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By: Lord Erman, Nafiz Erman
Nov 02 2010 2:25am
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ROGUE PLAY
Adventures on a Metal World

by Nafiz Erman

Hello dear readers and welcome back to Rogue Play as well as Mirrodin... again. It has been almost five weeks since I planeswalked to this metal world, and I still can't leave it. I told you before that I wasn't playing Magic back when the first Mirrodin block was released. Maybe this is the reason why I loved this world so much. I am still exploring it and each day I'm coming across something new that binds me more to this plane and prevents me from leaving.

So, what am I going to tell you this week? Well, I'm going to tell you how my SoM Block adventures are going. I will tell you which decks I tried, which decks I played against, why I switched decks and to which decks I switched and finally will show you my final SoM Block deck. Then of course, I will show you the deck in action and will give you lots of match reports.

Okay let's start!

 

PREPARATIONS

Before I started my journey, I had to decide a couple of things. Mirrodin was a metal plane and that fact meant lots of artifacts to choose from for my deck. But that fact at the same time meant another thing: Lots of hate for my artifacts in my deck. And therefore, before building my deck, I had to choose between four options.

I was going to play one of these:

1- A deck that plays tons of artifacts (so that the opponent can't kill all of them and get hit by one of them eventually)
2- A deck with NO artifacts (so that those artifact hate cards become useless)
3- A deck with a few not-so-important artifacts (so that losing them won't mean a thing)
4- A deck that can protect its artifacts (by playing counterspells or by playing indestructible artifacts or by giving them shroud)

I went over the options one by one and carefully, and decided to try option one first. I decided to try the following deck.

 

ATTEMPT #1
Machine Red

I think you know whiffy (aka whiffy penguin). He's an avid eternal formats player, a Puremtgo writer and he's also someone I enjoy chatting with. I value his thoughts because the way we enjoy Magic is not too different and before building this deck I once again had a few long chats with him. He built this deck before I did and I used his first impressions and built my deck upon his advices.

The idea was actually simple. This was going to be a mono Red deck built around Koth of the Hammer but it was also going to use Proliferate at maximum. Lux Cannon, Contagion Clasp, Throne of Geth, Ratchet Bomb and even Necropede were a few of the candidates. Finally Iron Myr and Mox Opal were the cards to mana ramp quickly.

And then came of course the win condition(s) part. While chatting with whiffy, he told me that there are a lot of Infect decks around and that they all side in Memoricide against Machine Red. Which of course meant that one couldn't go out with four-of everything. I was thinking of four Kuldotha Phoenixes as my win condition but he warned me not to do that. A simple Memoricide naming Kuldotha Phoenix would have been the end of everything. So I decided to add many different win conditions to my deck; all as one-ofs.

All as one-of.
Kuldotha Phoenix Hoard-Smelter Dragon Molten-Tail Masticore

The rest of the deck was clear for me so I built this one and started testing:

 

My testing result very quickly showed me one thing: There was way too much artifact hate in the format. Unless I was playing against mono Black or mono Blue, I was always losing my important artifacts and this was hurting my strategy and making me lose games. 

I also saw that those people who were playing those maindeck artifact hate cards, were also the ones that were trying to win with their own artifacts. I had some small amount of success with this deck but it wasn't constantly winning. I met those Infect decks and I wasn't too happy with my results. I was winning one game and then losing two. Then I was winning two in a row and then I was losing another two in a row. Of course I didn't like this.

But to be honest, those poison decks were the least of my problems. Mono Blue was a big problem. You know, the "play Grand Architect, tap all those Blue creatures and bring in a Wurmcoil Engine on turn three" type of decks. Many times I just felt hopeless against that deck.

Big Red was also a problem. That deck was also playing four Koth of the Hammers but none of the Proliferate cards Machine Red does. It was a straightforward mana ramp deck which then was winning with Kuldotha Phoenix. Those decks were faster than mine and just because they weren't playing so many main deck artifacts like me, they were able to play four Oxidda Scrapmelters in their main deck. Which of course meant the end of the game for me most of the time. I'm not even talking about game two and three with their additional Hoard-Smelter Dragons.

At the end I decided to give up the idea of Machine Red. I saw that the format had too many artifact removal and a deck that relies almost only on its artifacts to win, had no chance to survive.

So I went back to the point I started my journey, and I looked at those four options once again.

