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By: whiffy penguin, George Efelis
Oct 18 2008 6:07am
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Hello and welcome to another episode of the lunchbox. Im going to be recapping the weekend of 10/4 and 10/5/08 in this instalment. I actually was able to play in both of these tournys as I had a vacataion that fell flat on it's face and did'nt feel like working. For the Saturday PE my clanmate Country Hillbilly and I worked on adding Med2 to the Trinket Stalker. We made very slight changes to the list but it hums so much better now. Kinda like a mustang fresh outta the factory hum. It's pretty darn sexy. So anyways we sat down and chatted with the deck in front of us for a couple of hours before game time and came up with the following list.

Trinket Stalker Ver.2.0
Tombstalker

DISRUPTION

3x Duress

4x Thoughtseize
4x Hymn to Tourach

4x Swords to Plowshares
1x Vindicate

 

TOOLBOX & TARGETS

1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Imperial Seal

2x Enlightened Tutor

2x Trinket Mage

4x Brainstorm

 

1x Pithing Needle

1x Sensei’s Divining Top

1x Bottled Cloister

1x Moat

3x Engineered Explosives

 

THE KILL

4x Tombstalker

THE MANA

1x Academy Ruins

1x Ancient Den

1x (Island)

1x Plains

1x Tundra
1x Badlands
2xUnderground Sea
2x Godless Shrine

2x Swamp

3x Bloodstained Mire

4x Polluted Delta

4x (Flooded Strand)

 
THE SIDEBOARD

1x Duress

1x Null Rod

1x Circle of Protection: Green

1x Circle of Protection: Red

1x Engineered Plague

1x Helm of Obedience
2x Tormod's Crypt
3x Exalted Angel

4x Leyline of the Void

 So at first glance it looks the same but let me tell you, with real duals this thing is a force. Gone are the days of 12 life on turn 2 from your own cards. It is still a bit painfull on the life but it will be until we have Scrubland to replace the Godawful Shrines. I mean Godless, teehee. The real changes are the drop of the maindeck crypt and one of the trinkets for a seal and a vindicate. The seal is just about all around better then the trinket since it will grab ANY card and not just an artifact. With the addition of 5 duals it dosent hurt the life as much either which is a plus all around. The Vindicate is in there now because it is nice to have an answer to something thats not a creature with out having to rely on explosives. With the seal and the vamp its like we have 3 now instead of the 1 a singelton would imply. Also adding a badlands for a basic swamp is a nice way to get the previously mentioned explosives up to 4 for any pesky permanaents such as LotV or helm and any other random things you may come across. Lastly is the addition of a singelton helm in the sideboard that makes this deck bonkers. A big  props to Country for thinking that one up. Think about it, your gonna be siding Lotv in against a bunch of decks adding the singelton helm  with 4 maindeck tutors to grab it opens up a bunch of new doors. Its now possible to end the game on the 5th turn out of nowhere much like the way bomberman can go off after grabing control of the game. Lastly the maindeck crypt got moved to the sideboard cutting an E. Plague to make room. There was a slight miscomunication between Hillbilly and myself as he kept his Sunbeam Spellbomb instead of the second crypt. Looking forward this crypt will become a Chalice of the Void to combat Necro and Belcher combo decks.

For those of you unfamiliar with how this deck operates I point you to my article Playing Catch Up  which goes into some detail about the deck.

On to the tourny. I have an abreviated report and match listings for the 10/4/08 PE.

Round 1  Win 2-1  Sandydogmtg Affinaty
This is such an easy match post board. You will usally lose game 1, but have so many tools to beat in there face for the rest of the match.

Side Board -2x E.E., 2x Brainstorm, Bottled Cloister. + 4x LotV, Null Rod

Round 2 Loss 1-2 Dragondung Sensei Sensei
This is supose to be another neer auto win but I Screwed up with E.E. and my colored mana trying to blow up a
Counterbalance and accidently set it to 1 instead which dosent do much. For my other loss I mulled twice and had one of two lands Stifled keeping me out of the game.

Side Board - 4x StP, Moat. + Duress, Null Rod, 3x Exalted Angel

Round 3 Win 2-1 Cheruffe Reanimater
Another super easy match post sideboard. This is the first match that I was able to win with the Helm/Line combo, taking games 2&3 combo style. For those of you unfamiliar with how this combo works I'll illustrate it now. Step 1 get a
Leyline of the Void into play preferably for free. Step 2 play a Helm out. Step 3 activate for 1. The helm will try to put 1 card into the opponents graveyard but because of LotV it will be removed from the game, never making it to the yard. The helm will continue to try this until there are no cards left in your opponents deck. The beauty of this combo is that it gets around replacement effects such as Darksteel Colossus, and Gaea's Blessing. Also as a side benifet you will get to see the entire contents of an opponents deck and see how they decided to sideboard against you.

