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by Ariel Elias-Bachrach
How to read that deck and beat it In the past few months I'm sure everyone has been beaten by one of these decks, and is trying to figure out how to beat them. With the changes fifth edition is bringing around, we can expect to see a lot of changes, but these decks are some of the predominant decks around. The trick is to know your opponents deck and try and beat it once you know their strategy. You should be able to identify the deck soon just by seeing a few of the cards. This article will attempt to focus on how to successfully play and beat them.
By now everyone has probably heard of this, relying on countermagic to draw out the game, and get rid of the opponents threats before they come into play. Counterpost usually uses only a few sources of damage, such as mishra's factorys and kjeldoran outposts. Some may also start using sacred mesa, now that mirage is legal. The easiest way to beat this deck is by using a lot of direct damage focused on your opponent. Often, your opponent will wait until the end of your turn to play effects such as sacred mesa, kjeldoran outpost, jayemead tome, or browse. Many times this will tap them out, and this is the best time to play instants such as disenchant, lightning bolt, or incinerate. Armageddon will also be very useful as you can kill factories, outposts, and deprive the of the mana to counter spells, and use the sacred mesa. It is best to play several other potentially damaging spells before the geddon, in attempt to make them use their counterspells or tap out. The main thing you can do is have patience, wait until you have several big threats in your hand, and try to play them one at a time on the same turn, making the odds better that one of them will get through. It is also advisable not to play all of your creatures at once, as your opponent is likely to be playing with wrath of god. In this way you can always have creatures left after they use the wrath.
These are basically green and white decks that revolve around green's big creatures, and white's destruction powers. They try to get out a big creature or two, while neutralizing yours with swords and pacifism. They will often include wrath's of god as well, and plenty of artifact mana, and armageddons to shut you down after they have a big creature. As the name implies, Ernham djinn is one of the most often used creatures here. Since the armageddon's wipe out all forests, giving forestwalk to creatures does not hinder them. However now that ernham is out, we can expect more white creatures, mainly lots of small ones to be used instead. One of the best pieces of advise against this kind of deck is not to play all of your land at once. Only put out what land you actually need to cast the spells you have in your hand. Try not to overuse thawing glaciers either, if you take all the land out of your deck, and your opponent casts an armageddon, you will not have any land left for the rest of the game. You opponent will also try and cast the armageddon when the glaciers are in play, so try and keep them in your hand when possible. If it seams like your opponent is a little to nice by letting you get lots of creatures into play without any of their own, beware, they may have a wrath of god in their hand. If you have any creature or artifact mana, play it as soon as you get it, as you will need mana after the armageddon.
This is essentially a very fast red deck that will try to pulverize you will direct damage, and a few creatures. It is mainly red, and uses mostly creatures that can attack on the first turn, like ball lightning and suq ata lancer. With Homelands out, there is no more Eron, but viashino sandstalker will replace him easily. They best way to beat this deck is to pray for divine intervention. Other than that, make sure you have multiple CoP:Red's in your sideboard. Always keep extra mana untapped since they will often try and make you use the CoP on a lightning bolt, then hit you will a ten point fireball. Righteous Aura from Visions is a good choice in any deck, and may be invaluable against sligh. It essentially reduces all damage dealt to you to just two points.
This deck is mostly blue/red, but can be blue/white as well. It has lots of phasing things in it, and lots of mass destruction such as jokulhoups, wrath of god, or the now banned balance. On occasion you will see one with just enough black in it for spatial binding. They key here is to always have a backup plan no matter what. Playing with a few phasing things of your own may help. make sure they are on the same cycle of ins and out as most of your opponents things. time it in such a way that if a disk is activated while your opponents things are out, a few of your's are too. Sands of time may be a great way to thwart this deck if your opponents things are all in or out at once. Sands keeps things from phasing in or out, so if you play it when their things are out, they're out of luck. If you are playing blue, always keep a counterspell handy. Creatures that can phase themselves out are also a huge benefit, so play with rainbow efreets, and frenetic efreets. These are both good creatures against any deck, and they can save you here.
Now that necro has been reprinted, expect to see a few of these floating around. Without hymm, strip mine, hypnotic specter, Ivory tower, Zuran orb, or sengir, you can expect them to be less powerful, but still beware of them. stupor can still be used to press card advantage, and drain life is always a good card. It doubles as a braingeyser so it's really good. Vampiric tutor should help the necro player alot, since they can get a key card on top of the library, and then necro it into their hands. Fallen askari is a good early game creature, and cadaverous knight and lim-dul's high guard may be showing up soon too. Juju bottle may be used to gain a lot of life late game, as ivory tower and Zuran orb are gone. These new necro decks may be a lot different from the old ones, but don't expect them to be any less deadly. Playing with direct damage is a great idea, and always save up your direct damage cards for the last minute. If they push themselves down to a few life, you can kill them off immediately. If they try and make you discard, use all of your direct damage instant spells immediately, and give them less things to make you discard. Misers cage can help, and save most of your destruction and counter spells for the disk. without some way to gain life or get rid of the necro, the necro player may stall after the initial surge. Keep a few cards in you hand in case they decide to disk, and try and stop them from gaining life.
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