Subject: some decks etc
Date: Wed, 27 May 1998 18:16:23 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Mike Donais."
To: webmaster@classicdojo.org
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I am going to post a lot of decks and talk about some of them.
First of all I want to talk about 5CDonais as someone (who?) has
named my deck. I want to thank everyone for all the input and
praise I received after I posted the decklist. I responded to about
150 of the 300 or so mail I received. Sorry I didn't have time
to respond to all of them.
Here is the version as I posted it a few weeks ago:
'Donais U5C'
4 wall of blossoms
3 gaea's blessing
2 uktabi orangutang
=9 green
4 wrath of god
1 disenchant
3 gerrard's wisdom
=8 white
4 impulse
4 whispers of the muse
4 counterspell
3 dissipate
4 dismiss
=19 blue
2 fireball
=2 red
Mana:
1 wasteland
1 quicksand
2 thalakos lowlands
1 flood plains
1 adarkar wastes
1 vec township
1 plains
1 svyelunite temple
3 islands
1 forests
4 reflecting pools
1 undiscovered paradise
1 city of brass
3 gemstone mine
=22 lands
sideboard:
1 phyrexian furnace
2 warmth
2 cop red
1 null rod
2 hydroblasts
2 teferi's realm
1 mangara's blessing
2 pyroblast
2 lobotomy
First some general comments.
When I posted the deck people were not metagamed against blue
especially 5 colour blue. This deck and it's sideboard did not
include the post posting metagame. There are obviously some changes
required for the U5C and anti-U5C metagame. These changes include
things like adding a few earthquakes main deck and sacred ground in
the sideboard. Another big change is that the black weenie deck
that had been sneaking around the net for months finally came out
to play at many tourneys. I have been playtesting black weenie
for a long time since someone beat me down on apprentice with it.
I had also been discussing the deck with other players around the
world, but now it is a big part of the metagame.
So you should add light of day and even more importantly sleight of
mind to the sideboard. The sleight of minds are obviously for the
first turn glooms that are very popular now.
A popular question was "Teferi's Realm????".
Teferi's Realm is an Enchant World that lets the active player
choose Artifacts, Creatures, Lands or Global Enchantments and
phase out all cards of that type. Each player chooses one of
these during their upkeep if Teferi's Realm is phased in.
The main use of the card is a non-white solution to gloom
and a card advantage solution to bottomless pit and a non-targetted
solution to forsaken wastes. It gets rid of the popular anti-blue
enchantments that black uses.
Let's compare Teferi's realm to disenchant against these 3 black
enchantments.
1) Gloom
Disenchant: 5 mana to kill one gloom, 8+5=13 mana and 2 disenchants to
kill 2 glooms.
Teferi's Realm: 3 mana in your primary colour, not affected by gloom.
As a bonus, his gloom phases back in during his untap phase. Teferi's
Realm does not phase in during his untap phase. It phases in during
your own untap phase because you control it. Since the gloom is back
in play during his turn he can't do anything crazy like cloudchaser
your enchantments. This is pretty rare though. When you finally
draw your sleight you can sleight his gloom and it will be in
play during his turn still to hurt him.
2) Forsaken Wastes:
Disenchant costs 2 mana but you lose 5 life. When racing black
weenie losing 5 life is not strong. As a matter of fact it is never
strong.
Teferi's Realm: Since it is an enchant world it kills Forsaken
Wastes without targetting it.
Future Forsaken Wastes are also killed when the Realm phases back in
each turn. Again no life is lost.
3) Bottomless pit:
Disenchant kills the first one. 2 Disenchants kill 2 of them.
Teferi's Realm: This phases out the pit during your upkeep but
it phases back in during your opponents untap phase so during his
upkeep he must discard for each pit he has cast.
So the pit affects him but not you.
As a bonus the realm stays around to deal with any future glooms
or forsaken wastes or bottomless pits or similar enchantments.
Another bonus is that it stays in play so if you are getting hit
with stupors it won't be destroyed.
Now we have seen the realm is far superior when dealing with black
hosers. Why did I run 2 in my side? Well like I said I made this
black weenie deck a while ago and knew how good it was versus U5C.
Does the realm have any other uses?
It can phase out a few other enchantments like cop red or propaganda
but those have little affect on this particular deck.
What about phasing out something other than global enchantments?