1- A deck that plays tons of artifacts (so that the opponent can't kill all of them and get hit by one of them eventually)
2- A deck with NO artifacts (so that those artifact hate cards become useless)
3- A deck with a few not-so-important artifacts (so that losing them won't mean a thing)
4- A deck that can protect its artifacts (by playing counterspells or by playing indestructible artifacts or by giving them shroud)

I examined these options and decided to try the fourth one.

This one.

 

ATTEMPT #2
Indomitable Whitecraft

This deck was a deck I had in my "to-try-sometime" list but after failing with Machine Red, I decided to give it a shot. With this deck I was going to play lots of cheap artifacts and/or token producers and I was basically going to swarm the opponent with my army. I was also going to play Darksteel Axe which can't be destroyed, and I was also going to play Indomitable Archangel.

Building this deck and getting to the final list was also a challenge but I will not get into that part now. The part you should know is that I tried many versions before ending up with this:

Indomitable Whitecraft
A SoM Block deck by Nafiz Erman
Creatures
4 Glint Hawk
4 Myrsmith
4 Indomitable Archangel
4 Memnite
4 Gold Myr
3 Kemba, Kha Regent
23 cards

Other Spells
4 Glint Hawk Idol
4 Darksteel Axe
4 Origin Spellbomb
3 Mox Opal
1 Elspeth Tirel
1 Strata Scythe
17 cards
 
Lands
20 Plains
20 cards

Glint Hawk

 

With this deck I once again had mixed results. It's actually very fast and an unchecked Myrsmith can get out of hand pretty quickly. And one other good thing about it, is the number of flyers it has which is much more important than you may think.

Elspeth Tirel doesn't show up always but during those rare times when she enters the battlefield, she single-handedly changes the course of the game. And then there is Indomitable Archangel. A 4/4 creature for four is always decent. If it flies it's very good. If it also gives shroud to all of your artifacts, then it's perfect. And killing her is also very hard. Most of the time it takes two spells to get rid of her which isn't too bad I think.

So what happened? What went wrong?

Well, even though I won many games with this deck, I also lost a lot of others to good Control decks. So yes, Control was a big problem. A Wurmcoil Engine was one of the biggest nightmares and Carnifex Demon was almost always "gg". An early Arc Trail targeting Glint Hawk AND Myrsmith was also horrible and Mimic Vat was just "bleh".

Actually I saw that this deck couldn't handle big artifact bombs. Surely Revoke Existence is one of the best artifact hate cards in the format (if not the best), but that card alone wasn't enough. Of course I had the pleasure of getting rid of a Wurmcoil Engine with it once or twice, but most of the time that Wurmcoil Engine ended games before I could "reach" to those Revoke Existences in my library.

And thus I once again went back to the drawing board.

1- A deck that plays tons of artifacts (so that the opponent can't kill all of them and get hit by one of them eventually)
2- A deck with NO artifacts (so that those artifact hate cards become useless)
3- A deck with a few not-so-important artifacts (so that losing them won't mean a thing)
4- A deck that can protect its artifacts (by playing counterspells or by playing indestructible artifacts or by giving them shroud)

This time I decided to try option three.

 

ATTEMPT #3
Boros Control

After playing over two dozen of matches and trying two different decks, I saw two things:

1- Aggro wasen't my answer.
2- I had to play lots of artifact hate in the main deck.

The best artifact hate cards were clearly in Red. Then White had Revoke Existence. And surprisingly(!) those two colors also happened to have two great planeswalkers.

Could this be the answer?

Without too much thinking I went to the Deck Editor and built this deck:

Boros Control
A SoM Block deck by Nafiz Erman
Creatures
4 Oxidda Scrapmelter
3 Gold Myr
3 Iron Myr
2 Kuldotha Phoenix
2 Wurmcoil Engine
14 cards

Other Spells
4 Galvanic Blast
4 Arc Trail
4 Revoke Existence
4 Koth of the Hammer
3 Elspeth Tirel
2 Ratchet Bomb
21 cards
 
Lands
17 Mountain
8 Plains
25 cards

Elspeth Tirel

 

Looks great, no?

To be honest, my first testing results were all great. I was winning most of the time and some tweaking here and there seemed enough to make this a Tier-1 deck. Things were really looking good at first.

Elspeth kept me alive and Koth finished the rest of the job.

