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By: hamtastic, Erik Friborg
Mar 31 2009 11:31am
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During the latest round of Conflux spoilers there were a lot of good ideas thrown around for the cards that were being spoiled.  Then it dawned on me... every rumor mill season when a new card is spoiled there are dozens of posts about new interactions, and they are too frequently lost and discarded to the sands of time..

First up, as I mentioned, is the old "ProsBloom" deck which got it's name from the key cards of the deck, namely Prosperity and Cadaverous Bloom.  The deck as it was last seen in 2002, as created by Mike Long:

25 Land:
3 Bad River
4 Undiscovered Paradise
7 Forest
5 Island
6 Swamp
 
35 Other Spells:
4 Cadaverous Bloom
1 Drain Life
1 Elven Cache
1 Emerald Charm
4 Impulse
4 Infernal Contract
2 Memory Lapse
4 Natural Balance
1 Power Sink
4 Prosperity
4 Squandered Resources
1 Three Wishes
4 Vampiric Tutor

For those who aren't familiar with it... Cadaverous Bloom is a silly, silly card and doesn't really have an equivalent replacement online.  Trading any card in hand (land, duplicates, whatever) for two colored mana is simply ridiculous and turns any card that draws cards at a higher efficiency than 2:1 into nearly infinite resources.  Cards like Prosperity and Three Wishes

Looking at our Wayback List we can make some changes.  We don't need to run Blue for extra card draw, although we certainly could if we wanted to as all of those cards exist online.  However, cutting Blue lets us just run basic lands (cheaper) and makes the deck a bit less powerful (we're just playing in Cas/Cas after all).  Also, we have some new options for building up a grip of cards (Promise of Power which has the flexibility of beating down if needed and Harmonize).  We also have better options for recovering played cards (Eternal Witness > Elven Cache), and of course, we have more robust win conditions as well Tendrils of Agony, I'm looking in your direction.

My first run through of the tweaked deck:

The major problem I noticed is that Recycle/Null Profusion were 'win more' in the extreme.  The only time they weren't dead was when I had tons of cards in hand which, well, was when I was going to win anyway.  I cut them and went to this version:

 

I played quite a few games with it, I'll recap the one I lost and give a general play by play of the deck.  

In the game I lost I was up against a Classic Tournament Mono Black Rack deck.  Mass discard beat my combo, not too much of a surprise there.  Although I was almost set-up before he got me out of cards, and from there, I still could have won; possibly, if I could have top decked any card draw spell.  Instead I drew another Squandered Resources and died.

The deck is very forgiving, very powerful, very expensive and very self-centered.  The biggest problem I now have with the deck is it's a lot of "look at me click, oh, you're dead", which generally isn't fun for the other player.  The good part about the deck is that it takes a few turns to really it its stride, giving the opponent plenty of time to mount an offensive or at least play some cards.  The earliest you can really start to 'go off' is turn four, with turn seven or eight being a safe bet.  Once you start to go off, you'll almost never 'fizzle' (or fail to hit the finishing piece, for those who aren't up on their MTG vernacular).  Here's my concern though... it's too easy to win with this, especially with Tendrils4TW.  I heard that a five year old in Australia just won a game just by accidently spilling cards into play, ending with a Tendrils.  Okay, maybe I made that up.  But winning with Tendrils in a deck like this is like throwing bricks at a clown... fun at first but once he stops moving it gets boring.  So I decided to Casual It Up(tm) a little and go with a much more off the wall, less frequently used win condition. 

Dark Depths + Aether Snap + Lightning Greaves

For good measure I'm going to add life gain back into the mix via Loxodon Warhammer, which give me a way to recoup my life if I feel that I may need more than one turn to win (like there are blockers or something). You read that right.  I'm going for the big Timmy wet dream win condition.  A 23/20 indestructable flying, trampling, haste'd, life link'd beat-stick.  Of Death.

