Subject: Type 2 New Prison Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 14:08:52 -0500 From: Stephen B Laird Hello all, I've been working on a TypeII Prison deck for a little while, and I think it's getting fairly well tuned, so I figured I'd offer it up to the group for some critique, dissection, that sort of thing. I think Prison variants can be fairly strong with the meta-game now, since there's not a great deal of heavy permission and speed is king. First, here's the deck, then some explanations. LairdPrison (everyone else seems to just tack their names onto the front of Prison Decks, so why not?) doesn't roll off the tongue like FinkelPrison, though. 4 Counterspell 3 Dissipate 4 Impulse 4 Propaganda 3 Gaea's Blessing 4 Wrath of God 4 Gerrard's Wisdom 4 Howling Mine 4 Static Orb 2 Disenchant 3 Undiscovered Paradise 3 City of Brass 3 Gemstone Mine 1 Adarkar Wastes 1 Thalakos Lowlands 11 Islands 4 Plains I don't like normally like to throw in just 4 of every important card, but it's absolutely necessary that the deck get certain cards early, several times, in order to survive (Propaganda, Wrath, Wisdom). Anyway, here's the basic premise. Everyone is used to PropaOrb with Winter Orbs, but the fact is Winter Orbs just have no effect on most tourney decks these days. If a deck gets hurt by them, it just won't survive. So I thought some more about and figured Static Orbs would be perfect. Propaganda makes it cost 2 to attack, and when you can only untap 2 permanents per turn with the Static Orb out, that makes repeated a losing proposition. Static Orb just abuses swarm decks, because it gives them a choice of untapping land or creatures. Stompy loves Worbs, for example, but when you've 4 creatures and 2 land out, what do you untap? However, in a deck in which only land needs to untap, 2 is not a considerable slowdown. Most of the time, there is very little effect, as you only need to have 1 untapped land at the end of your opponent's turn in order to have 4 available on yours (you've got 1 untapped, untap 2 with the Static Orb, then play 1 more, not uncommon with multiple Howling Mines out). So you can cast virtually anything in the deck. The deck wins by decking, obviously, and the Gaea's Blessings are fantastic in the deck, probably the single most important card to winning. Recurse Wisdom's against burn, Wrath against creatures, and counters against everyone if you've got nothing better to do. Playing Gerrard's Wisdom 5 or 6 times against a burn deck is usually to make the player cry, especially when each one is for 20 or so with Mines and Paradises out. I beat Alan Webster up for a while with it, ("eeyoo" on the newsgroups and Dojo), and he came up with the idea of the Mines. I'd initially had Thumbscrews and a few more counters, but the Mines work beautifully, don't know why I didn't think of them myself. One thing we were debating was the addition of 1 or 2 Island Sanctuaries. Another card to prevent attacks would never be a bad thing, since some decks are still able to pay for Propaganda, and the biggest benefit would probably be the ability to draw fewer cards and help me not deck myself first. With the large amount of library manipulation and card drawing, I usually get 3 or 4 Mines out, and have had a few close calls. The dissipates are in there for more counter support but are equally important for removing the opponents Blessings from the game. Anyway, that's pretty much it, have fun with it, Steve