But then I started losing. I was losing to fast decks, I was losing to slow decks, I was losing to my own mana problems... I was simply losing. The problem was actually that my artifact hate cards weren't always removal spells. I mean, Oxidda Scrapmelter was sometimes killing an artifact creature, but most of the time I was using it for Mimic Vat. And same was also true for Revoke Existence. Sometimes it was getting rid of a Wurmcoil Engine or Molten-Tail Masticore (which of course were great moments), but most of the time I was using it for something else (such as Livewire Lash in those Infect decks).

And then I was losing to creatures right and left. Kuldotha Phoenix, Argent Sphinx, Wurmcoil Engine, Indomitable Archangel... sometimes even to a Myr hoard. Elspeth Tirel never set the world on fire and Koth of the Hammer most of the time was a sitting duck. I seriously didn't like the way things were looking and once again I started all over again.

I actually had only one option left.

1- A deck that plays tons of artifacts (so that the opponent can't kill all of them and get hit by one of them eventually)
2- A deck with NO artifacts (so that those artifact hate cards become useless)
3- A deck with a few not-so-important artifacts (so that losing them won't mean a thing)
4- A deck that can protect its artifacts (by playing counterspells or by playing indestructible artifacts or by giving them shroud)

I was left with one option and I was going to at least try it. 

 

ATTEMPT #4
Rakdos Bloodfest

Okay first things first: There is no such thing as "a deck with NO artifacts" in SoM Block. There is, however, a thing as "a deck with almost no artifacts". And this final one was going to be just like that.

As you saw above, my main problem in all those three decks was balancing removal and artifact hate. And right at this point I turned my eyes to Black for solving the first problem of mine; removal. There I saw these two great cards:

Skinrender Grasp of Darkness

Add Arc Trail and Galvanic Blast and you'll end up with an almost endless number of removal spells. But of course sometimes spot removal isn't enough. Sometimes one needs mass removal. And luckily for me, Black had it too.

Carnifex Demon

This was the preview card of Puremtgo and back then it only seemed as a Limited bomb to me. But now I was seeing the true power of it. This demon was no match to those Titans in Standard but here on this metal plane, he was clearly the king.

So I examined my options and built this below deck:

Rakdos Bloodfest
A SoM Block deck by Nafiz Erman
Creatures
4 Skinrender
4 Moriok Replica
4 Oxidda Scrapmelter
3 Carnifex Demon
3 Hoard-Smelter Dragon
18 cards

Other Spells
4 Koth of the Hammer
4 Galvanic Blast
4 Arc Trail
4 Grasp of Darkness
1 Trigon of Corruption
17 cards
 
Lands
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
11 Swamp
10 Mountain
25 cards

Koth of the Hammer

 

I can tell you this much: This deck is a blast to play. I mean, it has everything I need. Look at the number of removal spells for a second. I have tons of them! I have also tons of maindeck artifact hate which is one of the most important things in this format. I also have the best planeswalker in there, and I even have card drawing! What else is there to have actually?!

Oh and you may wonder what I'm doing with that lone Trigon of Corruption. Well, I don't draw it always but are you aware how well it combos with Carnifex Demon? You won't have both cards on table in every game, but those few games you manage to get them "online" won't be the ones you will lose; trust me on that.

The sideboard might look a bit weird at first. I know I have a lot of two-ofs but they all serve a purpose. Sometimes I need early threats. Sometimes those big monsters of mine are a bit too late. And that's when I side in Molten-Tail Masticore. It's a big body, it can regenerate and it can even kill creatures and planeswalkers.

I side in Wurmcoil Engine mainly against Black and/or Blue decks. They don't have any artifact removal and therefore I enjoy beating them with my metal wurm. Nihil Spellbomb is against decks that rely on their graveyard; such as decks that use Molten-Tail Masticore as their prime win condition. I also side it in against Myr decks with Myr Reservoir.

Memoricide and Shatter must be clear by the way.

Okay so far so good. And do you want to know what this deck can do? Do you want to see it in action? Just because I fear technology and can't make any videos (and to be honest I am also a bit lazy and don't even try to learn), I will give you the game reports the old fashioned way.

Here they are.

 

GAME 1:
Opponent: Mjuhar
Playing: Big Red

He starts the game with Iron Myrs and I start with killing and burning his Iron Myrs. I don't want to face his Koth of the Hammer too early and therefore I get rid of those mana creatures. He then plays Mimic Vat and I play my Koth of the Hammer. My Mountain together with my Oxidda Scrapmelter lower him to eleven but a Kuldotha Phoenix coming out of nowhere kills my Koth.

