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Five in February

Bob drafts on MTGO. Feb 2009.

U/W Control in Alara

Bob's Traditional Exercise. Oct 2008.

Welcome to Extended

Steve Praises the Format. Aug 2008.

UW Control in LorMoor Block

Bob's Traditional Excercise. Aug 2008.

Oona, Queen of Chicago.

Mill Control with Oona? May 2008.

Steven's Goyf Pox

Evolving with the format, Oct 2007.

Time Spiral Block Goyf Pox

Stephen's Second PTQ, Sept 2007.

Blue White in Time Spiral

Bob's Traditional Exercise, Aug 2007.

Goyf Pox in Time Spiral

A look at the PTQ deck, August 2007.

Blue and White decks from Tenth

Bob's Traditional Exercise, Aug 2007.

Tongo in Time Spiral

A deck idea for Block, August 2007.

Blue White Control in Cold Snap

Bob's Traditional Exercise, July 2006.

Blue White Control in Ravnica Block

Bob's Traditional Exercise, June 2006.

Kamigawa Sealed Deck League

Bob's MTGO Action, May 2005.

DC Green in MD5

Bob's block PTQ run, August 2004.

Blue White Control in MD5

An early look at PrisControl, June 2004.

How Would You Build It?

Mir/DS Deck Building Exercise, May 2004.

Removal, Evasion, and Curve

Deck Building Exercise, May 2004.

Drafting 8th Edition

Some wacky numbers from MTGO drafts, Oct. 2003.

Phil's Decree and Card Advantage

Having fun online and downtown, Aug. 2003.

...But Don't Miss This!

Anticipating 8th Edition from April 2003.

A Morphing Good Time!

Mike's Feature Article from November '02.

Morph Deck Speed Bump

Adam's winning league article from October '02.

How Would You Build It?

An exercise in limited deck construction.

Walk Around the Block

Bob looks at two early Onslaught decks.

MTGO For Everyone: Rebuttal

Bob's Article at SCG, August 2002.

Two Pins

Bob's report on his first PTQ top 8, Sept.2001.

Gryphon Books, 1998

A look back at an early Gryphon Books tourny.

Satanic Crap

A response to complaints that Magic is Satanic.

This article and the deck it is about are largely inspired by a deck and article written by Zvi Mowshowitz several years ago. That article can be found as a series here: https://www.angelfire.com/games4/zvi/articles/links.html Scroll about half way down and look for “My Fires: Part x” under the “From the Sideboard” heading.

Zvi’s article is great reading for anyone trying to improve their deck building skills. While the cards in Zvi’s deck no longer pertain to our current formats, his thought processes in selecting cards for his deck make the article worth exploring.

Earlier I had presented a deck based around Obsidian Battle-Axe. I enjoyed building that deck, but it failed to perform in my testing against 5CC, Dark Elves, and White/Red Kithkin. Other deck builders had previously tried to abuse the Battle-Axe, including Adrian Sullivan at Star City Games. If their efforts failed to create a deck that had some success at tournaments, it’s no surprise my efforts failed in testing.

What I discovered was that it was more efficient to accelerate into a turn two 5/4 Thoctar (or other fatty) than it was to hope to hit a turn two Battle-Axe and turn three Warrior. Either way sends 5+ power into the red zone on turn 3. That realization lead me to this sort of list:

4 Birds of Paradise
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Boggart Ram-Gang
4 Whooly Thoctar
4 Cliffrunner Behemoth
4 Wilt-Leaf Liege

3 Sarkan Vol

3 Path to Exile
4 Incinerate
3 Volcanic Fallout

3 Ancient Ziggurat
4 Karplusan Forest
4 Brushland
4 Fire-lit Thicket
4 Wooded Bastion
4 Forests

This deck is just a stepping stone towards my next one, so I won’t go into details about each card. It is important to note, however, that I did not like using Path to Exile. My deck was all about abusing mana acceleration, so giving my opponent an edge in mana development really worked against me. I especially disliked helping 5CC improve their mana base.

Then the Reborn spoilers began and we learned that Terminate is returning. That got me considering a Jund Ramp deck again. It didn’t take long to realize that Jund colours might work well in a Fires style of deck. What’s better than Broodmate Dragon? How about fatter Broodmate Dragons with Haste?

