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By: CottonRhetoric, Cotton Rhetoric
Jul 06 2010 1:35am
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Regular Magic has so many ways to be villainous.  Vanguard adds so many more.

I'm not talking about the kind of villainy where you play Goblin Charbelcher with the Hermit Druid avatar to win the game on the second turn.  That's too quick and painless for our opponent.  I'm talking about the kind of villainy where you trap the opponent in a miserable game state as long as possible while killing them slowly.  That's what today's decks do.  (For this reason, you shouldn't actually use today's decks.  People will hate you.)

Deck 1 Hermit Druid

The genesis for this deck came about a year ago, when I made a (regular, non-vanguard) Desolation deck.  For redundancy, it also had Army Ants.  These are pretty mean cards to have out.

Desolation  Army Ants

If you can get them out early enough, and supply enough lands to fuel them, your opponent will not be doing much.  They can easily get stuck on two, or fewer, lands for the entire game.  The problem with the deck was, I couldn't always get these cards out early enough, and I couldn't always supply enough lands to fuel them.  The Hermit Druid avatar solves both of these problems at once.

With Hermit Druid, you can very easily and reliably cast either of these cards on Turn Two.  And every upkeep, you will get a land to feed them.  This makes for a pretty miserable opponent.

The rest of the deck should just be filled with cheap creatures and removal.  I'm focusing the curve on 1 to 3 mana, because that's generally our limit.  (If you're getting significantly more mana than that, you may be playing the deck wrong.)

Paralyze    

My favorite removal spell in this deck is Paralyze.  With the way your opponent's lands will be going, this is basically a one-mana Terminate.

Blind Creeper is another funny card in this deck.  Your opponent won't frequently be able to cast more than one spell per turn.  Often, they can't cast any.  Mono-black Watchwolf!

Darkblast is more useful than usual.  The few spells our opponent's can cast will be low-CC, which often means low-toughness.

As for whether it's worth casting Dark Ritual into Desolation on the first turn — YES.  Never pass on the opportunity to do this.

As for whether it's worth casting Desolation and/or Army Ants in duplicate — rarely.  Sometimes yes, but it's usually overkill.  A single one, cast early, is enough to shut down your opponent.  It's also as many as your avatar can negate the cost of.

The last card to discuss is Gemstone Mine.  The deck is only two colors, but you cannot risk having the wrong color during those crucial first two turns.  This helps.  And it's also great fodder to sacrifice to your Desolation or Ants, since it would die pretty soon anyway.  Use it twice then toss it.  Very efficient.

Like all of my decks, this is casual and customizable.  Just don't take out the Desolations, Ants, Paralyzes, or Dark Rituals is all I ask.

Avatar: Hermit Druid

Land (17):
4 Gemstone Mine
1 Gods' Eye, Gate to the Reikai
7 Swamp
5 Mountain

Creatures (20):
4 Blind Creeper
4 Fallen Askari
4 Squealing Devil
4 Army Ants
2 Lava Zombie
2 Ravenous Skirge

Noncreatures (23):
4 Paralyze
4 Dark RItual
3 Lightning Bolt
2 Reckless Charge
2 Darkblast
4 Night's Whisper
4 Desolation
Gemstone Mine Lava Zombie

Deck 2 Karona, False God

This avatar, just by itself, is already villainous.  You take your opponent's lands in exchange for ones he can't use.  When he finally does cast something worthwhile, you take that too.  And kill him with it.

I went and made it even more villainous.  Here's how:

Brooding Saurian

Ooooh this deck is mean.  It probably looks like a nonbo at first ("Don't the cards cancel each other out?") but there's one piece missing from the puzzle.  After your av swaps one of your cards for one of your opponent's cards, and before your Saurian gives both players their cards back... sacrifice your opponent's card.

Did you miss it?  Trade your card for his card.  Destroy his card.  Take your card back.  Repeat every turn.

Evil!

Unlike the Desolation deck, above, there's no other card that does quite what the Saurian does, so we can't 8x him.  We'll have to run some sifting or tutoring with the 4x.  I originally was leaning towards Worldly Tutor but changed it to a Living Wish suite when I realized I can also tutor for Diamond Valley, an excellent sac outlet, with it.  (That's right, that will make this the first ever deck in my column to feature a sideboard!)

What other good sac outlets are out there?  Hey, take your pick:

Claws of Gix  Infernal Tribute  Barrin, Master Wizard  Goblin Bombardment

Permanents may seem risky, as your opponent can take them and presumably destroy stuff that you own, but this isn't bad if you just cast the Saurian first.  This way, if they do steal your sac outlet, they won't have anything else of yours on their side at the same time, so there's really nothing to destroy besides the sac outlet itself.  This is lamentable, but only slightly.  Still, if you'd prefer non-permanent sac outlets, here are some good ones:

Greater Gargadon  Perilous Research  Fling  Worthy Cause

Yeah, I just recommended Worthy Cause.