The next turn I play my Carnifex Demon and he plays his second Phoenix but doesn't attack. I attack with my demon, he blocks with two of his burning birds but my demon is strong enough to kill them both. With no way out, my opponent concedes.

Sideboarding: 
-4 Arc Trail
+4 Memoricide

He starts the game with Spikeshot Elder and an Iron Myr. I try to gain some card advantage off of my Moriok Replica but he Galvanic Blasts it. I then draw and play my Memoricide and get rid of all of his Mimic Vats for good. He by the way, hits me with his two 1/1's constantly.

I then finally reach to six mana which means Carnifex Demon of course. My demon kills his tiny 1/1s and then Koth of the Hammer joins him and together they end the game easily.

Game: 2-0
Overall: 1-0

 

GAME 2:
Opponent: wheaton12
Playing: Mono White Myr

Mono White Myr is a deck I too tried (even before trying the decks I showed you in this article). And therefore I know exactly what it can do and what it can't.

Anyway, as expected he starts the game with those mana Myrs. I know that he's trying to mana ramp into a Myr Battlesphere and I cannot allow that. I burn down all his Myr, destroy them with artifact removal or kill them with Skinrender. I then play my Koth of the Hammer and surprisingly he manages to reach to his ultimate. 

Sideboarding:
-4 Arc Trail, -1 Trigon of Corruption
+4 Shatter, +1 Hoard-Smelter Dragon

Game two starts well for me and I do the same thing I did in game one; destroying artifacts. But then I get stuck at four lands with Carnifex Demons and Hoard-Smelter Dragons (yes plural!) in hand. I stay like that for a really long time and he uses this to his advantage. At the end he swarms me with his Myr army and thus we move onto game three.

This final game starts a bit strange. I don't know what kind of a hand he kept, but there are no Myrs in sight during early turns. He plays a bunch of artifacts and even one True Conviction (where did this come from?!) but his slow start gives me enough time to build my mana base. At the end, I bring in my big guys and things become quite easy from there.

Hoard-Smelter Dragon loves Myr.

Game: 2-1
Overall: 2-0

 

GAME 3:
Opponent: kosta105
Playing: Mono Black Poison

Earlier that day I played against kosta105 while playing the Boros Control deck and during that game he told me that he's a reader of Rogue Play and that he tries the one mono Black Poison deck I showed last week. Now we met again after hours of that first meeting, and he still plays and tests that deck (and I'm glad you liked it by the way kosta), but this is actually bad news for me. I know very well how fast that deck can add poison counters and this fact worries me.

So we start and I start game one with a good hand and repel all his early infected threats. My Skinrender keeps lowering his life total and then Koth of the Hammer joins him and starts throwing Mountains at his dome. At that point kosta decides to concede.

Sideboarding:
-3 Hoard-Smelter Dragon, -1 Trigon of Corruption
+2 Shatter, +2 Molten-Tail Masticore

Game two is a bit unfortunate for me because he manages to bring in his Livewire Lash and even though I always kill the creature carrying it, that boring(!) artifact keeps adding two poison counters every time. Corpse Cur brings back dead creatures but that Livewire Lash becomes my bane. Kosta adds the tenth poison counter right after playing his Ichor Rats and the game ends.

Game three also starts the same way; he plays Infect creatures and I kill them either with burn spells or with Skinrenders or with Grasp of Darknesses. He once again plays his Livewire Lash but this time I luckily have one Shatter in hand. I kill everything that enters the battlefield, swarm him with my creatures and end the game.

Game: 2-1
Overall: 3-0

I knew he had Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon in his deck and therefore I tried not to play my Grasp of Darknesses too early in those games. He never drew the dragon but I was nevertheless always ready to face her.

 

GAME 4:
Opponent: blazee
Playing:  Poison
 

Right after playing against mono Black Poison, now it's time to test my deck against Poison! 

Our game starts and he starts bringing in the usual suspects; Blight Mamba, Ichorclaw Myr, Corpse Cur... all are scary surely but my removal package is strong enough to fight the infected Phyrexian horde. 

Oxidda Scrapmelter and Skinrender deal with the first wave and then I draw a card I wasen't seeing for a long time; I draw this:

With two Carnifex Demons in hand and one Trigon of Corruption on the battlefield, it really becomes a Rakdos Bloodfest and the game ends pretty quickly.

