Cheap Tricks - The 'B' Word

It was a Saturday night. Zendikar had been online for a mere two weeks, and the change in casual standard was blood-chilling. Vampire decks were running rampant, and... well, that's about it actually. Milling had a few supporters, and Oran-Rief, The Vastwood decks were making a small showing, but mainly it was all about those children of the night. My 5-colour ally concoction was not doing great against them - black's plentiful removal was ensuring that my Kazandu Blademasters and Oran-Rief Survivalists were rarely sticking around long enough to get buffed by the team. If they did, it was usually enough, as those vamps are pretty weak. But hoping you can stick several creatures against monoblack aggro is a pretty desperate strategy, as I was quickly discovering.

However, the night hadn't reached its darkest just yet. Like an evil tide of moulten lava, the entire casual room started playing Jund Cascade decks. Broodmates and Bloodbraids and Bituminous Blasts. My allies were getting slaughtered left and right, as spells from the opponents' deck cascaded 'onto the battlefield' or straight at my head. After two hours of receiving some harsh beatings, I decided to call it a day. Jund decks were strong, there was no denying it - it was difficult to make any kind of trade fair, let alone in my favour. There was one card, however, that never failed to rain on my parade, spit in my face or just make me discard 2 and take 3 damage.

		Oh, what a thing of beauty. I refer to the card mechanics, and not the poor soul in the art. It's really amazing how two hideously ugly cards - Mind Rot and Lava Spike - can come together to make such a lovely baby. A baby that is cheaper from both a mana and card advantage perspective, no less! Strictly, this is a 2-for-1. But the 3 damage really makes it feel that little bit more, especially so when you are on the receiving end. It's fun, powerful, efficient and inexpensive. But everyone knows this. It's been played in tier 1 standard decks pretty much since its introduction. It's also been played in casual standard pretty much since its introduction, not mention taking me out of many a triple Alara draft. And I was really sick of seeing that smug, burning face leering at the cards in my hand while punching me in the nose. So I decided to fight the power. I was going to metagame against one card. And if I could fit it into my busy schedule, those vamps as well. Just because.

Minus Minus

Swerve. If that isn't a perfect answer to Blightning, then I don't know what is. What a kick in the teeth, to have your own disruption thrown right back at you! I salivated at the prospect, and then got to work building a deck to incorporate this 'amazing new tech'.

Mind Melter
A Standard deck by Gareth Ainsworth
Lands 11 Island 9 Mountain 4 Terramorphic Expanse 24 cards Creatures 1 Siege-Gang Commander 2 Sphinx of Lost Truths 1 Sphinx of Jwar Isle 4 cards	Other Spells 4 Lightning Bolt 2 Punishing Fire 3 Pyroclasm 4 Courier's Capsule 4 Into the Roil 3 Negate 2 Swerve 4 Double Negative 2 Chandra Nalaar 2 Mind Control 2 Earthquake 32 cards

This list has gone through a few tweaks since its conception, most noticeably, 2 Swerve instead of the original 4. What happened to the super amazing shiny new wrecking ball tech, you may ask? It lost its shine when I got sick of not being able to Swerve Garruk Wildspeaker. Not that it was a terrible card - it countered counters, and I managed to 'change the target of target spell with a single target' of Mind Sludge, Mind Control and Feast of Blood. Food for thought. More often than not, Negate is just the better card. Which brings me neatly to Double Negative, which is pretty much better in every way than Cancel in this deck. The manabase is almost straight down the middle so having both colours on hand is rarely a problem. Leaving UUR open represents Double Negative, Swerve, Negate and Lightning Bolt, quite a lot for your opponent to play around. The latter card is a concession to Vampire Nighthawk. Turns out Pyroclasm and Earthquake can't quite kill everything, or even a 3-toughness flyer. Punishing Fire is another vampire-control tool, although it has its uses everywhere.

