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By: walkerdog, Tyler Walker
Mar 31 2008 11:44am
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This week was a busy week for Classic.  There were three events I wanted to hit up, so obviously I was only able to play in one.  To start with (this may be a bit of a technicality), Saturday morning I played in the PDC Classic tournament.  Saturday evening, Dangerlinto and the gang at Classic Quarter hosted a tourney, and then Sunday was the regularly scheduled PE.

To start with, I have my report from the PDC tournament Saturday.  I realized it was about to start at the last minute (Actually, more like last twenty minutes), and grabbed a deck I'd been saving.  I had tested this a while back, and so the numbers are slightly funny.  I derived this from a build someone else had ran a couple months back, and it's a rather common deck-type, although not dominant in the meta from what I understand.  It goes by the name of Grim Drifter.  Awesome in it's glory, it grinds opponents to a pulp, then finishes with a 2/2.  Or a 1/1.  Or a different 1/1.  Or Corrupts to the dome (actually, this is the preferred method of killing).  EDIT  Much of this deck was based off of work done by Jaknife previously.  I couldn't remember whose basis I was using, and it was his. 

Grim Drifter
A PDC Classic Deck as suggested by Tyler Walker
Creatures
4
Abyssal Gatekeeper
4 Mulldrifter
2 Cursed Ronin
2 Twisted Abomination

Other Spells
4
Corrupt
4 Drain Life
4 Innocent Blood
4 Tendrils of Corruption
2 Grim Harvest
Lands
24
Swamp
3 Island
3 Terramorphic Expanse

Cursed Ronin

Now that I've shown you the deck, I'll talk about it a little more.  I'm honestly not certain what I'd been doing when I was building this.  Now, the optimal build of this deck involves a snow-land mana-base and Chilling Shade as a far superior finisher setup, but aside from the Cursed Ronin costing one more, and lacking evasion, he did the same thing, more or less.  Plus, I'm not sure why I had thirty lands.  It seems right-off that twenty-eight and two more Twisted Abominations would improve the deck immensely.  I'll cover other tweaks after the report, so I can go over why I want to make those changes given a tournament of experience.

So, I sign up, donate a Foily Declaration of Naught as a prize, and pairings are made.  I'm up against Cardjunque to start off the tourney.  He wins the roll, goes first, and we both keep.  He leads off with a Snow-Covered Swamp.  Great, so he has to good version of my deck.  Maybe.  I have a very exciting Swamp.  He cycles a Barren Moor on my EOT.  I should probably have four of those in place of four swamps too.  Seems good.  He untaps and drops Augur of Skulls.

I would like to note that I have not been able to work any clever card names into sentences yet, but I will, despite MirrorMage pouring derision upon those of us who deftly wield the pen so.  Augur is bad news for me though.  I untap, drop another Swamp and Innocent Blood away his irritant.  He plays a Barren Moor.  I play a Swamp and an Abyssal Gatekeeper.  1/1s for two mana are so good right?  He has another SnowSwamp, and Innocent Blood of his own.  He follows up with the stellar Phyrexian Rager.  I don't draw a land, because half of your deck being mana means you'll only draw land every OTHER turn.

CJ has yet more land, and beats my face in by 1/10.  I find land number four, a welcome Swamp.  He attacks, and I swallow up his Rager in Tendrils of Corruption.  I draw another land, and drop it.  He cycles a Twisted Abomination.  Why am I not running four of them again?  Regardless, he untaps and drops Warren Pilferers, one of my favorite cards to draft in LLM.  He grabs his Rager back to his hand.  I Drain Life big Pilfs for three.  He has the Rager again, finding a land and playing it, and a second Rager.  I have a rather unimpressive Cursed Ronin.  What deck that I have designed has been worth crap without a Samuria or a Ninja?

He plays a Terramorphic Expanse and cracks it for another Swamp, then blows away my Bushido-Boy with an Eyeblight's Ending.  Attacks ensue.  At this point I draw my third Corrupt, and am irritated that I can't draw a land to save my life.  I Tendrils a Rager though, to stay in the game.  He Duresses away one of the Corrupts.  I have a Gatekeeper that trades with his Rager.  He gets it back with Grim Harvest and the blowout begins.  He goes through a series of Abom cycles for land, Ragers played (and killed and replayed) and wins a few turns later.  I felt extremely frustrated by my inability to find land.

