Beyond Dominia December 1997 -- Vol. 2, No. 12

 
  
by Mindbender

Decklist of the World, Version 1.4

I'm trying to make a list of ALL the deck types in the world (barring theme and fun decks)
an impossible feat, you might say. But I’m not gonna give up, and here is the
(far, far from complete) list I have compiled so far.
Notice that the colours in () after the name of a deck is the colours that you have to play in
order for the deck to be that kind of deck. It doesn't mean, however, that you can't play
more colours, but you have to play at least the colours in the ().
Also notice that if the colours is separated by a "-" then you have to play both colours, if
they are separated by a "/" then you only have to play one of the colours or combinations of
colours on one of the sides of the "/".


start of Decklist of the World


Theme/Fun decks

These decks ARE NOT COVERED in this list, and probably never will be, the category is just here for representative porposes.

 

Burn

One of the most aggressive decks in magic, it uses alot of direct damage and efficient creatures in order to lower the life of the opponent below 1. Burn decks usually doesn’t really care in what state it kills off the opponent. As it doesn’t really matter if your at 3 life, or 1, for that sake, if your opponent is at 0...

Plain Burn (red)
Most burn decks are speed decks, not having any of the reactive control cards that many other decks feature. Without speed, mono-red decks seem quite lost, as red have no or very little control cards, it also have no way of dealing with enchantments, so it gotta kill off the opponent before he gets out that CoP:Red or Justice or Conversion or...

Bolt deck (red)
Looks pretty much like a Plain burn deck, but uses bolts as the main damage source instead of x-spells.

Sligh (red)
Although many people fail to recognise this, the Sligh deck is something as unusual as a mono-red weenie horde control deck, a creature control deck. It has an staggering amount of creatures, infact, it has a sufficient horde of creature to outnumber most other weenie decks, and if it can't, it'll just kill them off with all the creature-control cards it have. These control cards are, conveniently, also creatures, so they can be used to help overwhelming the opponent at the same time they are killing his creatures.

I would like to ramble on about this engineous deck type, but I have to move on... if your interested in more information on the Sligh deck, check out the Sligh-brary at:

http://www.qtm.net/~jboes/Magic/sligh.htm

CounterBurn (red - blue)
Counter all the enemies spells that will hurt you overly much (CoP:Red, Justice...), and burn away! :)

Occasionally, people will splash blue for all the reactive control cards that red can't offer them, this is, usually, counterspells and the like. The counterability that blue offers makes it possible for the CounterBurn player to relax a little on the speed that a mono-red burn deck almost requires to survive.

Elven Fire (red - green)
Uses the x-spells from red and the all the mana-producing creatures from green along with the ability to destroy enchantments, which red find so troublesome...

The mass-destruction and raw damage this deck can produce with a lucky draw is a thing to be feared for sure!

ProtectoBurn (red - white)
I live, you die...

Uses the strong defence cards of white, and utilises the raw power of the mountainmage to create a devastating mix of defense and aggression.

Usually, the main components of this deck is CoP's, Fireballs, Disintegrates and the kind.

 

Weenie Horde

The Weenie Deck is all about summoning a lot of little creatures in no time, and then overwhelming the opponent with your horde of creatures, killing him before he can get his deck up and going. This deck frequently use Armageddon, Wrath of God and disks as reset buttons, ideally beginning the game all over.

Howling Mines are also sometimes used as a means of filling up the weenie horde players hand, as it tend to shrink fast in a few turns.

The weenie horde decks usually also include some kind of mass pumpability, making the horde of weenies even more fearfull.

Another card that is frequently used in a weenie deck is Winter Orb. Because of the low mana requirements for most cards in the deck, the Orb does little to disrupt the weenie player, while making life difficult for their opponent.

Goblin (red)
This mono-red deck uses alot of goblins along with the all-mighty Goblin Grenade in order to win.

