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By: one million words, Pete Jahn
Sep 18 2008 9:41pm
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Sharing the Pain

Shards of Alara is coming, and PureMTGO has its own preview card.  It's a goodie.  Before we get there, however, I want to review some very basic Magic strategy.  It's the reason that Craw Wurm.dec does not work.

You know that deck.  It drops medium to large creatues and tries to swing with them for the win.  At least, that's the plan.  The reality is different - and it is different because it ignores a basic rule.  That rule?  It is not enough to have a plan for winning.  You have to have a plan for winning and for making sure the opponent's plan for winning fails.

This is not rocket science.  Most current decks have such a plan.

Demigod Red has such a plan.  It's pretty simple - do some damage fast, then burn the opponent out before the opponent can take control.  (Demigod Red has a backup plan, and i'll get to that in a moment.)

Faeries has a plan.  It is to mix evasive creatures, counterspells and lock elements to make sure that the opponent cannot mount any resistance. 

Quick n' Toast has a plan.  It plays blockers, and removal, and board sweepers - and when the opponent has nothing left, it plays a win condition and wins.

I mentioned that Demigod Red has a backup plan.  Let's look at that deck. 

Demigod Red
Tomoharu Saito, Second Place, Grand Prix Copenhagen.
Creatures
4
Ashenmoor Gouger
4
Blood Knight
4
Demigod of Revenge
4 Figure of Destiny
4
Magus of the Moon
4
Magus of the Scroll


Other Spells
4
Flame Javelin
4
Incinerate
4
Skred
Lands
22 Snow-covered Mountain
2
Keldon Megaliths


Magus of the Moon

Do you see the seceondary plan?  It is to mess with mana of multicolored decks.  Decks like Quick n' Toast have a hard tome casting anything if the Magus makes it into play (anything except Firespout, of course, which is why so many decks run that card.)  The point, however, is that a 3 mana 2/2 with a great ability to mess with an opponent can dominate the  game.

Let's look at another solid 2/2 for three mana that will see play in a lot of formats.


The card has a potent impact on the game.  Your opponent is going to have trouble accumulating a grip full of counterspells with a Cunning Lethemancer in hand.  With two in play, he or she will have no chance.  True, Cunning Lethemancer will not have quite the impact on the metagame that Blood Moon had, but Lethemancer may have a more  potent effect over the long run.

The symetrical nature of the Lethemancer is a bit of a drawback, but it is an effect that you can play around.  Unfortunately, Madness and Flashback cards will have rotated out of Standard by the time we can get click on Cunning Lethemancer, but we still have some cards that can be played from the graveyard.  I'm talking about Retrace, of course.  Retrace cards are potent, even if you have to discard early.

Let's rebuild Demigod Red for the new Standard.  First, let's talk about the losses.  The deck loses Magus of the Scroll, which can be replaced, until we find something better, with Mogg Fanatic.  More importantly, it also loses Skred.  Skred was great removal - but the loss of Skred may also be a benefit.  Skred meant that you had to play snow-covered lands, which meant the deck had to be mono-red.  Without the snow subtheme, the deck can be RB, and that opens up a lot of options (including playing the Lethemance, of course.

Here's a sample build.  

Demigod Red Black for Shards
.
Creatures
4
Ashenmoor Gouger
4 Cunning Lethemancer
4
Demigod of Revenge
4 Figure of Destiny
2
Shriekmaw
4
Mogg Fanatic


Other Spells
4
Flame Javelin
4
Incinerate
4
Nameless Inversion
2 Flame Jab
2 Raven's Crime
Lands
Graven Cairns 
Reflecting Pool
4
Sulfurous Springs
4
Mutavault
2
Auntie's Hovel
4
Mountain

Demigod of Revenge

Obviously, this is a first draft, and it does not include any other Shards cards.  I'm sure some will fit the deck, but part of the problem with writing  preview article is that you are never sure what other cards you can actually talk about.  I can't talk about anything not officially previewed (and officially previewd as i write this, not as you read it.)

Let's take a look at another format:  Extended.  Does the Lethemancer have a place there?  Could be.