I side into four Deep Analysis, losing a couple of land and a couple of Gatekeepers.  I lead it off by playing my Island.  He has a Swamp.  I have a

Augur of Skulls
 Swamp, and he has another.  He also has Wrench Mind.  I toss Drain Life and Tendrils of Corruption.  I draw a land, and play it.  He has an Augur of Skulls to further destroy me.  I play land number four, and pass it back.  He has me discard two cards, and I lose two Swamps.  He has a Phyrexian Rager and a Swamp.  At this point, he is +3 cards.  I lay another Swamp.  He has TWO more Augur of Skulls.  I Tendrils one.  He has me discard two cards, and I lose two Corrupts.  

I would have loved to have drawn a sixth land there rather than Corrupt Number Two.  He is +4 cards on me now.  Just to taunt me more, my deck gives me my sixth land.  He continues to ravage me with Rager.  I draw a Deep Analysis.  JACKPOT!  I play it, then drop a land and flash it back.  I'm now down one card.  He cycles Twisted Abom.  He Wrenches my Mind, so I'm back to -2 cards, losing a Swamp and an Abom of my own.  I take some more beats.  Mulldrifter joins my side of the board, putting me even on cards.  I follow with a land and pass the turn.  He has a Tendrils of his own for my 'Drifter, and more punches to my face for me.

Deep Analysis
I draw Deep Analysis.  I play it, then flash it back.  At this point, I'm low enough that if he has a land or Corrupt in his hand, and draws the other, he could kill me between it and the Rager.  I think I was at eight life, and he had five lands, but I don't remember for sure.  Anyways, I was possibly facing lethal, so I hit him with Drain Life for one, giving me a slight cushion.  He has a land.  He attacks me, then Grimly Harvests (man, who "harvests" already rotted bodies from a graveyard?  Sick stuff) an Abomination.  I drop a land, then Drain Life from his Rager for two.  He gets his Grim Harvest back.  I follow up with a second Mulldrifter.  

He drops a Swamp and then Corrupts me.  I go low (I think one if I recall correctly), and then Corrupt him back, and have more Swamps out so I come out ahead in the exchange.  I begin the inevetible 2/2 beats.  He has Innocent Blood.  Okay, not so inevetiable.  He taps out for Twisted Abom.  I Drain Life it for three.  I have an Abomination of my own as an actual threat.  I have mana open to regen.  He Harvests a Rager back EoT, then plays it on his turn.  I attack, and he blocks, returning the Grim back to hand.  I follow that with a Cursed Ronin (oh snap!) and another land.  He Harvested his Rager again on his turn, then plays a second Rager.  I drop another Drifter, then Duress him, getting a Grim Harvest.  How Lucky (TM).

I attack with both men.  He sticks both Ragers in front of the samurai, who between three pumps and Bushido is a 5/5.  Better yet, since he tapped out for his Ragers, he loses both Grim Harvests.  Fantastic.  He drops a land and Tendrils my samurai, then follows that with a Warren Pilferers.  He gets back Rager.  I Duress him, taking a Coffin Purge (eww) and leaving another and his Rager.  I hit him with my Abomination and Mulldrifter.  That is followed by the other Ronin joining the fray.  CJ plays Rager.  I attack with just my Ronin, keeping the others on defense against his army, in case he has Corrupt action coming.  I don't wanna be Corrupted.  Heh.  He blocks Ronin with Rager.  I continue to grind him down the next two turns, and win.

This game was tight, but I felt like having Deep Analysis and Mulldrifter, plus the yet-to-be-seen Grim Harvest Engine to go with the Drifters made
Mulldrifter

Two in your opener is unfair.
me the favorite going into game three.  He lead off with a Duress, taking Deep Anal, leaving Tendrils, along with three lands and two Mulldrifters.  How cheaty.  I drop a land.  He adds land and an Augur to his side of the board.  I play an Island, but skip flashing back the Deep Analysis.  I'm honestly not sure why.  He pops his Augur, and I pitch two Swamps.  He drops a Swamp and cycles a Moor.  I draw a Duress and hit him.  I get his Corrupt, leaving Rager, Abom, and Barren Moor.  I then flashback the Deep digger from my graveyard.  I pass my turn.  He cycles his Abom for a Swamp.  He drops it and an Augur into play.  I evoke out a Mulldrifter, then drop a Swamp.  He pops the Augur, and I lose two Tendrils.  He has a Rager.  Barren Moor is cycled, and Terramorphic Expanse joins his resources.  On my turn, I cycle an Abom for a Swamp and evoke a Mulldrifter.  He breaks his Expanse.

