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By: Splendid Belt, Splendid Belt
Aug 04 2009 10:28am
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Hello and welcome back to Out of the Blue.  I chose this title because I hoped to be surprising in my strategies and writing, and because I’m a big fan of Blue (the Magic colour, not the dreadful British teen pop band – now happily defunct).  I think it’s a good choice, partly because here are the other ideas I had:

 

Fool’s Tome

Indentured Oaf

Words of Wind

fool's tome indentured oaf words of wind

 

These all Magic cards, and nicely self-deprecatory to the author.  But mostly they suggest ‘This isn’t going to be worth reading’, which is never a good theme in a title.  I may as well have called it ‘Stinking Gibberish’, which now that I think of it, wouldn’t have been bad.  Perhaps next time.

 

So, what’s been going on this week?  Well, my career as a struggling comedy writer continues to spin around like an upended beetle.  The two series I have in the pipeline are still very much in the pipleline, meaning the cash is no closer to my account.  However, I discovered something I wrote a while back is being repeated in China of all places, so my agent is even now sending in the winged monkies to collect repeat fees.  Soon my family will eat again.

 

That’s all very well, but what’s been going on in Magic?  Hmm, how about the new core set becoming legal, and rule changes coming into effect?  Pretty big news really, and it would be remiss to let it pass without celebrating it in this week’s article.

 

Unless you’ve been living in a nuclear bunker wearing a tin foil helmet for the past few months (and if you haven’t, why not?  Aren’t you scared of alien mind-probes too?), you’ll be aware that this Core set is unique in that it introduces some new cards (just not quite in the ratio that Wizards claimed).  Still, a good reason to climb out of your underground lair, stretch your aching limbs, then get zapped by mind-rays from Mars.

 

There are new and exciting cards which are already seeing play in competitive decks ( Baneslayer Angel, (Elivsh Archdruid), Great Sable Stag, Honor of the Pure and Silence look destined for tier 1.5 at least) .  But I want to focus on something less obvious, maybe even a little out of the blue.  He’s Capricious, he’s an Efreet, yes it can only be Borderland Ranger!  Actually no, that’s just Civic Wayfinder with a new hat.  Of course I’m talking about Capricious Efreet!

 

Capricious Efreet

 

To me, that’s an exciting effect.  The very unpredictability of the effect (or to put it another way, his ‘capricious’ nature) means it’ll never be tournament worthy, but we may be able to skew it a bit further in our favour to make it a Casual Room monster.  The drawback is the 33% chance per turn that it will destroy one of our own permanents, leading to card disadvantage.  If we can reduce that to 0%, I’d call that successfully skewed.

 

The first way to achieve that which leaps to my mind, is to select a permanent of ours that can’t be destroyed.  Shroud (and similarly Protection from Red) won’t do it, then we wouldn’t even be able to select the card.  Here are the current Standard legal cards which are either Indesctructible, or grant indestructibility:

 

Darksteel Colossus Dauntless Escort Elspeth, Knight-Errant

Indestructibility Sapling of Colfenor Shield of the Oversoul

Spearbreaker Behemoth Thornling Timber Protector

 

Nothing else there is red, so we’re looking at a two or three colour deck.  There’s plenty of mana fixing in the environment, so that alone shouldn’t scare us off, but we need to remember that our central card has RR in his cost.  But then, since he revels in a 6cc overall, we should be able to get RR by the time he’s castable.

 

I’m going to immediately discount Shield of the Oversoul and Dauntless Escort, because we’re going to have a fairly red heavy deck, and both want to be in G/W main.  The Shield can’t usefully enchant our Efreet, and the Escort has to die to protect anything, which sort of removes the point (which is not to lose card advantage to an effect from one of our own cards).

 

Elspeth is sent home early too, since she doesn’t help us before going infinite.  And if you can get her there, you’ve probably won anyway, and that’s for a different deck.

 

Next to go is Indestructibility.  I’m wary of auras, even hard to remove ones like this.  All it takes is an Unmake, Path to Exile or similar, and you’ve been two for one’d.

 

So we’re left with an expensive artifact, and some green fat.  That sounds good to me.  We can go G/R and get everything we want.

Indestructibility isn't the only way to ensure we don't lose too much from an unfavourable Efreet effect.  Some cards actually benefit us with their death.  Magma Phoenix is the best on colour example of this in Standard at the moment.  You get an upgraded Volcanic Fallout, and better yet you can return it to hand for it's casting cost.

