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By: Flippers_Giraffe, Simon Smith
Nov 18 2010 2:43am
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This week I wasn't sure what I was going to write about and then a few things popped into my line of vision the first was a nagging idea I had after reading this article from Lord Erman about bringing his friend back into magic. It reminded me of my first days of playing magic in paper down the local pub where we all used to meet up. Back then my favorite deck was mono green which included all my favorite cards Force of Nature, Berserk and my only piece of power Black Lotus. Seeing screen shots of old paper cards always brings back that nostalgic feeling for me.

There was one card that LE mentioned that I haven't played before that kicked me into a deck building frenzy Multani, Maro-Sorcerer. While contemplating about building a deck around this card (as you will have guessed I chose to build it in the tribal format which is why it's in this article) I also remembered another card I had read about recently from one of Westane's articles which you can find here. The card in question is Phage the Untouchable.  

I was supposed to be saving up for a couple of expensive cards this month for another tribal deck but when I get that deck building urge there's no stopping it.

GreenGreenGreenGreen

So today I'm going to bring you two decks based around wining with these creatures. Now let's have a look at the first card we will be building our deck round today good old Multani, Maro-Sorcerer who is a legendary elemental that has the following card text and a casting cost of 4GreenGreen.

"Shroud (This permanent can't be the target of spells or abilities.)

Multani's power and toughness are each equal to the total number of cards in all players' hands."

The main idea behind the deck will be to flood both players hands with cards to make Multani a huge creature to deal with and we won't need to worry about spot removal as he comes with Shroud. This does have a slight drawback as we can't equip him with artifacts either so no Whispersilk Cloak for you I'm afraid. Here's the deck list and how it plays out. 

 

Now this is my version of a Maro control build. I’m going to show you the control points first in the form of two blue enchantments the first is Dissipation Field and the second Propaganda together they really do lock the board. Whenever a creature deals damage to you it's returned to your opponents hand but because of Propaganda they most likely will have no mana untapped to re-play the card to attack in the following turn. I actually have had a lot of players disconnect on me in the casual room once they worked out what was going on.

The beat down is in the form of not one but two Maro’s, we have the card the deck is designed to use Multani, Maro-Sorcerer and also the original Maro as well from Mirage. To help keep these two up to their full size I included Prosperity it may give my opponents more cards but they should already have issues with the amount of cards in hand from the two blue enchantments. As an added measure I added in Remand to really tip the boat. 

Going back to the other elementals in the deck the early game players are Cloud Elemental and Spawnwrithe which never seems to survive long enough for me to attack with it. Moving up a gear we have Mulldrifter for card draw and it’s also nice to have another flyer.  Onto the other large elementals making up the rest of our creature count we have Cloudthresher and Tornado Elemental to deal with flyers. Root Elemental is usually played as a morph but I count it as a big creature in the deck as its morph cost is huge but funny when you get to slam down one of his friends like for example Liege of the Tangle.

The creature costs in the deck are really expensive so we are going to need some special lands to meet our needs. Cloudpost and Glimmerpost fulfill the requirements quite well and I’m running enough of both forests and Islands to meet my needs to cast the spells in the deck. Misty Rainforest is an excellent card to help you search for the relevant piece of the puzzle to cast your elementals.

GreenGreenBlack Black

Now let's see what Phage the Untouchable has to offer, well its only one thing really....Death. If she connects and damages you, you lose the game. Let's see the deck list and how it works.

 

The deck is built around Phage the Untouchable I won’t be using her as part of a tribe instead she is going to be the decks win condition. For the support tribe I went with Humans it is nearly all Wizards but I didn’t want to drop any cards to make it a Wizard tribal deck. Let’s have a look at the cards we have that will enable you to win once Phage is in play. The first is a wizard that enables a creature to be unblockable when it comes into play Neurok Invisimancer the second gives all our creatures Horsemanship which means they can only be blocked by creatures with Horsemanship it’s kind of like a less popular version of flying , less popular because there are not many good cards that have or give this ability. The card who enables this is from Masters Edition 3 or Portal Three Kingdoms for those of you who know him from the paper world, he is the legendary Sun Quan, Lord of Wu.   

