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By: CottonRhetoric, Cotton Rhetoric
Aug 21 2009 9:32am
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Alright, my fourth article!

Before I get to today's decks I want to respond to the comments I've been getting on my first three articles.  They make me think I haven't been as clear as I could have on a certain point, which is:

My decks are not supposed to be good: they are supposed to be FUN.

A lot of you have been saying my decks aren't good.  My response is: That's correct!  That's also the entire point.  I'm making decks for the casual room, hence my column's title.  If the only way you can have fun is by winning, that is perfectly fine, but this is probably not the column for you.  There are already a lot of internet resources for Top 8 Vanguard decks, and I will direct you to one of those instead.  This column is more for the people looking to get some ideas for fun and goofy card interactions in Vanguard, something I'm doing because I frankly don't see it anywhere else on the internet.  To summarize, I am writing for the Johnnies and the Timmies, not for the Spikes.

Speaking of the Johnnies and Timmies, today's decks all do something that often appeals to both of those groups: getting BIG MANA.  Let's get started already.

Deck 1 Orcish Squatters

This avatar is craaaazy for getting lots of mana.  (Compare this to the Elvish Champion avatar, which people used to play even after WotC weakened it.)

(Quick tip: Unless you design your Squatters deck to operate otherwise, always choose to DRAW FIRST with this avatar.  That way, you'll have 2 mana on your first turn instead of one.  And four mana on the second turn instead of three.  Et cetera.)

I have several different Orcish Squatters avatar decks, and they all do different things, but today's is going to be artifact based.  The reason is because today's article is the BIG MANA article, and the mana from the avatar itself isn't big enough.  We also want the mana from Blinkmoth Urn:

Blinkmoth Urn

With the help of our opponent's lands and a single Simic Signet, it's no problem to power out an Urn by turn two.  And if we have even one artifact land out, that means we'll have access to at least 9 mana on turn three (our three lands, plus at least three mana from our avatar, plus at least another three from the Urn — and this is not even a best-case scenario).  As we get into the late game, with tons of lands, tons of artifacts, and multiple Urns, it's not uncommon to have 30 or more mana each turn.  Honest.

So what do we do with all this mana?

With this particular deck, I use Orochi Hatchery, Aladdin's Ring, Altar of Shadows, Tower of Eons, Tawnos's Coffin, and Goblin Cannon, all of which (but the Cannon) are aided by both Rings of Brighthearth and Clock of Omens.  Imagine tapping your Aladdin's Ring to deal 4 damage, copying that with the Rings, and STILL having enough mana leftover to activate your Orochi Hatchery.  And copy it with the Rings.  That's what this deck is all about.

I also run Aeon Chronicler, Braingeyser, and Tower of Fortunes to not only use mana but find more mana-using cards.

Other cards in my deck include Sun Droplet, ThoughtcastFabricate, and (the surprisingly good in here, due to all of the singletons) Recollect.  I even had enough room for a little countermagic.  Before I discuss other potential routes for a deck like this, here's the list I run.

Remeber: Always draw first with this one!

(Also remember: It's a casual deck!)
 

Avatar: Orcish Squatters

Lands (22):
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Tree of Tales
1 Darksteel Citadel
10 Island
3 Forest

Creatures (2):
2 Aeon Chronicler

Artifacts (22):
4 Simic Signet
4 Sun Droplet
1 Rings of Brighthearth
1 Clock of Omens
1 Goblin Cannon

2 Tawnos's Coffin
1 Tower of Eons
1 Tower of Fortunes
4 Blinkmoth Urn
1 Altar of Shadows
1 Aladdin's Ring
1 Orochi Hatchery

Spells (14):
2 Negate
1 Remove Soul
Fabricate
3 Recollect
3 Thoughtcast
1 Braingeyser

Fabricate

Other ideas:

Having this much mana is a fairly open book.  Assuming you want to keep the blue-green-artifacts route, you could consider the following:

  • New Frontiers: This card is pretty funny with the Squatters avatar.  Supposing you cast it for 5, you are not only getting 5 lands of your own, but 5 additional mana from your opponent's new lands.  And "worst case," if your opponent tries to spite you by not choosing to get his own lands?  Great, he just opted out of a bonus.  Less direct ways to give everyone lands include Veteran Explorer and Natural Balance.
  • Wurmcalling: I probably don't need to explain this one.
  • Riptide Replicator/Snake Basket: I personally prefer Orochi Hatchery, but these are obviously similar in effect.
  • Tower of Murmurs/Tower of Champions: I'm still waiting for that fifth tower, WotC.  The one with the black ability.  Maybe in Zendikar?
  • Iceberg/Gemstone Array: Probably superfluous, but who knows.
  • Helix Pinnacle: I add the one caveat that the slowness of paying X 100 times with the MtGO interface will be very bothersome to your opponent.
  • Myr Incubator: I used to run 2 copies myself, until I realized that "win immediately" cards weren't so fun for either me or my opponent.  You may feel differently of course, and I encourage you to do what you like :)

Of course I'm only scratching the surface with the possibilities this deck's structure provides, but hopefully I've at least set you on a path.  Almost any spell that costs X, has an X activation (or repeatable activation), or is just plain expensive is probably workable in some way.  And if you can find spells fitting that description that have synergy with each other, so much the better.

For the next deck, let's take a different route though.  Let's go back to the ol' Vernal Bloom/Keeper of Progenitus centerpiece I was talking about in the last article.  And to capitalize on it, let's use....

Deck 2 Hermit Druid

Argh I love this avatar.  I already have three decks with it: in addition to today's Vernal Bloom deck, I also have a Lake of the Dead deck and a deck whose only lands are 4 Cloudposts.  I'll save those two for future articles though.

The way this avatar works, if you didn't catch it, is you get (up to) two lands each turn — one from the avatar and one from your hand.  For this particular deck, I wanted enough lands to get me to 4 mana on the second turn, to power out a quick Bloom, but I didn't care if I drew any lands after that.  That four mana plus the future lands from my avatar would be enough.  15 forests seemed like the right number, and playtesting with that has been good.

So.  What do we do with all this mana?  Since the Vernal Bloom pushes us towards mono green, large creatures comes to mind.  But what's more fun that hardcasting a Living Hive?

Wild Pair

Getting a free Vigor in play when you do.

Here are the creature choices I used to synergize with Wild Pair.  Like I say probably 2-4 times each article, I encourage you to make your own adjustments.

I also run 2 Verdeloth the Ancient in this build, who doesn't tutor up anybody with Wild Pair, but who does give you a great number of 2/2 tokens, which is comparably good.

Since we're having a lot of creatures, I added a singleton Biorhythm.  For card draw, Soul's Majesty can do great things in the mid-late game, and I have Harmonize for the early game (with this avatar, 4 mana IS the early game).  I also borrowed two big mana cards from my previous deck, in the form of Aladdin's Ring and Altar of Shadows — combined with 4 Lignify, this is our creature removal.  (Regarding Lignify, having 4 toughness doesn't mean so much against the creatures of this deck.)

One card I tried on a whim that ended up surprising me with how well it worked: Darksteel Pendant!  Our lands will be tapping for odd amounts of mana, so we'll very frequently have 1 or 2 leftover.  And since our handsize is only 5, our draws will need all the help they can get.  It's saved me a couple of times.

My decklist, which is highly customizable as always:

Avatar: Hermit Druid

Land (15):
15 Forest

Creatures (18):
4 Keeper of Progenitus
1 Gleancrawler
2 Verdeloth the Ancient
2 Vigor
2 Clockwork Dragon
1 Living Hive
2 Colossus of Sardia
2 Krosan Colossus
2 Feral Hydra

Noncreatures (27):
2 Darksteel Pendant
1 Lightning Greaves
2 Sun Droplet
4 Lignify
2 Harmonize
4 Vernal Bloom
2 Soul's Majesty
4 Wild Pair
1 Altar of Shadows
1 Aladdin's Ring
1 Biorhythm
1 Decree of Savagery
2 Molder
Living Hive

For the last "BIG MANA" deck, I'm going with some wordplay.