He Duresses me, taking Corrupt, leaving Grim Harvest (hooray!), Tendrils and Psychotic Episode.  He hits me with his 2/2.  Mulldrifter joins my board, granting me two more cards.  For the win.  He attacks with Rager and I take it.  I help him to have a Psychotic Episode, and this causes him to put his Crypt Rats on the bottom of his library.  He attacks again and I block and trade.  He plays Crypt Rats.  Due to the Episode, I know he has no Coffin Purges in-hand, and he drew the second Rats.  My Grim Harvest resolves, and I get a Drifter back.  I drop a Swamp and Tendrils his Rats.  He pops it for four in response, and I Tendrils it again in response... he didn't leave any mana open!  I gain life and pass him in the life totals (we're both in the mid-high teens.).  He is out of gas.  I Evoke Drifter, returning my Grim Harvest to hand.  He has some plays now, dropping Warren Pilferers returning Rager.

Rager joins his team.  I Harvest the Drifter again.  I drop a Swamp, a Ronin, and a Corrupt on his dome.  He Wrenches my Mind, getting Drifter and a Swamp, and then Corrupts my Ronin, burning my Harvest out of my GY too.  He hits me for five.  I obviously topdeck the other Harvest, Harvesting and playing Ronin.  He attacks, and I block Rager with Ronin, pumping him up to save him.  He Corrupts me.  OWww!  I attack him with Ronin, pumping him nine times (dropping him from 21 to 11 in one hit, I remember this part), leaving mana open to return Harvest.  He keeps his 3/3 back this time to block.  I attack again, and he misses blockers, and I kill him.

Long boring match, sorry about that.  Round two I'm facing off Eric Theorphius.  He's with a RDW/Burn variant.  I play first, and keep.  He mulls to six.  I lead with land.  He has a Spark Elemental for three to the face.  I have land.  He suspends Rift Bolt and plays Lava Spike. I drop an Island and evoke Mulldrifter.  He Rift Bolts me, drops Seal of Fire, and Lightning Bolts me.  I drop a Swamp, and Drain Life him for two, trying to stay afloat.  He Spark Elementals me.  I drop a Swamp.  

Spark Elemental
He cycles a Forgotten Cave and drops a Mountain.  I have a Swamp.  He makes a misplay here I think... He has Seething Song, Seal of Fires my face, plays and cycles Pyrite Spellbomb (I think he should have burned me instead), and then has Grapeshot down to two life left for me.  I have a Swamp and Drain him for five.  He suspends Rift Bolt.  I drop a Swamp.  He burns me with the Bolt.  I drop a Swamp.  He has nothing.  I Drain him for eight.  I'm back into double-digits, and he is at five.  He plays another Spellbomb, cycling it, then Grapeshooting me for two.  I have a Swamp and Corrupt for the win.

Game two he kills me on turn four.  Spark Elemental x 3, Rift Bolt, Lava Spike, Lightning Bolt, Shard Volley.  Ouch.  I'm pretty sure I can almost never beat the RDW perfect draw.  Game three I'm able to Duress him on turn one.  I take Lightning Bolt, leaving Lava Spike, Seething Song, Spark Elemental, Shard Volley, Forgotten Cave and Rift Bolt.  He draws a Mountain and plays it, then Spark Elementals me.  I have a Swamp.  He has another Mountain, suspending Rift Bolt and cycling the Cave.  I cycle Abom for a Swamp.  He Bolts me, Spikes me and drops Spellbomb.  I drop a Swamp and a Cursed Ronin.  I have Tendrils in my grip if my Ronin lives past his turn... and if I do.  He cycles another Cave and his Spellbomb.

I drop a Swamp and hit him, pumping once.  He Shard Volleys me, and Grapeshots me.  I drop another Swamp, pumping twice on attack this time.  He Lava Spikes me.  Swamp, pump three times, pass.  He has a Mountain.  I Wrench his Seething Song, then hit him.  He plays a Mountain, and with no cards in his hand, I pump to lethal for the kill.

Round three is another round one.  Borekmarek has MUB too.  I'm going to spare you the agonizing details, and suffice to say that the Blue card-draw in this build beats the mono-Black version of the deck.  They're all like, "Discard two cards" and you're all, "Ok, I'll discard a Deep Analysis, play Mulldrifter, flash Deep Anal back, and end up back at seven cards."