The deck is full of support cards to try and keep us in the game long enough for Phage to do her business.  We have Phages Royal Assassin’s and Black Knights to help deal with any early critters. On the Wizard side we have Venser, Shaper Savant who is a great card and this is the first time I’ve actually used him and I can see why he was so popular in Std. As an excellent source of library manipulation I included Information Dealer, he’s fragile but worth it. As a form of counter we have a card going back to Mirage Mundungu and for redirection his partner in crime Willbender. The last Wizard is Lighthouse Chronologist which makes a good blocker early on and then if you level up him enough he starts giving you extra turns. 

You really need lots of removal in this deck otherwise you will be overrun early on. For this I went with four copies of Grasp of Darkness which is the most played card I have from Scars of Mirrodin, I also added two Sudden Death’s as well. In testing nearly every deck I played against was a wizard deck using Patron Wizard, I got so fed up of facing it that I changed my deck to include this card

Over all it’s a fun deck and winning using Phage is a nice change to your general beat down decks and she did surprise a lot of players as she is overlooked now days when people are looking for deck ideas.

Well I hope I’ve touched on something for you to now go off and look at building a deck with some of your old cards that have been left in your virtual binder to gather dust. The cards in Std are really powerful at the moment resulting in the older cards to be shoved aside but they need some love too and using them might bring back some old memories of why you started to play magic in the beginning.

BlackBlackBlackBlack 

Next week I will go over the Christmas and New Year schedule, there is something very special to look forward to in the New Year. In fact I'm so excited I'm finding it hard not to tell you about it this week. I'm going to leave you now with the results from this weekend's event and I'm going to start typing up all of this exciting news for next week's article while it's still hot in my mind. 

 

Here's the run down of the decks this week that went 2-1 or higher.

2-1 

  

The first deck I have for you this week that went 2-1 comes from fliebana one of our regular tribal players. fliebana brought the Eldrazi out to play in all their glory, you have the small Eldrazi to start the ball rolling these generate Eldrazi spawn tokens when they come into play that can be sacrificed for mana to ramp up to the giants. Speaking of giants we also have a lone Primeval Titan as well that’s more than happy to do some serious stomping.

I like the inclusion of Mimic Vat it’s a card I’m having real problems dealing with in the Coalition League it’s a really solid card and one which could be used with lots of different creatures like Gatekeeper of Malakir as an example. 

 

Next we have JustSin coming back to the event after selling his collection. Starting again from scratch is a hard task but the way in which JustSin is documenting it in his articles is a really good idea for starting players. As you know from seeing his deck already in the money this week he is doing a really good job of it.
 

The deck still has some of the best angels around and a few stand inns', Taurean Mauler likes to think he’s an angel but hasn’t managed to grow wings yet. JustSin starts with Serra Avenger's, followed by Emeria Angel. Then you will start seeing some of the bigger players coming into action. Adarkar ValkyrieFiremane Angel, Sunblast Angel and a lone Baneslayer Angel.

The removal is really hot in this deck Lightning Helix, Swords to Plowshares, Oblivion Ring and Path to Exile

 

RockinRobin is paying a human deck that is packing a lot of protection so it's going to be hard getting round a lot of these creatures. The main theme of the deck is cycling with Astral Slide and Lightning Rift. If you are not packing mass removal this could very well hold you back for a long time and at that point you will be facing Mystic Enforcer's with their threshold activated.  

 

Ranth brings out his cats again this week with a few new additions from Scars of Mirrodin, Sunspear Shikari and Kemba, Kha Regent. Qasali always makes a good threat with his ability to destroy artifacts and enchantments, his exalted ability is always very useful as well. 

Looking at the other options in the deck there is some strong removal similar to JustSin's deck Lightning Helix, Path to Exile and this time Lightning Bolt. Then there is the equipment for the cats which can be tutored up by Stoneforge Mystic which includes Basilisk Collar and Infiltration Lens which I didn't know could be triggered multiple times. Also note that the cats will be wearing their Armadillo Cloaks as well, looks like they might be the new fashion of the season.  

