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By: JXClaytor, Joshua Claytor
Jun 15 2009 11:19am
4.5
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Does anyone have any idea how hard it is cut 129 decks down to 10?  Do you know how long you have to argue with a friend in order to make them see your reasoning to why a deck should be considered for the final ten?  Let me tell you, as much fun as running this contest has been for me and Andy and PureMTGO.com it has been almost as stressful and time consuming and hair pullingly frustrating as anything I can recall being in.

That is a huge compliment to the deck building skills of the readers of PureMTGO.com!  Many nights Andy and I were up until 3am debating a deck, marking it for inclusion before taking it out, then adding it back in.  As we neared the final ten, I thought our friendship would soon end as well.  Thankfully though, a contest can not rip asunder good friends. 

With said I want to get straight into the top ten. It was a long process to get here, but the decks that we selected show a wide range of strategies, and a wide range of ways to win games in this non rare land format.  


Joshua's Thoughts:   This Blightning Beatdown deck takes advantage of the overpowered creatures that Red and Black have to offer.  12 of the men have haste, while Anathemancer deals damage to those greedy decks that look to play a lot of colors.  Guildmage trades dead cards for creature removal and gives you a bit of a late game, allowing you to make 2/1 hasty men.  Terminate and Slave of Bolas deal with a lot of the creatures in the format, and over all I feel this is a well rounded deck. 


Andy's Thoughts:  This deck is fantastic. There are a lot of land destruction spells which makes this list a lot of fun to play. Well at least it is a lot of fun for me to play!  The land destruction element of the deck is complimented by some mass removal, and Lord of Extinction serves as giant meaty win condition. Vengeful Rebirth is very neat as it can bring back a key card to battle the opponent and it can take out a creature while doming the opposition for some amount of damage.  If Magnivore had been printed with Hybrid mana, it clearly would make the deck a lot more exciting.  However, hasty guys that care about the amount of sorceries in a graveyard are meant for red. 


Andy's Thoughts:   Only one mill deck made the cut this time. This list has a lot of cheap spells to play in order to deck the opponent. Memory Sluice is a very good mill card and Conspire just makes it better. While there is a lack of creatures in the deck, Sluice is still a very playable card because the guys that are involved here are going to be out early.  You need them to be, because the early game is going to be spent making sure you get to the late game.  Nemesis of Reason is just ridiculous as it just puts the opponent on a 5 turn clock.  The plan is to drop Nemesis and protect him for as long as possible until you win. Mind Funeral has the potential to be a blow out against some of the more land light (read:  Borderpost heavy) decks, and Psychic Drain is a killer Milling card that gains life lost. 

 
Andy's Thoughts:  I'm a big fan of this list because it features Riverfall Mimic.  In fact every spell in the deck but ten will trigger this guy, and even the spells that do not trigger have it (Blast and Deny Reality) give you a chance to trigger it anyways!  This of course is a big plus, but the best play is sticking a Clout of the Dominus on the mimic (Or any other not Shambling Remains man) and immediately the opponent has to scramble for an answer or the game doesn't last beyond the opening turns!


Joshua's Thoughts:   Glare of Subdual and Fast green white beaters have quite a history together.  A few years ago this style of deck won a World Championship.  This deck looks like it could fight it out with the fully powered decks in the format because you have speed, solid men, life gain, and some great combat tricks.  Guildmage,  Evengal, and the Supply side of the split card make it really hard on your opponent to have a good combat step because you are tapping everything down.  The Oversoul enchantment will make any creature in the deck almost impossible to deal with. 

 
Joshua's Thoughts:  Evershrike was one of those overhyped cards when Eventide came out.  Everyone ranted and raved about how good he could be, but the weird wurm dragon looking spirit thing (With Wings!) never really fit into a super competitive format that featured some of the fastest tribes ever.  In Kscope though, the weird wurm dragon looking spirit thing (With Wings!) could be a huge player.  This deck looks to make a super shrike.  With Edge of Divinity, the WWDLST(WW!) gets a plus 3/3 from the enchantment alone.  With his bonus Edge gives the WWDLST(WW!) a 5/5 pump for 1 low mana.  Plax replaces itself and makes sure the WWDLST(WW!) does not die to targeted removal.  There is a lot of removal in the deck, and with that removal you get time to set up the giant monster. 


