Type 1.5

Here we have it, another fast-large-creature / burn deck. It evolved from a desire to play a deck with Two-Headed Giant of Foriys. Like Serra Angel and Sengir Vampire it's 4/4 creature with two special abilities that costs five mana, only it doesn't require two of the same color. I looked at its abilities—block two creatures and trample—and tried to think of what deck environment would benefit most from them. My first thought was that it would work well in an environment where you don't have very many creatures (making it's double-blocking ability pull its weight), so I paired it with Craw Wurm and built ths deck.

Except for one card combo the rest of the deck was rather uninspired, mostly just copying the burn aspect of Yawgmoth-Chi. The cool new part is a low-cost artifact combo: Howling Mine + Relic Barrier. You can keep the effects of a Howling Mine for yourself if you tap it with a Relic Barrier after you have drawn a card.

Two turns after getting the combo into play you'll have made up for the two cards it took to set up and have a one-card-per-turn advantage. Assuming your opponent doesn't break the combo and hasn't locked you down with a Moat or something, if the rest of the deck is any good the card count advantage will be overwhelming.

Utilizing the card count advantage is where this deck is failing. Each spell requires most of your resources each turn, so except for a huge mana advantage as you can play a land or mana source nearly every turn (Wild Growth works well here since it pays for itself), you end up sitting on a bunch of cards, as you're unlikely to cast more than one x damage spell per turn, nor will you have much mana left over for a Fireball after casting a Craw Wurm.

So what's next? I have some ideas of course, and I'll share them, but I'd like to open the floor again if any guests would like to come up with a solution. The goal is to make a deck that runs well with the Howling Mine + Relic Barrier combo. Ideally the deck would work well enough with a Howling Mine in play that even if you don't have a Barrier out you would still have the advantage. Oh, and including at least a couple Two-Headed Giants would be really nice.

The most obvious solution is to make it a speed-kill deck, adding one-mana-drops like Kird Ape, Scrybe Sprite and Giant Growth. Another thought, and this might go along with the speed-kill direction, is to add Icy Manipulator and Winter Orb, increasing your chances of pulling an environment altering artifact and the means to control it. Another direction would be to make a trample-explosion deck, taking Ball Lightnings, War Mammoths and Two-Headed Giants and blowing them up with Giant Growth and Blood Lust. I've some other ideas as well, but I'll stop now and let you have a go.

It will be at least a week before I come back with my solution, so if there's anybody listening who thinks this idea has some merit I'd love to see your take - just post the contents of the deck file (found in the Playdeck folder) in the comments.

Update I forgot to mention another novel card that made its way into this deck: Desert. I was looking for very low cost card in addition to Lightning Bolt to help fend off fast small creature decks, both in the early game where mana is scant, and later when I'd rather be spending the bulk of my mana resources on big creatures or burn spells. Desert did just the trick since it costs nothing and can also be used as a mana source. It is far more effective in multiples, and with the Howling Mine running it's easier to get more than one. It's also unexpected, and while the computer's AI will never be surprised, the human who built the deck that the computer is playing may well have not anticipated the card.

posted by Nils T. Devine  # Wednesday, May 25, 2005