So I tweak the deck as follows:
-2 Tendrils of Agony
-2 Barter in Blood
+1 Dark Depths
+1 Aether Snap
+1 Lightning Greaves
+1 Loxodon Warhammer

To bring it further into budget levels I'd suggest cutting the tutor twins and replacing them with some other tutor/card draw spells.  But this isn't Exploration, and I'm not Building on a Budget.  If you've got the good cards, run 'em.  However, this engine allows you both ridiculous mana as well as ridiculous card drawing which can enable all sorts of shenanigans... things like:

The base of the deck will allow you to pretty much play and win with with any combination of kill cards you desire since you''ll both draw into them and have mana to play them.  Taking out the life drain win makes the deck a lot more vulnerable and lot more likley to run out of life before you get to the 'I win' cards.   To that end, I would probably recommend going back to the GBu build where you can run painless card draw.

The other combo that I'll be re-covering this week is a slick little number from Mirrodin.  The combo at the time was Wall of Blood + (Grab the Reigns).  The combo was simple.  You burn your opponent down a bit lower than you, play the Wall of Blood, pump it up to the opponent's life total and 'Fling' it with Grab the Reigns.  It was not really even good enough in Casual Standard as it required too much mana (7 mana across two colors) and you had to be in a winning position already.... not a really good combo as far as combos go.  But lo and behold, we have a new 'fling' effect in Rite of Consumption.  In fact, we can now look at going mono-Black instead of Black/Red as well as cutting down the mana costs from seven to five.  From seven to FIVE, people!  That's HUGE.  Well, okay, maybe it's not that huge, but it will help.

I threw together the following sixty and headed into the Cas/Cas room:

 
Blood Rites
A Classic Deck 

Creatures:
4 Rite of Consumption

Other Spells
4 Ebony Charm
4 Wall of Blood
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
4 Midnight Charm
1 Syphon Life
3 Soul Spike
4 Damnation
4 Last Caress

Lands
20 Swamp

Solemn Simulacrum


Initial Observations:
I built this deck for the speediest win possible with some minor back up.  The biggest challenge I ran into with this deck was the inability for black to get extra cards really fast without paying life.  The reason this becomes a challenge is because you need to have at least one more life than your opponent when you start to go off, and for that to happen you need to not throw much life into finding the pieces.  I imagine that once Demonic Tutor is online that I might update this deck. 

I've now played a few games with it, and it's a blast.  It wins out of nowhere and requires very little clickwork to get there.  In fact, I won one game against an LD deck with no permanents in play when the dust settled.  The score was 20-0 with me victorious:

That was quite a fun game!

To budgetize it, the only thing you really need to do is swap the Damnations into something cheaper.  I'd recommend Barter in Blood for the deck, as it will rarely hurt you and it is still a fantastic way to control the field.

Conclusion:
As you've probably guessed by now, this article is the first part of a series.  My aim is to go over old decks, old ideas, and deck sketches that haven't been seen for a while and bring them to MTGO: 2009.  Some are going to be old and busted tournament decks that are long in the tooth, and some are going to be  decks that never really went anywhere when they were first thought up.  And for the record, yes, I'm technically advocating and helping people to play tournament decks in the Casual Decks room.  He's a madman!

23 Comments

Well, if you can't play old by Anonymous (not verified) at Tue, 03/31/2009 - 12:22
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Well, if you can't play old tournament decks in the casual room, then where can you play them?

Exactly by hamtastic at Tue, 03/31/2009 - 13:01
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Some of these decks will be old tourney decks which for various reasons, are just not viable anymore. Pros-Bloom is one of them. It's a blast to play and does some amazing things but couldn't hold water in a real Classic tournament. In the Casual room however, they're going to be pretty solid.

There will be some decks that just aren't necessary to revisit. U/G Madness, Affinity, etc, all are still just as powerful and just as potent as they were in the day and I don't really see the need to dust those off right yet. I'm looking into mostly block decks though, as they have a very strange lifespan and often times aren't fully explored before they're put away. Take a deck like Gifts Ungiven from Kami Block. It was a strong deck in its day, but what would it do in Extended? What can be added to it? There's a lot of unexplored room in the blocks we have access to that really is unfortunately never delved into before the next block comes out. I hope to fix that, at least a little!