Goblin decks usually use cards that boost goblins, like Goblin Shrine, Goblin King, Goblin Cave...

White Weenie (white)
As white have one of the best and biggest collection of weenies, many weenie decks are white.

These deck usually always include 4 Crusades. Besides that, there isn't really much to say about the white weenie, it's all about throwing all of your hand down by turn 5 and then just attack every turn from there.

Black Weenie (black)
This deck is kinda identical to the White Weenie, as most of the White Weenie cards have a black counterpart:

Crusade-Bad Moon
White Knight-Black Knight
Order of Leitbur-Order of Stromgald
(...)

The deck itself is played just like the White Weenie, simple and brutal :)

Stompy (green)
The Stompy deck, as attributed to Gallagher, uses efficient green creatures to quickly overwhelm the opponent. Creatures such as Rogue Elephant, Spectral Bears, Ghazban Ogre and Harvest Wurm all have power of 2 or 3 for much lower casting costs than most creatures.

The opponent is slowed by the use of Winter Orb, allowing the Stompy player the speed advantage they need.

Other: (...)
Didn't find the weenie deck you were looking for? try check out the other categories, as foreksampel the Necro Weenie deck is under the category Necro, and not Weenie.

 

Necro

The usual Necro is single-color, mono-black. The key card of this deck is Necropotence, that let you draw a card in your discard phase if you pay a life, it also skips your draw phase.

The idea is to get out the Necro as fast as possible with the various tutors, when that is accomplished, you fill up your hand, hope to get a Zuran Orb (if you get too much land, sac one of them to draw two cards) or play an Ivory Tower, the more life you pay, the more you get back :)

But after a few turns, the Necro player no longer want the Necropotence to be in play, many players that have never played a Necro deck fails to realise this fact, and also a few of the Necro players themselves are ignorant of this. But why, exactly, does the Necro want to get rid of the keycard in his deck?

It's quite simple, after a few turns with the Necro in play, you no longer have the life for drawing more cards, and thus you would very much like to get back your draw phase...

So if your playing against Necro, DO NOT DESTROY THE NECROPOTENSE!!! Let him suffer from his own card :)

But if you are playing Necro yourself, the only way I can think of in mono-black, as a means of getting rid of the Necro, is a disk. So everyone playing against Necro out there, DESTROY THAT DISK!!! Even if it would seem to benefit you the most, if the opponent used it (if it really did, do you think he would ever use it?).

Weenie Necro (black)
This deck follows the basic Necro conscepts that is written above, but it uses weenies as a means of swarming the opponent, just like an ordinary weenie deck.

In effect, a weenie Necro deck is a black weenie deck (look above) with a twist, a quite major one, but still, it doesn’t differ that much from the ordinary black weenie. (look above for more information on Weenie decks)

Hand-Denial Necro (black)
the same as the weenie Necro deck, this deck just incorporates the strengths of the hand-denial instead of Weenie Horde. (look below for more information on Hand-Denial)

Land-Destruction Necro (black)
the same as above, but it uses Land-destruction instead of Hand-denial as a route to victory. (look below for more information on Land-Destruction)

Deck-Depleting Necro (black)
A very rare deck for sure, but it can be quite devastating, it uses more life gaining cards that most other Necro decks uses. This is because it needs to get to those mill stones very quickly, and it also need to play as much of the limited creature base that is in this deck.

The one major hoser of this deck is another deck-depletion deck, because it goes trough it's library very quick in order to get to the millstones... (look below for more information on Hand-Denial)

 

Counter

The counter deck uses alot of Counterspells, Arcane Denials, Force of Wills, Dissipates... To only let the opponent play the spells that the counter player wants him to do.

This is a very reactive deck that is not aggressive at all. It is possibly the most irritating deck type to play against... "I play a baron sengir" "OK, I play counter-spell" "hmm... you're all tapped out, so now I play my 20-point fireball, he he" "OK, I force of will" "nnnoooooo!!!" :)

Mirror Universe (blue)
includes lots of counterspells, heavy creature control cards (like The Abyss, Moat, Humility, Orim's Prayer, Propaganda...) along with some permanent removal.