Side Board - Pithing  Needle, StP, 4x Thoughtseize. + 4x LotV, 2x Tormod's Crypt, Helm of Obedeince

Round 4 Loss 1-2 Dampining Engine U/B Fish/Faeries
I feel like I was out lucked in this match up but the fact of the matter is that he just had a lot of answer me now or lose threats and I couldn't answer them all in two of the games.

Side Board - 2x Brainstorm. Bottled Cloister, Vindicate. + 3x Exalted Angel, Engineered Plague

Round 5 Win 2-1 Rentoamado Rock
This is another match where helm/line came out on top over the tradishonal big stalks beats.

Side Board -2x Tombstalker, Bottled Cloister, Pithing Needle. + 4x LotV, 3x Exalted Angel, Helm of Obedeince
 
Unfortunatly for me I landed in 10th place squarely out of the top 8 but im not upset as the previous PE I split the finals and a copy of the deck split this final run by Country Hillbilly. His tourny looked like this.

Round 1 loss to a G/B Stalker deck and then wins through, 2x Dredge, Belcher, Thresh, Affinaty,Stifle/Nought, and a split.

I'll advocate this deck more and more because it really is a gas to play and it is a true control deck that has the nuts and bolts to hang with the rest of the field.

The top 8 looked like this
Ideal
U/B Fish/Faeries
3c Necro Storm
Dredge
Dredge
Affinaty
UGWB Thresh
Trinket Stalker

The lists for all these decks can be found here http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Events.aspx?x=mtg/daily/decks/mol79800

The next day I entered the 10/5/08 4x constructed que running the same list, and did much better.

Round 1 Win 2-1 MtgCollecter Worldgorger Dragon Combo
After loosing game one its all easy peasy as I get to board in 7 cards and take out some dead weight. Graveyard based decks are my bread and butter and I would love nothing more then to play them all day long while running Trinket stalker.

Side Board - 2x Brainstorm, Pithing needle, Bottled Cloister, Moat, E.E.. + 4x LotV, 2x Tormod's Crypt, Helm of Obedeince

Round 2 Loss 0-2 Mercuccio Necro-Storm 
Here is the start of the black autumn. Although I feel like I should be able to beat storm decks in general this was a brand new list and the match was one of the first to finish. Mercuccio went undefeated through the swiss portion and only dropped 3 games the entire tourny. His list which I will get to later is a beast and pretty much hinges on an up till now unused Coldsnap crap rare.

Side Board - Bottled Cloister.  + Duress

Round 3 Win 2-1 TheCrispOne 2Land Belcher
I got a tad lucky in this match up as it probably should have gone to game 3. In the first game my discard made short work of him. In game 2 he had a first turn win and was on the play but started comboing off in his upkeep. Oops. After burning 3 cards and 4 life he scooped it up before I even had to do anything.

Side Board -StP, Moat, Bottled Cloister. + Duress, Null Rod,  Engineered Plague

Round 4 Win 2-0  Bingo_Bongo R/G Agro
In game one I was able to ride out my controlling elements to finish a close game. In game 2 after I sbed in what feels like a million cards, it was an easy win. Although I will admit that I have my fair share of luck, I do take some offence to being called out as a "Luck Sac" over and over again in a match especialy when the match up is heavily slanted in my favor.

Side Board -3x Brainstorm, Pithing Needle, Bottled Cloister. + 3x Exalted Angel, Cop: Red, Duress

Round 5 Win 2-1 TuSaisPas Affinaty
Rather formulaic. I lose a close game one and then the sb comes in to take over the match for games 2&3. 

Side Board - 2x Trinket Mage, 2x E.E., Bottled Cloister, Sensei's Divining Top. + 4x LotV, Null Rod, Exalted Angel 

Round 6 Win 2-1 EmeraldGirl25 DragonStompy
Game one I get smashed by Demigods and Moon effects. For game two I take my time and fetch out basics and even get to use the vindicate to kill a moonman. Game three I get super lucky by starting the game with a LotV. Emeral throws down a moonman on turn 2 and I proceed to lay down Mountains every turn and a naturaly drawn Helm on turn 4 and activate it turn 5 right before I would have died.

Side Board -E.E., Bottled Cloister. + Duress, Cop: Red. Game 3 -2x Trinket Mage, 2x Brainstorm, Pithing Needle. + 4x LotV, Helm of Obedience.

Woot!! Top 8 and im 3rd seed which means I wont have to face Mercuccio in the first round of single eliminations.

Top 8 Win 2-1 Roscos_Daddy Tribal Zoo
I beleive I lost game one to some crazy ness but cant rightly recollect. Games 2&3 are more to my liking what with the sb comming to the rescue.

Side Board - 4x Brainstorm, Sensei's Divining Top, Pithing Needle, Duress. + 3x Exalted Angel, 2x LotV, Helm of Obedience, Cop: Red & Green

Top 4 Loss 0-2 Prescience Stifle/Nought

Disrupt housed me in game one it's as simple as that. In game two it was a long drawn out affair but he was eventually able to trinket out an E.E. and set it to 4 to destroy my moat.

Side Board - 4x Brainstorm, 3x Tombstalker, Bottled Cloister. + 3x Exalted Angel, 3x LotV, Duress, Helm of Obedeince. 

The rest of the top 8 looked like thus.
Ideal
Dredge
Tribal Zoo
GWB Rock
Trinket Stalker 
Bomberman
Stifle/Nought
Necro-Storm

The lists for all these decks can be found here- http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Events.aspx?x=mtg/daily/decks/mol79822

Now as to the title of the article I want to highlight this winning Necro deck. It's the first one to abuse necro to the extent that it may actually get restricted. Up till I had eyeballed this list I really didn't think that it had the legs to compete what with our current card pool. The thing is though that necro isn't even what makes the deck, its a silly little crap rare that makes this thing hum. Mercuccio is the first to use it in a tourny setting but im not sure if he discovered it or not. At any rate he deffinatly surprised the meta with a super consistent storm deck. After my horrid loss Mercuccio and I spent the rest of the round chatting and he even shared his list with me which is really nice as I didnt have to wait till Thursday to get my hands on it. I have been testing this thing alot and have come up with a slightly different list then his. Here it is and after I'll do a little episode of "How the Gears Turn"

 

Spike Storm
Necropotence

DRAW POWER
4x Necropotence
4x Ponder
4x Brainstorm

GETTING THE POWER
4x Demonic Consultation
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Imperial Seal

PROTECTION
4x Duress
2x Chain of Vapor

The Kill
4x Soul Spike
4x Tendrils of Agony

STORM COUNT& MANA
1x Mana Crypt
4x Chrome Mox
4x Dark Ritual
4x Cabal Ritual
4x Polluted Delta
4x Bloodstained Mire
4x Underground Sea
2x Swamp
1x Watery Grave

THE SIDE BOARD
4x Defense Grid
4x Force of Will
4x Stifle
3x Tormod's Crypt

Soul Spike

 So Soul Spike, What a peice of garbage in any other deck. In Necro decks however it is a house! This deck is very remenisent of Trix from Extended in years gone by. Trix was all about getting a Necro down and then drawing a bajillion cards looking for the combo of Illusions of Grandeur and Donate to give your opponent a short time to lose 20 life. See the thing about this deck is all about resolving a necro as fast as possible. If you cant get it down by turn two you had better have a very good reason for not mulliganing. The consistency comes in the Demonic Consultations and Chrome moxes. 

There are  six different hands you have to have to get down the skull on the 1st turn. The easiest is a hand of land, dark ritual, and necro or a mox, ritual, necro and another black card. Another 1st turn necro hand is a land, mox, ritual, consultation, and another black card. Play out the land and the mox. Then you consult for the necro and play it out with your ritual. Then of course is the land, mox mox, ponder or brainstorm, seal or vamp and a ritual. That last hand is only possible on the draw as it needs 8 cards to work. Lastly are a hand with a land, mox, cabal ritual and a necro or land, 2x mox, and necro.

For a turn two necro you need to have a seal, consultation, brainstorm or ponder(need to get lucky and see a necro or ritual in the top 3), or vamp, land and either a necro or ritual. Play out your land and any one of your one drops to go get the necro or ritual and then play said skull on the second turn. Sometimes youll need a mox and a cabal ritual to get the sucker down other times youll need a 2nd land and so on and so forth.

So once you have the necro down what do you do? Well if it's on the 1st turn and you dont know what your opponent is running you want to play it safe and activate the skull until you are at 4 life. this will put anywhere inbetween 14 and 16 cards into your hand. The reason you stop at 4 is that you dont wanna randomly lose the game to a lightning bolt. If your sure your opponent has no bolts or other direct damage go to 1 life and draw a nifty 17-19 cards. So what your hoping for is to draw in to Soul Spikes here. (make sure that you have a stop set during your EOT phase so that you can go on about spiking people) So you will generaly spike someone twice gaining 8 life and ditching the rest of your hand. This will put your opponent on 12 life. Conveinetly you will have set up a hand that will storm for 6-7 copys of Tendrils of Agony. Killing them. If for some reason you only draw 1 Spike you will have to necro up some more cards and after drawing about 25-40 cards you will almost always have that second spike or if your really unlucky youll just have to set up another tendrils turn. 

That is the meat and potatoes of how the deck works. However if your opponet manages to shut of your engine through Pithing NeedleMeddling Mage, or by making you discard it or countering it you still have the back up plan of a normal storm deck with the added pinache of doming your opponent for 4 point life chunks in spikes. Or you can try to find a Chain of Vapor to remove the dibilatating permanaent thats keeping necro inactive.  

 This side board is still a work in progress but of the 15 I really think that
Force of Will and Defense Grid need to be there. heres how I use it.

Defense Grid-- This wants to come in against Thresh decks and landstill decks(totaly off the map at the moment) or anything that primarily wants to counterspell your things or stifle your tendrils triggers.

Force of Will-- I like this against fast combo decks such as the mirror or Belcher which is actually a turn or two faster then you although it is much less consistent.

Stifle-- For more traditional storm decks. I feel as though this is a pretty weak card for your board over all as your generally using up all your mana but can be great if they manage to discard your early necros prolonging the game.

Tormod's Crypt-- This is really for Dredge. They are pretty fast and your working with a low life total most of the time. As a bonus its is free to cast and ups the storm count by one. I could also see this coming in against Trinket Stalker or Thresh builds. This is another debatable choice.

Other side board options include Infest and Echoing Decay to get around Meddling Mages, Gaddock Teegs, True Believers and possibly Empty the Warrens tokens. I have also toyed around with a combo switch out in 4x LotV and 4x Helm of Obedeince, but could never tell when I would want this over the spikes and tendrils.

Noticeably missing cards are Mind's Desire which is just to slow and the combo of Lion's Eye Diamond+Infernal Tutor which also are a bit slow for where this deck is going. 95% of the time I have won the turn after Necropotence hits the table so that puts this decks goldfish at turn 2 as an average. Pretty fast.

This is a very strong combo deck and may be the fastest and most consistent one, but it still is a linear deck and can be hated on just like others. The list of cards that help stop it from killing you are pretty strong.

Pithing Needle
Meddling Mage
Gaddock Teeg
Chalice of the Void
Thorn of Amethyst
True Believer
Runed Halo
Targeted Discard
Hard counters such as 
Force of Will and other cheapies. 

Lastly before I leave I want to say thanks to LSV for the loan of the vindicate for the PE's. Thanks for reading andi will see ya in seven.

George Efelis
whiffy penguin on modo and most boards
Member of Clan Magic Eternal

9 Comments

nice article by country_hillbilly(Unregistered) 207.38.7.66 (not verified) at Mon, 10/20/2008 - 13:54
country_hillbilly(Unregistered) 207.38.7.66's picture

now we need to work on our new project whiffster..

thx by whiffy penguin at Mon, 10/20/2008 - 08:56
whiffy penguin's picture

thx for the kind words guys.

DD you are absolutly right we need to not see each other unless its the finals.

UTH itll be the 9th box not the 7th.

by Anonymous(Unregistered) 72.47.82.80 (not verified) at Sat, 10/18/2008 - 13:22
Anonymous(Unregistered) 72.47.82.80's picture

Yeah Soul Spike in a Necro deck...what a shocker. I wish I had any interest in classic, it looks like a cakewalk. :P

Firestorm... by MechtaK at Sat, 10/18/2008 - 15:38
MechtaK's picture

A firestorm would become a standard sb card to play against the possible Soul Spike deck, but not much else would work excepting force spike or some other U counter.  Nice deck!

firestorm by whiffy penguin at Sat, 10/18/2008 - 16:02
whiffy penguin's picture

onli if there on 2 or 1. firestorm needs a target for each point of damage. so for instance if you want to firestorm some one for 4 damage you need 4 targets him, you, and 2 creatures.

 

Right you are... by MechtaK at Sun, 10/19/2008 - 17:33
MechtaK's picture

I had forgotten it was the same number of targets as well.  Doh!

Nice Article by under_the_hammer at Mon, 10/20/2008 - 04:10
under_the_hammer's picture

Nice Article Whiffy - Trinket Stalker does seem to have lots of answers.

The added bonus of seeing your opponents deck is only relevant if the player does not concede to the helm activation. 

I look forward to next week - Whiffy's Lunchbox 7:How I stormed to the Top8 of Saturdays Event!

Rain of Gore by DRAGONDUNG at Mon, 10/20/2008 - 04:48
DRAGONDUNG's picture

I had toyed with the idea of rain of gore, but unfortunatly i feel it would sit in your sb way too much, taking up spots that would better be suited for other match ups.  Against any necro deck your only real option is to delay them going off, or countering necro hopefully removing necro from the game shortly after.  This actually worked for me against a necro helm deck, i removed his kill condition hoping he did not have a back up.  Against you unfortunatly your deck went off way to fast, and did not have an answer for your necro.  We def need to stop meeting third or second round in these tournys, one or the either knocks the other out.  Keep up the articles.

Challenge your reflexes and by patriciabrown at Mon, 09/25/2023 - 03:39
patriciabrown's picture

Challenge your reflexes and coordination in fnf online it's a true test of skill!