Subject: New type II deck Date: Wed, 15 Jul 1998 00:51:36 EDT From: Eeeeegon@aol.com To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com DECKS 'The Spangler' Type II legal 21 Forest 4 Mtenda Lion 4 Wall of Blossoms 2 Heartwood Dryad 1 River Boa 1 Uktabi Orangutan 1 Killer Bees 4 Nature's Lore 4 Wild Growth 3 Creeping Mold 3 Gaea's Blessing 2 Recycle 2 Earthcraft 1 Vitalize 1 Dense Foliage 1 City of Solitude 1 Summer Bloom 2 Snake Basket 1 Magma Mine 1 Jester's Cap First of all, let me tell everyone who's reading this that, yes, this IS a green deck. In the past, the only real Type II decks with a lot of green were Senor Stompy, or twisted land destruction, or possibly graveyard recursion with Gaea's Blessings, but always with a complementary color. This is a mono-green deck created to give the green mages some excuses to actually be proud to play green--it's not a brainless weenie deck, it's not a speed-big fatty deck, it's not a 'Kill Blue!' or 'Kill Black!!' deck (although i Have seen those done, with limited success). Instead, it's a combo deck with many ways to win. Most green decks in Type II play those core staple cards, and everyone knows what they are--Wall of Blossoms, River Boa, Mtenda Lion, Uktabi Orangutan. Most others play Creeping Mold for whatever's annoying (mostly those pesky blue-enchantments that Every blue mage plays), and Gaea's Blessing to get creatures and key spells back in the deck. This deck uses a similar idea--Play a few small creatures to block (or attack, but it's not really necessary.. you'll see why), Creeping Mold their artifacts and enchantments, and Blessing them all back. But, this deck uses some Very underrated cards in the Type II environment. First, Nature's Lore. This card is very powerful. At first glance, it looks like a waste. You are forced to grab a forest from your deck and it's worthless if you don't have two untapped lands. In my opinion, this card makes the deck work fast. Four in the deck virtually guarantees 6 lands by the 5th turn, which is all that's needed to start the combo. Three lands at the end of turn 2 isn't bad. Just consider the Nature's Lore as a forest that's from the inside of your deck, and you're all set. OK.. Enough babbling. This is how it works. On turn 5 or 6, play Recycle. If there's an Earthcraft in play, that's great; if not, it'll still work, it'll just be a little slower. The idea is to crank out a bunch of snakes, use the mana to cast spells in your hand (and therefore filling your hand again from Recycle) and casting more spells. Once it gets going, you should have about 20 or 30 snakes, and an Earthcraft in play, and a land enchanted with one, two, or maybe three Wild Growths. You're all set when this happens. Magma Mine is a creatureless way to kill; all it takes is 80 mana to kill the other guy, which is very easy to do with this deck. If all else fails, just attack with your Snakes. You usually get incredible card advantage from Snake Basket anyway, but using them to get more mana than it cost to make them is even better. Wall of Blossoms and Gaea's Blessings increase your hand size by 1 with a Recycle in play; that's why these cards are crucial. Often times, you will have two Forests in your hand at the beginning of your turn, so you play one, and you draw another. There's really nothing you can do. Nature's Lores help prevent this, and Summer Bloom helps you get more cards out of it, but besides that, you'll waste a turn. You can always attack with your critters or tap them all to inflate the Mine, though. The Cap is used to cap the Caps. It's as simple as that. If someone caps this deck, they're gonna get 2 Earthcrafts and a Snake Basket, so you want to get rid of their caps as soon as you can. Some problems are: Suicide Black. I've done a lot of playtesting against very good suicide black, and i've only gone about 30/70 with this deck. Just hope you don't see them..... if you do, play creatures as soon as you can. If you have a choice between River Boa and Nature's Lore, play the Boa. Creatures are obviously your best defense against creature-heavy Suicide Black. Counter/Tradewind: Some playtesting against this. Many times, it's the first person to three creatures who wins. Lions are almost worthless; Counter decks always leave mana open for a potential Counter. The City should be played so their Tradewinds are forced to bounce during their turn. Once a Recycle is played, and you have one or two untapped lands, you should be able to make enough snakes to overwhelm the opponent; blue mages can't block a lot of weenies. Creeping Molds pop the Propagandas and Pendrell Mists, obviously.. good luck against those blue decks. Prosper-Bloom: No playtesting against it, but i imagine that the deck would do very well against Bloom. They're both Combo decks, and only my 'Spangler' deck has a Cap. It's a race to see who can pull it off first. Sligh: Surprisingly, this deck doesn't do too bad against red DD. They just can't get through the Wall of Blossoms, and the Snakes are often just too much for them. Even five snakes could be a problem for a red mage. Watch out for Earthquake; if that happens, just regroup.. you should have reserves in your hand. >From the metagame that I am in, there's a lot of creatureless-blue control decks. Rarely do people play Green Weenie, and you absolutely never see bloom decks. Around here, (manassas,) the biggest problem is Cursed Scroll and Red DD. In fact, my brother (Cyberfist1@aol.com) has his famous red-burn deck, and Everyone wants to know what's in it. It has three Furnaces, some Fireballs, four Earthquakes, and four of those Goblins that hit the opponent for as much damage as was dealt to him. See the combo? trust me.. it works. But my 'Spangler' deck beats it.. ha ha ha. Creeping Molds kill Furnaces, Lightning Clouds, Cursed Scrolls, walls block Goblins, and my combo goes off on turn 6. I win :-) This deck was basically a wake-up call for everyone in this metagame; you have to be prepared for anything. Even a crazy green snake-recycle-earthcraft-wild growth-gaea's blessing-mtenda lion deck. Anything can happen with this deck. Rich Mays ********************************************************************** Send all Comments / Requests / Insults / EMail Bombs / Death Threats to: eeeeegon@aol.com and i'll be sure to recycle it. Ha ha ha Just let me know that you actually read this article; that'll help out. ********************************************************************** Oh yeah... I'm an entering Freshman at Va Tech. I've played magic since Fallen Empires, and played Type II back in the day when Hippies were The Card, Stasis was the deck to play, and Alliances was the Future. Since that day, I've hated one card - The Rack. A poor player used four Racks in his black-discard deck and stomped me with them. Grrrr........ I've been collecting them ever since. dirty racks. **********************************************************************