Subject: [DECK] Breaking Limited Resources in TSE, Empty Hand Concepts, & more new tech Date: Sat, 01 Aug 1998 01:59:02 -0700 From: Michael Bahr Newsgroups: rec.games.trading-cards.magic.strategy Hi all. Just Mike, your friendly neighborhood deckbuilder here. If only I played the game as well as I built decks. :) I have two decks for you today, as well as the skeletal outlines of two more. I've been screwing with this tech all week getting ready for the side tourneys at tomorrow morning's PTQ. (Well, I guess technically it's this morning, but I can't sleep.) First of all, I was sure (as most of you were) that Limited Resources was broken in some way. Well, it's at least very very strong, and I didn't even see the answer until it fell on top of me: a general deck concept that's already used can break LR!!! Specifically, in the TSE format where Firestorm isn't available. A few more modifications were necessary to truly put the deck into overdrive. Take a look at this deck outline. Do NOT think it's just a Tradewind deck until you truly think about how it works: RATH CYCLE CONSTRUCTED: BAHR'S L.R. LOCKDOWN 4 Limited Resources 4 Wall of Blossoms 4 Tradewind Rider 4 Spike Feeder 4 Spike Weaver 4 Mana Leak 4 Counterspell 2 Intuition 2 Harrow 3 Mox Diamond 1 Maze of Shadows 4 Wasteland 4 Skyshroud Forest 4 Vec Township 4 Thalakos Lowlands 4 Reflecting Pool 4 Island 4 Forest 2 Plains It's beautiful in its simplicity. Unlike a lot of Tradewind soft-locks, this one just blocks and loves life all over the place, with Weavers if needed and Feeders for life, until it's ready to slap down the Resources with some lands in hand. Every turn, the balance of mana will shift from 5/5 to 6/4, then 7/3, then 8/2, 9/1, and finally 10 with your opponent unable to lay any more land! If you can counter their Mox Diamond (if they're even playing with them) then that's a hard lock, mate. Land Equilibrium never had it so good. In playing this deck, you actually do one thing out of the ordinary: if they're not beating you down with critters, you use a Tradewind group to bounce a land right after your draw phase, then lay a land of your own... basically just get right to work on it, force the lock as soon as you can. On another subject, I have read about the various empty hand concepts such as AcD and so forth, and I have reached the conclusion that we're going about it all wrong. What we need to make that deck work is FAST MANA. Scrolls are nice early critter control... the Bridge will do our work later on... what we need to do is get fast mana to get Null Brooches into play early and make them usable. Here's my look at an empty-hand deck made to maximize Standard's options: STANDARD: BAHR'S IMMEDIATELY EMPTY HAND [Green Tech] 4 Cursed Scroll 4 Ensnaring Bridge 4 Scalding Tongs 4 Null Brooch 4 Eladamri's Vineyard 4 Spike Feeder 4 Llanowar Elves 4 Mindless Automaton 4 Creeping Mold 4 Quicksand 4 Wasteland 16 Forest Look carefully at the various metagame tweaks this deck contains. It's virtually Wasteland-proof (as well as the other NBL hosers) because nobody cares about Wastelanding your Wastelands. :) The Mindless Automaton is a source of endless happiness for this deck as it can sink the Vineyard mana, be manipulated in size to either defend well or to do the "Bridge Shuffle". The shuffle of course is that you use the Automaton's ability to shrink itself so you can draw cards (assumedly you'll have made it fairly big as the game goes on) and it will eventually get small as your hand gets big so it can attack under your Ensnaring Bridge at 3/3 or 4/4 usually; you can then (depending on mana constraints and Vineyard use) chuck what you just drew to shrink your hand again (making the Bridge effective against your opponent again) and make the Automaton big again. I'm a big believer in the Automaton, whether in the Survival of the Fittest deck or here in BIEH. But in Rath Cycle, there's no Scroll. The Empty-hand deck has to take a different turn in order to control the many AND FAST creatures Rath has to offer. I turn to Red, and I turn to a different land mix augmented by Seismic Assault to make this empty-hand deck chug along even without a Scroll. RATH CYCLE CONSTRUCTED: BAHR'S SEISMIC BROOCH 4 Bridge 4 Tongs 4 Brooch 4 Gnomes (they just kick butt, let me tell you.) 4 Seismic Assault 4 Mogg Fanatic 4 Shock 4 Fireslinger 2 Shattering Pulse 2 Mindless Automaton 4 Wasteland 20 Mountain This deck is just plain out and out quick. Even Chill doesn't hurt much because you can win without a lot of support from red. Again, the Automaton-Bridge-Brooch-Tongs-hand synergy is present. This time, it's supported