Subject: Hand to Hand - kinda long Date: Thu, 11 Dec 1997 09:50:52 PST From: Doland Cheung CO-ON x3400 location 11-075 The other day, Dan Gray posted to usenet that Hand to Hand prevents your opponent from paying mana to attack under Propaganda (i don't agree with this personally), making this an almost creature lock for your opponent. So it got me thinking of Hand to Hand again. At first, I thought the card was useful only to rid annoying regenerators, but I was thinking about it last night and realized that it stops alot of other popular creatures. When in combat under Hand to Hand, Frenetic can't phase, Ophidian can't draw, Goblin Vandal can't kill your artifacts, Mogg Fanatic can't block and poke you, pump knights can't pump, Boas can't regenerate, etc. I began thinking, hey, this could be a pretty useful card. Combined with Propaganda, it stops all attack. So, why not a Propaganda/Hand to Hand deck? More interesting than Propa-Orb, imho. I've managed to pull 3 of those damn Hand to Hands anyways, so why not use them? Here's a quick deck: 10 island 8 mountain 2 caldera lake 2 undiscovered paradise 3 adakar wastes u/r likes lots of land and i always get mana hosed playing u/r. i just do, don't ask....didn't add cities of brass due to hammers, below. ditto for gemstone mine and undiscovered. reflecting pools would be cool, but i only have one, deck might use 2 max though. 4 propaganda 3 hand to hand the creature lock, only 3 hand to hand because i only have 3. suppose this could be 4. 4 counterspell 4 dissipate 2 dismiss counters are good. dismiss is good, but mucho mana. i like dissipate and i've always been unlucky with disrupt. ymmv though. 4 incinerate 2 earthquake 1 fireball removal til you gain control. 3 hammer of bogardan 4 suq'ata firewalker 1 wildfire emissary 2 cursed scroll killing mechanisms. either tim him to death or recurse hammer. wildfire is in there just for fun and cursed scroll is for those damn soltari priests and opponents firewalkers. 2 disenchant hey, disk kills this deck. it's not optimum now, but it's a rough draft from an existing u/r deck i had with the usual complement of frenetics, man'o'wars, ophidians, etc. I want to add 4 impulses somewhere, but haven't been able to find room. I originally want this to be just a firewalker deck, but I may be forced to kill my own firewalkers with earthquakes so i added the hammers for another path of victory. besides, he isn't immune to edict either. cursed scroll wouldn't be too hot with the lock out and 7 cards in my hand, but priests are annoying. non-land mana would be useful too. what do you all think?? does anybody know of any other useful things for Hand to Hand?? doland ps. as a side note, i think Propaganda should be a phase cost, not an undefined type that defaults to "instant". very poor wording, imho. i don't see why it can't be an attack phase cost. is there such a thing as phase cost??