Subject: TE/ST Deck Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 13:18:09 -0700 From: Caloy Alejandro Hi guys. Well, we just finished our Open Championships, which is something akin to being the junior of the Nationals (which is in 3 weeks), here in the Philippines, and the format was TE/ST. Attendance was at around 120, give or take. I wracked my brain for several days as to the metagame and any possible deck design. Funny thing was, I logged onto Undernet #mtg a few days ago and asked to playtest with anyone. One of the guys said TE/ST wasn't a popular format because you either played straight red with CScrolls, or had 3 main board Chills. Well, that decided things for me. Listed here is the deck I used in the Open. The Cursed Bottomless Bridge. 4 Ensnaring Bridges 4 Cursed Scrolls 4 Bottle Gnomes 4 Essence Bottles 3 Puppet Strings 1 Grindstone 4 Diabolic Edicts 4 Coercion 3 Evincar's Justice 2 Bottomless Pits 4 Disenchants 6 Plains 17 Swamps Sideboard 3 Perish 3 Dread of Night 2 Bottomless Pits 2 Mind Peel 2 Dark Ritual 2 Rats of Rath 1 Evincar's Justice I know I know. It's a funny deck, but try it out. It's a practice in what we here in our country call "the perpetual search for degeneracy". Keep things simple, non-combo reliant, try to break cards like crazy, and you have a decent deck. Empty your hand, sit behind the bridge, wait for the CScroll while gaining life (one game, I was down to 1 life, then managed to sit behind the bridge and gained life using the different bottles, and actually hit around 130 life at the end of the game), and either whack him continuously with the scroll or grind away. This gives blue fits because of the Pits, and nullifies almost 50% of the field which is based on creature offence. I was in one game facing down around 20 or so of assorted critters from a Living Death knocking at my gates, but the bridge was up and I had no cards in hand. :) And he had no anti-artifact cards. Red, if not fast enough in the first 4 turns, gets locked down as well. You might be wondering why the heck are the Dark Rituals in the sideboard? TE/ST is a slow environment, I don't need much speed in setting up. But if it comes a time wherein I have to face down a horde of critters in a short amount of time, just stick in the Rituals, and empty your hand faster. Besides, I couldn't think of anything else to use. :) The only nemesis this deck faced was a Blue deck based around Tradewind Riders, not Capsize. Dumb me thought that Tradewinds were going to see minimal use, but they were all over the place in U/W weenie bounce decks. Anyway, this is posted here for you guys to read and criticize. Email is welcome. BTW, for those of you who've read the Philippine Open tourney report which might be posted on the Dojo, I didn't lose to a white weenie. That was the game where I was at 1 life and then hit 130. :) I lost to a REALLY fast Red beatdown deck which killed me at turn 5. Ugh. That and to a Tradewind Rider deck. I went 5-2 that day, one win short of the top 8. Oh well. -Caloy +------------------------+------------------------+ | Caloy Alejandro | IRC Nick: Phelan | | freeman@iconn.com.ph | ICQ UIN : 3718395 | | yue_lung@geocities.com | | |"Nowhere to go but up, nowhere to fall but down."| +------------------------+------------------------+