The release events for Planar Chaos are about to end. In fact in a few days, we will return to our normal MTGO life. I had so much fun playing drafts, sealed decks and a 1 week release league. I won some and I lost some; but in the end it was fun nevertheless.
But this article isn't about Limited gaming. It is about a deck which is 100% home-made and which I think has a good chance of winning in the upcoming TSP Block Constructed events.
But before we talk about the present, let us remind the past.
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| WHITE WEENIE There are several very powerful decks in the format. One of them is obvoiusly the choice of many; White Weenie. If you play block format, then you probably played against this deck; it is simple, it is fast and it wins more than it loses.
Although this deck is losing popularity, it still is a deck to be taken seriously. |
| SOGGY PICKLES & U/G SHIFTER The second deck is a deck which we all know by the (funny) name of Soggy Pickles. I
think that everybody knows the deck so I will not explain what it does. After it has been
shown on Wizards' website, it became a "superstar" and it is now the deck choice of
many block format players.
After a while another version of this deck showed up and it is now known by the name
of U/G Shifter. Along the usual suspects, the green mana added version also uses
mana producers such as Wall of Roots and Search for Tomorrow and also plays
Thelonite Hermit in combination with Vesuvan Shapeshifter to produce tons of
Saproling tokens. Overall, this was and still is a tier 1 deck in the format. |  
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| BLINK RIDERS The next deck I'm going to talk about is a RedWhiteBlue deck, which is also called
Blink Riders. This deck uses "comes into play" creatures and then blinks them for
further use.
A personal note; a similar version of this deck was my favorite deck before the
release of Planar Chaos. Did I win anything with it? Absolutely no but it was fun :).
With the new Planar Chaos cards like Shivan Wumpus, Numot, the Devastator
and especially Boom/Bust, this deck is even more powerful than it was before. |  
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| MONO GREEN AGGRO & SCRYB&FORCE And finally one other deck which we also know from Standard format; known as
Scryb&Force. This deck has two versions; one is mono green and the other is
green/blue. I've seen many different builds but each of them had the two cards
in common; they are of course Spectral Force and Scryb Ranger.
With the realease of Planar Chaos, this deck is now the top choice of block format
players. How can cards like Timbermare, Groundbreaker and Harmonize can
stay unnoticed! |
Now that we are all a little bit more familiar with the Block Format, let me get to the main point of my article...
I like playing Time Spiral Block. But I don't like netdecking; in fact I hate it. I also don't want and therefore don't like that the time I play my very first land, my opponent immediately realizes what I play. And this is the reason why I like building my own decks(and this is the reason why I cannot win a thing; lol!). And this one below is no exception. First, let me give you the list;
Before I start explaning you what this deck does, let me tell you that this deck isn't just "pen & paper". I own the deck and I'm currently playing it and the results are very encouraging. So you know that I'm not here to talk about theory but to talk about the facts.
Anyway let us continue...
During the first turns you fix your mana base. Other than mana, Wall of Roots provides you also early defense. With the aid of Terramorphic Expanse and Evolution Charm you'll be fine in a few turns.
As you can also see from the deck list above, I play Extirpate in the main deck. To "feed" it, I also have 4x Stupor in deck. What good is a Soggy Pickles deck I ask you fellow readers, if it has no Vesuvan Shapeshifter in deck? Or a Teferi Control deck without a leader?
The deck draws cards via Harmonize. This is for me the most important thing. I don't actually believe that without card advantage any game can be won. Or let me tell you the other way; if you have card advantage over your opponent, you will then have a better chance of winning the game or at least this is how I think. That this advantage is provided by green is a little bit odd but it totaly fits in.
So let's summarize. We have mana acceleration, we have card drawing, we have mass and spot removal (Sudden Death), we have discard, we have graveyard manipulation (both Extirpate and the ability of our own Evolution Charm), we have a Pithing Needle-on-a-stick (a.k.a. Voidstone Gargoyle) and we have a beater; a mighty dragon. Here it is:
This dragon is in a theme deck of Planar Chaos called Rituals of Rebirth. When I first saw this card I immediately thought of a Reanimator deck with 4x Dread Return and 4x Resurrection and some fat creatures. Then I saw the theme deck which is also a Reanimator deck but believe me dear readers, in this deck this mighty dragon works wonders.
Now let's talk a little bit about the sideboard.
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| Obviously against Weenie decks and especially against your Groundbreaker! | This card is sided in against fast decks and red decks packed with direct damage. Also life gain in general is always a nice option to have. | No I don't like your Temporal Isolation on my Teneb and I really don't like your Sacred Mesa either! | Discard? LD? I don't think so... |
Okay this is it for now dear readers. If you like playing Time Spiral Block Constructed and if you want to have a chance against those "big boys" and yet don't want to be a part of them, I think I showed you that there is still an option available. As soon as the TSP Block tournaments begins, I will be around with this deck and will see how far I can get.
Thank you very much for reading.