 

We have Elves from Aryxon this week. I know Aryxon has been building up his winnings to pay for the cards in this deck and its paying off as it looking to be a very slick machine now. All of the elves here interact with each other and I like the removal in the form of Acidic Slime. Keep up the good work.

Sadly I don't really have much more to add to how the deck works as Elves are quite an easy tribe to play. It's a matter of bringing them out fast enough to take the win before they are vaporized by a Wrath of God. I find that Elves and Goblins are probably one of the best tribal decks to start your adventures with. A deck like Aryxon's is a great place to start and as you can see is well worth investing a few tickets in as it payed for itself this week netting him two credits on www.mtgotraders.com.

 

Onto my deck this week well you may have noticed I showed you this deck a few weeks ago. It's one of the ones I was showing as a potential Halloween build. I made a few alterations and added some Signet's instead of the Charcoal Diamond's and it works a lot better now. The decks best way of winning is via poison. Plague Stinger is the first creature you will see across the board from you and if I'm lucky it will quickly be equipped with a Bonesplitter dealing 3 points of poison a turn. If that doesn't get you then my next trick is a Berserked Putrefax which if un-blocked equals one dead player. 

In one game vs AJ_Impy It was 1-1 and I had the possibility of playing the above combo on my following turn for the win but AJ out did me and took the victory in his following turn form out of nowhere but to see how he done it you will need to read a little bit further first.   

3-0

 

If machines ruled the world then they would all be playing construct decks like Kumagoro42's. Yes I'm sure machines would play MTGO before any one makes a comment but I expect it would be on a more binary level.

Anyway back on topic Kumagoro42' went 3-0 with his construct deck this week which is a very powerful build to play against. I think Steel Overseer is the most valuable card in the deck I saw some amazing things from this guy. He just keeps pumping or adding counters to the other constructs in the deck. How about a Triskelion that never runs out of counters yes its possible with this deck. Your worst fear when playing is to make sure you don't get taken out by a Phyrexian Walker that has a certain embarrassment factor to it.

I played against this deck in practice and it's really good and with removal like Brittle Effigy and All is Dust, artifacts will rule the world. Also a final note about the deck is the mana base with a full Urza and Locus playset it has a lot of power at its finger tips as long as the right pieces of the puzzle are in play. 

Grand Champion

Matriyoshka Constructs
by AJ_Impy
Creatures
4 Memnite
4 Phyrexian Walker
3 Phyrexian Soulgorger
1 Thermal Navigator
4 Summoner's Egg
4 Steel Overseer
2 Clone Shell
4 Protean Hulk
4 Disciple of the Vault
30 cards

Other Spells
2 Mox Opal
4 Springleaf Drum
4 Spawning Pit
10 cards
 
Lands
4 Cloudpost
4 Glimmerpost
4 Vesuva
4 Deserted Temple
4 Overgrown Tomb
20 cards

 

 

Moving on to AJ_Impy’s deck this week nnd we see another construct build, two in one week feels like a conspiracy. This is a very clever deck indeed a brief look at the deck list and you may not notice the combo sitting there ready to explode.

AJ does kind of give it away in the deck title if you know what the Matriyoshka dolls from Russia are. This is going to sound like me trying to explain the beginning of the universe. What came first the chicken or the egg? In AJ’s universe it’s the egg well to be precise it’s a Summoner’s Egg. Now I will say you really do not want to see what hatches from this egg. It’s big and green with lots of protein fat, yup it’s the Protean Hulk when he breaks free of his egg. When he’s in play again leave this creature alone at all costs, I repeat do not kill it. Of course AJ_Impy has an answer to this by using Spawning Pit to sacrifice the Hulk. If the Hulk dies then I’m afraid so will AJ’s opponent, but there’s will be a quick death. The reason for this is all those zero casting cost artifacts in the deck not much use in normal circumstances I agree but with the Spawning Pit and let’s say 4 copies of Disciple of the Vault that really is game over every time an artifact goes to the grave yard that there is four damage to the dome.

If that isn’t enough the deck has the potential to win via beat down as well with the assistance of Steel Overseer.

