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By: under_the_hammer, Andrew Phillips
Apr 28 2009 11:17am
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Welcome to the Outlines for "Eternal Wisdom" -

Each month I have done my best to cover the classic metagame based on analysis of the Top 8 decks.  Every now and then a deck arrives from left field and places in the money / Top 8 slots.  Over the last 4 months 36 events have fired and in this article I am going to spend sometime going over 16 of the rogue or outlier decks in the format. All of the lists have made at least one Top 8 appearance in 2009.  What gems are worthy of further investigation?  Lets take a look in this special edition of Eternal_Wisdom.

COMBO 
Combo decks have been enjoying the good times in classic lately, and Classic Players have the choice of the ever powerful Necrospike deck,  the explosive yet fragile Ad Naseum Strom deck and several other well established combo decks to play in the format.  In addition the following combo decks have placed in the Top 8 and are worthy of consideration.
 

 
Helmline is essentially a two card combo of Helm of Obedience and Leyline of the Void. When the Helm is activated for x = 1 or more with a black leyline in play the opponents library is removed from the game resulting in a game win for the helmline player on the opponents draw phase.  The fact that the leyline can be played from hand on turn 0 allows this deck to regularly become a 1 card 5 mana combo.  The deck is not too disimilar to Necrostorm, it runs a plethora of mana ramping rituals and and discard to protect the win - the deck also has the backup plan of beating down with a quickly played 5/5 flier in the shape of Tombstalker.  This version of the deck has some impressive tutoring power with a full set of Infernal Tutors and Demonic Consultations and both of the restricted black tutors Vampiric and Imperial Seal (note that this list was pre Demonic Tutor being available online).  The deck runs a singleton Necropotence to help reload in hard times. - Helm was recently temporarily banned due to an unfortunate interaction with progenitus, but once this bug has been ironed out and I can see a Demonic Tutor enabled version of this deck having a chance at more Top 8 slots.
 

Another two card combo fuels the next two decks I guess the first should really be filed under Aggro/Combo since it is capable of beating down with an affinity creature base of combing to the victory with the Grindstone Painter combo. 

The Second version of Painter Stone is much more control based and uses Trinket mage to locate a timely Grindstone, this version of the deck is much slower hoping to control the early game before landing the two artifacts for the win in the mid game.  When Grindstone first arrived online this version was percieved by many to be the way to best use the deck, but i think the mono red Imperial Painter deck has had more success todate.
 

 

CONTROL
Counterbalance Top Decks have been the forerunners in the Control stakes for classic of late, and the first of our Rogue control decks also runs this poweful denial suite. This deck is packed with some of the best control cards available on MTGO, and relies on manland beatdown, Elspeth token beatdown, Stolen Creature beatdown (thanks to Shackles) or Progenitus beatdown thanks to the cute Polymorph. Since Progenitus is the only creature in the deck the Polymorph can only find the amazing 10/10 protection from (almost) anything which can obviously end games in no time at all.

emale
Polygenitus 

Next up is one of the hardest decks to pilot and it is no suprise that the deck required someone with the strong piloting skills of fatmaninalittlecoat to place in the money, to be successful with this deck you have to have a good read on the environment and be able to identify your opponents deck in a timely fashion and adopt a strategic play style tailored against each deck in the format, knowing when and more importantly what to Gifts Ungiven for is key to winning and the deck offers some very powerful gifts packages.  

 

The Trinket Stalker deck was fairly popular after the release of MED1 however it has been a fringe deck in 2009.  The heart of the deck is a Trinket Mage / Enlightened Tutor tool box both in the main deck but also check out the almost singleton sideboard, packing a range of tutor targets/ silver bullets depending on the deck you are facing. Tombstalker gets the job done very quickly once it hits but the strength of this deck lies in its ability to find the right answers at the right time thanks to its tutoring effects.

 

 

AGGRO / CONTROL 
Merfolk and Bant Aggro have been flying the Aggro/control flag in classic but are these the only aggro combo decks available to the classic community.

Well no several other decks have hit Top 8.  The first deck runs the seldomly seen (in classic that is) Patron Wizard.  Costing triple blue this 2/2 Ody rare gives all the creatures (since they are all wizards!) in your deck the ability to tap to trigger a Force Spike to your opponents spells. In addition there is the addition control magic in the form of Counterbalance, Force of Will (and Meddling Mage) and additional card advantage with Dark Confidant, Sower of Temptation and the sideboard brings Venser and Glen Elendra.  Is this a viable alternative to Merfolk I am not sure but I would like to test this deck for myself to reach a judgement. 