 

Two issues are immediately apparent:

1)     We’re going to need to ramp up our mana to cast these cards before it’s too late.

2)     Even with ramp, we’re obviously aiming for the long game, so we’d better have the ability to control, at least to an extent.

 

Ramp

There are plenty of cards in Standard to get you there faster.  Lets line the likely candidates up together and see who makes the cut.

 

Scene: A Football Field

 

Capricious Efreet paces up and down before the scrawny squad assembled before him

 

Efreet:    So this is what they give me to work with?  I've got to build a team from a rag-tag bunch of no-hopers like you.  You boy, what's your name?

L Elf:      (Llanowar Elves).

Efreet:    Llanowar Elves what?

L Elf:      Just Llanowar Elves.

Efreet:    That's Llanowar Elves sir!  Back where I come from we have weenies and Djinnis.  Which are you boy? 

L Elf:      Um, an elf?

Efreet:    And you with the feathers, what do they call you?

Bird:       Squawk!  Birds of Paradise.

Efreet:    Paradise!  Looks more like hell to me.  Drop and give me twenty.

L Elf:      Um, he doesn't have any arms sir.

Efreet:    Insolence!  You do his twenty for him, and then you give me fifty for speaking out of turn!  Now this is more like it.  Name?

F Elf:      Farhaven Elf sir!

Efreet:    Now this is what I'm looking for.  You do something for me as soon as I bring you on the field.  You get hurt later, it doesn't matter.  You're in.

F Elf:      Sir yes sir!

Efreet:    And you, Rampant Growth is it?  Well?

L Elf:      Sir, he hasn't really got a mouth, being a mound of turf and all.

Efreet:    Did I say you could speak?  Anyway, Mr Growth, you're picked.  The rest of you, fifty laps of the field, go!

 

 

There is other acceleration, but these could do the job for us with varying degrees of efficiency.  In the main I prefer playing extra land over mana producing creatures, firstly because creatures can more easily be removed, and secondly because thinning land from your deck early on ups your chances of drawing your finishers when you need them.  For this reason, I'll also overlook Trace of Abundance.

 

Control

And now for our control.  This is slightly trickier given that we don’t have Blue, White or Black to help us.  Obviously we have access to all the burn we want, but a simple (Barrenton Forge-Tender) can throw a spanner in those works.  But step forward green with my favourite control spell of all time…

 

snakeform

 

Ahh, snakeform.  Here's an ode to the card in the form of a limerick:

 

There once was a spell called Snakeform,

Whose power was well above norm,

He turns opposing fat,

Into the size of a gnat,

And makes you feel fuzzy and warm.

 

Anyway, my love affair aside, we need not roll over to pro red.

 

I should also mention Lignify, which is another control option from green, but in my opinion, an inferior one.  We want to remove their creatures, not give them useful blockers.  Snakeform replaces itself, and enables us to kill a creature with any burn spell in the format.  Or alternatively, trade their best attacking creature with a token.

 

And on that note, tokens could also be useful for this deck.  If for some reason none of our indestructible creatures are present and the Efreet’s feeling uncharitable towards us, the best thing we can do is offer up a simple 1/1 to him.  Or even a land in the late game.  So in goes Hunting Triad.  It’s also another combat trick.

 

So those are the options, here’s a suggested decklist:

 

Vicious Capricious - Mmm Delicious

 

Creatures

4 Thornling

4 Capricious Efreet

4 Farhaven Elf

Magma Phoenix

2 Timber Protector

17 cards

 

Other Spells

4 Rampant Growth

4 Lightning Bolt

4 Snakeform

Hunting Triad

Firespout

Banefire

19 cards

 

Land

11 Forest

Mountain

4 Rootbound Crag

24 cards

 

Sideboard

Relic of Progenitus

4 Acidic Slime

4 Puncture Blast

2 Firespout

1 Mold Adder

15 cards

 

 

The Timber Protector is more often seen in a treefolk deck (good job I’m here to point that out, you’d never have guessed), but I believe is a good fit here.  He pumps Thornling, and turns every forest we control into an easy pick for the Efreet’s end of turn destruction derby.

 

I steered clear of the Colossus in the end.  Much as I love the idea of him, our mana curve is already on the wrong side of obscene, and Mr Darksteel would have tipped it over the edge into perverse.  He’s better when cheated into play via Master Transmuter or recursion trickery.