Then it's just getting out a Mirror Universe, and win :)

Bazaar of Wonder Decks (blue) Uses heavy Counter and includes cards like Mana Drain to get out a Bazaar of Wonders. Then uses millstone (or a similar card) to get cards in the graveyard. When mixed with Jester's Cap or Lobotomy, the opponents game is hopeless.

Pure Counter (blue)
this deck is almost only counter (40 counters, 16 islands and 4 mishras factories), and can be quite good sometimes, although, if you don't like looong games, without much diversity, pure counter is not the thing for you.

CounterPost (blue - white)
this blue/white drag the game with counters, Wrath of God, Gerrads Wisdom (...) until you get it Kjeldoran Outpost out, then begin your way to victory with a 1/1 dude token every turn, and the best part is that the outpost is a land, so it can't be countered.

CounterBurn (blue - red)
Tries to counter everything that would promote the speed of the opponents deck, and while doing that, it burns away with all kind of burn spells.

CounterHammer (blue - red)
This deck is very much like the CounterBurn deck, but centralises more on the burn spell Hammer of Bogarden, than the usual CounterBurn.

Basically, it's all about stalling the game till the CounterHammer has enough mana to recycle the hammer.

 

Drop a Nasty

This deck focuses on getting a really big creature out as fast as possible, it usually uses biggies with some kind of drawback, that makes them cheaper (and therefore faster) to cast.

A good example of this is the Polar Kraken, that has cumulative upkeep: destroy a land.

This may at first look pretty bad, and it is in most other decks, but not in this one, here it is great as it makes the PolarK alot cheaper, and with an 11/11 trambel on the table, that cumulative Upkeep aren't gonna stick around to grow that big... :)

Reanimator (black / white)
This deck is about getting some Figgie into your graveyard and then reanimating it, effectively getting you foreksampel a Spirit of the Night for 2 mana... he he :)

Keycards are: Reanimator, Dance of the Dead, Necromancy (...) and any biggies.

Big Blue (blue)
this deck tries to slow down the opponent down long enough with counters to get a Polar Kraken or Leviathan out. mana-creatures and high tide are in to increase speed.

Some find it useful to have one or to Phyrexian Dreadnoughts.

Some more tourney minded Big Blue decks uses slightly smaller "biggies", such as Air Elementals, Waterspout Djinns or (if you aren't playing type II) Mahamoti Djinns, this change allows the Big Blue player to take control much faster.

The Big Green Machine (green)
This deck uses all kinds of mana producers (mana-elves, Wild Growth, Geas Touch...) to pour out big green nasties from the beginning of turn 4 (i have a friend that consistently play a force of nature at this time...), and keeps playing those big nasties all the way to turn 6, where your opponent is dead... :)

 

Lock / Permission Decks

A lock deck tries to make the opponents game slower and slower, until it reaches a halt, where he can't do anything, at all.

MephistoChain
Uses chains of Mephistopheles and Anvil of Bogardan to lock the game down. It is impossible to draw any new cards. Paths to victory include millstone, graveyard creatures and instant-based damage.

Land Equilibrium (blue)
Locks the game down with Armageddon and Land Equilibrium in quick succesion, then try to counterspell everything and win with whatever card that can do damage enough damage to kill the opponent, time doesn't really matter when the Land Equilibrium/Armageddon lock is in play.

TimeWalk Recurssion Decks (blue)
Uses Demonic consultation to get a Digger and hope to get rid of as many cards as possible in the process. When the library is empty, the Digger can put the Timewalk "under" the library every turn, and if the timewalk is also used every turn, you have an infinite number of turn to kill of the opponent...