One of the best decks in the current format is losing a critical part.  I'm talking about Next Level Blue, which loses the Top.  That will already have changed the format, and may bring back old archetypes.  One that would have been great,  had it not lost a lot to the rotation, is Dredge.  Here's a decklist.
 

 

Note that what is gone are the madness outlets - the cards that let you throw everything in sight into the graveyard, while dredging like a maniac.  Unfortunately, those cards won't come back - nor will the broken turn two wins that distorted Extended over the past year or so.   It is pretty clear that Wizards does not want the format to be dominated by a fast Dredge deck.  However, nothing has destroyed the power of the dredge mechanic - just the cards that get cards into the graveyard.

Cunning Lethemancer does a fine job of getting cards into the graveyard.  Let's look at a dredge deck with the cunning one.
 

New Dredge
 
 

Creatures
1

This deck preserves some of the explosive combo quality of the old deck, but it plays a far more "fair" game.  It has to.  The loss of a turn two kill means that it needs to disrupt the opponent, which means it has to play cards like Thoughtseize and Remand.   It probably also needs some card drawing, like Ponder.  More importantly, it needs to add a couple cards that are just rumors so far - but look really appropriate.   The reputed cycle of Charms will add some utility, and the final choice of lands needs to wait until we can see what Shards has in that area.

The Lethemancer might even appear in Classic.  Recently, a Pox / discard deck made the Top 8 of a classic PE.  The Lethemancer fits into that sort of archetype easily - it is yet another source of discard as well as a beater.  Here's a sample build for that sort of deck.

 

New Pox

Creatures
4 Cunning Lethemancer
Dark Confidant
2
Nihilith 

Other Spells 
4 Pox
4
Hymn to Tourach

4 Necropotence

Smallpox
4
Chainer's Edict

Thoughtseize
2 Raven's Crime
3
Umezawa's Jitte

Lands
4
Mishra's Factory
4
Chrome Mox
13 
Swamp

 

Sideboard 
5 artifact removal?
Hymn to Tourach

Note that this build is mono-black, but you would probably want to add a splash color of some kind.   That sort fo thing is easy, thanks to the Onslaught fetchlands and the Ravnica (and, soon, MED II) duals.  The most probable splash if green of red, to combat artifacts.   The various artifact combos from recent sets, Shards and - soon - Tempest all indicate that playing something that can kill artifacts at instant speed is a must - and that is not soemthing that black excels at.

In short, whatever your favorite format may be, it is probably worth testing the Lethemancer.  He's just cunning enough to make the grade.

PRJ 

2 Comments

I agree with IA by _Shaddai_ (not verified) at Tue, 09/23/2008 - 09:26
_Shaddai_'s picture

I agree with IA in the fact that this guy sucks pretty bad. His counterpart, Necrogen Mists, is better in the fact that fewer cards kill it.

Future extended dredge, has replacements for discard outlets and draw outlets. I have even built a Future Extended list myself and have been testing, but not to my liking so far. The replacements are not nearly as good as their counterparts that cycle out, but a few to be mentioned are:

Oona's Prowler
Ideas Unbound
Goblin Lore

As for the other decks, the card is just too slow to do anything major. If it costed {B} or MAYBE {1}{B}for a 1/1 or something with this ability, it would be playable.

by iceage4life at Sat, 09/20/2008 - 19:02
iceage4life's picture

Is this article a joke?  How do you cast Demigod of 22 lands while you're discarding them.

A dredge enabler that costs three, is a creature, and has to live a turn so you can discard one card not at instant speed?  Think EXT was just broken.

To Make it a 3 for 3 the mono black deck seems unable to win.  Its win cons are 8 2/xs that die to 8 spells the deck itself runs and two 4/4s?  Oh and Edict over Smother is kinda awkward as the deck has 21 land and should expect to loose 2-5 per game to its own spells.

Over hyping a preview card=typical.  Prodiving not one but three unplayable decks with it?  That is going above and beyond the call of duty.

 

PS Think this guy will be unplayable but there could be a deck that wants him.  Magus of the Moon is good because it shuts people out of the game, this guy in no way does that.