Subject: The Irish Card Advantage deck Date: Mon,22 Sep 97 10:48 BST From: Jacob Busby To: Irish Card Advantage J. Busby Red (8 Mountains) Artifacts 4 Death Spark 4 Charcoal Diamond Pyroclasm 2 Nevinyrral's Disk Black (16 Swamps) 4 Nether Shadow 4 Ashen Ghoul 3 Krovikan Horror 3 Black Knight 4 Hypnotic Spectre 1 Mindstab Thrull 3 Pox 3 Drain Life How this deck works? ==================== Hopefully you are familiar with the concept of card advantage, namely that the destruction of several of your opponents cards, at a cost of less of your cards, grants you card advantage. For instance, if I play a Pearled Unicorn and then next turn enchant it with Unholy Strength and my opponent follows up with a Lightning Bolt then I lose two cards to his one - I lose the Unicorn and the Unholy Strength, he loses the Bolt. But you already knew that. This deck operates in reverse. It wastes cards killing my opponents cards and then gets them back again later. For instance if I blast a Benalish Hero with a Death Spark and later I get the Spark back I gain card advantage - My foe has lost one card (the Hero) whereas I haven't lost a thing. Of the 60 cards in this deck 36 are spells and 24 are lands. Of the 36 spells 15 can return to my hand or play, given the right conditions. Thus 1/4 of my deck, and 45% of my spells are reusable, again and again. Why is the card "X" in the deck? ================================ Death Spark, Nether Shadow, Ashen Ghoul, Krovikan Horror: These cards are fundamental to the driving engine of the deck. Each time a creature dies one of these cards is likely to resurface. Black Knight, Hypnotic Spectre: These cards are fairly standard black weenies. The Spectre adds discard to the deck, whilst the Knight is a strong attacker/blocker. The Knight is preferred to his FE counterpart as he doesn't die so quickly to Serrated Arrows. These creatures add to the strong creature base ensuring the quick comeback of Shadows, Ghouls and Horror's. Mindstab Thrull: Another creature to fund the central engine. It also adds an additional discard possibility to the deck and, given the nature of the deck, it's sacrifice is likely to be beneficial. Drain Life: Attack, defense, life gaining, direct damage - this card does the lot. Diamonds: Partially for speed (although Dark Ritual would be better for this) but more importantly for recovery from the Pox (see below). Also twenty-eight mana sources makes this deck very resilient to Land Destruction. Pox, Disk, Pyroclasm: The 'Clasm should really be another Disk but I've only got two. These cards all serve a similar function - to rid the table of creatures. As I can choose what order my creatures enter the graveyard it will not be long before my army re-emerges. Pity my poor opponent though - he's unlikely to have much of an army left by then. Pox is especially nasty - this deck has defenses against the life-loss (Drain Life), land loss (Diamonds), creature loss (Shadows, etc.) and card loss (Shadows, et. al) As cards go directly before creatures do try dropping Death Sparks - you hardly notice that they're gone! How do I play this deck? ======================== Playing this deck is reasonably challenging. The main concept to get your head around is the timing for Death Sparks and Horror sacrifices. Once you understand this it is a damn sight easier. When using a Death Spark cast it in response to anything that kills your creature which you did not personally cast. In this way the Death Sparks goes off and deal damage to their target, then go the graveyard. Then the creature goes to the graveyard, thus the Death Spark is directly below your creature and you can recover it next turn, during your upkeep, by paying 1. This is particular important if your opponent plays Swords to Ploughshares, Disintegrate or Exile. By targetting your Shadow or Ghoul with a Spark the creature will die before the Swords goes off, thus your creature will not be removed from the game as the spell will fizzle, however as your Spark went off before the creature died the Spark will be below the creature and you can regain it next turn. Using the Horror is similar to using the Spark but with several crucial differences. Firstly the mana to be used is colourless rather than red. This allows you more flexibilty when using the card. Secondly multiple sacrifices are allowed when you use the Horror. This allows you to sacrifice the Horror to itself as a response effect. (Yes this is crazy logic but it is also M:tG legal) Hence if you block a Hill Giant with your Nether Shadow, and block a Grizzly Bear with your Horror you can sacrifice the Shadow to the Horror and target the Bear, then respond to your own fast effect by sacrificing the Horror to itself, again targetting the Bear, thus (presuming no further fast effects) the effects resolve as follows: * Horror goes to graveyard - Bear suffers one damage. * Shadow goes to graveyard - Bear suffers another damage. * Bear has sufferes too much damage and now dies, unless damage prevention effects (Eg. Healing Salve, Scars of the Veteran) are used. * The game continues as normal. Note that the Hill Giant is still considered blocked, even though the Shadow is now dead, and will not deal any damage during combat resolution. Because the creatures died in this order you can recover the Horror at the end of any turn, provided that the Shadow is still above it. Although recovery of the Horror is free it is also optional. Bear this in mind when playing this deck. In some circumstances it might be better to let the Horror linger in the graveyard, most notably, when it is one of three creatures above an Ashen Ghoul. In this way you can get the Ghoul back and later get the Horror back. Also, when using the Horror's "comeback ability" unless your hand is chock full of creatures, or you have a special play planned with Pox, don't bring it back to your hand until your opponent's Cleanup. This is because it requires special circumstances to return to your hand, so you don't really want to subject it to the threat of hand or time destruction. Don't overlook the possibility of wiping out your entire force at the end of your foes turn if you can wipe out all of your foes forces next turn. A Horror, Knight, Hippy, Shadow and Spark can take down a 5/5 creature. If next turn you follow this up with a 'Clasm you can wipe out the rest of your foes army. Watch out for Counterspells if you try this though. Then there's amalgamated damage. This is crucial to playing the deck properly. Your Ghoul might not take out that Evil Eye, but your Ghoul, one Spark and a 'Clasm can. Consider doing your damage from several sources. Not only does this kill the creature but if effects like Scars of the Veteran are used they are used to limited effect. This is also important if you are trying to take all your foes creatures, bar one, to play that critical Pox. This deck is reasonable strong against several popular deck types. Counterspells are useless against many of the cards, wasting a counter merely delays the arrival of a particular card. Millstones and Discard concepts are often useless also, card loss by either source in this deck very often just fuels the graveyard for the kill. Burn decks can prove effective, provided that