Round four I'm facing off against Lost but Seeking with Deep Dog.  This was brutal.  My spells are all too slow to beat his fast aggressive creatures, and between HIS Deep Analysis, Think Twice and Rootwallas, he crushes me.  All he has to do is stick a threat and then sit back on his counterspells while I pay too much for too little effect, at sorcery speed.  I felt pretty helpless here.

I make Top Four at 3-1.  I'm matched up against GravespwnGoddess.  He is with GW Cloak aggro (has more white than Angelstompy).  I win the roll and go first.  We both keep and open with lands.  I drop Abyssal Gatekeeper on turn two.  He has land and Llanowar Elves.  I play a land.  He has Phantom Tiger.  I drop another land.  He attacks with Tiger, and I block.  He sacs the Tiger when my Gatekeeper dies.  His follow-up is a morph, probably a Nantuko Vigilante.  That dude is relatively useless against me, other than as a beatstick.  I Tendrils him, and yep, he's the Vigi.  I drop an Island (hooray topdeck!  such skills I possess!) and a Mulldrifter.  He has a fairly bomby play of Guardian of the Guildpact.  I hate that guy so much.  I hit him with a Drifter, and drop a second one.  He has the spicy Armadillo Cloak to pump up his GotG.  Wow.  I'm not done yet though.  He hits me and plays Llanowar Elves.  I drop a Twisted Abomination and attack with my flyers.

He drops a Oblivion Ring to take out the Abomination, and then some hits for my face, then drops a Wild Mongrel.  I Tendrils his doggy on my turn, then attack him with my flyers again, in what feels like futility.  He hits me with the team again, then drops a River Boa.  I Tendrils one of his Elves to gain some more life.  On my turn, I drop a land, attack for four, and drop another Drifter.  He hits me again.  I Grim Harvest a Gatekeeper.  I hit him and drop an Abomination.  He has the Oblivion Ring of course.  This is ackward...  He hits me more.  

I drop Gatekeeper, and attack him with my team.  I then Drain his Life (Like that MM?  See what I did there?) for six points.  We're both fairly low by now... He is at eleven, I'm in single digits I believe.  I joke, "Where's my Corrupts?"  I draw my card... Corrupt!  I Corrupt him for six, then hit him in the air for six more ftw. 

I comment, "Savage TD." although Drain Life would have been fine too, since I had Islands, and could have dropped him to six with it.  He goes first the second game.  We both drop lands and he cycles a Tranquil Thicket.  He does the same thing on his turn, cycling, then dropping Selesnya Sanctuary.  I have an Abyssal Gatekeeper.  He drops the threatening Silhana Ledgewalker.  I have a Swamp.  He hits me and follows up with Guardian of the Guildpact.   Bad times for me...  I have good times coming though.  Festercreep pop and locks, taking out both of his irritants along with my AG.  Gravey has another Ledgewalker and a Vulshok Morningstar (Whose idea was it to make THAT a common?  I mean, I know Mirrodin is a joke, but c'mon.)  I have a Swamp.  He has Cloak for his Elf, and smacks me up.

I drop a Swamp and another Gatekeeper.  I have to Tendrils my Gatekeeper, which is a wonderful trade as I gain back life, and get rid of his elf AND the Cloak.  Celebrate good times indeed.  He plays a rather problematic Penumbra Spider, which fouls up the Mulldrifter I play the next turn after dropping an Island.  He hits with the Spider and drops Coalition Honor Guard.  Wow.  Cheater!  I untap and Tendrils his Honor Guard, then hit back with the Drifter.  He hits me with his Spider, then drops a River Boa.  I decide to get direct about things, and Corrupt his face, then
Guardian of the Guildpact

Most irritating creature in CPDC?
hit him with Drifter again.  He plays a Tranquil Thicket, and hooks up his Boa with the Morningstar, then serves at my life total, but keeping his spider on defense.  I play a Festercreep.  He strangles me with his Boa, and drops another Honor Guard.  He equips it with the Morningstar.  I Drain it for six.  He equips and beats with his Boa again.  I have a land.

He has a land and more Boa chokiness.  I drop Abyssal Gatekeeper, Innocent Blood saccing the Keeper, and then the Festercreep too.  He sacs both spiders.  I attack him with the Drifter (I wanted him to keep the Boa, as it can't block), and Corrupt him.  He has a solid answer though; Faith's Fetters on my Drifter and attacks me.  I draw and drop a land.  He attacks again and drops his third Honor Guard.  I drop another land.  He attacks me and plays his FOURTH Guard.  I Drain his Guard for nine in case he has pumps, and get four life out of it.  He drops a second Boa, and attacks me.  Again.

I drop Innocent Blood, and he sacs the unequipped Boa, while I drop my Drifter.  He hits me again, and drops a GotC, and I concede facing lethal.  Wow... I feel almost as badly about this match as I did about DeepDog... but not quite.  I start game three.  I mull to six... yuck.  I drop land.  He has Plains and cycles Secluded Steppe.  I have an Expanse.  He has a Forest and a Morningstar.  I crack me Expanse for an Island, then drop a Swamp on my turn.  He cycles another Steppe and plays a Plains.  I evoke Mulldrifter and play a Swamp.  GSG plays a Forest and a Guardian of the Guildpact.  I drop a Swamp and play a Mulldrifter.  He has a Forest, a Cloak for his Guardian and a Morningstar on it.  He hits me.  Hard.  I concede.

Just kidding.  I play a Drifter, then hit him and drop a Swamp.  He hits me again.  I'm now at eight life.  He follows up with a Ledgewalker.  Stupid little mouse.  My forces Drift across the battlefield and hit him.  I follow that with a Gatekeeper, a Festercreep, and pop and lock him.  I lose a Drifter in the process too, but Wrath his team.  He Fetters my other Drifter.  Hmmm... topdeck time.  I have land.  He has land.  I have land.  He has Llannowar Elves to break the stand-off!

He tries to equip with Morningstar, and I have the singleton Lose Hope!  I put a land on the bottom of my library and Grim Harvest on top.  Now we're cooking!  I drop a Swamp and pass back.  He plays another Elf, and equips it... or almost does, but I Tendrils it, then Grimly Harvest a Mulldrifter.  (Hahah MM).  I evoke the Drifter, getting my Harvest back and follow that with a fatty Cursed Ronin.  He has the Faith's Fetters for my afflicted samurai and a Selesnya Sanctuary, bouncing a Forest back.  I repeat my Harvesting of Mulldrifter.  I play Mulldrifter, Innocent Blood saccing my Ronin, and return my Grim Harvest.  He drops Guardian of the Guildpact and hooks it up with Morningstar.  I Harvest my Ronin back.  On my turn, I play Innocent Blood again, and we both lose our guy.  Grim returns to my hand.  I should have hit him first before the IB, but I screwed up.  Next I drop a Ronin and Corrupt GSG.

He drops Coalition Honor Guard and Oblivion Ring for my Ronin, then equips his Guard.  I play a Twisted Abomination and evoke a Drifter, returning Grim Harvest yet again.  I attack him with the Drifter still alive.  He has nothing.  I attack with both me, and he chumps my zombie conglomoration.  I Drain it for one to finish it and play a second zombie.  He drops a couple more dudes, and I burn them out and kill him.

Close games, and I'm in the finals again Lul Thyme with MUC.  I go first.  We both keep.  We trade land drops.  I have Abyssal Gatekeeper on turn two.  We trade more land-drops and I beat down for one.  He takes that for two turns, then has Piracy Charm to kill it.  I miss my land on turn six.  He has Dream Stalker.  I stupidly Tendrils it... for one short of lethal.  I untap and Blood it.  I try Cursed Ronin, and he is able to Force Spike it.  He drops Spire Golem for free... We go back and forth a little, but he crushes me sitting on counters and hitting with the Golem.

I side in my discard and side out my creature hate (Gatekeepers yuck?) and bring in Deep Analysis for two lands and two Bloods.  Game two, I draw a bunch of cards off of Deep Analysis, but he counters all of my creatures... hmm... no threats is bad...  The thing is that he only has so many counters that can hit my cards that cast more than four mana... I'm able to Corrupt him for seven, Drain Life him for five and five... but I can't find one more Corrupt or Drain Life before he beats me down.  That was very frustrating, but I think my deck needs work still and that his deck definently has an edge in the matchup.

So, the changes I would make would be to drop two Swamps and add two Abominations.  I would also consider cycling lands, but probably would avoid them because I want Swamps for Corrupt.  The other thing is that I would probably get a full set of Wrench Mind in the sideboard if I could, and I think it's doable.