Here’s AJ comment on how the deck works "Open up the Clone Shell to reveal the Summoner's Egg. Crack open the Egg to hatch the Protean Hulk. Kill the hulk to win the game." and he did just that.

 

 

This table is to show the tribes that have landed in the prizes since the 9th of October 2010. The left hand side is the tribe and along the top is the number of rounds won.

Tribe 2 3 4
Ally 1    
Angel 1 1 2
Beast 1    
Cat 1 1  
Construct   1 1
Dragon 2 1  
Elemental 1    
Eldrazi 1    
Elf 2    
Goblin 3    
Horror 1    
Human 4    
Knight   2  
Masticore 1    
Merfolk 1 1  
Rogue 1    
Shade 1    
Shaman 2    
Sliver 2    
Soldier     1
Spirit 2    
Vampire  2    
Warrior 1    
Wurm 1    

   

On top of the in game banned list the following cards are also banned in Tribal Apocalypse events, if there are additional cards that are deemed too powerful they will be added to this list, so please keep an eye out. If you are caught using any of the below cards in an event then you will forfeit your match and will be removed from the tournament.

Bazaar of Baghdad Helm of Obedience Painter's Servant
Doomsday Hermit Druid Progenitus
Earthcraft Iona, Shield of Emeria Sneak Attack
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn Lion's Eye Diamond Survival of the Fittest
Goblin Lackey Mystical Tutor Æther Vial

    

  20th November 2010
Host: Flippers_Giraffe
Format: Normal Tribal Classic
Door Prize: 4x Sinew Sliver

27th November 2010
Host: Flippers_Giraffe
Theme Week - Endangered Tribal

The following creature types are banned this week Angels, Allies, Elves, Faeries, Goblins, Merfolk, Elementals, Soldiers, Zombies, Slivers, Humans and Vampires.

Format: Normal Tribal Classic
Door Prize: 4x Ritual of the Machine

Ritual of the Machine Ritual of the Machine Ritual of the Machine Ritual of the Machine

4th December 2010
Host: Flippers_Giraffe
Format: Normal Tribal Classic
Door Prize: 3x Urzas Beast of Burden

11th December 2010
Host: Flippers_Giraffe
Format: Normal Tribal Legacy
Door Prize: 4x Elvish Archdruid

Elvish Archdruid Elvish Archdruid Elvish Archdruid Elvish Archdruid

18th December 2010
Host: Flippers_Giraffe

Special Event - Christmas (last event of 2010) 

The first 20 players to register will receive a gift, all players who go 3-0 with a Christmas (Naya ) coloured deck receive an additional prize of Tamanoa

 Format: Normal Tribal Legacy
Door Prize: 4x Mitotic Slime

Tribal Apocalypse runs every Saturday and is a free event sponsored by www.mtgotraders.com

There are prizes to all players who go 2-1 or above and a random door prize for some lucky person who doesn't make it into the prizes. All door prizes and additional event prizes are donated by Flippers_Giraffe

Registration starts at 12:30 EST (17:30 GMT) in /join tribal

The event starts promptly at 13:00 EST (18:00 GMT)

The Tribal Apocalypse group can be found here, please join to show your support

If you have any questions drop a comment below or contact me in game Flippers_Giraffe


Links

  The Coalition League    

12 Comments

I'm glad to see horrors has by JustSin at Thu, 11/18/2010 - 03:29
JustSin's picture
5

I'm glad to see horrors has become so well rounded with SoM the liege was dying for friends

yea my budget angels are kind of a hodgepodge of angels, deck only cost a bit over 20 bucks, which I mustered off of Pure credits lol, kind of depressing to not see my foils and duals, but oh well

Only a minor correction by fliebana at Thu, 11/18/2010 - 05:40
fliebana's picture

Hi Flippers..

If I am not mistaken, the combo Mimic Vat+Gatekeeper of Malakir would not work, because you need to kick it/him. Am i wrong?

Good article, as always.

Greetings. Fliebana.

You may well be right by Flippers_Giraffe at Thu, 11/18/2010 - 14:21
Flippers_Giraffe's picture

You may well be right fliebana, I don't have Vat to try it and see if you can use kicker costs. You can with Isochron Scepter.

