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By: hk3family, Hunter Kessell
Apr 05 2007 10:36am
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Canceling Competition

Hi guys/gals! Welcome to my first article!
This article is going to showcase a new deck of mine that works wonders against my Meta* at FNM and we will see how it works on Magic Online!
Also, I will be providing insight into the fabulous world of Premier Events!

Let's get started!

The Deck

Lands (22)
4x Blood Crypt
4x Gemstone Mine
4x Sulfurous Springs
6x Mountain
4x Swamp

 

Creatures (23)
4x Plagued Rusalka
4x Scorched Rusalka
4x Blood Knight
4x Dark Confidant
4x Rakdos Guildmage
3x Stingscourger
4x Sulfur Elemental

Other Spells (11)
4x Seal of Fire
4x Rift Bolt
3x Last Gasp

Sideboard (15)
3x Imp's Mischief
3x Damnation
3x Tormod's Crypt
3x Shadow of Doubt
3x Reckless Wurm

 

The Basis

The basis of the deck is to play an early game aggro-control and switch to mid-game tech. The deck can easily hit it's first 3 drops with no problems at all.

Plagued Rusalka
Rakdos Guildmage
Rift Bolt

 

The Reasoning

The reasoning for all the card-choices are as follows:

Plagued Rusalka: Easy way to pitch cards that have no more use to you [Ie: Dark Confidant could kill you off] as well as providing a really AMAZING out vs Birds of Paradise Llanowar Elves Scryb Ranger and the like.
Scorched Rusalka: I heard somewhere that being able to throw your guys at your opponent's head is a good thing...
Blood Knight: The meta at my store is a lot of white-based control and aggro... this just pushes the deck over the top.
Rakdos Guildmage: Killing off your opponent's guys and/or making more guys to attack/block with is good... so I hear...
Sulfur Elemental: Many of the same decks that feature white are weenie (Which he kills), but some can/do feature a counter-suite as well; he solves that problem with both Flash and Split Second
Stingscourger: My personal favorite card of the new set. Creates tempo vs another aggro deck as well as maintaining control over the board for that one extra turn. Early game it's as effective as Remand as forcing a relative Time Walk. Late game it can help you push through more damage.  He also works well as a chump blocker and/or Rusalka bait!
Seal of Fire and Rift Bolt: Creature removal that doubles as extra damage to your opponent is good.
Last Gasp: Instant speed Knight of the Holy Nimbus killer... they can't regen from this.  Most people don't expect this card to be played, you'd be suprised how good it really is!

Imp's Mischief: Usually only comes in versus Boros, but comes in against almost any burn really.
Damnation: Nobody seriously expects an aggro-based deck to pack board sweepers... but knowing that you're going to do it gives you a HUGE edge versus other aggro-based decks.
Tormod's Crypt: Just... plain... good...  It actually works versus Dragonstorm not too well, but you'd be suprised how often they can BARELY reach 9 mana and you take out their graveyard to keep them from getting that much with their second/third Rite-Of-Flame. Any Locket of Yesterday's based deck is hurt, as well as reanimator/dredge decks.
Shadow of Doubt: Hoses Dragonstorm... one of the hardest decks to beat with this deck as it's not as fast as Boros
Reckless Wurm: Actually, this guy on the same turn as Stupor can be cast from Black-Rack-Discard is really, really hoss!

 

The Matches

I never got permission from any players to use their names, a couple didn't want their names in here and a couple I just forgot to ask! (Go go Amateur Writer!)

Match 1, Game 1: White Weenie

Wow, this was actually fairly interesting He started off REALLY fast with a turn 1 Lions to my turn 1 Scorched Rusalka. He then followed up with turn 2 Icatian Javelineers and ANOTHER Savannah Lions! I only had my Dark Confidant.
Turn 3: He has no play except a Plains and attack. I skip my play except to play a Sulfurous Springs [which was revealed with Bob].
Turn 4: He drops Icatian Javelineers and attacks, I flash in Sulfur Elemental and he scoops.

Match 1, Game 2: 

I sideboard in my Damnations just in case...
Very quick game, he triple mulligans and keeps a hand [apparantly] of 1 Plains and 3 Savannah Lions, I keep a hand of: Gemstone Mine, Gemstone Mine, Rakdos Guildmage, Blood Knight, Sulfur Elemental, Dark Confidant, Last Gasp.
I drop my turn 2 Blood Knight followed by a Sulfurous Springs and Sulfur Elemental... gg. I never needed any of the Damnations anyway.

Okay, so that first match wasn't really fair for him, but that's just how the cookie crumbles.

Match 2, Game 1: Dragonstorm

He starts off with a "GG" Comment and leads off with triple Lotus Bloom and NO LAND DROP... 3 turns later I die... no point in  going over this...

Match 2, Game 2:

I sideboard in my 3x Tormod's Crypt and 3x Shadow of doubt; taking out Sulfur Elemental x3 and Last Gasp x3.
I start off:
Turn 1: Tormod's Crypt, Tormod's Crypt, Mountain Scorched Rusalka; he Plays Island: Go
Turn 2: Blood Crypt [untapped] Rakdos guildmage, swing (18, 19); he plays Calciform Pools and a Mainphase sleight of Hand [to get the Calciform Pools I assume]
Turn 3: [Draw a Shadow of Doubt] Swing (18, 16), Sulfurous Springs , Scorched Rusalka; he plays a mainphase Telling time, plays Mountain, Rite of Flame, Rite of Flame, Rite of Flame [Sacced a Crypt to this one, leaving him at 5 mana], Seething Song [7 mana], Seething Song [10 Mana], Dragonstorm... at this point I play Shadow of Doubt, and he concedes.