Rounding off the utility is Courier's Capsule and the utterly amazing Into the Roil. I only had a lone copy in my early build and I was so consistently impressed by its versatility that I had to have 4. It wrecks quests, protects you early game, and is pure evil when you bounce your Mind Control in response to your opponent's removal on their own creature. All this and the option of a free card! It's half a Cryptic Command for all of the cost, and it's still superb. The finishers are pretty standard fare - Sphinx of Jwar Isle fits the bill of unkillable evasive fatty. Like all Planeswalkers, Chandra Nalaar can finish a game by herself if looked after, and she is obviously strong on board control. Mind Control can steal a game from nowhere. It's a fantastic card for casual because it gives the guy with a small collection a chance to play with other peoples expensive fatties. I'm looking at you, Baneslayer Angel. It's also yet another anti-vampire card, thanks to black being totally unable to deal with it short of killing the creature you cast it on.

I played upwards of 30 games with the deck, and it was fun to play, if your idea of sitting around countering things and waiting for a finisher to arrive is fun. To be fair there are a lot of cards here that give you room to outplay your opponent. You can punish them if they overcommit, and also if they hold threats back. But play is slow and many opponents conceded once I had a Chandra down and started countering stuff. Still, it is fairly solid against the aggro-centric casual standard environment and is quite cheap to put together. And in those 30+ games, how many Blightnings did I get to Swerve?

Zero

I can only assume that my rage against Blightning scared all copies of the card away, as I didn't see it once in those 30+ games. I was giving Vampires a hard time though, so my mission was part accomplished. I still didn't know how the deck would perform against Jund, but my thoughts had drifted as my mood shifted. Why should I have to be waiting around for a Blightning to come and get me? Surely a pro-active approach would be just as devastating to my opponent? I started tinkering with a decklist, but there was a problem with my pre-emptive attacks. Both Duress and Tidehollow Sculler were useless if my opponent ripped that foul spell off the top.

		I decided to do a draft and ended up with a G/B landfall/ally concoction. It was a nice deck and it won me the draft, but more importantly it gave me one more piece of the puzzle. I had cast my Ob Nixilis, the Fallen and cracked my Verdant Catacombs - not your typical draft - when my opponent had the cheek to drop a kicked Heartstabber Mosquito and kill poor Ob. Things were not looking good - I was staring down lethal damage and had no cards in hand, but my opponent was on a measly 5. Then I ripped my new favourite card off the top - Grim Discovery. I quickly cast it, summoned Obby to the battlefield and dropped my Catacombs. The game ended shortly thereafter.

It occurred to me that Grim Discovery + Blightning = 0. That is, each player spends a card and ends up back where they started, except with you on 3 less life. Unlike Swerve and Duress, you can rip that Grim Discovery off the top much later and it will still counteract the card advantage effect. Now all I needed was some other cards that went well with my new love.

Looking Grim
A Standard Deck by Gareth Ainsworth
Lands 13 Swamp 7 Plains 4 Terramorphic Expanse 24 cards Creatures 4 Tidehollow Sculler 4 Hypnotic Specter 4 Vampire Nighthawk 4 Emeria Angel 16 cards	Other Spells 4 Duress 4 Path to Exile 4 Grim Discovery 4 Sign in Blood 2 Day of Judgment 2 Eldrazi Monument 20 cards

That's a lot of discard. Too much for the casual room? Perhaps, but Duress and Hypnotic Specter both show up in reasonable numbers in the casual room and I've never had any complaints or concessions. Blightning is just as nasty as either of these cards so I have little reservation about playing them. The deck is a little on the expensive side for casual, what with Day of Judgment and Eldrazi Monument, but both of these cards are excellent cards to have in your collection, and I only included them because I acquired them via drafts. Planar Cleansing is a possible replacement for Day of Judgment, as aside from Eldrazi Monument there are no noncreature, nonland permanents in the deck. Zealous Persecution is a cute card that can also fill the roles of both cards, albeit to a lesser degree.

The main reason I like decks like this is because they have potential against anything. Turn 1 Duress can be crippling for some decks, turn 2 Tidehollow Sculler equally so. But even those who don't like the deck should give the Emeria Angel and Grim Discovery combo a try, it really is fun and quite strong.