Well I have chosen creatures before and wiped out sarcomancy zombies
and snake basket tokens but while browsing through the rulings I
realized that it only phases out cards, not token creatures.
It could be used in a necro deck. It can phase out your necro after
you set a few cards aside. This allows you to draw normally. In
the same necro deck you could activate a disk in your upkeep and
in response phase out all artifacts. Saving your disk, steel golem,
bottle gnome, stalking stones, mox diamonds, for next turn. You
could even disk and keep enchantments like realm and necro in
play, it is your option.
(Ed. Note from Paul Barclay - "Just to point out that this is a common
misconception about Teferi's Realm. Its ability is a "beginning of
upkeep" ability, which means that you use it before Instants (like
the Disk's ability) are legal. This is the reason why the Realm is
so overly powerful - as long as you're always choosing Enchantments,
there is no way to get rid of the Realm.")
I am sure there are a lot more uses but it would take some thought
to figure out the greatness of this blue enchant world.
Oh how do I envision U5C now that people are very aware of it?
Well you should be real careful where you play it. Luckily
the stronger a deck is made against U5C the weaker it is against
sligh and black weenie. It is a trade off. Add land destruction
and hand destruction at the cost of getting beat down by fast decks
that don't need much land or have no non-basic lands.
I would trade a dissipate and a fireball for 2 earthquakes.
I would replace a wisdom with a phyrexian furnace. Hey 20 cantrips.
I would alter the sideboard a lot. Including sleight of mind,
light of day, sacred ground. Humility and/or cursed totem seem
to be great recently. Humilty versus shadow and cursed totem
versus dwarven miner and tradewind and many more. I think humility
would be better but it doesn't go well with teferi's realm so
you have to make a hard choice.
Enough about that deck, and congratulations to Mike Long for winning
regionals with his metagamed version of it. I am amazed someone was
able to win given that everyone was ready for it.
Here are some more decks:
Life Gain Tech:
3 Armageddon
3 Sylvan (The green impulse)
3 Earthquake
3 Gaea's blessing (The best card)
3 Wrath of god
3 Spike Feeders
4 Staunch Defenders
4 Gerrard's Wisdom
1 Aura of silence
1 Disenchant
1 Uktabi Orangutang
1 Phyrexian Furnace
=30 Spells
4 Wall of Blossoms
2 Wall of Roots
3 Moss diamonds
3 Marble diamonds
2 Quicksand
2 Grasslands
3 Forest
5 Plains
1 City of brass
2 Undiscovered
1 Gemstone mine
1 Karplusan forest
1 Mogg hollows
=30 Mana Sources
This deck has a few sub themes but is basically Ernageddon.
Obviously it does great against weenie decks with 6 mass kill.
It also has some great blockers and quicksands.
Walls with earthquake are great, as we all know.
It also has 11 life gain cards which work just great with sylvan.
It only has 5 shufflers but with wall of blossoms and just spending
life to draw cards works to find new cards sooner.
The geddons and gaea's and sylvans and furnace make it strong
against U5C (or similar decks). The 6 global removal, 6 walls, and
11 life gain make it amazing against SRB. This deck reminds me of
how powerful geddon is every time I play it. Geddon is strong.
The aura of silence is to kill forsaken wastes (you don't lose life).
There should be more in the side for the same reason.
Black Weenie
4 duathi slayer
4 sewer rats
4 foul imp
4 duathi horror
1 fallen askari
4 sarcomancy
4 black knight
2 fledgling djinns
2 blood pet
=29 creatures
4 badmoon
4 unholy strength
2 funeral charm
1 kaervek's spite
=11 spells
16 swamp
4 dark rituals
=20 manas
side:
1 dread of night
4 wall of souls
3 bottomless pit
1 paralyze
4 gloom (light of day/cop black)
1 forsaken wastes
1 perish
This deck is heavily playtested and incredibly strong.
All the of card choices are based on a lot of decisions just like
in my U5C deck. It is significantly faster than the standard
black weenie decks and due to some choices it does much better
against SRB.
It has no wastelands and no wastelandable lands. This makes it
better against the popular mono-colour speed weenie that are popping
up in all 5 colours lately. It has bad moons which are very important
for beating SRB. It has blood pets as one of the 1 mana creature
choices for 2 reasons. The main one is because you can cast
sideboard cards like gloom and bottomless pit a turn sooner.