Joshua's Thoughts:  This is a Zur Deck.  Watch Zur Attack.  Watch Zur bring out an enchantment.  Watch opponent frown.  Watch Zur keep attacking.  Watch opponent click concede.  Go Zur go!  In all seriousness this looks one of the most tuned Zur decks I have seen.  You have the normal run of the mill enchantments that either wreck your opponent's plans or make your team better.  Rise of the Hobgoblins is a really cool inclussion here, as you can search it out with Zur, and since the card has a comes into play cost, you can pay X and have that many Goblins join your force.  

 
Andy's Thoughts:  Good old firemane control. Nucklavee and Izzet Chronarch can bring back all star spells such as Lightning Helix or Invoke the Firemind. This deck has early action but I feel has more of a late game feel and can outlast a lot of the other decks in this format. Turn to Mist is very powerful in here as almost every creature has a good come into play effect with a 2 for 1 effect with Nucklavee. Short, simple to the point, and devestatingly effective.  


Andy's Thoughts:  Graft is a mechanic that was under represented and not really given a second thought when it was legal in Standard.  However, since Dissenion rotated out a lot of cool new cards have come along to help abuse the counter mechanic that Graft is so famous for.  With the additon of Kitchen Finks (Which can almost be indefinitely reloaded by the graft men) Gilder Bairn (Everyone gets pumped!) and Shorecrasher Mimic (Which is triggered by everything but the finks)  we have a deck that the Simic Combine could be proud of!  The Froglings laugh off all the targetted removal in the format. The most interesting card in the deck is Cytoshape.  This guy can be a removal spell for you if there is a graft creature in play.  It can get cute with Mimic, and it can be downright devestating with a Hydropan in play.  This spell and Snakeform allow you to let the Hat rack race into the red zone!  


Andy's Thoughts:  I personally like decks that can do tricks. And let me tell you, this Aethermage's Touch deck is full of tricks.  The creature base in this deck is a like a Murderer's Row of 187 Multicolored spells.  Aethermage's touch has serious synergies with any creature it reveals. Anathemancer just means bad times for opponents considering most if not all kaleidoscope decks pack a large amount of non-basic lands.  You can use Nucklavee and Izzet Chronarch to regrow the Aethermage's  Touch you just cast, which pretty much becomes the best thing ever!  Murderous Redcap can come in to deal 2 damage and can be recast the following turn. I think the deck hits it's high point when it casts Nucklavee and brings back any 2 of the non-creature spells which for this list is a serious powerhouse.

And there you have it!  These ten lists are what we considered to be the cream of the crop, and think the amount of creativity that pours from these lists will make the reader vote very crucial to seeing who wins the big prize!  Like the last contest we have a poll, I've created it to be extra secure, so no worries about bots!

I want to add this as well, feel free to campaign for your deck!  Every vote that has ever been held in the history of voting has been nothing but a popularity contest anyways.  Feel free to tell people about it in game, but please do not spam rooms, or classifieds or auction or game play areas.  Heck, if you want to feel free to put a sign up in your yard with a link to the contest.  Send me a picture of that if you do though! 

Voting will end at 1159 pm Saturday June 13th.  This contest will be scored the same way as the non budget contest.  Again, I want to thank all who participated in this contest, and good luck to the final ten!

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2 Comments

Nice decks! Though a playset by Anonymous (not verified) at Tue, 06/09/2009 - 12:17
Anonymous's picture

Nice decks!

Though a playset of demigods is beyond my qualificaion of budget, the rest of that first deck is fairly cheap. I was taken aback a bit to see that as the card featured in the first deck in the list of budget decks.

mmm by Scartore at Thu, 06/11/2009 - 19:56
Scartore's picture
4

"Though a playset of demigods is beyond my qualificaion of budget" I agree, especially since a playset of lieges would fit the dec better imho.