Subject: Turbo Death Deck Design Date: Mon, 16 Feb 1998 19:15:23 -0800 From: "dhoffmeyer" To: My Friend Lance Olson and I have been working together on two versions of a living death deck for type two. Both decks are very similar with our own thoughts on compliments to the base deck. The basis for our decks was to be able to win by turn five since most decks that where being played typically had a lock by then. We set out to focus our attack strategy by using big flying creatures without summoning sickness. This meant only two creatures and one of them being a legendary creature. This still made the deck very effective since it could yield 14 points of damage on turn three. Next thing we had to over come was how to generate big amounts of mana by turn three. This was solved by using both dark rituals and ancient tombs. This allowed us if the card drew right a turn two buried alive and a turn three living death. This only draw back was that you took damage to use the ancient tombs. The decks that we focused on for play testing against was sligh, cursed stompy, big blue, four color black and five color green. These decks seemed to be played the most and had a fast damage curve with the exception of big blue being a more defensive deck. After testing against all of them with a above average win ratio the only thing that we noticed about the deck is that if it went past turn six the less chance the deck had of winning. With this information and a fare amount of play testing we decided it was time to test the decks in a tournament environment. This past Saturday we decided to play the two versions of the decks and see how they would work. The local tournament had its usual turn out of 36 people so the test against various deck designs would be very good. After four rounds of swiss my record was 7-2 and Lance's record was 8-2. Both of us made it into the final round of eight with Lance being number two and I was number three. This meant that if we won our rounds in the final eight we would meet in the final. This is where my deck died a horrible death and didn't draw any portion of the combo except for game two of the best of three. Lance did do well and won the tournament beating the deck that I had lost to in the fourth round of swiss. All in all a very good showing for both decks. Please feel free to critique the deck and feel free to e-mail me about it. My Deck Lance's Deck Main Deck Main Deck Black Black 1 Spirit of the Night 1 Spirit of the Night 2 Black Knight 4 Vampiric Tutor 2 Hidden Horror 4 Buried Alive 2 Vampiric Tutor 4 Dark Ritual 4 Buried Alive 4 Living Death 4 Dark Ritual Red 4 Living Death 2 Firestorm Red 3 Pyroblast 2 Firestorm 4 Volcanic Dragon 4 Volcanic Dragon Blue Blue 3 Brainstorm 4 Counterspell 3 Impulse 4 Impulse White White 3 Staunch Defenders 2 Staunch Defenders 2 Archangels Land Land 2 City of Brass 4 City of Brass 2 Reflecting Pool 2 Reflecting Pool 2 Underground River 3 Ancient Tomb 3 Ancient Tomb 4 Gemstone Mine 4 Gemstone Mine 1 Sulfurous Spring 5 Island 10 Swamp 7 Swamp Sideboard Sideboard 4 Perish 1 Feldon's Cane 3 Gloom 2 Perish 1 Pyroblast 3 Gloom 3 Lobotomy 3 Pyroblast 4 Chill 3 Hydroblast 3 Lobotomy