With 4 rituals and 2 blood pets and 4 glooms the deck does
very well against white and U5C (unless they use Teferi's Realm but
no one does). Against light of day it has 4 glooms. Yes you
want to cast gloom or bottomless pit on turn 1-2 so it can not
be countered. Everything costs 1 or 2 mana so the deck almost
never gets mana screwed. A lot of the black weenie decks out there
run 3 or 4 mana spells like necro or hidden horror etc but I
choose to run cheaper creatures and since I need so little land I
can run more of them. I have 29 creatures and 11 spells since I run
no wastelands. Colourless mana is not very useful anyways.
I thought a lot about hidden horror, but if I get first turn ritual
I can cast 2 creatures (say sarcomancy and duathi). This is just
as good as a hidden horror because you can not manowar both and
gain severe card and time advantage. Same with a wall of roots etc.
Also it gives the deck more consistent draws. I might never get to
3 land and I don't want to have to rely on it. Having 1-2 mana
creatures makes a big difference.
Funeral charm is the best removal because it is only 1 mana. This
deck is all about speed. It is also an instant and very versatile.
It can be used to make a creature +2/-1 like a blood lust to finish
the opponent or make a black knight 4/1 first strike to kill a hidden
horror. It can also be used to make a bloom player discard. And it
has another ability to make creatures harder to block that I have
never used.
The key sideboard card is wall of souls. Wow is it ever good.
I am sure you will see a lot more of black weenie in the future.
Some versions with scrolls and more lands and more expensive spells
and some fast versions like this one.
Both versions have advantages depending on the metagame you expect.
I like this version, especially for playtesting against because it
is so damn fast and consistent.
This is one of my new Tech Decks.
It is one of those decks where all the cards work
together smoothly.
I call it Bottomless Tech:
4 Cursed Scroll
4 Bottomless Pit
4 Impulse
2 Legacy's Allure
2 Phyrexian Furnace
1 Necromancy
2 Nekrataal
4 Bottle Gnomes
4 Wall of Tears
4 Tradewind Rider
4 Man-o'-War
3 Funeral Charm
4 Swamp
4 Island
3 Rootwater Depths
3 Underground River
3 Bad River
3 Quicksand
2 Volrath's Stronghold
SB: 4 Chill
SB: 1 Phyrexian Furnace
SB: 2 Gloom
SB: 4 Hydroblast
SB: 2 Lobotomy
SB: 1 Perish
SB: 1 Dread of Night
The deck works surprisingly well.
The idea is all of the cards are permanents so the bottomless
pits don't affect me much. It also has lots of bouncy creatures
like manowar, tradewind, wall of tears. This means the
opponent can discard his creatures often. The creature removal
is nekrataal, legacy's allure, quicksand, funeral charm because
they can be casted as soon as you draw them unlike terror which
will probably just fall into the pit.
Bouncing lands or any permanent with the tradewind works especially
well with the pits because your opponent will lose the card in his
next upkeep. The impulses are one of the only non-permanents
and the idea is to impulse for a permanent and cast it or impulse
for the pit if it isn't out yet. Impulse is amazing.
A very important aspect of the deck is that if you don't draw the
pit all of the cards are still very strong tourney quality cards.
There are 2 phyrexian furnaces main deck because they are amazing.
Godzilla decks normally would be glad to see a pit, now they are
very unglad. I have had first turn kills with just swamp, tap,
furnace. (Hi, I know he is reading this).
I have also noticed firestorm is real popular lately, especially
against tradewind decks like this one. Well firestorm is not
strong against this deck. Same with Gerrard's Wisdom.
Usually at on turn 4 I have a furnace/scroll and a pit in hand.
I cast a one mana spell to draw out the counter then play my 4th
land and drop a pit. Pit is strong against control I hear.
Oh with the new mangara's blessing ruling (it hurts pit) the furnaces
are especially important. The furnaces are great against so many
different decks now. Versus geae's blessing, living death, godzilla,
barrow ghoul, hammer, phoenix, Zvi, even against mono red I can cast
them, sac them to remove a kindle and draw a card. This keeps
my tradewinds out of kindle range. I first played Phyrexian Furnace
in my main deck at Canadian Nationals last year. I beat buried
alive in the semi finals because of it. Phyrexian Furnace is even
stronger now than it was then. Every one of you should play one
main deck. Yes even in THAT deck!