This deck can be quite funny to play when it works, bacuse you can win in a very humiliating style for the opponent, like poison counters, a single 1/1... :)

Maysonette Deck (blue / green)
Uses Jester's Cap (virtally any cool card will do, but it is easiest to bring back an artifact) and ways to reuse the cap e.g. Regrowth, Argivian Find , Argivian Restoration, Recall, Drafna's Reconstruction...

This deck is quite vulnerabel to land destruction, as it is quite mana heavy.

Land Destruction (black / red / green)
This deck is, in it's most extreme form, a lock decks, that tries to destroy every land the opponent lays down, hopefully making him unable to do anything.

The Land Destruction deck does have the problem that if it doesn't get a good start, it can be very hard to recover, especially if the opponents has alredy got some critters down. A good way of preparing for weenie decks and bad starts is to include some "table cleaners", like Jokulhaups, Disk or Apocalypse, this will hopefully start the game all over again, but as you have been keeping some lands and LD cards inhand, you are pretty sure of getting a good lead, wich is essential in any LD deck, as it in any lock deck.

Zur's Weirding deck (blue)
There are more than one approach to make a ZW deck, but they all uses Counterspells, and usually some kind of life gaining cards, that (hopefully) enables them to gain 2 life every turn.

Disk's are also quite commonly used to clear the table of any treats, before playing a ZW.

Turbo Stasis (blue)
This deck uses stasis to lock down the opponent(s), and includes Howlings for faster access to the Stasis and faster library depletion (which is the usual strategy with a Stasis deck), also features Kismet, to stop the opponent from playing a land and then tapping it for mana, he mustn’t have access to ANYTHING, not even a single point of mana.

Also, with a couple of Howling Mines in play, the Stasis player can be quite sure to get a land every turn, thus keeping the Stasis lock going indefinitely

Squandered Statis
This deck is very similar to a Turbo Stasis deck, and attempts to get a stasis down early. This is helped considerably by the addition of Squandered Resources, which allows each land played to be used for two mana rather than one, making it easier to keep the stasis out, as well as allowing the player to do other things (such as counter) while under the stasis.

Prison ()
This deck locks down the opponent by playing a Winter Orb, and any other cards that can tap the mana the opponent is allowed to untap every turn, this is usually Icy Manipulator. It also uses non-land mana producers, to be able to not be locked by Winter Orb itself...

The Prison deck can virtually be any combination of colours, or even mono-color, though blue are most commonly used, for counterability and green is also quite often used for all the alternate (non-land) mana sources it can provide.

The Prison deck also frequently use white to remove permanents (Wrath of God, Armageddon...), Also, a typical Prison deck will only use one or two cards to actually make the win. These cards typically are Kjeldoran Outpost or large (4/4 or bigger) flyers.

Browse Deck
While this deck may seem to fit into one of the Counter deck types, and is usually a variant of either CounterBurn or CounterPost, the important combination in this deck is Browse and Soldevi Digger. This allows the player to quickly go through their library, getting the cards most important to them, then when their library is almost depleted, use Soldevi Digger to put cards from the graveyard back into the library. The cards recycled this way are often counters, allowing the player to counter everything the opponent does and kill them with their 'road to victory card'

Doomsday deck (black)
This doesn't HAVE to be a lock deck, but it most usually is.

The D-Day deck is centred around doomsday, and it knows exactly what 5 cards that it want to draw, like a Digger and a Drain Life plus whatever else seems appropriate in the situation.

Abeyance Deck (white)
This deck tries to play an Abeyance EVERY TURN, using SEVERAL recursion strategies, and usually, also an alternate route to victory.

Discard deck (black)
Makes the opponent discard so hard that he will no hand at all except just after his draw phase.

The Discard deck usually have some components of the black weenie deck in it, and is also usually mono-black.

 

Combo decks

Combo decks that fit under one of the other categories will be there, and not here.

Combo decks are decks that rely on a certain combination of cards to show up, most of this kind of decks uses mass card-drawing or intensive tutoring in order to get the cards it need.