Back to square one

As for the card that inspired this? Once again, it failed to make a show, and at this point I was more upset by not seeing the card than I was when it was everywhere. I really wanted to ruin a Blightning! Every time I joined a game I was hoping the opposing player would be brandishing the burnt face of evil. When my opponents laid down their second Swamp alongside their lone Mountain, I said a little prayer before sighing in dismay at yet another Vampire Nighthawk. My obsession with beating it had become unhealthy, masochistic even. I decided to give up chasing the dream and just get on with some good old Magic. I went into the casual room armed with the U/R deck I had made earlier.

So near, yet so far. I sat in my chair, dumfounded for a short while after that game. After all that effort, I had thrown away a legitimate chance by being unprepared. It reminded me of one of my favourite pieces of flavour text: "Can you prepare for the unexpected? No, you cannot. You can prepare only to be surprised.". I had been chasing rainbows, running a fool's errand and putting together 60-card packages built to fight a ghost. Instead of concentrating on my own plan, making things work for me, my energies had been devoted to erasing a problem that didn't even exist in the first place. I have won games in which I've been on the pointy end of a turn 3 Blightning. I have played with it and it has been Negated or nullified in some other way. It wasn't quite the big bad monster I had made it out to be. What an epiphany! I felt born again, my eyes wide open for the first time. And with this newfound faith in the universe, what is the first thing I did?

Build a Blightning deck, of course.

B-Ally-tning
A Standard deck by Gareth Ainsworth
Lands 7 Forest 4 Mountain 4 Swamp 4 Terramorphic Expanse 4 Savage Lands 23 cards Creatures 4 Oran-Rief Survivalist 4 Highland Berserker 3 Tajuru Archer 4 Bala Ged Thief 3 Kazuul Warlord 3 Turntimber Ranger 21 cards	Other Spells 3 Soul Stair Expedition 3 Terminate 4 Harrow 4 Blightning 2 Relic Crush 16 cards

I began playing allies, and that's how it ends, except now my enemy is my friend. Although this deck wins via straight-up beatdown, it has flexibility in the way it plays that gives it good game against the casual room. While you can play your allies out on a curve, you can also set up for a longer attrition game with Soul Stair Expedition and Harrow, while using Blightning and Bala Ged Thief to strip their hand. Highland Berserker is really only here to bump up the cheap ally count, but its ability is sometimes relevant and it is fearsome alongside Kazuul Warlord. Relic Crush might seem like an inferior choice to Naturalize, but the main purpose of it here is to protect your allies from Oblivion Ring and Journey to Nowhere. A duo of allies re-appearing at instant speed can cause havoc for the opponent. There are also a lot of enchantments and artifacts right now that can cause serious headaches unless dealt with. Relic Crush means you don't have to choose between returning your ally or destroying your opponents Luminarch Ascension. Although it is usually used mid-to-late game, it does have a hefty mana cost so I can see why some might prefer Naturalize.

Choices, choices. The lower end of an ally deck seems so much easier to build than the higher end. With the exception of Bala Ged Thief, all the high-quality allies cost 5 or more. So which is best? Looking at my decklist, you can see I still haven't decided. Once again, it comes down to if you're playing your allies out on a curve or taking the more controlling route. Turntimber Ranger is as nice as you might expect, but sometimes you just need more beef, and Kazuul Warlord provides, and I don't mean because he's part cow. Another high-cost ally I considered was Murasa Pyromancer, but Tajuru Archer clears the air, and hopefully your fatties or wolves can cover the ground.

All the allies are dirt cheap right now. At the time of writing, you can pick up a playset of all the rare allies in this deck for under 2 dollars! The Savage Lands cost more than that! All three of these rares deserve to be priced higher in my opinion, it just goes to show how underrated allies are right now. The deck is fun and surprisingly resilient, and at under 10 dollars you can't go wrong. Give it a try!

Infinity

Or I guess you could say, what goes around, comes around. This whole experience taught me quite a lot - Grim Discovery is awesome, you can't prepare for everything, and Blightning is not as bad as I thought. Or as good as I thought, for that matter. Still, my feelings towards the dreaded laughing skull have cooled - it is no longer my master nor my slave. And maybe now I can get back to just having fun, until Worldwake shows up to introduce a card that will make me want to gouge out my eyes. Let's not forget though, that Blightning will be in standard for nearly a year to come, so I leave you with this - Be Cautious, Be Aware, and Beware the 'B' word...

Thanks for reading!