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by Christopher Askwith Strategy of the Deckmaster Part Two : T1 Decks Remember the last "Strategy of a Deckmaster" article? We looked at making a deck in a methodical format. Now, we apply this format to making a deck for a totally different purpose. Type One Tournament Play. The Type One Environment is lethal. It involves the kind of cards that most people dread seeing in an opponent's deck, because of their power. Fortunately most of them are restricted, leaving the foe with only one of each. But what if you came in as a newbie, and don't have access to Time Walks, dual lands and Moxes? There is only one solution: Plan the deck so that you can easily deal with these threats. I find that in general, a black/blue/red deck based on countering/direct damage/artifact control can keep you in the game. Now, in most stores, you will still find Ice Age and Homelands. This is good, because you will be needing some of the cards they have. Not to mention you'll still have access to the heavy hitters taken out of the basic set for Fifth Edition. So now, we apply the proper procedure: 1.        The Main Theme is Creature Combat/Direct Damage 2.        The Secondary Themes are Artifact Destruction and Counterspells 3.        The Lands will include Swamps, Mountains, Islands, and Undiscovered Paradises 4.        Other Mana Sources will be Dark Rituals and Sea Scryers. 5.        The spells that complement the main theme are Ihsan's Shade, Baron Sengir,             Sengir Vampire, Mahamoti Djinn, Lightning Bolt, Incinerate and Sol'kanar the Swamp King 6.        The spells that complement the Secondary themes are Counterspell, Dissipate, Shatter,             Builder's Bane, Nevinyrral's Disk, Icy Manipulator and Jokulhaups. Anyone who makes this deck will want to test it out before entering a Type I tournament with it. Hopefully you'll keep the dual lands and monstrous artifacts at bay long enough to deliver a big punch. So the deck will end up looking like this: Land 6 Island 6 Mountain 6 Swamp 4 Undiscovered Paradise Artifacts 2 Icy Manipulator 2 Nevinyrral's Disk Gold 2 Sol'kanar the Swamp King Red 4 Lightning Bolt 4 Incinerate 3 Shatter 2 Jokulhaups 2 Builder's Bane Blue 4 Counterspell 4 Dissipate 3 Mahamoti Djinn 2 Sea Scryer Black 4 Dark Ritual 3 Sengir Vampire 2 Ihsan's Shade 1 Baron Sengir Editor's Notes: The average price for all the cards in this deck would be around $80, using the latest and least expensive versions of each card. There are 66 cards in the deck. There are 14 rares, 11 uncommons and 41 commons. None of these cards are before Fourth Edition, with the exception of 2 cards available in Chronicles, which are reprints of cards from before Fourth Edition. A bit of advice from me would be to substitute Mana Prisms for Sea Scryers. Since blue is not the creature-concentrated color in this deck, 2 less creatures wouldn't hurt much, and the Mana Prism is harder to destroy. It also lets you use any color, not just colorless and blue. It works like Undiscovered Paradise, already in this deck, without the curse of needing to return it to your hand each time. -- Jonathan Evans [ Back to June 1997 Table of Contents ] [ Back to Beyond Dominia ] Magic: the Gathering is a Registered Trademark of Wizards of the Coast