|
|
| |
|
| ||
|
 |
by Gandalf
Deck Genesis: Gandalf's Strategy from 0 to 60 Well, Weatherlight has been released to the general public for a while, and while most of us scramble to get the new and nifty cards we want for our decks in the coming months, I’ve been cooking up something awful using Black’s newest strength, as revealed in Weatherlight. Cards like Animate Dead and Dance of the Dead have, from time to time, been looked at as a way to cast a big creature fast... the deck concept has been around since roughly The Dark, when Leviathan and Mind Bomb were used in conjunction with Animate Dead to have a huge Trampler very quickly. The deck concept has been around the block a few times since then, and was put to use, most notably, in the TurboPox decks that sometimes had spectacular openings... at times successfully reanimating a Nicol Bolas and attacking with it, emptying the opponent’s hand, before they have even taken a turn! But Weatherlight has introduced a few cards to the mix that will definitely help make reanimation a legitimate route to victory, as well as a few creatures worthy of reanimation. The core of almost every Reanimator deck has a solid basis of Black cards, from reanimation and creatures to creature control and fast mana. In fact, you can’t make a fast Reanimator deck without Black’s Enchant Dead Creature spells (White has consistently had spells that could reanimate dead creatures, but they are more expensive, and White lacks a speedy mana resource like Black’s Dark Rituals or Green’s Elves.). And the Weatherlight cards I have in mind are Black... two clutch spells, Buried Alive (for best reanimation options) and Hidden Horror. A Reanimator deck has two problems it must face: getting the creatures into the graveyard, and bringing them from the graveyard to play using some effect or another. In most cases, the Reanimator deck has to forfeit card advantage in hopes of winning through pure speed. Mind Bomb and Funeral Charm were popular choices, and if all else failed you could choose to draw, play no cards, and discard a large creature. But all of these choices are uneconomical, as more often than not a spell killing the previously-dead creature will guarantee a lost game due to a mostly-empty hand and disrupted playing strategy. But the graveyard-endowing gifts in Weatherlight are jewels for the Reanimator deck, as they allow you to get creatures into the graveyard without totally forfeiting the card-advantage war... Hidden Horror is still a great, cheap creature as a 4/4 for 3 mana, and Buried Alive nets you 3 creatures in your graveyard without having to draw the creatures first. The creatures we can choose from in Weatherlight are quite nice as well... we can add the big bruiser brothers Morinfen and Gallowbraid to our playdecks for reanimation. With 5 power for 5 mana, and a special ability such as Flying or Trampling to boot, they are feasible to cast early on even if the reanimation strategy fails.
A basic Reanimator deck would use Necromancies (preferable to Animate Deads) and Shallow Graves to pull minions from the hereafter back to play, a lot of fairly large creatures to be reanimated, and a basic support of spells that will keep the theme going in the right direction. So far, my base strategy is to use Shallow Grave, Necromancy, Buried Alive, and Hidden Horror to get the effects rolling fast. And there is nothing that could convince me not to be running with 4 Dark Rituals, in an attempt to make the deck as fast as a hedgehog on Crack. Here comes the deck development, and the tough choices...! Reanimation needs big creatures to be worthwhile...there is no point in going to the trouble we have to just to avoid casting a creature that you could pay for on your own the next turn. So a nice melange of big bruisers would seem to be in order. We have quite a few choices, as Red and Black have some BIG creatures, and we can always consider Colossus of Sardia for a Shallow Grave... = ). What we have to look over includes Gallowbraid, Morinfen, Catacomb Dragon, Volcanic Dragon, Shivan Dragon, Spirit of the Night, Ball Lightning, Ishan’s Shade, Necrosavant, Orgg, Colossus of Sardia, Lord of the Pit, Nightmare, Viashino Sandstalker (neat target for a Shallow Grave)... and we can also choose creatures not even aligned with our deck colors. However, that is a very risky idea at best... not to mention that besides Green, most of the quality creatures have been named already. We have to eliminate some of the more unpredictable cards as well, most specifically Nightmare and Lord of the Pit; Pit Lords are definitely counterproductive, and Nightmare would be a very weak creature upon returning to play early in the game. So far, I have decided to take everything I ever learned about board control and card advantage and thrown it out the window. If we want to kill quickly and often, then we have to set up a formula. The most important cards to the formula are those we base the deck around...kind of like the BloomDrain combo deck, or my Sands of Time/Equipoise combo lock from Deck Genesis #2.
This outlines the basic theme of the deck. Whatever else is included should support and advance this theme, while still remaining a useful and competitive card in the TII environment. Burn is always nice, especially for removing blockers, so I will count on 4x Incinerate and 2x Earthquake. Earthquake is doubly nice, because it is Direct Damage to my opponent, and it is creature control against pretty much anything my opponent would be able to cast before I should have won already. (Frankly, just like the Sligh deck, if I’m blocking, I’m losing) So far, I have used up 36 of the 37 or 38 spots available before adding Lands. Those other 2 spots will go towards Nevinyrral’s Disk... great for paving the way for Blitz attackers, as well as seriously improving the targets available for a Necromancy. Now, time to add lands... while there are very few Red cards in the deck... only 11; 6 of which should be cast normally... we can skimp on actual Mountains if we provide nonbasic lands that can produce multicolored mana. But we cannot neglect the possibility that I will actually cast a Ball Lightning, so 4x Sulfurous Springs will not be enough.
I can live with that; however I will have to draft a very ‘defensive’ sideboard for dealing with major threats my opponent is using. The few artifacts and enchantments mean that most of my spells will have an immediate effect upon the game by either attacking or providing some other instantaneous function. If I am going to win early, I will probably know it by the third turn; when I should have dealt substantial damage and still have some means of carrying out successful attacks. The ability to use large creatures early on should be a definite advantage over almost any opponent... it’s always fun to speed-thrash a Weenie deck that just can’t deal with my threats early. Unfortunately, Swords to Plowshares is back to kill my creatures, from a temporary retirement from the TII environment; against a White player, I will be sure to include Ishan’s Shade as my main option for reanimation. If I have a choice of creatures to Shallow Grave for the deathblow, he would be it... Now, as to a sideboard..... The customary 4x Dystopia will fit in here. 3x Contagion to kill off small potential blockers. 4x Pyroblast against Blue Counterspell decks, and 4x Ankh of Mishra to stall the game early, giving the reanimation effect its most powerful effect against any even vaguely expensive decks.
|
|