You'll have to face the fact that permanents of yours will be stolen before that Saurian comes online.  So what types of cards are best for this?

  • Cards we don't care about.  Hey, my opponent can have the token from my Khalni Garden.  It's okay.
  • Cards that are symmetrical.  After a Rites of Flourishing comes out, it really doesn't matter who controls it.
  • Cards with conditional requirements.  The opponent might take my Phyrexian Ironfoot.  But they probably can't do much with it.

Looks like the deck is coming together.  I also threw in a few Bronze Bombshells because, creativity be damned, this might be the card's only chance to come off the bench.

Avatar: Karona, False God

Land (28):
3 Diamond Valley
2 Khalni Garden
9 Snow-Covered Mountain
14 Snow-Covered Forest

Creatures (17):
4 Vine Trellis
4 Phyrexian Ironfoot
3 Bronze Bombshell
3 Brooding Saurian
3 Greater Gargadon

Noncreatures (15):
2 Lightning Bolt
2 Frog Tongue
2 Hull Breach
4 Living Wish
3 Firespout
2 Rites of Flourishing

Sideboard:
1 Brooding Saurian
1 Bronze Bombshell
1 Greater Gargadon
1 Hunted Dragon
1 Diamond Valley
1 Spinal Villain
1 Sulfur Elemental
1 Hammerheim Deadeye
1 Aerie Ouphes
1 Willow Satyr
1 Tin Street Hooligan
4 Squire*

Living Wish Greater Gargadon

* Just in case

Deck 3 Serra Angel

This avatar combos pretty well with a certain evil card we all know and (if we're the ones casting it) love:

Zur's Weirding

Let me clarify what this does.  You cast an enchantment for 3U which reads, "If you cast at least one spell per turn, your opponent can never draw another card."  It's decent.

We only have to worry about two things.  Getting Zur's Weirding out, and maintaining board advantage.  If our board advantage falls behind, it won't matter whether our opponent draws cards: they might still beat us.  But if we're ahead on the board, it's a lock.  So to do this, we'll play cards with built-in advantage.  Cantrips, two-for-ones, etc.  Fortunately we're already in blue, the color of advantage.  Dismiss, Mind Control, Thieving Magpie, the list goes on and on.  Even Wistful Thinking is worth considering, in this era of Mind Rots being tournament worthy.  (Plus, for a mere four life, this could change from a Mind Rot to a Haunting Hymn!  If we need it to.)

Sleight of Hand not only helps us sift, but gets us some easy life points too.  Same with the deck's many other cheap cantrips.

    Memory Lapse

Memory Lapse is particularly cruel.  If Zur's Weirding is out, it becomes a hard counter, since the opponent doesn't get to draw next turn.  You even gain 2 life while casting it, so it's an even exchange.  For the same reason, we'll also run Time Ebb.

Lore Broker is another card to gain added utility next to Zur's Weirding.  You're not only Merfolk Lootering yourself, but, if you have 2 life to spare, simultaneously Disrupting Sceptering your opponent.  For 0 mana.

Figuring out a win condition was tricky.  A deck as slow and defensive as this one tends to want only a few of its 60 slots dedicated towards winning.  But if that were the case, our opponent could easily use our own Zur's Weirding against us and prevent us from ever seeing our win-cons!  So we have to use a card that's invulnerable to Zur's Weirding.  A card that helps us win even if we don't draw it.  For that, I turned to white, thanks to the reanimation clauses on Eternal Dragon and Chronosavant.

Here's the list:

Avatar: Serra Angel

Land (25):
20 Island
3 Plains
2 Halimar Depths

Creatures (11):
4 Lore Broker
3 Thieving Magpie
2 Chronosavant
2 Eternal Dragon

Noncreatures (24):
4 Sleight of Hand
4 Azorius Signet
2 Memory Lapse
2 Remand
2 Legacy's Allure
2 Time Ebb
2 Wistful Thinking
4 Zur's Weirding
2 Mind Control
Eternal Dragon Wistful Thinking

See you next time, and have fun with vanguard!

1 Comments

hermit druid deck could also by this isnt the n... at Tue, 07/06/2010 - 19:08
this isnt the name i chose's picture

hermit druid deck could also fit in some flagstones of trokair quite nicely too, a good way of negating land loss. It would mean going into white, but white also has stp, mortefy, oring which would all work nicely in there.