Subject: Could This Be The One? Date: Sun, 12 Apr 1998 22:08:56 +0800 From: Vicente Singson To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com I believe, after playtesting against almost every single variety of deck there is available, that the deck I am going to list below can win over any opponent regardless of deck type. It simply has an answer for everything, and though I haven't played it in a tour- nament yet, if I can turn all the proxies in my playtest deck into true cards, I'm going to enter it into my country's (Philippines) national championships. 4 Pox 4 Cursed Scroll 4 Rain of Tears 4 Choking Sands 4 Bottomless Pit 4 Funeral Charm 2 Army Ants 2 Vampiric Tutor 2 Lobotomy 2 Ensnaring Bridge 3 Bottle Gnomes 4 Dark Ritual 13 Swamp 4 City of Brass 4 Gemstone Mine The deck's principle is simple-disrupt, disrupt, and disrupt your opponent. Funeral Charms apply early pressure, and Cursed Scroll can sneak by the base-blue decks that so litter the current environment. Once a Bottomless Pit is down and once your opponent's land has been mostly, if not completely blown away by the broken Pox, Choking Sands and Rain of Tears, you have achieved a complete lock when you place the Army Ants down. This deck may seem similar to Jay Schneider's Gypsy Pox, but it works on a different set of principles. This is the main one- Cursed Scroll-Pox-Bottomless Pit-Rain of Tears/Choking Sands These four ultra-efficient cards not only work fantastically independent of each other, but combo so unbelievably well together that the multiple disruption on four fronts (Hand, Land, Life and Creatures) usually completely disorients the opponent so much so that he can only stare as his precious resources are being whittled away little by little as his life is being eaten away by multiple Poxes and Scroll hits. The second principle is that the deck's support cards are also great combos with the main cards, as well as being completely variable according to the metagame. Lobotomy on the second turn will kill most combo-based decks not relying on Disrupt while the Army Ants down in the mid-game while your opponent is hand-less and mostly mana-less is usually enough to force a "concede" from your opponent. Ensnaring Bridge shuts down Sligh, Stompy and other creature-based threats while Bottle Gnomes is efficient life gain and Pox relief. Funeral Charms are both versatile and efficient, and since lack of speed and having cards in your hand are problems, four Dark Rituals are excellent choices. All of these cards can be switched for better metagame choices (such as Jester's Cap, Pauper's Cage, Drain Life) while keeping the core intact. The sideboard is equally up to conjecture as pertaining to the metagame. This deck shows a lot of promise, although I have been very lax in making and playing with it. If this article ever sees the light of day, I hope a reader could play it in a tour- nament and post the results, if it's not too much to ask. Thanks! Nick Ortega