I have to draw one of ten cards in the next 6 turns to win. 6 turns, 2 Impulses, and a Whispers later, no card. I lose to the jankiest mono-red deck there is (no fireblast, using Sandstalkers instead of Ball Lightning, maybe 2 incinerates, but 4 Kindles and Shocks) played by a less than perfect player ("I'll torch you for two." to put me to 18, when he had better things to do, AND I was tapped out anyway). None of the red decks there did real well, but none of them were really played by great players, except for Geoff Anders who made the finals (I think). And Geoff has to do well, cause his dad and brother also both play magic , and his mom ran the tournament (and is qualified for NY, and is a level 3 judge). Sheesh. Ok, here are the decks that have shown some promise so far for the new environment. I already went over some of these ideas, but they have been improved and had extras added in. Mind Games/Static Orb. It needs more speed to stop white weenie and such, but 10 counters keep it alive vs. most anything. Mulch/Scroll Rack. This deck just keeps getting better. Probably the best draw manipulation of any t2 deck, Mulchs, Blessings, Racks, Sylvans, and a pair of Pursuits make sure you have whatever card you need when you need it. 4cc White for support (Wrath, Geddon, Wisdom). Firestorm and quakes for more weenie kill. Various Hermit Druid decks. Although the Haunting Misery version had the speed, it lacked stability. Newer versions have shown some real great ideas. I'll let you come up with your own. Slivering Death. Yea, a Sliver deck. 4 of each: Crystalline, Muscle, Acidic, Spined, a couple Winged or Talon, Victuals in the side against burn. 4 Living Deaths, 4 Intuitions. Ouch. There are also some non-stronghold cards that have become much more powerful recently, and you should watch out for them: Firestorm. This card is brutal. Did your opponent just Tradewind lock you? What do you do after they drop the geddon. Play a Gemstone (or Undiscovered, or City, but Gemstone is best) and throw all the creatures that have been undone right back at them. Four to the tradewind, the Wall of Blossoms, the Ophid, and your opponent. Living Death. This card is showing up in a bunch of decks, and work great in combo with a bunch of cards. Hermit Druids, Mulchs, Intuition, and FIRESTORMS :) Gaea's Blessing. Either as a way to recyle you nasty stuff, or to get stuff out of your opponent's graveyard, this works great. Being a cantrip doesn't hurt, either. Stampeding Wildebeests. Stompy is now extending it's casting cost range to include these big tramplers. The fact that they boomerang Wall of Blossoms doesn't hurt either. Mangara's Blessing. This card truly messes with Pox. If they have three cards in hand, they don't have to discard when they get Poxed, and they gain the life AFTER they lose 1/3 of their original life, making it even better. Unfortunately, Bottomless Pit will really mess with this, if you are expecting Pits, watchout. Hope I was of some help this time. Just incase I didn't include anything totally useless, I need to add in my test results for what is becoming my favorite deck, Te/St Ensnaring Custody. Te/St format is very closed in what can be used. There are very few mass removal spells. Apocalypse and Winds of Rath are the only two that come to mind. Because there is no mass removal for artifacts or land like in t2 (geddon, WOrb, Disk, and, uhh, shatterstorm), Artifacts become much more powerful. Shatter, Disenchant, Capsize, and Tradewind Riders become the only really good ways to get rid of artifacts. Now, the best artifacts in Te/St are without a doubt Cursed Scroll and Ensnaring Bridge. Both of these artifacts work best with an empty (or almost empty hand), making countermagic a bad solution to protecting them. This is where the Custody comes in. Hanna's Custody will prevent all of your artifacts from Shatters and Disenchants and such as long as it survives. Now shatter can't kill enchantments, so it is protected from that. There can only be four disenchants in a deck, so each Custody takes out one valuable disenchant from their deck. You will rarely see someone running both Shatter and Disenchant, as they will dilute a deck too much. Capsize and Tradewind Rider are a problem, but the rest of the deck can deal with them. Bottomless Pit helps stop the Capsize (unless they want to tap out during their upkeep). Banishes can kill Tradewinds, and Scrolls can remove the creatures that would be used to fuel the Tradewinds. The rest of the deck takes advantage of keeping your hand low, having artifacts that can't be targetted, and defence until a Bridge gets out. I am using Bottle Gnomes, Scalding Tongs, Watchdog (yea, no joke), and Wall of Souls to fill up that space. More anti-blue (Pit, Coersion) and anti-speed (Perish, another Banish) in the sideboard, and you're got one screwed up deck. ---Zack Weintraub ICQ UIN# 1877572 Scrub #03018 http://www.users.fast.net/~gandalf/index.html Ignorance and Apathy: I don't know and I don't care.