I've tried to not make this look like a combo-list, but it's quite hard.

Enduring Renewal (white)
A combo deck that uses Enduring Renewal Ashnods Altar and an Ornithopter, giving infinite mana.

That mana is best put to use in a cool x-spell, like a Fireball, or maybe make a token nightmare, with a Sanke Basket... :)

Sandsipoise (blue - white)
Uses Sands of Time along with Equipoise to lock down the opponents creatures and land. Using lands such as Gemstone Mines, Lotus Veil and Crystal Veil allows the player to keep their mana to a minimum, allowing them to phase out most of the opponents mana (with the Equipoise).

Similarly, playing without creatures will mean the opponents creatures will also phase out. As Sands of Time removes the untap, the land and creatures do not phase back in. With the addition of a Kismet, the opponent cannot do anything. The victory is often achived with the use of Miser's Cage, or simply deck depletion.

BloomDrain / ProsBloom (black - blue)
It's really quite simple, you need a Cadaverous Bloom, a Drain Life and a prosperity (not every BloomDrain deck uses prosperity, but they generally use some kind of mass draw cards, Howling Mine and the like) get down the Bloom, discard all cards but the Drain Life and Prosperity to the Bloom, then sink all the mana into the Prosperity, discard all cards again to the Bloom, and use that mana to kill off the opponent, or at least, take a big chunk of life from him.

Most ProsBloom decks also use Squandered Resources to gain the mana they need faster, then with the use of Natural Balance to get even more land (after sac'ing what they do have to the Resources), they use Infernal Contract and Prosperity and (pre Nov 1st) Lim-Dul's Vault to quickly get the combo in hand and kill the opponent all in one turn. Usually the deck will do nothing for the first 4-5 turns and then attempt to kill the opponent. Abeyance is often used to stop countering the combo. Usually if the ProsBloom does not kill the opponent on the first attempt, they cannot recover and will lose soon after.

PestiCop (black - white)
Uses Pestilence along with CoP: Black, another variation also uses crypt rats along with black ward and that white enchantment that gives the controller of it 1 life for every 1 damage the enchanted creature does, pretty neat, you get a reusable drain life that works like an Earthquake, without hurting yourself AND doing damage to flying creatures. :)

It can also be a good idea to add tutors and Initiates of the Ebon Hand, and White Knights is a must.

 

Other types of decks

Some Mono-Green deck (what is the name of this deck? yet another nameless green deck...)
I haven't really got that much information on this one... (please send me some, someone) But it's about using medium size creatures along with alot of land-manipulation from green.

Drop of Honey (green)
Uses drop of honey along with untargetable creatures like Pincher Beetles, Joraul's Centaur, Autumn Willow...

StormBind Decks (red - green)
Uses Stormbind and fast direct Damage or fast creatures usually. Also mixed with Cursed Scroll to do lots of damage fast.

Land's Edge Decks (red)
Utilises heavy creature control (Moat, Humility, AetherFlash, Orim's Prayer...) then plays a Land Tax to do 6 points of damage per round with the Land's Edge. Wonderful vs. Land Destruction and Hand Destruction, it does have it's problems with counterspell, but with Elemental Blasts/ Pyroblasts in the sideboard, it shouldn't be that big of a problem.

Buried Alive (black)
Uses Buried Alive to get 4 creatures into the graveyard that will rejuvenate themselves if there are a specific number of creatures above them.

If you accomplish to get 4 of these creatures into your graveyard, every time one of your creatures get killed, you get another up from the graveyard, as there will now be 3 creatures above the bottom-most creature in the graveyard, making it go into play. This works quite well with lord of the pit or other cards requiring sacrifice of creatures.

PhaselHaups (red)
includes alot of phasing things, and makes sure that all the phasing are synchronised, and when all the phases are phased out, the PhaselHaups player will drop a Jokulhaups, pretty much wiping all the table, and next turn, BOOM!, the PhaselHaups player have plenty of creatures and mana (yes there are lands with phasing build-in).