Sideboarding:
-3 Hoard-Smelter Dragon
+3 Shatter

I need answers during early game against this deck.

The game starts and... well unfortunately I have no idea what happened then. There is a problem with my replays and sadly I didn't take any notes of this game. Oh I won by the way. That much I remember.

Game: 2-0
Overall: 4-0

 

GAME 5:
Opponent: nazonazo
Playing: Mono Blue
 

I start the game a bit slow and even though my opponent plays mono Blue (which actually should be more control-ish due to that color's nature), he starts bringing in his creatures one by one and non-stop. I kill two of those with an Arc Trail but he seems to have a limitless supply of creatures. After he brings in his Argent Sphinx and Stoic Rebuttals my attempt to kill it with Skinrender, I concede.

Sideboarding:
-3 Carnifex Demon, -1 Trigon of Corruption
+4 Memoricide

I know I'm taking a great risk with this sideboarding. Let's see if this will pay off or not.

The early turns of this game are no different than the first game. Arc Trail kills (yes plural) dudes and I even kill his Grand Architect which could have been the end of me had I left him unchecked. Then my opponent taps five lands and brings in his Trigon of Thought which I of course use to my advantage. I just caught a mono Blue deck fully tapped and of course there will be consequences to this. I freely bring in my Hoard-Smelter Dragon which ends the game all by itself.

I have a lovely(!) Dragon.

So we move onto the final game.

I enjoyed game three a lot because I managed to hit him not once but twice with Memoricide.

Things are much better for me without his Wurmcoil Engines and his Volition Reins'. And after everything has been said and done, he's left with a Chimeric Mass on table that has four counters on it and has one card in hand. I on the other hand, have lots of cards in hand and have one Oxidda Scrapmelter on table.

I attack with my Oxidda Scrapmelter and as expected my opponent blocks it with his 4/4 Chimeric Mass. I try to kill it with my Grasp of Darkness but that one card he has in his hand happens to be a Stoic Rebuttal. "No problem" I say, and after he kills my Oxidda Scrapmelter I bring in my Skinrender and kill his mechanic beast. He draws blank and concedes.

Game: 2-1
Overall: 5-0

 

CONCLUSION

And that's the end of my game reports. I searched for the right deck for a long time and right at the end when I was about to give up, I found it. I am now playing this deck non-stop and I truly enjoy it. Apparently the key to success in this format is to play a deck with almost no artifacts (as I said, there can't be no deck with absolutely no artifacts in this format) so that artifact hate won't hurt you, and also to play as many removal as possible in the meantime. I found out that Rakdos is the best combination of colors to do that.

Surely there is still room for improvement. I know that nothing is perfect. And that's the reason why I'm still testing and tweaking the deck. But the core of it will stay the same. Removal, removal, removal and removal. Then card drawing and then Koth of the Hammer and then "gg".

 

BONUS CONTENT
Heirloom Conscription

I went 3-1 this weekend in the Heirloom tournament and once again I was able to do some silly(!) things such as shown below.

Sovereigns of Lost Alara? Is that you? No? Oh! But who else could do such broken things? Auratouched Mage? Who the heck is he?!

I won't get into details because you'll read the tournament report from Xaos in two weeks. But all I can say is that it was tons of fun. I would really love to see the faces of my opponents when they were looking at my 13/13 trample and annihilator 2 dude in a Heirloom match.

And who said budget Magic can't be creative and fun?!

 

NEXT WEEK ON ROGUE PLAY
Paying my Debt

In 1998 a friend of mine quit Magic just because of me. Now after twelve years, just this past Saturday, I brought him back to Magic. And next week dear readers, you'll read the whole story. That won't be your regular Rogue Play but I hope that you'll like that article too. It's a very interesting story and I will show you how to get someone back to Magic after years.

So if you have friends around you who played and then quit Magic, then you shouldn't miss next week's Rogue Play. If you don't, well, you can still join me to read a fun story that might even make you smile.

Thanks for reading.

See you online
Nafiz Erman, aka Lord Erman

15 Comments

As per usual an enjoyable by Paul Leicht at Tue, 11/02/2010 - 04:40
Paul Leicht's picture
5

As per usual an enjoyable read and while I am not at all tempted to make my own block decks it is enjoyable to think about them with your help. :) I do believe I watched several of the games you were involved in including the Heirloom game at the end.

