Subject: Self-sideboarding Deck Date: Mon,29 Sep 97 13:18 BST From: Jacob Busby To: Self-Sideboarding Deck. ======================= Green Red ----- --- 2 Call of the Wild 3 Fireball Crash of Rhinos Final Fortune Barishi 4 Incinerate Elvish Bard Primitive Justice 2 Emerald Charm Relentless Assault Jolraels Centaur Killer Bees Gold Llanowar Elves ---- 3 Natural Order 4 Nature's Lore 2 Viashivan Dragon River Boa Rowen Land Scarwood Bandits ---- 3 Sylvan library 3 Tinder Wall 12 Forest Uktabi Wildcats 9 Mountain Unseen Walker Taiga Veteran Explorer Whirling Dervish Total: 65 Cards Yavimaya Ants How this deck works? ==================== Have you ever played a game of magic and come up against a deck where you thought - if I had such and such a creature I'd probably win. In a tournament deck you'd pick the right cards in the sideboard, stick them in and win the next match... but what if you could get the right card during the first match. This deck does just this - it wins through its sheer versatility, by using the Sylvan Library and cards that shuffle the deck, along with Natural Order, you can almost guaruntee that the right cards come up in the match. Why is card "X" in this deck? ============================= Sylvan Library, Nature's Lore, Rowen and Call of the Wild: These cards form the card advantage engine of this deck. By using the Library one can change the order of the next cards, ensuring that the right ones are on top for Rowen and Call of the Wild. Should the library ever become "clogged up" Nature's Lore can shuffle the deck. The Lore and Library combo also helps when finding other key cards in this deck. Natural Order: I suspect that these could probably be replaced with Sylvan Tutors but I like them this way. Natural Order provides turbo injection to the Lore and Library combo, allowing me to playa Crash of Rhinos for four mana! Fireball, Incinerate: Burn cheese for devouring my opponent or his creatures. As this is a creature deck I normally blast his creatures then pound on through with my own but you can stack up mana pretty fast with this baby so a big Fireball isn't out of the question. Emerald Charm, Primitive Justice: Defense against enchantments and artifacts respectively. Note that these cards can serve other purposes also, increasing their flexibility. Final Fortune, Relentless Assault: In a creature-based deck the ability to attack twice in one turn is often a game-winner. One Crash of Rhinos and one Assault is quite hideous. The creatures: Well the two Dragons and the Crash are just damned big. Barishi is a good late game card because your foe either ends up giving you all your critters back or taking four damage a turn. The Bard breaks stalemates. The Centaur is untouchable. The Bees are a potent flying defense or offense. The Elves, Tinder Wall and Explorer speed the deck up and work vs. Land destruction. River boa hurts Blue decks. The Bandits beat up artifact decks. The Wildcats work really well once you've got Rowen in play. The Walker works against Green. The Dervish works against Black. The Ants pack a nasty surprise. Just like a golfer always picks the right club for the right putt so you too can impersonate Nick Faldo and Tiger Woods and pick the right card for the right job. How to play this deck. ====================== In general this is a creature deck so you should be thinking attack minded. Play your creatures and pound your opponent, just like you would with any other creature deck. Use the Tinder Walls, the Elves and the Explorer to speed things up if necessary. If you can slap down the Ants before you foe can do anything you've probably won because you'll no doubt get a second attack out of them before the upkeep becomes to big to manage. Your first Nature's Lore should be used to fetch the Taiga. This is M:tG legal, as Lore specifically states you can fetch any forest card and Taiga specifically states it counts as both a mountain and a forest. Between this little trick and the Tinder Walls you should have enough red mana to keep the deck ticking over. Once you've got your first library the fun begins. Call of the Wild, which was marginally useful beforehand, now becomes terrifying. Use the Library to stack your deck and then stick a Crash down for four mana. Sharpen things up with a Viashavan Dragon. Even if you play an Elf or a Boa for GG2 it still works in your favour because you are gaining card advantage (two cards per turn to your opponent's one). Speaking of Call of the Wild never activate this card during your turn. Always use it during your opponents turn instead. This way you can play a blocker that your opponent will not be able to anticipate. If he attacks with Durkwood Boars imagine his surprise when they come face to face with Uktabi Wildcats. Whilst instant blockers can be useful ideally the Call should be activated during your foes cleanup, as this doesn't leave your creatures open to your foes Sorceries. More pertinently this means that your creatures don't have summoning sickness next turn and can attack straight away. Who needs Fervor? Oftentimes its fairly useful to play Call and Rowen even without the Library. Both grant you some kind of card advantage and their downsides are hardly destructive (Mill the top card from your deck for Call and show your opponent your next card for Rowen) Natural Order is the other crunch card in this deck. Ideally you should use the Order to rid yourself of an early game card (Like an Elf) to draw a late game card (Like the Crash) but it doesn't always work this way. Sometimes you have to get rid of a perfectly good card Scarwood Bandits to play a new card. Nevertheless it is nearly always worth doing this as you will be getting a card which is more tuned to the destruction of your opponent, and thus more effective. A few sneaky tricks with the Order. Do not announce what card the order is collecting until spell resolution. This way your opponent either has to counter it outright or see what you get - but if he sees what you get then he's too late to counter it. Also the Order can get any green creature, even a gold one like a Viashivan, Scalebane's Elite or the Pygmy Hippo. If you are thinking of modifying this deck don't overlook this. A few lines on Relentless Assault: Try to use this spell when it will do most damage - a few extra points from a Llanowar elf isn't worth it. Wait until one or more of the big brigade is out, and has a good chance of getting through. Remember to pump your creatures in the first attack as all pump bonuses (Eg. Killer Bees, Viashivan Dragon) last until the end of turn and so are effectively doubled when the Assault is played. Type II ======= There are only five non-Type II cards in this deck but four of these aid the development of the red side of it, which is important to get best use of Final Fortune, Relentless Assault and the Viashivan. To this end I suggest the following substitutions: Uktabi Orang-Utang for Scarwood Bandits Mountain for Taiga Barbed Sextant or Birds of Paradise or Quirion Elves for Tinder Walls Improvements ============ I'd welcome them :-) You could probably pick a more efficient creature base than the one I've got. This is a fun deck not a tourney one. You might want to splash in a little white, black or blue, especially if you have a Savannah, Bayou or Tropical Island to do so. Birds of Paradise, rather than Llanowar Elves might aid this process. This deck is sixty-five cards but given the nature of the deck it shouldn't cause problems. At any rate in a tournament environment you'd probably want to strip out a few cards nevertheless. Finally a Ginat Growth (just the one) would go a long way in keeping your opponent on his toes. Don't worry if your opponent sees it thanks to Rowen - it'll still make him consider that there might be more in there and keep him wary. FIN _ Jacob Busby. : : : _: : . : :___:___: