"If we cannot live proudly, we die so!" --Eladamri, Lord of Leaves

I’ve been thinking up ways to pass the time till v3, so far it’s been 50/50 hit or miss. The Venture Bros help a lot, but I can only watch every episode oh so many times, right?  It’s Sunday night and I decided that now is a good of time as any other to go ahead and write up another wonderful article. This time, I’ve decided to write about Pandemonium.

Pandemonium was initially released in Magic: The Gathering’s 22nd set all of the way back in June 1998. Exodus was the third and final set in the Rath block. Here is an excerpt from www.phyrexia.com:

“We have been patient. We have planned our attack. We are ready . . . now.”

This day came with the arrival of a strange flying ship, which had crash-landed in Skyshroud after a brief skirmish with the evincar’s flagship. Eladamri’s forces immediately labeled this new wonder as a direct threat to elvish freedom. It was not until the captain of this strange vessel contacted Eladamri that his fears were put aside. This man, Gerrard Capashen, would become instrumental in the liberation of all the free peoples of Rath. Accompanied by the wise Oracle of the Vec tribe, Gerrard assured Eladamri that his people were in no danger from the strange vessel or her crew. Instead, Gerrard informed Eladamri that his ship was merely in Rath to rescue the former ship’s captain, a woman who had been imprisoned in the Stronghold by Volrath himself. Eladamri was extremely cautious, but believed that Gerrard’s words were truth. What’s more, the Oracle informed Eladamri that Gerrard was theKorvecdal , the mythical Uniter of Rath that would serve to rally the Vec, Dal, and Kor tribes in battle alongside the Skyshroud elves against the Stronghold. Eladamri placed little faith in the prophecies, but could not deny that Gerrard was a force to be reckoned with.

“We have already surrounded your ship. But with a fire such as yours on our side ready to attack the evincar, I think it is time that the Skyshroud elves do more than just endure.”

Eladamri aided Gerrard in recovering and repairing his strange ship, which Gerrard called Weatherlight. The ship was a wonder to behold, but severely under matched by the dreadedPredator. Gerrard informed Eladamri that the Thran Crystal that served as the power source for Weatherlight was severely damaged by Volrath’s moggs. Without this powerful tool, Weatherlight ’s crew would be forever trapped in a world not their own. Eladamri spoke to Gerrard of an ancient tale of a mysterious portal that was rumored to provide passage to another world. Although the true destination of this portal was anyone’s guess, it would almost certainly allow Gerrard to escape Rath once his mission was complete. Gerrard agreed to Eladamri’s plan, and set out days later to examine the portal before entering the Stronghold.

“We can win. We will win. We must win. There will be no discussion on this point.”

The next few days were spent in preparation for the impending war. Eladamri’s forces, united with the Vec and Dal tribes, marched toward the Stronghold. Most of the humans and elves feared they would never again return to their homes. This risky defiant stance against the evincar had been tried before against Volrath’s predecessors, never with success and always with grave consequences. However, Eladamri proved himself a constant source of inspiration, boosting the morale of his soldiers tenfold with every word he uttered.

“There are times when destiny calls forth a people and demands an action. Now is the time. We are the people. This is our action. Charge! If we cannot live proudly, we die so!”

/end

You can read the rest here if you like.

Unfortunately, I wasn't playing Magic when Exodus first came out.  It was nice however to be able to find this information online.  I’ve always liked reading up a little bit of the back history, especially on some of the more interesting and intriguing cards.   For some reason, I've been obsessed with Pandemonium for the last week or so.  I've already started to seek treatment and by the time this article is over I'm certain that I will have moved on to another card to obsess over.  In the mean time, I've been doing a little bit of research and I was able to find this deck list below.  It's called Pandeburst and from the looks of it it apears to be a combo deck.  There are no creatures, as it relies solely on Saporling Burst to activate the Pandemonium.  There is also quite a bit of counterspells and other card advantage smacktion going on here.

Pandeburst Extended legal deck circa 2001 Spells 4x Mox Diamond 4x Replentish 4x Arcane Denial 4x Attunement 2x Counterspell 4x Force of Will 4x Frantic Search 4x Intuition 4x Pandemonium 4x Saproling Burst Lands 4x Adarkar Wastes 4x Tundra 9x Island 4x Plains 1x Reflecting Pool

Pandeburst was not played very long in the enviroment it was in..  The merits of the deck were not the issue from what I gather though, it was the sudden lack of it's key card: Replenish.  On Apirl 1st 2001, the DCI banned Replenish from Extended.  Without that card, the deck apparently fell apart. If I had created this deck I think I would have called it "Panda bear".