Here’ my first crack at a Fires deck in Jund Colours:

4 Birds of Paradise
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Civic Wayfinder
4 Boggart Ram-Gang
4 Boartusk Liege
3 Broodmate Dragon
3 Terminate
4 Incinerate
4 Jund Charm
3 Sarkhan Vol
1 Banefire
23 Land

This list really appealed to me, but failed in testing. Sometimes the deck would provide a crazy start such as: 1st turn Hierach, 2nd turn Ram-Gang (swing for 4), 3rd turn Liege (swing for 6). Other times it would accelerate into Ram-Gang and then draw Charms and Wayfinder. Not so impressive.

The problem was that I was more concerned with my opponents decks than I was with my own. Jund Charm, as versatile as it is, often ends up being weak or dead in some games. When I tested against my White/Red Kithkin decks, I simply wouldn’t over commit with weenies until I had an Anthem out, then the Charm was useless. Terminate almost always has a target, but does nothing to help this deck be aggressive. I hate having an active Sarkhan Vol and top decking Terminate. This deck wants to be in the red zone.

So I went back to the drawing board again. I also went back to Zvi’s “My Fires” articles. Looking at Zvi’s list again, I saw that there were only 5 removal spells, and four of those doubles as creatures (Assault/Battery). Everything else was a creature or land. (Okay, Burst is an enchantment, but it makes creatures.)

I quickly decided that I needed to test with Shriekmaw. Like Assault/Battery, Shriekmaw is a removal spell that doubles as a creature. A scan of recent Standard Top 8s reveals very few black creatures. Doran and Broodmate Dragon appeared to be the most popular black creatures currently. Blightning decks carry several black creatures, so running Shriekmaw might depend on how popular those decks seem come May 16. I can only suspect Blightning type decks will increase in popularity thanks to Terminate.

Testing Shriekmaw would have to wait, however, as I was busy testing proven decks. One deck I had taken a shine too was the White/Red Kithkin deck Cedric Phillips played at Kyoto. THAT deck was working for me in testing. I was studying differences between Cedrics deck and typical Boat Brew lists when I realized how similar Siege-Gang Commander could be to Saproling Burst. Both cost five mana, and both make multiple tokens. That oughta get your Magic juices flowing…

4 Birds of Paradise
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Civic Wayfinder
4 Boggart Ram-Gang
4 Boartusk Liege
3 Shriekmaw
3 Siege-Gang Commander
3 Broodmate Dragon

4 Incinerate
4 Sarkhan Vol

3 Ancient Ziggurat
3 Graven Cairns
3 Fire-Lit Thicket
4 Llanowar Wastes
4 Karplusan Forest
1 Swamp
1 Mountain
4 Forest

Now we’re talking about a deck that can do busted things. Now we’re talking about a deck that can take advantage of Sarkan Vol and Ancient Ziggurat. Now we’re talking about a deck with some resource advantages!

Some specific details about the list:

8 BoP/Hierarchs:
My deck relies on the power of mana acceleration. It needs one of these guys on turn one, so 8 is mandatory. This deck can even use them later on, so they don’t become dead draws as they might in other decks. The BoP is the most important one as it fixes colours and flies. The Hierarch is better than Llanowar Elves as it Exalts whoever might attack alone, making Ram-Gangs and Dragons bigger than ones that might be blocking.

Incinerate:
Incinerate is simply an efficient burn spell that can serve as removal or go to the dome. I wanted removal to work this way, as I found Terminate to not fit well with the deck.

Civic Wayfinder:
Ram-Gangs are the preferred three drop for turn 2, but four three drops in the deck is not enough. I like the idea of Sprouting Thrinax, as it could become 5/5 or 6/6, and usually leaves behind some tokens. Really though, the Thrinax is just a 3/3 dude that could become fat or could create some card advantage. That’s a lot of maybes for something with such a complicated mana cost. Ensuring I have the right mana for my real bombs seems more important. Civic Wayfinder finds the right mana, thins my deck, has a simple mana cost for turn two, and provides a non-red source of damage. Finding the right land is more important than you might think in this deck, as that single Mountain or Swamp will help me avoid taking some pain from Karplusan Forest and Llanowar Wastes. Perhaps that two or three points of pain more than makes up for the extra damage a Thrinax may have dealt to my opponent, especially if you factor in the pain I would usually have to take to play an early Thrinax.