by reusable direct damage, a buyback artifact killer to beat this very deck (hopefully), and the Gnomes again to bring you back from the brink if things start poorly. I haven't included sideboards today because let's face it folks, it's pretty easy to figure what to use nowadays. :) People often ask me, "Mike, how come the decks you build usually have 4 copies each of few cards? Doesn't that open you up to all sorts of nastiness from Lobotomy, Eye of Singularity, Bazaar of Wonders, and so forth?" My honest reply, other than that those cards aren't used enough to make me afraid (heheh) is that the simpler a deck is while still accomplishing a task, no matter how complex that task, the more likely the deck will function well under poor game conditions. I also run land ratios a bit high for some folks' tastes... I find that part of what makes all these decks work SO WELL is the land and the fact that I always try to provide ways to use it productively even late in the game. Heck, in the Limited Resources deck, land is a desirable draw once LR is on the table because it furthers the lock! Anyway, if you've never tried any of my decks in tournament play, I encourage you to give them a workout. I test them thoroughly to flesh out the concept as well as possible and give the deck player as many options as I can throughout each stage of the game. The BRO deck (also posted to usenet and recently seen on the dojo) is another deck of this kind, using Oath of Lieges and Reaping the Rewards to considerable effect. Finally, some tech for today: 1. Horse Drain. This is a concept that is incomplete as far as I can tell, and will be further refined before becoming a prominent deck type. I will probably make a go at it myself, but the folks who designed it first would have more experience and could do better. Any time you have the possibility for resource recursion like that, the abusive potential of a deck is tapped. I don't even know if the final concept will still use the Workhorse but that otherwise crappy rare is sure gonna get a workout if the top players try it... because it DOES play well. My tech pick for the week is using the Horse in conjunction with any resource-recursing element you can in order to abuse mana and graveyard reanimation. 2. Mindless Automaton. I know I already said it, but this card is truly gangbusters. At 6 mana it would still get played, it's that good. So many decks can use its ability to great effect because it's what's called a Reversal-Of-Disadvantage card. Like the next card. 3. Survival of the Fittest. Whether combined with Recurring or not, SOTF is a Reversal-Of-Disadvantage card. Its supposed disadvantage is a required function of any deck that does graveyard diddlydoo as its engine. Because there's no Ebony Charm, Dissipate, or Phyrexian Furnace in Rath Cycle, expect the Survival/Recurring deck to do VERY well during the Rath constructed PTQ season coming up. This deck is very strong tech at this time. 4. Finally, Keeper of the Dead with Oath of Ghouls. I am convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that an abusive deck exists between the two, and I'll post it when it springs full forth in my mind. :) There's no WAY that having constant destruction with constant recursion, both with the same effects denominator (keeping your own graveyard full) is a bad thing. A deck with, you guessed it, Mindless Automatons, combined with Spike Feeders and Weavers and perhaps a horde of black Shadow would probably serve nicely in this case. Work with that skeletal deck concept and see what you find out... it CAN be done, and Oath of Druids is not necessarily the most beneficial way to do it, especially in Rath constructed where there's no Gaea's Blessing. 5. I find it greatly amusing and also promising that the "hoax" deck of Spike Cannibal and Aku Djinn is being taken seriously and made workable. Of all the goofy-assed combos that I've seen over the years, I gotta like anything that involves the Aku Djinn, the Djinn that just SHOULDA been good, but really wasn't. :) That's all for today, keep on building and playing, and may you always draw three land in your opening hand!!! -- - Mike Bahr - remove ANTISPAM in my address header to reply - Owner: Wizard's Tower Gaming Center in Mesa, AZ (Opens August 8th) - http://www.goodnet.com/~emerald/ - Magic, AD&D, Battletech and more! - Side project: Prism Records, the finest in Australian import CDs - http://www.goodnet.com/~durnik/ - Rush,Dreamtheater,QRyche,Metallica! - Magic: the Gathering "Duelists' Convocation Level 2 Certified Judge" - d u r n i k@g o o d n e t.c o m - If it's nae Scottish,it's CRAP!