The most important part by spg at Tue, 03/31/2009 - 12:29
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You forgot to describe the secret tech of keeping a Prosperous Bloom in your lap for when you really need it the most... Oh wait, can't do that on MTGO!

ZING! by tumultuous (not verified) at Tue, 03/31/2009 - 13:41
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ZING!

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I get a lot of heat from random people for playing with good cards in classic casual.

It has, so far, never bothered me. Of course since the average person has 0 idea what constitutes a tournament-level classic deck, it usually difficult to argue with them. I point them to CQ but usually they've done me a favour and blocked me before I can point out that if I was playing a tourney deck, I'd use Force of Will and Daze and not a single playset of couterspell. But that distinction is lost on most people.

Then again, some of them just conceed when I play the Engineered Plagues I've taken to playing a couple of maindeck. I can only assume their deck-making skill do not stretch far beyond the text to the right of "Creature".

Or they complain that my deck is too "money". It's getting harder to resist the urge to respond with: "Yes, I've paid for the right to pwn j00". Nevermind that the reason I won the game was with a .50 Duress, a well timed $1 Swords to Plowshares and all the times you attacked into an untapped Foil Aether Vials that I think cost me $2 for a playset...

So Hammy, if it's the verbal abuse of your opponent you are worried about, play your old tournament decks in casual...

Just don't add Thoughtseize/Counterspell, dual lands or indeed any cards worth more than say, 10 tix and you'll be fine.

Some sadly true points there, by hamtastic at Tue, 03/31/2009 - 14:19
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Some sadly true points there, Danger. :(

I guess this is as good of a time as any to suggest a somewhat on topic suggestion!

I'm currently running a Classic Based clan, which is a chapter of the PureMTGO clans. I sort of stalled out after first starting it up but I think that now, more than ever, the players who want to play good Classic Casual decks need to band together.

If anyone is interested in a Clan that has a Classic focus and won't concede/block/complain(too much) about the strength of the opposing decks, please hit me up in game.

PureMTGO Clans have access to a Ventrillo Voice Chat Server, if anyone's interested in that and they get some extra discounts at the 'traders site as well.

I've seen and experienced horror stories about the very poor sportsmanship in the casual room. And I'm fed up with it. Let's all get together and shun the nonbelievers Charlie. SHUNNNNUNNNN

Go inside the cave Charlie! by bubba0077 at Tue, 03/31/2009 - 23:46
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Go inside the cave Charlie! Magical wonders are to behold when you enter!

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4 Spinning Darkness

The non-black part probably a small problem, but the free 3 life might be worth a look

Not a bad idea... I may have by hamtastic at Tue, 03/31/2009 - 17:25
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Not a bad idea... I may have to tweak the deck a bit more to get them in. It's a fun deck to just surprisingly win from out of nowhere.

A card I thought of after the article went to print is "Ragged Veins", which is a crazy surprise for any creature that attacks into a wall of blood...

candy mountain charlie. by whiffy at Tue, 03/31/2009 - 17:25
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it's a magical place charliiiiiieeeeeeee.

YAY! Another Charlie fan. by hamtastic at Tue, 03/31/2009 - 17:26
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YAY! Another Charlie fan. Funny stuff, that Charlie.

Good stuff. I really like by Leviathan at Tue, 03/31/2009 - 18:49
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Good stuff. I really like the idea behind this (I hope) series. More ideas about fun casual stuff are always interesting. Looking forward to future installments.

It will certainly be a by hamtastic at Tue, 03/31/2009 - 22:11
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It will certainly be a series. Probably not weekly due to other commitments and not wanting to run through too many ideas too quickly. :) I just see all these cool, crazy combos when sets are getting spoiled and then they disappear and that's really unfortunate I think.

Glad you liked it!

Bloody Rebels? by magigeek (not verified) at Tue, 03/31/2009 - 21:23
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If you wanna make the Wall of Blood combo a little less comboish, how about throwing in some Rebel action! Children of Korlis makes it easy to pull off the combo without actually being ahead on life and the rebel package can be versatile enough to win you games even if you don't draw any of the combo. Aven Riftwatcher can be a great roadblock/life gain and the Rebel mechanic is a slow, but effective way to thin your deck while waiting for your combo pieces.