Thanks to Lost but Seeking for hosting, my opponents for the games, and everyon else who was involved.  To get more info on Pauper Magic, go to PDCmagic.com  

The next thing to look at is the Classic PRE.  The Classic Quarter ran a tournament Saturday night.  I donated a Firestorm to help support the tournament, and couldn't play due to dinner obligations with friends.  Just under twenty people showed up.  The decks were mostly Affinity and mid-range/aggro-control type decks.  The top four was very interesting.  The semi-finalists had solid decks.  Moranl ran essentially UG/r Thresh, but he also had two Diamond Valley and Phyrexian Dreadnought to gain life and beat a scary threat.  Magicstop ran a solid four-color Landstill build, adding Green and Black to the traditional Blue-White scheme for Tarmogoyf and Pernicious Deed among other cards.

The finals were even more interesting.  Whiffy Penguin won it all running Bomberman, a week after he placed in the Top eight in the PE last Sunday.  He splashes Red for Pyroblast (mainly) and goes big with Exalted Angel.  The biggest news, in my opinion, was Kaxon's finish in second place with Gifts-Rocks of all decks.  This was very interesting to me because it was mentioned months ago in the Classic community as a possible deck-to-beat, but it never seemed to work out.  The popular opinion was that it was too greedy in the mana-base, and just a little too slow to keep up with and disrupt the burn decks and combo decks (Flash especially at that time) that were going around.  However, in the "2/2s and disruption" environment we've been in for a while, this may be a dark horse top deck for a while.  For more news and notes on the PRE, check out Classicquarter.com.

We had a bit of a server-crash on our decklist-generator, so I'll give you the list the old-fashioned way.

Gifts Rock, played by Kaxon
Designed by Country Hillbilly


3 Birds of Paradise
3 Sakura-Tribe Elder
3 Tarmogoyf
3 Eternal Witness
3 Loxodon Hierarch
1 Ravenous Baloth
1 Genesis

3 Living Wish
4 Gifts Ungiven
1 Vampiric Tutor
3 Cabal Therapy
1 Duress
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Smother
2 Swords to Plowshares
1 Putrefy
1 Vindicate
3 Forest
1 Godless Shrine
2 Golgari Rot Farm
1 Island
3 Overgrown Tomb
1 Plains
2 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
1 Temple Garden
1 Watery Grave
4 Windswept Heath
1 Breeding Pool
1 Hallowed Fountain

SB

1 Eternal Witness
1 Kataki, War's Wage
1 Loxodon Hierarch
1 Harmonic Sliver
1 Withered Wretch
1 Shriekmaw
1 Golgari Rot Farm
2 Duress
1 Cranial Extraction
1 Engineered Plague
1 Global Ruin
1 Krosan Grip
1 Sphere of Law
1 Tormod's Crypt


The PE on Sunday brought even more good news... Combo is back!  Less than 24 hours after Whiffy Penguin bombed Kaxon out in the finals of the Eternal Struggle event Saturday night, Bear Named Snuffy won with the same deck Sunday evening.  Could Bomberman be the best deck for the meta we're in now?  Personally, I feel like Sensei Sensei might be the wiser choice, as it doesn't take any hits from graveyard hate, but UW Combo is big right now.

I hope you enjoyed this as much as I enjoyed playing in the event.  If you have anything you'd like to share about the article, please drop some feedback!  Thanks!

10 Comments

by jaknife at Thu, 04/03/2008 - 11:33
jaknife's picture

Tyler:

just a thought on the Rager idea. I had considered them myself at one time, but the deck is really structured around the Gatekeepers and to make the removal work properly, you really don't want to have other creatures on the board with them. The majority of times, draw is not a problem. you merely have to find a harvest and drifter and go to town. That is also why I have used Stinkweed Imp in the deck. they arent just defensive, but they also are to dig for a harvest to get the recursion going. As I mentioned, I even had pulled the Aboms for Mournwhelks because the only creatures I ended up wanting on the board for any appreciabe amount of time were the Shades in the endgame or in a defensive posture.

