Subject: Speeding up Donais U5C Date: Wed, 29 Apr 1998 11:26:38 +0000 From: "Orlando" <9641408@mull.sms.ed.ac.uk> To: "The Dojo" After playing Donais' U5C in the Edinburgh EMAILE tournament last Sunday I decided to continue playing the deck with a few alterations. The thing that I found most unsatisfactory about the deck was the huge amount of time it took to win. I do not enjoy playing just one game in a match, and although this is a good strategy for this deck it goes against my grain. Consequently I wanted to reduce the kill time to something more reasonable, such as 20 - 25 minutes. I wanted a source of damage that didn't cost much mana but was capable of reliably doing my opponent 20 damage in as small amount of time as possible - CREATURES! Realising that this went against the theme of giving your opponent dead cards I had to be picky about the creatures I used. They'd have to be either immune to my opponents anti-creature cards or gain card advantage if they were hit with an anti-creature spell. So I picked Rainbow Efreet and Shard Phoenix. The efreet is almost immune to all anti-creature cards provided it is backed up by enough mana to phase when needed. This is typically not a problem with this deck, so that was okay. The Shard Phoenix shares the property of the Uktabi Orangutan that it is a utility card that gains card advantage in itself. The fact that it can be resurrected is probably less important, but makes it an obvious choice. I wanted to be sure that I'd always have enough mana to phase the efreets, so I stuck another Island in. After adding 2 of each creature and 1 Island I had to remove 5 cards. The Flood Plain struck me as the obvious choice to swap for an island, because you do need a lot of land for this deck, and this card means that in the long run you just have one less land in play. I also found myself in the situation that I had all three Islands and the one Plains in play, so the Flood Plain became a dead card. The other cards removed were: Impulse: the large number of cantrips is a key feature to this deck, but whilst playing I felt that four of these was unnecessary. I always found that I had something to deal with the situation without falling back on Impulse. Dissipate: The number of counterspells in the deck is slightly too high for combating weenie decks, so replacing one with a creature removal spell (Phoenix) seemed appropriate. Whispers of the Muse: I found that the first 2 or even 3 of these were unwanted when they came early on in the game. I always wanted something else whenever I drew these. Fireball: After adding four more cards to win the game, two of which doubled as direct creature removal, meant that this card was unnecessary. The deck still has 17 cantrips in it (indicated by the asterisks below), which is ample. I changed the sideboard a bit as well. I wanted a contingency plan for when the first game is lost. While the speed of the deck has improved it is still tight to fit in three games in an hour. Consequently I added two more kill cards - the Fireball I removed and another Rainbow Efreet. These took the place of a Hydroblast and a Warmth - both of which I felt were unnecessary because of the ease with which this deck handles Sligh, especially with the still heavy anti-red sideboard. The final deck listing now looks like this: 4 wall of blossoms * 3 gaea's blessing * 2 uktabi orangutang 4 wrath of god 1 disenchant 3 gerrard's wisdom 3 impulse * 3 whispers of the muse * 4 counterspell 2 dissipate 4 dismiss * 2 rainbow efreet 1 fireball 2 shard phoenix 1 wasteland 1 quicksand 2 thalakos lowlands 1 adarkar wastes 1 vec township 1 plains 1 svyelunite temple 4 island 1 forest 4 reflecting pool 1 undiscovered paradise 1 city of brass 3 gemstone mine sideboard: 1 rainbow efreet 1 fireball 1 phyrexian furnace * 1 warmth 2 cop red 1 null rod 1 hydroblasts 2 teferi's realm 1 mangara's blessing 2 pyroblast 2 lobotomy Another card being considered for the sideboard is Sacred Ground, what with land destruction being one of the more effective ways of beating this deck. Any comments, etc. would be greatly appreciated: mailto:o.f.richards@sms.ed.ac.uk Rock on everyone, Orlando Richards, Team Puppet, Level II Judge.