Match 2, Game 3:

He plays Mountain: Rite of Flame, Rite of Flame, Rite of Flame, Rite of Flame, Dragonstorm for 3x Hellkite and 1x Hunted Dragon... GG.
Okay, well... not much any deck can do versus Textbook Dragonstorm at it's finest moment...

1-1 at this point.

Match 3, Game 1: Gruul Aggro

Turn 1 Kird Ape is a hard follow up with this deck... I followed up with Plagued Rusalka.
Turn 2: Swing (18, 18); untapped Stomping Ground (18, 16), Kird Ape, Seal of Fire; I follow up with Mountain and Plagued Rusalka, suspending Rift Bolt. He seals a Rusalka [Good play btw:]
Turn 3:Swing [I make a play mistake and chump block here] (16,16), He plays Forest, Call of the Herd; I shoot a monkey and play Blood Crypt (tapped) Stingscourger, bouncing his token)
That's all the good plays I had, however... He proceeded to play another CotH and then draw lands to flash it back... while I drew all lands.

Yeesh! I sideboard in 3x Damnation taking out 3x Sulfur Elemental

Match 3, Game 2:

Okay, so mulligan away a hand with 1x Gemstone Mine as my only mana source... albeit my hand had 3x Plagued Rusalka, and 3x Rift Bolt...  not so great... really...
I keep a hand of: Blood Crypt, Blood Crypt, Rift Bolt, Rift Bolt, Blood Knight, Blood Knight
I use my rift bolts to keep a pair of monkeys [AGAIN] off the table, he plays a CotH and I have both blood knights on the table. I swing at his 3x CotH tokens and manage to eek all 4 damage through I guess he was afraid of Combat Tricks... If you can call a post-combat Damnation a combat trick... yeah!
I forgot he had CotH in the yard he didn't flashback... he made his token, but had to face down a guildmage and dark confidant... I ripped a stingscourger off the top and laugh at the blood moons as his only play... for 3 turns in a row.... yuck!

Wow! That blood Moon would have hurt a LOT if I had not had  basic swamps out... I should probably do something about that...

Match 3, Game 3:

I put in my 3x Imp's Mischief  as well, after I noticed I'dve liked to have them in before...
I lead off with a pair of rusalkas, followed by dark confidant... safely removing all his guys with last gasp and rift bolts... Stingscourger is SICK vs. CotH tokens... it's REALLY good versus that. Just one more booster for my favorite Planar Chaos card! I end the game turn 6 after blasting through his men so quickly and consistantly...
He tries to burn me out before I can kill him, but Imp's Mischief 1 and 2 save me from 2 chars back to back... dealing 12 to him...  He has managed to drop me to 8 with burn prior to this, with him at 7, he would have survived... I ended up going to 2... but it doesn't matter if your opponent is DEAD!

 

Well, versus 3 of the best meta decks right now online I fared pretty well.

I will take more notes versus Dralnu, Scryb & Force, and Izzetron once I play at FNM again and I will play against them [GUARANTEED!], or if I encounter them (Which I'm sure I will) in the MTGO PE's!

 

I will be evolving this deck's sideboard and maindeck cards as I come across better options for the deck.

 

Before I go, I would like to point out that the Momir BASIC queue's are BARELY filling up on a consistant basis! Joining is a good bet to win packs when 1/3 of the field is lucky enough to get prizes!

I will always add a Premier Event tournament report at the end of each article [assuming I am wanted back :-) ] as I intend on playing in at least two PE's a month! As well as trying to include a small interview with the event winner!

Until next time: Cancel your Competition, win more prizes, build more decks!

MTGO username: hk3family and UnusVirUnusCalx 

 

 

 

*Meta is slang for metagame, the environment in which you play in, consisting of whatever decks/tech is boing played is your metagame. The online Metagame is MUCH different than a local metagame and is much more swingy.

5 Comments

Sorry - Correction of Sorts by thescale99 at Fri, 04/06/2007 - 14:07
thescale99's picture

I may have misspoke earlier - the Confidants are clearly 'draw mechanisms'. I was referring to draw spells. The 4 confidants may be enough to find the Damnations, but I would still feel threatened by a world full of 'untargetables' (but that may just be the control player in me!)

Dealing w/ the Inevitable... by thescale99 at Fri, 04/06/2007 - 13:58
thescale99's picture

Good first article. A few strategy questions: 1) Is the deck fast enough to win before an opponent drops any troublesome enchantments or artifacts? I know Boros Wins and Aggro Green simply ignore that threat and rely on speed alone. Does yours do the same? 2) How do you handle untargetable fat critters? Green will drop that sort of unpleasantness on a regular basis. The Damnations are the only answer I see, but w/ only 3 sideboard and no 'fetch' or 'draw' mechanisms, they may be hard to come by. What’s your experience with that situation? Some tweaking might be necessary, but overall, the deck has potential. Keep going!

by MysticLancer at Fri, 04/06/2007 - 11:37
MysticLancer's picture

I agree with Heath, its a good article and I like it a lot, but the formatting could be worked on a little more to make it more appealing and maybe a bit more content but great start and keep it up.

Good start by mtgotraders at Fri, 04/06/2007 - 09:39
mtgotraders's picture

Good first article but could use some polishing. Hope to see more articles from you!

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dungdung's picture

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