Jaknife/Dave

deck changes by walkerdog at Tue, 04/01/2008 - 10:41
walkerdog's picture

Thanks for taking the time to read it guys.  I liked the land-count being high, since I mostly just wanted to play expensive spells, but I feel like dropping 2 lands to add 2 more abominations is solid, as is dropping four more lands and adding four Phyrexian Ragers.  Also, I agree that squeezing in Crypt Rats either MD or SB would be good.

by cardjunque at Mon, 03/31/2008 - 22:13
cardjunque's picture

Nice write up Tyler.  I enjoyed the play by play of our match.  Thank you for pointing out my questionable plays, maybe I can learn from that.  I was pulling for you in the finals hoping for almost mono-black control to take the championship.  Thanks again for the good games, hope to see you around PDC.

Bu Control by jaknife at Mon, 03/31/2008 - 15:09
jaknife's picture

Tyler:

As far as general feedback on your build goes, Evu is right regarding Consume, it is better than Drain.

Also, i highly reccommend adding Crypt Rats to the main. They work in concert with the Drifters and Gatekeepers to to form more of a harvesting/evoke toolbox (I actually also have been using Mournwhelk). The Rats are excellent to trigger Gatekeeper activations if you need to as well as deal with regenerators. You really dont need Festercreep because you can just stack regen triggers anyway typically. I may add Fester at some point but right now there doesnt seem to be a need. The Rats are also potent as an additional finisher. I use them as a recurring Hurricane of sorts in the lategame. The deck is able to gain a life edge most of the time so you can maqny time just use the Rats to burn people out. Finally, they are the only real Wrath in PDC.

As for the Land, yes thats too much. I would go 23 or 24 depending if you are running the Aboms. I would not run the Cycle lands. They will just hurt your swamp count.

Jaknife/Dave 

article by whiffy penguin (Unregistered) 69.248.1.208 (not verified) at Mon, 03/31/2008 - 13:47
whiffy penguin (Unregistered) 69.248.1.208's picture

good stuff good stuff.

article is amushing as always and fullfilling. your right under the magic show in terms of anticapated articles.

1. the pre was awsome and kaxons deck is a bit of a beating not gonna lie. although it is weak to flash .

2. bear named snuffy s build wasent the same as mine he runs a more control hating build then i do.

see ya later

Bu Control by Anonymous (Unregistered) 71.59.106.120 (not verified) at Mon, 03/31/2008 - 14:02
Anonymous (Unregistered) 71.59.106.120's picture

Tyler:

Here is a link to the thread for this deck on the PDCmagic Classic boards.

http://www.pdcmagic.com/forums/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=977

Grimdrifter is typically used to describe the Standard & Future extended decks with Mulldrifter & Grim Harvest, however this has gone by the name Bu Control.

jaknife/dave

Bu Control by jaknife at Mon, 03/31/2008 - 12:53
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Tyler:

 If one is basing their deck one someone else's build as you clearly state you did, I think it would be appropriate to give proper credit to the original designer.

jaknife/dave

Bu Control by jaknife at Mon, 03/31/2008 - 14:30
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Tyler:

Its cool if you don't remember where you saw it, but I did happen to design the Gatekeeper/Mulldrifter/Chilling Shade MBC version of the deck that has been played.

Jaknife/Dave 

by Evu at Mon, 03/31/2008 - 14:47
Evu's picture

Walkerdog, thanks for playing in, and writing about, the Classic PDC tournament (not to mention donating a prize!).

I think you're going in the right direction with your proposed changes to your deck.  One thing I would point out is that Consume Spirit was common in Mirrodin and is strictly better than Drain Life.  On the subject of your land count, I don't know what's normal in most builds of that deck, but I hardly ever go above 24 land in Pauper even in control decks; since card advantage is so much harder to come by, I find it's more important to squeeze as much utility as you can out of the cards you do draw.  Of course, Mulldrifter helps a lot.

You're right that Guardian of the Guildpact is a real pain, but with full sets of Innocent Blood and Abyssal Gatekeeper, plus Grim Harvest to recur the Gatekeeper indefinitely, you're as prepared as any deck in the format to deal with it.

Didn't realize CQ was running an event on Saturday; sorry I missed it, although I was out of the house that day anyway.

I agree by walkerdog at Mon, 03/31/2008 - 13:33
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I absolutely agree... but honestly, this list had been sitting on my HD for so long I didn't know whose idea it was originally, plus I did state that I wasn't the originator.  I asked someone who came up with that engine, and got a name, but couldn't find that conversation later.  If you know who was the Bu creator, please name them (or was it you?).  I'll be happy to add that to the article.