After much discussion on the ‘Net on the about whether a NecroDeck would win another big tourney, Chris Pikula took this deck to the Quarter finals of the Dallas PT (not bad for a guy from Indiana). His team mate Worth Wollpert finished a respectable 19th. The Pikula/Wollpert creation is a NecroDeck, but is certainly a hybrid form, with the inclusion of 10 red spells in the main deck. This deck, like Bentley’s, includes no Disk’s in the main deck or sideboard, leaving the job of permanent control to the red spells - and creature on creature combat. Pikula’s deck, oddly enough, only features one discard spell - the lone hymn. This deck then, is perhaps testament in itself to the power of “Necropotence”, and the power of the best card-drawing machine in Type II, soon to be gone.

Pikula's Hybrid NecroDeck, November 24th 1996
4 Hypnotic Specter 4 Order of the Ebon Hand 4 Black Knight 2 Knights of Stromgald	1 Hymn to Tourach 4 Dark Ritual 3 Necropotence 3 Drain Life	4 Lightning Bolt 3 Incinerate 1 Fireball 1 Shatter 1 Zuran Orb 1 Black Vise
1 Strip Mine 1 City of Brass 4 Sulfurous Springs 1 Lava Tubes 4 Mountain 12 Swamp	Sideboard: 4 Dystopia 4 Anarchy 1 Shatter 1 Infernal Darkness	Sideboard (cont): 1 Contagion 1 Ivory Tower 1 Necropotence 2 Pyroblast

Notes from Chris Pikula on his deck:

Mirage gives us the new Hymn, Stupor. Well, very simply, Stupor ain't Hymn. Hymn is disruption, Stupor is moderate card advantage. I decided early on I would not play mono-black Necro- I knew Stupor would not "protect" the Disk like Hymn, and I didn't consider mono-black, Diskless Necro to be an option. I decided on B/R, due to Red's ability to wreck WW, Stasis, and Whirling Dervish. My original B/R had only 6 Knights, only 4 bolts, and 4 Stupors. I developed a dislike for Stupor from the beginning- Stuporing someone after they had cast an Ernham seemed ineffective. I also developed a theory that discard was not nearly as strong in a single-minded deck like mine. Many of my Stupors would simply remove anti-artifact cards from my opponents hand. I was basically making my cards "dead" cards instead of their's. So, as an experiment, I simply yanked the Stupors for Incinerates at 3 AM while lying in bed. The next day, I started murdering everything. After losing to another NecroDeck in NYC the week before the PT, I decided I needed more creatures. Originally, I added Factories, but I ended up just adding Knights. My final deck was something I was very happy with. Going into the tourney, my biggest fears were Hammer of Bogardan and COP:Black. I didn't see much of these. One more thing, my deck once again did not contain Ivory Tower. I did have a much better reason this time- against most decks, the tower would simply get blown up before I gained any life. I had no artifacts, not even Factories to suck up Disenchants. Black Vise does its damage before the game starts, and, as we say on the Pro Tour, Zuran Orb is a sorcery. It should also be noted that 2 of the other top 4 decks at Dallas were also Necrodecks. Brian Hacker played a black weenie very similar to Dave Price's PT1 deck. Brian didn't even use a Zuran Orb! (In his match against Marc Hernandez, Hernandez spent 5 minutes trying to Grinning Totem Hacker, because he was convinced he was somehow missing the Zorb every time through the deck.) Paul McCabe played a discard/big creature/Lake of the Dead deck and won the whole tourney. I beat this deck earlier in the tournament (played by Eric Tam). The most interesting thing about these decks is that they have almost nothing in common other than Necropotence and Hypnotic Specter. This, more than anything, shows the power of Necropotence.

- C. Pikula

This deck is a departure from the standard Necrodeck, being creature light and having only one land destruction card. It stresses life gain through Lake of the Dead powered Drain Life's and a main deck four Necro's. The card advantage aspect is brought to the fore-front with 7 discard spells and 4 Disks.

 The Magic Dojo© 1997 Frank Kusumoto. Please report bugs or problems to webmaster@classicdojo.org.