I'm a pauper player, so I am not really familiar with much outside of that format, but I used to have a paper version of Rebels with Bound in Silence and some other stuff. It may not be very competitive (haven't really tried it yet), but it lets you play an interactive game. Aggro/Control/Combo FTW!

Oh, BTW, my six year old by magigeek (not verified) at Tue, 03/31/2009 - 21:25
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Oh, BTW, my six year old nephew has been recently singing "Put a banana in your ear..." Charlie is the Banana King!

"Put a banana in my ear? But by hamtastic at Tue, 03/31/2009 - 22:12
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"Put a banana in my ear? But I'd rather it stay clear!"

LOVE IT!

I love the idea of this by jamuraa at Wed, 04/01/2009 - 00:11
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5
I love the idea of this article set, I am looking forward to more of these examining old decks that were broken in their time. I've always been interested in these decks and not really versed in them. Keep it up! (also, I fixed the Prosperity link in the first paragraph, and the linking for the last deck)
Thanks! by hamtastic at Wed, 04/01/2009 - 09:26
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Thanks for the fixes, Mr. jimmy-jam-jaaaamUUUrrrrAAAAA!

I love this idea for an by Katastrophe at Wed, 04/01/2009 - 02:00
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4

I love this idea for an article! Though you started to lose me when you simultaneously decided to Casual It Up(tm) and budgetize the first deck. I dislike Hulk-Flash, but not as nearly as much as I like weak decks like "Dark Depths + Aether Snap + Lightning Greaves". In my experience that kind of 3 card combo looks like fun in the deck editor, and it's fun to write about, but it's crap to shuffle up and actually use. But to be fair, I haven't played any of your Bloom decks. So I shouldn't say that.

The updated Blood Rites though looks very interesting! I'm missing the Dark Rituals and Soul Spikes, but I'd buy those and play that. To add to the idea, Soul's Fire is tragically red, and 3 mana, but it is an instant. That let's you win during your opponent's turn. I love chances to do that. The red strategy might use Ankh of Mishra, Manabarbs, or something like that to take the lead. Since all you really need is the lead anyway.

Dark Depths by hamtastic at Wed, 04/01/2009 - 10:03
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Dark Depths was the worst of the casual versions I put together. Way too much was needed to go right and it was very hard to get everything together with enough life to spare. I did win a couple games with it, but it's woefully underpowered compared to pretty much anything else I tried to win with. But if any engine can make it work, this is one of the few that can.

I had a lot of fun with that engine and I'll probably keep updating as I get new cards to use with it. :)

Yes ! by LOurs at Wed, 04/01/2009 - 03:59
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5

i cant wait for next article of this new series. I like old deck too much, maybe because i knew mtg with the unlim set ... nostalgy ? yes a bit ! I like old decks too much.

Cadaverous is i great card, with a lot of different possible uses as you well mentioned.
I often played it with City of Solitude to play a looooong turn :)

prosbloom variants by Undeadgod (not verified) at Thu, 04/02/2009 - 07:29
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I never won any big tourneys with my variants, so Mike Long has me on that score, but I have been running Prosbloom since visions came out (the first time). I recall being really disappointed in his deck only really having one way to win. Granted his was tourney and mine was a type one "fun deck" that just killed my friends and local tourney players. I really prefer my old version, which I play from time to time on MTGO since Masters Edition came out online, which the main kill is storm seekers. Lots of fun. Braingeyser can also be a fun kill with this deck.

Anyway great article, and I love to play my 8 some odd prosbloom decks online (tho sadly the mechanic takes a bit too long and is annoying to play on MTGO) if anyone wants to see this in action.

Look me up
Undeadgod on mtgo

More prosbloom variants... by Pyroglyphics (not verified) at Thu, 04/02/2009 - 11:21
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For maximum comedy, don't put any win conditions in your deck and play with 4 Death Wishes.

..."a MAGICAL liopleurodon!"