 

Firespout went in to sweep up the many weenie decks that will soon be breeding like rats (or Soldiers) online.  Magma Phoenix got a spot for the same reason, with the added value that it won't be dead when sweepers are unneeded.  The corollary though is that it's slightly harder to sweep with it.  The exact numbers of each I'm not convinced are correct here, but testing will confirm.  Or you might prefer Volcanic Fallout to shore up the Faeries matchup.

 

As to the sideboard, I think it's fairly self-explanatory.  The Relics take care of graveyard tricks.  The Slimes remove any enchantments or artifacts which are spoiling your day (the Efreet can do this too, albeit unreliably).  I put a playset of Puncture Blast in, which I'm sure will cause some disagreement.  I felt that more burn could be needed against opposing fat, Lightning Bolt will only take you so far.  Blast does the same damage, but it turns Broodmate Dragon into something decidedly less worrying.  The remaining Firespouts take the next two slots, leaving one place left.  One open slot in the side is never going to be something game-breaking, so I went with Mold Adder as a slightly unknown quantity.  It's an early drop, and could be useful against what standard used to call 'House Dimir'.  Though as I said, it's a one-off so won't decide many matches.

 

At the time of writing I'm unable to get hold of a full playset of the Efreet, or any Magma Phoenixes, so I won't be able to provide match reports this week.  I've tried to go into a little more detail around the card selections to compensate.  If you feel this devalues the whole approach, then let me know (or better still, send me the cards I'm missing!).

 

Until next week, do the unexpected, stay surprising, stay capricious, stay out of the blue.

6 Comments

"The Timber Protector ... He by Stu Benedict at Tue, 08/04/2009 - 12:01
Stu Benedict's picture

"The Timber Protector ... He pumps Thornling, and turns every forest we control into an easy pick for the Efreet’s end of turn destruction derby."

Capricious Efreet does not allow you to target lands.

I would go extended for this deck. Darksteel Ingot seems perfect for this deck, along with a number of other indestructible toys you could play with.

Thanks for the tip - given by Splendid Belt at Tue, 08/04/2009 - 15:48
Splendid Belt's picture

Thanks for the tip - given that, I'd put the Spearbreaker Behemoth in for Timber Protector. Lots of great options if you go Extended though, you're right.

As an aside - the M10 pictures and links aren't working yet, hence some dodgy presentation here, but they should be up soon.

if you play this deck this is by Anonymous (not verified) at Tue, 08/04/2009 - 19:20
Anonymous's picture

if you play this deck this is what will happen-you will be destroyed quickly, or your fat will be more than they can handle. Effreet means almost nothing in this deck, its just another fattie basically, thornling is what will win it for you

Better Yet by Katastrophe at Wed, 08/05/2009 - 01:46
Katastrophe's picture
4

Capricious Efreet: 33% destroy one of your toys, 66% break one of theirs

Stuart's Capricious Efreet: 66% break one of their toys, 33% sigh and act bored

Katastrophe's Capricious Efreet: 100% break one of their toys

Put the Capricious Efreet trigger on the stack. Then bounce, flicker, or phase your permanent (even the Efreet itself, if that's what you had to choose). The ability will resolve with just two legal targets and you'll destroy one of them.

The best way to do this is to have two Master Transmuters trade places during your upkeep. I can't think of any other repeatable bounce. Sacrificing something that you were going to sacrifice anyway is nice, but not consistent. Announce that the Efreet will destroy either your Pyrite Spellbomb, your opponent's Platinum Angel, or your opponent's goblin token. Then blow your spellbomb to shock your opponent. Or if you want, use the Pyrite Spellbomb to take out the goblin token. Then you roll 1D1 and destroy the Platinum Angel. :)

Be aware that people can play around Capricious Efteet by having only one non-land permanent in play. So if I'm hanging around at -40 life from Efreet beatdown, then as long as Platinum Angel is all I have besides lands, then I can take as long as I want to draw Banefire.

If you go extended, U/R dual + Hatching Plans. Be the first person to smash Hatching Plans with a mono-red card!

doh by Katastrophe at Wed, 08/05/2009 - 01:58
Katastrophe's picture

Stupid (Crack the Earth). Well, you'll probably still be the first. Heh.

Greater Gargadon, too. A wonderful sac outlet, but it requires extended.

Nice ideas, especially for by Splendid Belt at Wed, 08/05/2009 - 10:53
Splendid Belt's picture

Nice ideas, especially for taking it into Extended. The Master Transmuters would work, but it'd be too clunky to pull everything together I think. Still, interesting to hear where others would take the idea.