The Black Weenie, Bottomless Tech and Life Gain Tech are my
favourite metagame choices right now, here are some more decks
though that I have lying around.
I made this deck when stronghold first came out to see
how much I could abuse the mulch/scroll rack/gaea's engine.
It worked pretty well, I think it didn't leave enough room
for good cards though. Still once the engine gets going
you can often draw as many cards as you want each turn.
It is very powerful. I almost always win with this deck
but I feel it isn't really total control or beatdown just
some grey area in between. It takes a lot of practice to
use the scroll rack+mulch engine perfectly. Once you get
it down you can draw accidentaly draw so many cards that
you have to discard. You don't want to do that though
because each card is good if you have firestorm or scroll
rack out so be careful not to draw up to 9 or 10 cards.
//NAME: Green Control
// black
2 Terror
// red
2 Savage Twister
1 Firestorm
3 Incinerate
1 Earthquake
// green
4 Wall of Blossoms
4 Spike Feeder
2 Uktabi Orangutan
3 Stampeding Wildebeests
2 Wall of Roots
// deck manipulation
4 Mulch
4 Scroll Rack
1 Sylvan Library
4 Gaea's Blessing
// white
1 Armageddon
1 Disenchant
// mana
4 Quicksand
1 Mountain
1 Mogg Hollows
1 Gemstone Mine
1 Karplusan Forest
1 Brushland
1 Vec Townships
1 Cinder Marsh
1 Undiscovered Paradise
1 City of Brass
8 Forest
// sideboard
SB: 2 Phyrexian Furnace
SB: 1 City of Solitude
SB: 1 Tsunami (not hydroblastable)
SB: 2 Wall of Roots
SB: 1 Armageddon
SB: 1 Tranquil Domain
SB: 3 Pyroblast
SB: 2 Uktabi Orangutan
SB: 1 Firestorm
SB: 1 Tranquil Grove
I use 4 quicksands because mulch works better with more lands
in the deck. So mise well use lands that are also removal.
The rest of the decks I don't really consider original tech.
They are just playtest decks and versions of existing decks.
Here is Necro Sliver:
4 victual
4 metallic
4 muscle
4 spined
4 acidic
=20 slivers
3 firestorm
3 disenchant
4 necro
4 impulse
=14 spells
4 mox diamond
4 gemstone mine
2 city of brass
2 undiscovered paradise
2 sulfurous spring
2 brushland
4 reflecting pool
6 swamp
=26 lands
This deck was Eric Taylor's idea and almost entirely his creation.
I just post it here because it is on my list of decks and I use it
to playtest once in a while. It is surprisingly strong but I don't
play necro much anymore so wouldn't use it.
It doesn't use crystallines because you want them to burn your
slivers instead of you. There are plenty more slivers coming if
you are not being burned. The impulses are to get necro sooner.
Eric probably uses slightly different lands but not much different.
Druid haunting misery
4 haunting misery
4 vampiric tutor
4 shallow grave
=12 spells
creatures
4 hermit druids
4 birds of paradise
4 blood pet
4 shadow guildmage(use removal,save druid,dont deck)
3 wall of blossoms
2 volrath's shapeshifter
1 mogg fanatic
3 sage owl
1 revenant
=25 creatures
lands
2 dark rituals
2 mox diamond
1 volrath stronghold(get druid, don't get decked)
4 gemstone mine
3 undiscovere paradise
4 city of brass
2 sulfurous springs
2 karplusan forest
2 reflecting pools
=23 manas (plus birds&pets)
side:
2 pyro (permission/lobot)
2 hydro (sligh)
3 eagles
1 wall of blossom
2 monkeys
2 straw golem
2 gravedigger
3 dwarven miner(permission,bolt bait)
Note the side is mostly creatures because you can't really side out
any spells and you don't want to reduce the creatures in the deck.
This deck is by no means original it is just my version.
The only surprise is the volrath's shapeshifters. They are
good if someone kills a druid or if you have revenant as the top
card of your library. Or both, if you play real careful you can
mill yourself untap, use a trick not to deck yourself then attack
all with the same shapeshifter. Stronghold and shadow guildmage
are the cards that can save you from being decked and both can
also save your druid different ways.