Take care,
Nafiz ERMAN, a.k.a. Lord Erman
0 Comments
Thanks for all the comments guys. I see that some of you liked the deck (at least the idea), while some of you don't. What Runeliger said is true; this is a rogue deck and it needs perfection of course. But let me tell you this much; I playtested this deck before writing this article and now after one week, I am still optimistic about the deck although I have had very hard times against Teferi Control, I must admit that. That deck is still number 1. I also experienced "Extirpate Wars" and it was really funny! Whomever used it first, lost the game(because then his Extirpate gets Extirpated and the other player then has 3 more Extirpates in deck for further use). Oh and by the way thejitte, no it is absolutely not an auto-loss against BlinkRiders. LD in TSP Block is not as fast as it is in STD. No Eye of Nowhere on turn 2 here or Stone Rain on turn 3. Best they can come up with is an Avalanche Riders on turn 4(mostly. in some cases before). Yes Boom part of Boom/Bust hurts but if you can Extirpate it or more importantly if you can Extirpate their Momentary Blink, than you'll be fine(not safe but fine). And the one thing that BlinkRiders hates is that the opponent is coming up with more Wall of Roots or Evolution Charms over and over. And I certainly do not agree with you on the Charm. It is very versatile and it does help the deck a lot. Anyway, I guess I should end this "half comment - half article" thing here. Thanks for reading and thanks for your comments, especially when they are constructive.
Brilliant!
A good idea, but there's one thing I'd like to go over a few points about the deck that could use some updating
(Disclaimer!: by no means am I an expert in this format, and yes I do understand it's a rogue deck)
In the current enviroment, where Teferi control has been called the #1 deck in the format (without much debate in some cases), and decks like UB floating around, I see two issues.
First is the idea of resolving the dragon. I understand that this deck is quite rogue, and as such you have the advantage of knowing a lot more about what your deck can produce than your opponent, however, that said, resolving the dragon will still prove difficult at times (and its an essential card to your win game strategy).
Secondly, it's your only win game strategy. Preboard, unless you beatdown with voidstone 7 times (and even that being the only possible way for you to win), you need to have your dragon online at all times. So if a deck were to run extirpate....... I'm sure you see where I'm going with this. What I would recommend is some threat variation, or at least another win condition (Scryb and Force has a good one in Spectral Force... *hint hint*)
One last comment I would like to make is in regards to Gaea's blessing. Having tried running this deck, I've found that Gaea's Blessing isn't really the answer to Land destruction of discard that you say it is... Like seriously... I've tried playing it, and woopie I got my cards back in my library.... cept my library is still some 45 cards >.> So maybe toss something random in?
However, that said, all in all I enjoyed your article quite a bit... Keep it up!
Land destruction is going to mess you up. I'd imagine that the matchup vs. Blink Riders is almost a auto-loss. Most of your spells have double color requirements and Evolution Charm, although versatile, is not exactly a great mana fixer because it doesn't accelerate.
Decks with similar mana requirements like the old Gifts deck or Solar Flare had good fixers like Kodama's Reach and guild duals and signets to do this. Expanse and Charm are pretty slow.
Gaea's blessing's a great sideboard card for those silly u/b milling decks
Hey guys make sure to sign up so your ip isn't shown to the world and so you can use a cool avatar :) Great article Erman
I wrote this http://www.mtgotraders.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=675&highlight= basic deck build last week. The Walls are kool but hell with them Call of herds if really fun and if you loose to a needed Damnation fine. He'll be back. The real meat of your deck is in your stupors, sweepers and extirpate. With so many creatures in your build I can see the 4 Tenebs but I think my UBG would run you. If that like works, have a read and comment how ever you please. But extirpate, not wall of roots...lol...is the win! The addition of Harmanize to my version might be nice. However the control would keep you out of play and the willbenders would send your hand snatch back at you or your extirpate back at your gy. Too bad I dont have either the extirpates or the Damnations cause I would be happy to show you a match or 2 with the build.
I looked at the link you gave and read each word you wrote and yet I cannot make a connection between the deck of mine and the one you suggested. Your deck has Cancel, Dismal Failure, Draining Whelk, Riftwing Cloudskate, Call of the Herd etc... I mean I play a BGW deck and yours is UG with a black splash for Damnation and Extirpate. What is the connection between those 2 decks? You play counters, I play something totally different. Just so that you have Damnation and Extirpate in your (fantasy) deck doesn't mean that we are playing the same deck. I play Harmonize too and so does MonoGreenAggro, does this means anything???!?? The most important part of my deck is NOT Stupor or Damnation, it is Extirpate/Gargoyle combination and the deck you suggested has no signs of this.
Porphyry Nodes was a card I considered while building the deck but then it prevents me playing my own Wall of Roots and so I didn't put it in the deck. Without the sideboard WW is a great threat, it is true. After sideboarding, I add 4x Spike Feeder in and take 4x Stupor out as Stupor is better against control decks and also take 2 Gargoyles out and 2 Arrows comes in. Playtesting showed that if I win against WW, it is always 2-1 and if I lose it is always 0-2. The deck handles Green Aggro but WW is really a big big big problem. Thanks for reading by the way.
You seem to be relying upon wall of roots in the early game to slow down quick aggro decks. However, the one aggro deck you list here that starts quckest is white weenie.
Unless you get Damnation online quickly you may have trouble against WW. I would suggest some Porphyry Nodes, at least in the sideboard. They could slow down aggro much more potently than the Wall of Roots, which truth be told, can't stop either of WW's power creatures you displayed earlier in the article.
Just a suggestion, good luck in the PE's.
sorry,
It doesn't stops them of course. It just gets the cards you discarded or lost to LD back to your library. Sorry if it wasen't clear enough.
You seem to be relying upon wall of roots in the early game to slow down quick aggro decks. However, the one aggro deck you list here that starts quckest is white weenie.
Unless you get Damnation online quickly you may have trouble against WW. I would suggest some Porphyry Nodes, at least in the sideboard. They could slow down aggro much more potently than the Wall of Roots, which truth be told, can't stop either of WW's power creatures you displayed earlier in the article.
Just a suggestion, good luck in the PE's.
How does Gaea's Blessing stop LD and Discard?