Subject: [DECK] WurmAGeddon
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1998 11:58:01 +0200 (METDST)
From: dirk.herzog@sap-ag.de (Dirk Herzog)
To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com

Thinking about the Urza's Saga Metagame, it seems that the suicide
approach by black and red will get to a halt (especially the red
approach) and control seems to be on the rise again with cards like
Worship (drop an Arg.Enchantress and look how they deal with it).
Cards like Lifeline (that shall work after a Wrath) and Academic
Laboratory (a card that seems perfect but I doubt that somebody can
build a successful deck around (hint: how do you deal with the Scraggy))
make main deck Enchantment and Artifact removal necessary.

So I asked myself: What do all new decks probably need in masses?
Mana. Then I looked at the Argothian Wurm and deemed it as a worthy
Ernie replacement in a deck called

WurmAGeddon

Lands
8 Plains
8 Forest
4 Brushland
2 Wasteland

Other Mana
4 Mox Diamond
4 Llanowar Elves            maybe some Birds of Paradise but I don't
                            know

Land Destruction
4 Armageddon                Geddon early and often
4 Argothian Wurm             ditto

The other creatures
2 Scragnoth                 make draw go fear
4 Cartographer              you'll have alot of land in the graveyard
3 Wall of Blossoms          always useful
3 Soltari Monk              protection from Black Shadow, replace with
                            White Knight depending on the metagame

Usability
4 Reclaim                   Look, another Geddon
4 Disenchant                Maybe Monk Realist
2 Null Brooch               Counter ugly spells

Sideboard:
don't know yet, but something like
2 Null Brooch
2 Scragnoth                 Against Draw Go
2 Wasteland                 Against most everything
3 Light of Day
6 places left

The idea is to either geddon first and then play a wurm fast (so that
they don't have lands to sacrifice) or play a wurm and when they decide
to let him in, play a geddon.
In playtesting it rocks when I get a Wurm or Geddon out fast (about
50% chance for Wurm/Geddon and Llanowar/Mox until turn 3). I'll probably
up the land count about one or two but I don't know what to take off,
probably a Scraggy. This deck still needs a lot of fine tuning but it
has two definite advantages. It's fast enough against Mono Blue to put
it under pressure and Sui Black has problems to get out a Perish to
stop the Wurm. I found out that the Wurm rocks against many weenie
decks because they tend to go land light and you can often deny them
the three mana they need to work their removal.

I'd like to get some comments about the sideboard and some ideas if my
metagame prediction makes sense or if I forgot important decks that
wreak havoc to WurmAGeddon.

Best regards
   Dirk       dirk.herzog@sap-ag.de