Boggart Ram-Gang:
This creature shows up in a lot of aggro decks for good reasons. I think those reasons are amplified here. This deck accelerates to play the Ram-Gang on turn 2. The Hierarch means the Ram-Gang will sometimes swing for 4 on turn 2. Ram-Gang gets Supersized by the on-colour Liege. Did you realize that the Ram-Gang has whither? That gives this deck some help against Walls of Reverence and Doran.

Boartusk Liege:
I really like the idea of playing Wilt-Leaf Liege in Standard if Blightning decks become more popular, but this deck benefits more from Boartusk Liege. Giving every token this deck can produce a boost is worth one less power on the Liege. Being able to Supersize Ram-Gang and Broodmate Dragon is crazy good. Trample is probably handy as well, all thought it hasn’t been a big deal in testing yet.

Sarkhan Vol:
Sarkhan Vol is what makes me want to play this deck. Zvi wrote, “The creatures in this deck are all amazing with haste, and Saproling Burst is insane.” Well, the creatures in my list are all amazing with haste, and Broodmate Dragon and Siege-Gang Commander are insane!” Of course, Sarkhan is powerful for other reasons as well. Being able to steal a Wall of Reverence or other blocker for a turn is awesome for this deck. Consider how my Commander and Sarkhan can interact if my opponent plays any goblins! Yeah Babay!

Shriekmaw:
I turned to a dark version of this deck in order to use Terminate. Testing showed that Terminate wasn’t exactly what the deck needed. Shriekmaw lets me continue being aggressive while also serving as removal against most of the popular creatures in Standard. Conveniently, Shriekmaw works with Zigurat mana and gives the deck another non-red source of damage. Potential evasion (Fear) might come in handy at times as well.

Siege-Gang Commander:
Creating armies with one card is popular right now. Spectral Procession, Bitterblossom, and Cloudgoat Ranger are examples of cards that do this. The Commander is not the most efficient card for creating an army, but the added ability is powerful. Being able to turn the three little tokens into 2/2 hasty guys should prove interesting. Even better with a Liege out. Ram-Gang and the Liege are Goblins as well, thus can be fodder for the Commander when necessary.

Broodmate Dragon:
What’s better than Broodmate Dragon? I think you get the idea. As with the Commander, Broody provides for some resource advantage potential by creating more than one permanent with one card. The fact that those permanents might be hasty 5/5 dragons is just gravy What outside of counter magic defends well against that?

The Land:
In order to consistently play mana dudes on turn one, this deck has 15 sources of green mana that can be used on turn one. There are 3 more green sources available for turn two, not counting the mana dudes. The deck is hungry for red (Siege-Gang activations and early Incinerate), so there are 11 sources of red available for turn 2, not counting BoP and not counting Zigurat. Black is not to be ignored as an early Shriekmaw might be important, so there are eleven sources of black available for turn two, not counting BoP.

I chose not to use Reflecting Pool as it does not make green on turn one. Ditto for Mutuvault. Relfecting Pool works best when used with lands that come-into-play-tapped. I’m not using such lands, as they are too slow for this deck. That is why I am not using the other wise terrific Treetop Village as well.

The few basic lands are important for Wayfinder, but also for any Path to Exiles that might hit my creatures. The basic lands allow me to play the filter lands without taking serious damage from the pain lands.

SideBoard:
3 Thoughtseize
4 Jund Charm
4 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Fulminator Mage

Thoughtseize gives me some help against counter magic. I do like Guttural Response for the same thing, but Thoughtseize helps against other stuff, including flash creatures in Faeries, and nasty stuff like Banefire.

Jund Charm is my choice for a weenie sweeper. Volcanic Fallout is better for sweeping, but I want utility in my SB for an unpredictable meta-game. Jund Charm is handy against graveyard antics such as Reveillark and Unearth.

Maelstrom Pulse could be Terminate, or Naturalize, or any of the other important removal spells, but I was looking for utility again. I would run four of these in a main deck of a typical Jund (Rock!) deck, but for my Fires deck, I need to focus on aggression more.

Fulminator Mage is to help against 5CC and Windbrisk Height tricks. As a creature, the Mage fits my deck well. 5CC starts slow with all those comes into play taped lands. Nuking one of them early will spell doom for the 5CC player, especially if their mana base is sub-par.

I have begun testing this list against some of the more popular decks. I’m not so sure writing about those matches is important yet or not, as Reborn is bound to shake up the format some. Perhaps I’ll post some testing results on the bulletin board.