This deck is virtually always include blue.

Black Vise deck ()
this deck uses howling mines, copy artefact, anvil of bogarden and the like to try to get as many cards into the opponents hand, while playing a black Vise.


end of Decklist of the World


read everything below before mailing/posting replies!!!


I am VERY sure that i have missed an ENORMOUS amount of deck types here, so try and help me out, post/mail me some deck types that you think i have missed. BUT, before you begin to sit down and make a list, i just wanna say that in order for me to be able to have any use of it, you gotta make some brief notes about how this particular deck that i have missed works, and what are the key cards. Only like 2-5 lines, but it gotta be there, else, you might aswell stop, as I can't use just deck names to anything. Also remember that I won't list theme or fun decks, though they don't really have to be tourney viable either... it's a judgement call.

If you find anything out of place, strange or just dead wrong, please let me know.

I would also like it if you would take a look at the style of this list, before you go and contribute something. So far, I have had to make some heavy editing on every reply i have ever gotten to make it fit the style and format of this list... It sure would be nice if i could just cut and paste it right into it, and it would just fit perfectly... No, that will probably never happen, but please try and give it some consideration, ok?

ps. If you make any kind of contribution to this list, your name will be added to the list of fame:

(Though if this list runs too long (Which I wouldn't mind at all :), I will cut the notes on the people that has only done minor contributions, this will be relative to the length of the list of contributors)


List of Fame


if you contribute theme/fun decks, or deck without notes, your (nick)name will not be displayed here.

Mindbender - Yep, thats me :)
Æther Flash - This guy was an ENOURMEUS help to me, thanks.
Frog King - Thanks for the help, froggy :)
Crutch - This guy REALLY helped me, thanks.
Jason D. Moungey - Contribute the idea for removing opinionated comments.
Michael CO Manabat - a grammar guru... Well, almost... :)
Ben - Contributed alot of decks, thanks.


Questions


Please help me with these questions:

1. What is an Elemental Augury Deck?
2. Has Enduring Renewal been errata'ed to make the infinite mana combo impossible?
3. what does OOP stand for? as i have understod it, it stand for more than one thing?
4. What does Bazaar of Wonder do?
5. What does Derop of Honey do?
6. What does Chains of Mephistelses (or saomething like taht) do?
7. what is 0.000783669578*749275.5974/503750 +2.5

ps. the answar to the last one is: 2,501165626782, but you of course knew that, right? he he :)


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then e-mail me at:

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general information


While you are at it, visit my homepage at:

http://home6.inet.tele.dk/asmild/

And PLEASE remember to snip your posts (delete any previous post/mail) BEFORE posting/mailing
your reply, as there are no need to down load 35 kb for every post/mail...

If you should encounter any spelling/grammar mistakes, please inform me.


Changes since version 1.3


Changes with no contributer listed is made by solely me

Corrected ALOT of spelling mistakes
Corrected ALOT of spelling mistakes - Contributed by Michael CO Manabat
changed the describtion of the Land destruction deck (lock) - Contributed by Michael CO Manabat
Added the questions section (lock deck) - Contributed by Ben
Added the Chains Lock deck (lock deck) - Contributed by Ben
Added the Land Equilibrium deck(lock deck) - Contributed by Ben
Added the Enduring Renewal Deck(lock deck) - Contributed by Ben
Added the TimeWalk Recurssion (lock deck) - Contributed by Ben
Added the Maysonette Deck (lock deck) - Contributed by Ben
Added the Mirror Universe deck (counter) - Contributed by Ben
Added the Bazaar of Wonder Deck (counter) - Contributed by Ben
Added the Drop of Honey deck (other) - Contributed by Ben
Added the StormBind deck (other) - Contributed by Ben
Added the Land's Edge deck (other) - Contributed by Ben


Thanks for your time!


Mindbender
 


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