Great article as usual. I by ArchGenius at Tue, 11/02/2010 - 10:20
ArchGenius's picture
5

Great article as usual. I haven't had the time to do much deckbuilding in Scars Block, but I've had a lot of fun playing around with ideas.

Have you tried out Liquimetal Coating yet? I'm thinking it would be very good in a few decks with Hoard-Smelter Dragon and Oxidda Scrapmelter.

Great work as ever. I don't by Splendid Belt at Tue, 11/02/2010 - 10:46
Splendid Belt's picture
5

Great work as ever. I don't want to be a 'fanboy' giving you 5 big red ones every week, but every article deserves them on its own merit ;)

I love the Rakdos Bloodfest deck, and am happy to see it also appears to be the most potent. Although oddly, I still think I prefer the mono-black poison deck, even though I don't think it's as powerful.

Although isn't the mana slightly awkward in the Rakdos deck? You want lots of mountains for Koth, but you're black cards all require BB (not counting the Replica as a black card). Was mana an issue in any games? Also, could a land be cut for an extra Trigon or is that just asking for trouble?

Our-Lord-Erman, I was by Xaoslegend at Tue, 11/02/2010 - 23:27
Xaoslegend's picture
5

Our-Lord-Erman,

I was wondering when someone would see that combo and exploit it. 6 mama for a 13/13 annihilator 2 is pretty efficient lol.

I remember back in mirrodin draft I would try to either play tons of artifacts or none at all a lot of the time. in artifacts matter sets that's the way to go imo, glad you agree heh.

X-

Gotta say the last few by Drbenwayy at Wed, 11/03/2010 - 01:35
Drbenwayy's picture
5

Gotta say the last few articles you've written on this topic have been great. You've given us plenty of decklists, opinions, testing reports, and everything a serious player could ask for. Keep up the good work and I'm looking forward to running out the Rakdos deck.

Hi guys and thanks for the by Lord Erman at Wed, 11/03/2010 - 02:17
Lord Erman's picture

Hi guys and thanks for the comments.

Coating is an interesting card and I've seen decks built around it. Green/Red is the way to go with tons of artifact hate for that deck. The only problem is that you may never draw that card in time. Besides, there are some decks out there, such as mono Black poison (or the one deck I play), that don't use that many artifacts. If you don't draw Coating in time, you may end up with tons of dead cards against those decks. So while the idea is (very) nice, I wouldn't build my whole deck around one single card; especially without a way to fetch it out of your library.

Koth in the Rakdos deck serves his purpose well. I've played over 30 games so far and only twice I managed to make him reach to his ultimate; and so far I never seen someone doing it against me (and I faced lots of Koth as well). No one allows that. So his main purpose is to "produce" as many 4/4's as possible. And together with my other creatures, those 4/4's become quite useful.

Oh and an extra Trigon would be really too much.

Thanks again for the comments.

LE

That is a seriously sweet by StealthBadger at Wed, 11/03/2010 - 06:27
StealthBadger's picture

That is a seriously sweet deck.

Just one thing though;
Is the trigon really better than just running a 4th carnifex demon? both recharge any carnifex demons you have in play, and having 2 carnifex demons in play obviously just gives you infinite wraths whenever you want(!).

If your opponent has a way of killing carnifex demon, then it seems like playing a second carnifex demon is better, and if your opponent doesn't have a way to kill carnifex demon, then it also seems like playing a second carnifex demon is better. I don't really see any situation where the trigon is better than the 4th demon.

Also, the trigon just gives the opponent something to point that artifact removal spell they're holding at.

I have two reasons for using by Lord Erman at Wed, 11/03/2010 - 08:49
Lord Erman's picture

I have two reasons for using that lone Trigon:

1- Memoricide. That card is awesome when you use it and devastating when you are the target. And every clever opponent would remove my Demons before my Koths. The demons do much more harm than Koth does. So what happens if I'm left with zero Demons? Trigon is surely not the same thing but it's better than nothing.

2- Mana curve. Having too many 6 drops without a way to mana ramp is not something I like a lot. Even now I have six such cards and I'm definitely not happy about it. I'm already thinking of replacing Hoard-Smelter Dragon with Shatter (and moving the dragon to the sideboard). So a 4 mana trigon is nice to have and can be played earlier than the demons. Which sometimes can even determine the winner.

LE

I'm in by Skuttman19 at Wed, 11/03/2010 - 12:20
Skuttman19's picture
5

Just great...now I am interested in SOM block.