Deck 3 Dakkon Blackblade

Here, instead of big AMOUNTS of mana, we're going to have mana that is itself big.  For instance, mana that becomes a 5/5 with flying, vigilance, and persist.  Here's how to do it.

   

This avatar lets you play the spells in your hand as lands.

While they're lands, they do still retain the memory of what they used to be (hover the mouse over them for a second if you don't believe me).

So what happens if you were to turn a land into a creature and then Momentary Blink it?  Why, it would "lose memory" of its previous state and come back as its original form.  It's similar to Blinking a morphed creature to turn it face up.  Here's an example.

Use the avatar to play a Thorn Elemental as a basic forest.  Then use Lifespark Spellbomb to turn the forest into a 3/3.  Then cast Momentary Blink on your 3/3 to flip it over to a Thorn Elemental.

Pretty good, right?  There are a few things to keep in mind though.

  • The avatar only lets you turn colored cards into lands.  Sorry, Nullstone Gargoyle.
  • The avatar picks the land type based on the card's color.  So if you need a green mana to activate your Lifespark Spellbomb, you won't be helped by playing your Bloodfire Colossus as a land.
  • For multicolored cards, the avatar picks the land type at random, so you're running a risk by playing an Autochthon Wurm as a land.
  • Momentary Blink DOES trigger comes-into-play effects.  Woodfall Primus is clear to launch.
  • You can use this trick on any colored permanent, not only creatures.  Have fun flipping a Confiscate, Form of the Dragon, etc.

So how are we going to turn our lands into creatures?  This deck uses not only Lifespark Spellbomb but also Elvish Branchbender.  It also uses a couple of large morph creatures, which (like I was saying earlier) you can either play as a land or as a morph before you Momentary Blink it.

As for how to blink those creatures, we're using not only Blink itself but also Otherworldly Journey and Galepowder Mage.  They each have their obvious pros and cons.  Otherwordly Journey gives the +1/+1 counter, but can't create a surprise block like Momentary Blink can.  Galepowder Mage is repeatable and deals damage, but is slower and more disruptable.  Anyway, the all-star of this deck is Flickerwisp, because it can actually flip a land that isn't first animated.

There's of course a lot of redundancy with this deck, but given our avatar, that's not a bad thing.  If anything, it helps you decide what to play as lands.  After you play those big creatures as lands, of course.

As for the big creatures, pick whatever you like.  Just remember my above points, which encourage monogreen and monowhite creatures only.  And having a couple that can morph will give you more options.  I'm running 14 big creatures here, which seems to be the right number based on my playtesting.  You never, ever want to draw fewer than two.  And getting more than that is obviously more helpful.

Avatar: Dakkon Blackblade

Creatures (35):
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Druid of the Anima
4 Elvish Branchbender
4 Flickerwisp
4 Galepowder Mage
1 Indrik Stomphowler
1 Kodama of the North Tree
1 Arctic Nishoba
2 Twilight Shepherd
2 Vigor
2 Thorn Elemental
2 Windbrisk Raptor
2 Titanic Bulvox
2 Krosan Colossus

Noncreatures (25):
4 Lifespark Spellbomb
2 Sunlance
2 Mana Tithe
1 Aura Blast
1 Divine Offering
2 Momentary Blink
2 Otherworldly Journey
1 Ray of Revelation
2 Reprisal
2 Lignify
1 Terashi's Grasp
1 Congregation at Dawn
1 Rending Vines
2 Harmonize
1 Faith's Fetters

Flickerwisp

As a bonus deck, here's a UW approach on the same basic premise.  The difference is that, instead of animating and then Blinking our lands, we're going to exile our lands with Wormfang Newt and Wormfang Turtle, and then Blink (or bounce) our Wormfangs.  Or kill them with Dead-Iron Sledge.  Sound janky?  You are correct.  It can be fun though!

Here's my list.  Experiment around.