Ah, here is another decklist I was able to conjure up: Pandenaught

Pandenaught was a combo deck that abused the interaction of Pandemonium with Phyrexian Dreadnaught. The deck was primarily red with black splashed in to return the Dreadnaught from the graveyard to play. This deck left Standard when Mirage block rotated out. I think there may have also been an extended version that used Goblin Tinker to find the Dreadnaught but I couldn't find any historical documents to prove it! Pandenaught was another casuality of "opps, we made a mistake"...  the deck ceased to work when Phyrexian Dreadnaught was errated on August 1st 1999 so that, unless creatures were sacrificed, the dreadnaught never came into play at all. Well the good thing here gentleman and ladies (It's not a myth, I know at least one girl that plays!) is that Phyrexian Dreadnaught is back to it's old self and this combo works once again!

The deck list I was able to find was created by Adrian Sullivan*, I never heard of him before nor do I know when this deck was made and played..  I'm guessing sometime around the turn of the good ol' century.

PandeNaught A deck by Adrian Sullivan Creatures 4 Phyrexian Dreadnought Other Spells 4 Dark Ritual 4 Demonic Consultation 3 Duress 3 Final Fortune 4 Lotus Petal 4 Mana Vault 4 Necropotence 4 Pandemonium 4 Reanimate 2 Vampiric Tutor Lands 4 Badlands 3 City of Brass 4 Gemstone Mine 4 Sulfurous Springs 5 Swamp

PandeNaught is almost playable as is online. There are a few cards here that we do not have access to, but most of them are obtainable. For future referance: Badlands will be in MED2, MED3 or MED4 Lotus Petal will be in Tempest Necropotence may be in MED's too, don't hold your breath though.

I already know what your next question was going to be: "dj, if you were to make this deck online, what would you cut and put in?"

Easy answer:  I would ask walkerdog or Javasci to do it for me.  I could also ask MirrorMage, world renowned writer of "Gonna Fly Now" but I think I'd then somehow end up playing with a Mono Green Aggro deck while eating dates and looking at Jessica Biel's sexy touche' at the same time.  Not that I'm complaining or anything, I just don't see how Final Fortune would fit into that course of action is all.

Not so easy answer: I would make semi-intelligent assumptions while making an arse out of myself without having playtested the deck since I can't log into v3.

Since I haven't seen walker, Jav or MM in awhile in game because we can't be in game, I'm going to go with the latter.

PandeNaught Classic legal constructed deck as suggested by Dan "the man" Jay Creatures 4 Phyrexian Dreadnought Other Spells 4 Dark Ritual 4 Spoils of the Vault 4 Chrome Mox 4 Rite of Flame 4 Pandemonium 4 Stir the Grave 3 Enlightened Tutor 3 Thoughtseize 3 Final Fortune 2 Entomb 1 Vampiric Tutor Lands 4 Blood Crypt 4 City of Brass 4 Gemstone Mine 4 Sulfurous Springs 2 Godless Shrine 2 Swamp

There really is no replacement for Necropotence, so I decided to spalsh for Enlightened Tutor.  I could try Phyrexian Etchings, I'm not sure how well it would work though without trying it first. All of the other cards transitioned over nicely to their latter day counterparts.  For example, Stir the Grave is strickly better in this deck than Reanimate.

I didn't expect this article to turn out this way, the plan was to go over how jaw-dropping-awesome it is to play a Force of Savagery with Pandemonium and Primal Forcemage in play.  That's still a great play to make of course, I think I'm content with trying out PandeNaught as soon as I can now though.

Here is a nice forum discussion going on for the standard counterpart of Pandemonium: Click here for a great time.

The OP's name is Pandemonium so you already know your in for an adventure!  right?  right....?

I also wanted to mention before I leave you to your thoughts that I'm looking for fellow Magic players in the Detroit Metro area to play a little paper with.  If your out there and wanna meet up at a store to sling some cards, shoot me a email at danielejay at gmail dot com

See you on v3 soon!!!!