Here is a sliver deck I never playtested because I thought it was
boring as hell.
sliver beatdown
4 muscle
4 metallic
3 heart
4 spined
4 acidic
4 crystalline
4 victual
1 u/b
=28 slivers
2 geddon
2 living death
2 mana leak
2 disenchant
=8 spells
3 mox diamonds
2 wasteland
2 reflecting pools
4 gemstone
3 paradise
2 city of brass
1 mountain
1 forest
1 island
1 swamp
2 adarkar
2 karplusan forest
=24 mana
The idea was living death with slivers (especially heart sliver)
was really good. I made it when stronghold first came out and
it was sitting in notepad since.
SRB (Stupid Red Burn)
When I say SRB this is the basic deck I refer to.
It is the one I playtest with and I think is as strong
as any other out there. Very generic as it is meant to be.
4 cursed scrolls
=4 artifacts
4 fireblast
4 incinerate
4 shock
=12 spells
4 jackal pup
4 mogg fanatic
4 goblin vandal
2 ironclaw orcs
4 mogg flunky
2 suqata lancer
4 ball lightning
=24 creatures
16 mountain
4 wasteland
=20 lands
No comments really, not sure if flunky is good not or yet. It seems
ok depending on your opponent.
Oh one last deck that I almost forgot.
When the stronghold spoiler came out (the day after the pre-release)
I posted a G/U Awakening Deck.
It was for Rath Cycle (Tempest Stronghold).
This deck loses almost no cards from type 2 to Rath Cycle.
Just monkey, Man-o-war and the amazing Gaea's Blessing and Impulse.
U/G Awakening (Rath Cycle)
4 Wall of Tears
4 Wall of Blossoms
4 Tradewind
4 Spike feeders
=16 creatures
2 mana leak
4 counterspell
4 dismiss
3 capsize
4 whispers
4 awakening
=21 spells
4 skyshroud forest
9 island
8 forest
2 reflecting pools
=23
This deck requires knowledge of the timing rules. You can get
a lot of mana from awakening if you know how to use it right.
Say you have 9 lands and 2 awakenings. I will go through 1 turn
plus one opponents turn to see how many times i can whisper.
Untap phase: 9 lands untapped
Start of upkeep: Tap 9 mana into pool
Activate on awakening: 9 lands untapped
Still Start of upkeep: Tap 9 mana into pool (18 now)
Activate Second awakening: 9 lands untapped
Middle of upkeep: whisper 3 times.
draw phase: draw your normal card.
main phase: you only have counters so you tap 6 to whisper again.
discard phase: you have 3 lands untapped still.
So far you drew 4 whispers cards and 1 normal card. 3 lands are still
untapped that is important now watch:
Opponent untap: you have 3 lands untapped still.
Start of Opponent Upkeep: tap 3 lands into pool
Activate first awakening: 9 lands untapped
Still start of upkeep: tap 9 lands into pool. (12 total)
Activate Second awakening: 9 lands untapped
Middle of Opponents Upkeep: Empty pool to whisper twice.
Opponents main phase: tap 2 to counter his 1 card.
Opponents discard: tap 6 to whisper leaving 1 untapped.
So you drew 3 cards during his turn and 4 during your turn plus 1
for your draw phase. That is 8 cards in one turn with only 9 lands
lands out. Wow. If that was capsize you would bounce 7 permanents.
7 permanents is probably all of his lands.
Here is a quick type 2 version:
Type 2. U/G Awakening
3 Wall of Roots
4 Wall of Blossoms
4 Tradewind Rider
2 Man-o-war
1 Suq-ata firewalker
1 Uktabi Orangutang
2 Spike Feeder
=17 creatures
4 counterspell
2 dismiss
3 capsize
3 whispers
3 awakening
2 gaea's blessing
4 impulse
=21 spells
2 quicksands
8 island
8 forest
4 skyshroud forest
=22
Actually a friend of mine qualified in London with a deck
very much like this one. I believe he created it himself though.
It is fairly obvious, just awakening and cards that work good with
it. There are 4 good 3 mana creatures, I included 1-2 of each
but the metagame would decide exactly which to use.
That is it for decks finally.
Hope atleast one of them seems interesting to you.
Also I hope people will be inspired and start developing original
decks and tuning them till they are strong. I find focused decks
with flexible cards to work best.
Mike Donais.
Creator of "Life Gain Tech"