Subject: The 007 Deck Date: Tue, 22 Sep 1998 17:20:59 +0200 From: Matthew.WILLIAMS@SG.cec.be To: With all this recent talk of how Oath of Scholars and Ensnaring Bridge were screaming out for each other I thought I'd revisit my Sheep Dip deck and see if I could "improve" it. It was always huge fun to play but not overly consistent. For those of you who didn't see it, it used Manabond, Oath of Scholars, Ensnaring Bridge and Ovinomancer to create all sorts of weirdness. Basically I created the deck so that I could finally use the Ovinomancer and shout "BBAAAAA" at people whenever I used him. Who needs Unglued anyway? However, the deck failed more than it succeeded because people just pinged or burnt the Ovinomancer leaving me with nothing to do. So I've modified the deck a little and given it a couple of routes to victory. Manabond is still the crucial card for the deck. Being able to empty your hand is vital in this deck as you have Ensnaring Bridge, Oath of Scholars and Scalding Tongs in there. Plus it helps to have an empty hand if you are using Null Brooch as well. Here's the deck then :- NAME: 007, The Name's Bond. Manabond. Yes yes, I know the deck name is corny as hell but I'm British and I'm going to attempt to pass it off as dry British wit and hope you all don't notice that it's really a pile of hogwash. 4 Quicksand 7 Forest 2 Gemstone Mine/Undiscovered Paradise 11 Island The land count has proved optimal so far. The Gemstones are probably superfluous but it's nice to use them and bounce them when a Mana Breach or two are in play. Will replace with basic land once Mirage block leaves. Quicksands slow down that early creature rush. 4 Manabond 3 Null Brooch 2 Oath of Scholars 3 Ensnaring Bridge The "engine" if you want to call it that. Getting a Manabond on the first turn is not uncommon and you can often get a Bridge out on turn 3, followed by the Oath on turn 4 and then you dump your hand. REMEMBER! Even if you have no land in your hand you can still play Manabond's ability and discard the rest of your hand. 3 Mana Leak 4 Counterspell 3 Gaea's Blessing 4 Impulse Pretty self-explanatory I think. Mana Leak is a little weak in the mid-late game (when isn't it?) so I may replace them with Forbid or whatever Urza's Saga gives us. Gaea's Blessing is going to be this deck's biggest loss. You generally discard plenty of cards with this deck and I need a way to get them back (hence the Feldon's Cane). Maybe Urza's Saga will give us a replacement but until then, GB does the job perfectly. Maybe Reclaim??? 4 Scalding Tongs/Cursed Scroll 2 Silver Syvern The damage! Ahhh...beautiful synergy. Don't we just love the APNAP ruling? It really comes into its own here. You'll often have an empty or VERY small hand so choose to play all the Tongs abilities first, then Oath for 3 cards and take your normal draw giving you enough cards in hand to ignore the Ensnaring Bridge and attack with your Wyerns. Then dump your hand again via the Manabond leaving your opponent seething. Cursed Scrolls are a perfectly adequate replacement for the Tongs and some people would even say they are superior although it does upset the "draw 4 cards/attack/dump your hand" loop somewhat. 2 Mana Breach Oooh, this card is mean. It's been overlooked so much and most people don't realise its power. Generally it means your opponent will be limited to casting one spell per turn unless they have some way of getting all that land back into play (like you do with the Manabond). Something I have discovered with Mana Breach is the hurt it puts on counter decks. The counterspell player doesn't really want to get into a counter war with you when you have 1 or 2 Mana Breaches out. As a quick note, Mana Breach makes those Mana Leaks quite a bit stronger. Your opponent is faced with the 3 choices : 1. Countering the Mana Leak which means bouncing another land 2. Paying the 3 mana 3. Letting the spell be countered. Even if the Mana Leak is countered and the spell gets through it will mean that your opponent will have bounced 2 lands just to play that spell (4 if there are 2 Mana Breaches out). That's surely going to cause them problems. 1 Ertai, Wizard Adept 1 Feldon's Cane 1 Stream of Life Purely experimental. Ertai rarely stays around long if he gets through at all. When he does of course it's pretty much game over as you will ALWAYS have enough land untapped to use him. The Cane is being used a possible replacement for Gaea's Blessing so I am seeing how it goes and the Stream of Life is there because I kept having problems with Cursed Scrolls and other pingers. I just needed a way to gain loads of life very quickly. Other cards that could be used in the deck but I can't find room just yet :- Spike Feeder - Need some lifegaining Boomerang - Bounce would be a nice twist to the deck. Makes the Mana Breach even more irritating. Propaganda - Did have them in but found them to be superflous, Bridges are enough Evacuation - Might be nice to do once a Mana Breach or two are out Man-O-War - Again, nice with Mana Breach SB: 3 Elephant Grass SB: 4 Chill SB: 3 Crumble SB: 3 Scragnoth SB: 2 Dissipate Sideboard could probably use work so ideas are more than welcome. Matt Williams Matthew@forfree.at Stark on IRC