Next week should be a good read for me. I was cracking packs of unlimited back in the day, and after briefly getting into the tournament scene, I quit the game sometime around Mirage. Mainly, I just couldn't find enough people (my age) to play against. I then discovered MTGO during the Odyssey days and was hooked...until my daughter arrived and I couldn't find the time. I have been back full bore since late July, and I am truly loving the game more than ever.
Speaking of Odyssey, I really, really loved block play back then, and now might be a good time to check out SOM block. I started my journey back by playing alot of pauper, and now I have made the investment into competitive standard. I also play a little bit of classic/legacy, but I think I could find some time for block as well.

I'm in...thanks.

I think that you were right by DaveLombardoJr at Thu, 11/04/2010 - 00:55
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I think that you were right to play a Boros Control deck, but you loss to aggro decks because of the lack of darkstell myr, the 0/1 wall can be pretty amazing in this format, also the lack of arrest in your Boros build was wrong, I think you should have cut 2 koths 1 elspeth and the phoenixes, because you don't have a lot of artifacts to make the metalcraft worth and bulid it with Darkstell myr and arrest. Its only my humble opinion, nice article :)

What to do? by Dopey at Thu, 11/04/2010 - 04:19
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Hi!

I am new to Magic, and loved this article because of the insight it gives me on why and when you sideboard what. This gives me a much better understanding of when and why to do what. I have a burning question though:
What do you do when you face for instance a red / white opponent that plays clone shell, wurmcoil, arrest etc. This opponent isnt playing anything and you have stuff like scrapmelter and skinrender in your hand.
Do you play them, negating the effects from these cards to get an early advantage? Or do you wait so you can get the max. out of those cards and kill something with it? And would you hit the clone shells?

Thanks!

Hi Dopey, I'm glad you by Lord Erman at Thu, 11/04/2010 - 08:21
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Hi Dopey, I'm glad you enjoyed the article.

Regarding your questions: Clone Shell is a tricky creature and what I would do against it depends highly on what the board situation is at that moment. I know I killed one with Galvanic Blast in one game because I had to kill it (to protect my Koth). Luckily nothing bad happened but you should fear the worst of course.

But as I said, before killing Clone Shell I would look at the board, look at what my opponent plays and only then I would decide.

I must admit that Arrest is a horrible card against me. It shuts down almost all my creatures and there is nothing I can do to get rid of it off of my creature. But I have enough win conditions so I don't worry too much about it.

Regarding that Boros deck you describe: No, I wouldn't "waste" my Skinrenders or Scrapmelters early just to get a body onto the battlefield. I would keep them in hand and wait patiently. Being patient while playing Magic is one of the hardest lessons to learn but once you "get there", you will feel that you're already getting better as a player.

So as I said I would wait. Surely that also depends on the board position too, but I think I would just draw a card and pass the turn instead of wasting my resources blindly.

Hope this helps!

LE

As I see it, regarding by Thisismich at Thu, 11/04/2010 - 09:11
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As I see it, regarding arrest, shatter and the like, the sooner your opponent plays them the better. I'm more than willing to sacrifice one of my threats to protect my bombs (or better threats).

Clone Shell: well, this one is tricky; In my opinion, in limited is mostly irrelevant, unless you have a high creature bomb count it's pretty safe to assume that, in absence of scry effects, there is nothing worthy under it. Still it's just a vanilla 2/2 so I'll probably just wait a bit before doing something. It would be a lot better to cast something bigger and see if your opponent is eager to trade it sending it in battle anyway or play something to block it with, like a Sylvok or Neurok replica. In absence of any of those, I probably won't cry much over a spent Skinrender to remove it. I would be more hesitant to play a Scrapmelter because it can take out bigger threats than Skinrender so I'll probably just take one or even two more hits depending on the board state, of course.

Wurmcoil Engine: simply put, it has to be removed ASAP. In absence of exile effects, a Scrapmelter is the closest best removal you can use against it because it destroys the big one and can take down one of the resulting wurms. The Skinrender is sub-optimal and not much better than a Shatter, still you can shrink it to a more manageable size. It's obvious that you need something to race veeeeery quickly, you need 6 damage every turn to break even.
No waiting strategy is viable against wurmcoil unless you have access to infinite chump material and a good deal of damage dealers.

Tahnks by Dopey at Fri, 11/05/2010 - 10:47
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Thank you for the awnsers, they really help!

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