 

 m0x took this deck to 4 Top 8 positions in 2009 but nobody else managed to the repeat the feat.  This deck has 3 of the most aggressively manacosted creatures v's potential size in the game and the deck is setup to abuse Quirion Dryad's Growth conditions as much as possible.  The greedy manabase does not stand up well to Wasteland attacks the deck packs both of the Jace V's Chandra Commons (Daze and Gush) and as with most decks that run enough blue cards it has the expensive Force of Will.


The best discard, the best counterspells and some of the most efficient creatures the game has seen - this deck on paper has it all.  The Stifle and Wastelands can severly hamper the opponent and if you opponent gets ahead the potent Pernicious Deed or the Diabolic Edicts can mop up. I wonder if cost of the deck is not partly responsible for the lack of continued success with the deck it must roll in at close to 800$!

 

DampingEngine took an affinity shell added Force of Will a few more blue spells and the Eryao to turn the famous all out Affinity Aggro deck into an aggro control deck.  This rounds up the Aggro control section of this article.


AGGRO 
If turning creatures sideways is your thing then this is the section for you.

 

Damping Engine has success again following up on the affinity control build he also took a twist on the Dredge deck to the Top 8. This deck is very different from the convential Dredge deck. 

Dragon Stompy has had success in Legacy and Lukinhas proved it can hold its own in Classic. The deck is perhaps more of a prison deck rather than an out and out Aggro deck.  It runs Trinisphere, Chalice of the Void and Thorn of Amethyst and attacks the mana bases of many decks in the format through Magus of the Moon and Blood Moon.  The mana ramping allows for early deployment of the prison tools and the aggro creatures.

Elf Clamp was a very popular deck back during V2.5 and could even have been considered a Teir 1 classic deck in its day. The heart of the deck is the card advantage generated by Skull clamp.  Bitterblossom in its own right is an excellent threat but it also provides a renewable supply of 1/1 critters to suicide under the clamp and net some insane card avantage, of course any of the little elves can don the clamp too. 

Suicide Black
JXClaytor
Creatures
4 Dark Confidant
2 Knight of Stromgald
2 Order of the Ebon Hand
4 Stromgald Crusader
2 Tombstalker
14 cards

Other Spells
4 Bitterblossom
4 Dark Ritual
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Sarcomancy
3 Smother
4 Thoughtseize
3 Umezawa's Jitte
26 cards
 
Lands
13 Swamp
3 Mishra's Factory
4 Wasteland 
20 cards

Stromgald Crusader

The plan for this deck is simple, dirsupt your opponent with discard, gain card advantage with Dark Confidant and beatdown with efficient Black beaters.

 
Goblins probably dont deserve to be on this list having scored two Top8's in the last month but prior to this strong showing the deck had very much been of the radar.  I really dont understand why this build does not feature the legacy-banned Goblin Recruiter! This guy is insanely good and allows the pilot to stack the best goblins on the top of the library.

Summary

Classic is very diverse at the moment and there is a whole level of different decks to play beyond the usual suspects.  So if playing a unique deck or going rogue interests you let this article be your deck buiding inspirtation.  Remember all of the above decks have made a Top 8 finish despite not being part of the established decks to beat. Sometimes just going with a rogue build can give you a slight advantage as while your opponent is figuring out what you are playing, you are busy sculpting a winning position. Maybe when I write this article in 4 months time somebody has found away to take CounterSliver to the Top 8!

Well I hope you like this alternative look at the classic tournament scene. Till next time,

Eternal_Hammer (Proud Member of Magic_Eternal)

5 Comments

wooow ! by LOurs at Tue, 04/28/2009 - 18:10
LOurs's picture
5

congratulations for this awesome article, simply a must to be rade.

Yes. Also thank you. by Katastrophe at Wed, 04/29/2009 - 01:47
Katastrophe's picture
5

Yes. Also thank you.

And again by Anonymous (not verified) at Wed, 04/29/2009 - 03:47
Anonymous's picture
4

Another great article for the format. Keep them coming, they are my primary source of information and refference.

Another jackpot! by mrgando at Thu, 04/30/2009 - 00:11
mrgando's picture
5

Really enjoyed reading the piece, let's see what other rogues does the Classic tide bring!

Admit it.. by Blade at Sat, 05/02/2009 - 08:25
Blade's picture
4

..you just don't like me or my combo deck. :/