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by Gandalf
Deck Genesis: Gandalf's Strategy from 0 to 60 Looking forward to the Pro Tour, New York; which is close enough to my home to make me seriously wish to participate, I could not help but look back to the first Pro Tour, New York last February. And of course, how could I not remember that the first Pro Tour was won with a Millstone deck?? Remembering the Millstone decks of last year, I can't help but wonder if Millstone is again a viable concept. Now a Millstone deck is a very special type of deck: Not a lock deck, and not an aggressive deck. Millstone decks at their best do nothing, so the deck design basically allows you to hinder your opponent. The strategy is simply to remain alive, and whittle away at the library; the best way to do this is to use White spells like Wrath of God to eliminate creatures and other threats, allotting your counters to eliminating spells that counteract your route to victory, such as Feldon’s Cane, or spells that you could not easily deal with otherwise, like Wildfire Emmisary or Necropotence. All you have to do to win is not die, and while the immediately obvious power cards that made those decks work are no longer available for use in the Type II environment (such as Balance, Land Tax, Swords to Plowshares, Zuran Orb, and Ivory Tower), the effects can for the most part be duplicated. Ivory Tower and Zuran Orb, major life-gaining spells, can be replaced by the powerful, although expensive, JuJu Bubble. A massive amount of life can be gained with this card, if left for a few turns. Swords to Plowshares has been replaced, of sorts, with your choices of Pacifism, Afterlife, and Exile; Pacifism, while prone to enchantment destruction, is the more versatile of these spells. Land Tax has been 'replaced' with the slower, albeit powerful, Thawing Glaciers. And while there is no easy replacement for Balance, 4x Wrath of God, in this predominantly swarm-deck based environment, is as good a creature eliminator as can be found. And the original Millstone deck has at its disposal several new tools, thanks to the release of Visions. Visions Charm, a one-use spell to double-Millstone, or even a counterspell against artifact destruction and possibly Choking Sands; and Prosperity, which is a good accelerator as well as a quick finisher spell when you have worn away at your opponent’s library a bit. The Blinking Spirit has returned, via Fifth Edition, as a temporary blocker, and has two new friends since the Pro Tour, NY last year. Kjeldoran Outpost provides a short-term blocker as well as an alternative method of winning, and Teferi's Honor Guard, another short term Blinking Blocker provided you have two Blue mana available. I prefer Teferi’s Honor Guard to its possible alternative, Rainbow Efreet, because it is a more well-rounded and sturdy blocker. The Efreet has Flying as well as the phase-out ability, but it can be killed by several different means, like a Death Spark, or the soon-to-return Serrated Arrows with but a single hit. It is too fragile to use as a blocker, especially since it could not block a Flanker and live, and many weenie decks try to include Knights or Centaurs with the flanking ability. The basic concept behind the Millstone deck is to do nothing. As long as you remain alive, you have a hope of waiting your opponent out. Therefore, the most successful strategy would appear to be to undo anything your opponent has done. Anti-permanent spells such as Disenchant, Wrath of God, Pacifism, etc. should appear in abundance, in a blue/white deck, as well as a goodly number of Counterspells. Remember that a Millstone deck is not necessarily a permission deck; in fact the best millstone decks forego the need for complete control over spellcasting for greater abilities to destroy permanents that have hit the table. That gives a base of White spells that includes 4x Pacifism, 4x Wrath of God, 3x Disenchant, and 1x Divine Offering (better than adding a 4th Disenchant, the life-gaining ability will most likely prove useful). For Blue control spells, 4x Counterspell and 2x Dissipate should give enough control over the game, through either an actual Counterspell or the threat of a counterspell. A Counterspell bluff, backed up or not by an actual Counterspell, may tend to just drag the game on; which is perfectly fine by any standards, it brings you that much closer to winning. The next most important part is to have enough creatures to use as blockers to slow a creature attack. In all probability, it could be a long time before you are able to get a Wrath of God, so you want creatures that will be able to hold off threats until you draw that spell. 2x Blinking Spirit, teamed with 3x Teferi's Honor Guard and 2x Kjeldoran Outpost, should allow creature attacks to drag to a grinding halt between Wraths, as well as provide some options for damage-dealing afterwards. 3x Quicksands will also allow some short-term creature control, as well as allow for the removal of those ever-pesky Knights of Stromgald and River Boas. Now comes another important selection, the alternative mana sources. I plan on keeping the casting costs in the deck moderately low (the most expensive should be 4), so I will not require a huge amount of additional mana sources, in addition to the Thawing Glaciers, to get my deck off and running. I will use 1x Sky Diamond and 1x Marble Diamond, plus 1x Fellwar Stone for mana versatility, since many decks also include a land capable of generating mana of any color. The 2x JuJu Bubble should help in keeping me alive, as the Bubble can be used to generate large amounts of life fairly rapidly, as long as you have mana to spend and the patience to wait. Which brings us to the spells that grind away at your opponent's library. Fairly straightforward; I will plan on using 2x Millstone, 2x Prosperity, and 4x Visions Charm, with a Jester’s Cap or 2 in the Sideboard as a more specific Visions Charm. The Visions Charm has the added bonus of being able to protect my Millstone from destruction spells, or shutting down the mana production of a mono-colored deck for a turn; it will even (if used carefully) counter a Choking Sands, which are fairly common in all-Black decks. My lands should be 2x Thawing Glaciers, 4x Aradakar Wastes, 7x Plains, and 6x Islands, in addition to the 2x Kjeldoran Outpost and 3x Quicksands.
The Land ratio is high, but 4 of these are ‘slow’ lands (Kjeldoran Outpost, Thawing Glaciers) that are not factored in on mana production. Three of these are defensive lands, to sacrifice for creature control (Quicksands), and there are 4 Aradakar Wastes, which should keep the mana supply stocked in the correct colors. Unlike my last blue/white deck (see Deck Genesis #2 ), this one is not combo-oriented, which means that there are no major weaknesses to analyze. The permanent nullification abilities the deck has should be strong enough to carry it through most hazard situations, and I will have to be able to address specific creatureless decks like BloomDrain or Turbo (or Squandered...) Stasis. Counterspells are few and far between, to be used only when there are no other options. But there are just too few of them to deal with the current Counterspell fad, of using 12 to 16 in cheeselike proportions. So I will need some more in my sideboard, if I expect to win against a Counterspell deck. I can already anticipate extra Disenchants and Counterspells. I have thoroughly playtested this deck, and in my experience it is rather successful at what it attempts to do. (The funniest game was probably when I over-swarmed a White Weenie deck using my Kjeldoran Outpost and the Blinking Blockers...) The mana ratio usually does well, and with the correct mindset there are more than enough Counterspells to support my need for them. The antipermanent spells tend to come at the right time, as there are four to eight spells to deal with a specific permanent type. Generally, there are no major problems to be attended to that strategy cannot iron out. I did not include a Jayemdae Tome, as would be expected for a deck of this style, because I failed to see a dire need for a card advantage. They would turn out useless against most control decks, as they tend to deny the mana supply through Winter Orb, Jokulhaups, Armageddon, or any combination thereof; and against creature-based decks the control spells, with a little life-gaining, tend to carry me through until I get the spells I need most. All in all, I decided to forego that route in favor of Prosperities and cheap spells. The deck is loosely based around a mana curve; by turn 3 I should be able to cast almost anything I will have drawn. In fact, the only spells I would not be able to cast would be Wraths of God and Blinking Spirits. The other spells all cost 1, 2, or 3 mana, which was my prime reason for not including Jester’s Cap and another factor in choosing not to use Jayemdae Tome. I will have to keep this curve in mind when choosing sideboard cards; so far I am planning on 4x Greater Realm of Preservation, 1x Disenchant, 2x Dissipate, 1x Quicksands, 2x Force of Will, and 1x Kismet (for against Turbo-Stasis and the occasional Red deck using Viashino Sandstalker, Suq’Ata Lancer, and Ball Lightning). That leaves me 4 slots, and I will address Creatureless decks in these slots, so I can shunt useless cards if need be. Another Divine Offering, Feldon’s Cane, and 2x Null Chamber should help out, and the Null Chamber will make me glad that I chose to diversify my Millstone effects...they cannot counter my strategy entirely by my using the Chamber, while I can hose a BloomDrain, Stasis, even a Winter Orb, Jokulhaups, or Armageddon deck if I see the need. The point of the sideboard will be to strengthen my deck’s defenses against a large variety of deck types, allowing me to rotate useless antipermanent spells for more useful spells.
This was one of my two deck choices for the Northeast Regional Qualifiers on Sunday, May 25th. The other was my Black Weenie deck from Deck Genesis #3. After some help in deciding what to play, I ditched the Millstone deck, because of the prevalence of CounterBurn and BlitzGeddon decks in the tournament; and I concentrated my sideboard on handling these styles decks. I have made minor modifications to that deck over the last month; I removed the Pillar Tombs of Aku after having them proved useless to me. The effect tended to harm me more than my opponent, and it was entirely unplayable against several deck styles that were common at the NY Regional Qualifiers tournament. Unfortunately, this was only decided by my deck’s performance in the Regional tournament. The Pillar Tombs were the card I generally sideboarded out the most often, and discarded to Pox or Contagion when drawn; they are now replaced with a Contagion and Nevinyrral’s Disk. The most drastic changes I made were to the sideboard. I divined the weaknesses of the two main styles of decks I might face... offensive and defensive... and basically split my sideboard in dealing with them. For offensive decks like mine, I chose to add 2 Contagions, allowing me to have 4 in my deck after the first game; I kept the 4 Dystopias that can work so well against white/green BlitzGeddon or MaroGeddon decks, as well as against mono-White and mono-Green. I added 2 Lodestone Baubles to replenish the land supply after an Armageddon or Jokulhaups, which coincided with the intent of the other half of the sideboard. The rest of the sideboard was devoted to control decks, such as CounterBurn, CounterPost, Millstone, etc.... and the key card was 4x Desolation. This card practically counters any Thawing Glaciers that hits the table, and it is also useful in limiting my opponent’s mana supply, which is critical against a control deck. If my opponent wishes to cast any spells during their turn, they have to sacrifice a land. If they wish to use any fast effects during my turn, like the countering of spells, Incinerating creatures, and making weenie tokens, it will also cost them a land. If they try to do both, it is two lands per turn, and they will be severely limited in what they are able to do to me. However, by taking out many of the expensive spells in my deck, like Nekrataal and Nevi’s Disks, the lost land means very little to me. With Desolation being an enchantment, one of the hardest permanents to kill, a deck that doesn’t have Green or White in it will be hard put to stand up to a Desolation...such as a CounterBurn deck, which relies on Counterspells and Pillages for major non-creature threat removal.
My record for the NY Regionals was 3 wins, 4 losses. The only games in which I did not lose to either a White Knight or Whirling Dervish cast too early for me to deal with easily (the Quicksands stayed at the bottom of my deck, I guess..) was to a bizarre red/black Army Ants/ LD/ Burn deck that trampled me with an Orgg the first game, and fireballed me to death after we both hit massive mana runs. Each time I had him to below five life... but such is fate.
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