Avatar: Dakkon Blackblade

Creatures (29):
1 Whitemane Lion
4 Wormfang Newt
4 Flickerwisp
2 Wormfang Drake
4 Wormfang Turtle
1 Godhead of Awe
1 Isperia the Inscrutable
2 Purity
2 Twilight Shepherd
2 Windbrisk Raptor
4 The Unspeakable
2 Deep-Sea Kraken

Noncreatures (31):
1 Dead-Iron Sledge
2 Ponder
2 Sunlance
2 Defy Gravity
2 Mana Tithe
3 Consuming Vortex
1 Momentary Blink
3 Otherworldly Journey
3 Peel from Reality
2 Pacifism
2 Serra's Blessing
2 Terashi's Grasp
1 Exile
2 Arrest
3 Confiscate
Wormfang Newt

And those aren't even the only two routes for the Dakkon flip trick.  Shortly after making these decks, I played against a guy who used Dimensional Breach in his Dakkon deck for the same purpose (although I never made such a deck myself and unfortunately don't have his list).  Hey, That Guy I Played Against, if you're reading this, do you want to share your decklist with us?

Anyway —

See you next time, and have fun with vanguard!

10 Comments

I like the last couple of by Paul Leicht at Fri, 08/21/2009 - 18:41
Paul Leicht's picture

I like the last couple of ideas under Dakkon. The One thing you missed in the UW deck is crystal shard which just is an awesome card. It can bounce your wurmfangs and also keep your op from tapping too many lands thus slowing a rush. Oh and it can save your flipped over creatures from targeted or mass removal.

Fun vs Winning by David (not verified) at Sat, 08/22/2009 - 00:25
David's picture

Look, I'm sry, but winning is fun. Winning in different, odd, unexpected ways? Sure, that's what casual, vanguard and weird formats is all about. But please don't separate the two things as if they're opposites. A deck that rarely wins is NOT going to make their pilot happy. Just my two cents, I confess I don't play vanguard nor evaluated the decks, just wanted to say that after I started reading. You should always strive to be effective, even if you're trying to be original.

Why not run Progenitus in by Wickedrh (not verified) at Sat, 08/22/2009 - 06:21
Wickedrh's picture

Why not run Progenitus in Dakkon deck I know it only has a 2/5 chance to produce white or become a forest but in a dedicated U/W list like your last one it shouldn't be a problem to blink him

Card Choices by Katastrophe at Sun, 08/23/2009 - 22:07
Katastrophe's picture
4

To add to what David said, playing bad cards isn't fun either. With the Orcish avatar plus the Blinkmoth Urn you've come up with a genius way to get tons of mana. But then you spend it on... Aladdin's Ring? With nine mana I'd be happy with a Banefire, a Martial Coup, a fat Apocalypse or Protean Hydra, or something like that. And if you want to use the Rings then try Grandeur, planeswalkers, and Wurmcalling and Helix Pinnacle. (Helix Pinnacle has shroud, but if you set X = 10 and you have the Rings, then you can put 20 counters on it for 12 mana.) If the Rings are important, then why only one copy?

But you get a cookie for using Tawnos's Coffin in a deck.

So what happens when Dakkon puts a Lightning Bolt into play as a Mountain and you blink it? I know what should happen - the bolt is sent to the graveyard with no effect. But I'm curious if MTGO handles this correctly. And Ghostfire. I'll give it a shot now.

Interesting by Katastrophe at Sun, 08/23/2009 - 23:14
Katastrophe's picture

Oops, wrong. I forgot that blinking something involves a zone change. And in that case, the object just stays in its previous zone. So my Lightning Bolt stayed exiled.

Ghostfire - cannot play as a land.
Tower Above - always turned into a Forest. (expected)
Summoner's Pact - also a Forest. (expected)

So everything works correctly. Aw, where's the fun in that? But it's interesting to note that Dakkon likes to pick basic lands that aren't released yet, and that he uses the premium quality of the card that you play as a land. I got lands from Urza's Saga, PRM, and a foil land from the yet unreleased theme decks.

But Aladdin's Ring is so by CottonRhetoric at Mon, 08/24/2009 - 20:22
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But Aladdin's Ring is so cooooool.

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