Anyone care to give this a test?

Confirmed... It doesn't work by fliebana at Thu, 11/18/2010 - 18:01
fliebana's picture

I've just tested it. It doesn't work

Bye

I salute fellow by Kumagoro42 at Thu, 11/18/2010 - 06:18
Kumagoro42's picture

I salute fellow machinebuilder's AJ (wow, Constructs just went from 0 to 3+4 in that table! What's best to celebrate them than those nice Mirrodin Besieged spoilers?). But I have to point out my build was colorless pure, no mana simbols on any card. (Except the Phyrexian Tower, but it wasn't useful at all, since I never find the need to sacrifice the Cathodion to it, so I just take that out in favor of a second Tectonic Edge).

Also, in a deck with all that mana, I always like to find some nice secondary ways to spend it, and both Tower of Fortunes and Orochi Hatchery won me some games producing spectacular Timmy effects.

I was waiting for my next by Lord Erman at Thu, 11/18/2010 - 06:38
Lord Erman's picture

I was waiting for my next Heirloom match to start and there I saw you guys playing. I started watching AJ's game to see what kind of "madness" he brewed this week. There I saw him do his Matriyoshka thingy. And I was like "OMG!" and "You got to be kidding!" and "No way!" and "This can't be real!" etc... It was really incredible.

Regarding building a Maro deck, I believe those Kamigawa Maro's would work too. I mean Soramaro, Kiyomaro, Kagemaro and Masumaro (Adamaro is a bit different). The only thing is that Kamigawa Maro's are Spirits and Multani and Maro are Elementals, but you can still enjoy them together in casual Classic.

So you may either go mono Green with Masumaro, or UG with Saromaro, or BG with Kagemaro. Of course UBG with Maro, Multani, Saromaro and Kagemaro is another option.

And finally regarding Phage, there is also one other alternative which is playing a BG deck. Early turns you will cast a few spells such as Duress and Thoughtseize, kill everything with your black removal, and then play some Green mana ramp cards and finally bring in your Phage. Then you will cast your Riding the Dilu Horse targeting your Phage and the game will be over. To fetch your Riding the Dilu Horse, you may also want to play Dimir Machinations (for transmute purposes).

Also do note that if somehow your opponent Fogs your attacking Phage with horsemanship, you don't have to get another Riding the Dilu Horse to do the trick again. Riding the Dilu Horse's game text doesn't say "until end of turn". So Phage will gain horsemanship permanently.

I know a UB Phage deck is always the first choice, but the BG option is also there.

Just some thoughts.

LE

Yeah AJ's deck is amazing, I by Flippers_Giraffe at Thu, 11/18/2010 - 14:29
Flippers_Giraffe's picture

Yeah AJ's deck is amazing, I was very impressed.

I did think about Riding the Dilu Horse in the Phage deck but blue was so much more stronger with other cards that supported the idea.

Maybe an idea for a Minion deck.

I wish I would of had time to by Cruel_Hellraiser at Thu, 11/18/2010 - 10:16
Cruel_Hellraiser's picture
5

I wish I would of had time to play this weekend. I also have a construct build. Looks like it might of stood a chance.

I really like the Matriyoshka by ArchGenius at Thu, 11/18/2010 - 11:16
ArchGenius's picture
5

I really like the Matriyoshka Egg deck. That is a very interesting design, I'm envious that I didn't think of it.

Count me In! by NetHwarang at Thu, 11/18/2010 - 12:51
NetHwarang's picture

Hey this looks fantastic, i'll be playing this saturday :-D

Hello and Good Luck.

Having played vs AJ's deck by Paul Leicht at Thu, 11/18/2010 - 15:43
Paul Leicht's picture

Having played vs AJ's deck alot and then seeing various practice matches in the wild I am not surprised it went 4-0. Very slick combo based on the zero costs. We were talking about ways to abuse the hulk and he came up with this and I didn't get it until I saw it in action. Just nuts.

Thanks! by NetHwarang at Sat, 11/20/2010 - 20:43
NetHwarang's picture

I had a blast today, see you all next week!

Good Game.