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by Grantfly A Shocking Tale, With a Vision in Mind There has always and probably will always be three ways to beat your opponent in magic. The first, and most common is frying their life total down to 0. The second is giving them 10 or more poison counters. This method never really caught on (don't ask me why, it sounds like a good idea to me). and of course there is the deck drainer. You're opponent has no cards to draw and therefore loses. This method always intrigued me...but because cards that effectively do this are so few, I never really considered it an idea worth trying. The sun slowly rises in the East...but on the shadowy plane of Rath, deep in the belching, smoking furnace, no sun can be seen, only the electric sparks that light up the great fire appear from...the Shocker! An electric thrill races through me as I read this card off the tempest spoiler, "Maybe my noble idea will not die such a noble death after all, heh heh heh." I begin to put together a deck. Well let's see, first we need four Shockers obviously. Hmmm....card drawing stuff of course. 4 Prosperity. With all those cards it's likely that your opponent will get something to screw you up so, 3 Counterspells and Dismiss sounds pretty cool: 2 Dismiss. Your opponent is obviously going to have a lot of land and you're going to have a lot of cards...ah got it! 2 Scorched Earth. Let’s see...creatures will be a problem so: 2 Capsize, 2 Wall of Diffusion, 2 Wall of Air. Hmm let's look at my main heavy again shall we...what's this! Opponent discards for damage anytime, not just attacking? In that case: 3 Puppet Strings and 4 Fire Whip. Since we will have so many cards in our hand anyway let's add 2 Canyon Drakes. And of course, our deck draining must not be forgotten so how about 4 Vision Charms (these can also phase out some nasty artifacts). And Man o' Wars are pretty awesome,especially in this situation because the creature that is returned to their hand will most likely be discarded. As I reach the artifact section of the spoiler, my eyes bug out again: The new millstone has arrived! It’s called the Grindstone and it’s going in for the purpose of pumping your opponents cards into the graveyard faster then they can say, “Don’t!” So now let’s divide these into categories m’kay? CARD DISSING MEASURES 4 Big Shocking Maniacs (Shockers) 4 Prosperity 3 Mind Numbing Stones (Grindstones) 4 Vision (of doom) Charms   DA-FENCE 3 Counterspell, 2 Dismiss (Use especially for enchantments and generally nasty stuff.) 2 Wall of Diffusion, 2 Wall of Air ( Yeah, I know what you’re thinking but they do block stuff pretty darn well.) 2 Canyon Drakes, 2 Scorched Earth (As long as you have all those cards in your hand...)   HELPING HANDS 2 Man O’ War, 2 Capsize (Since most of the time their hand will be discarded every turn, these work virtually like terrors, and you can use the capsize if your creatures are in trouble to pop them back to your hand.) 4 Fire Whips, 3 Puppet Strings (Puppet Strings is a just plain good card. It can be used to, A:Untap your Shocker after it has attacked so that you can do a point of damage to your opponent [that’s what the Fire Whips are for] and make them discard again! B:Untap your Grindstone for the same purpose or, C: Tap a particularly nasty creature your opponent has out, until you get a Capsize or Man O’ War.)   MANA 1 Lotus Petal (Nice quick land, but unfortunatly it's only good for one sniff.) 1 Scorched Ruins (Forgot about those didn’t you, generally for use with prosperity.) 2 Caldera Lakes (Mana curve and all that.) 10 Island 9 Mountain This deck’s sideboard should vary in the area, although color hosers never hurt. The main decks that this one would have a problem with would be Reanimator, because you’re actually helping them get cards into the graveyard. There’s really nothing you could do about this one except, stick to your walls. Stompy might also present a problem if it was totally packed with creatures or it had ::gasp!:: Gaea’s Blessing! The solution to this deck would be all your hand boomeranging. As for the Blessing, I can only think adding black and Lobotomies would cure that ache. Direct Damage would have to be stopped with counterspells, as would Lock decks. The key elements of this deck are surprise and continuity. A shock every turn will eventually get you opponent, but two shocks with an opponents hand size above 8 would be even better. If you wanted to make a variation on this type, without the Shocker, I recommend a Blue-White with Peacemakers, Pacifism, and the Tolarian Serpent and Legerdemain combo. Include Alter of Dementias, Master Decoys, and Empyral Armors, and you could have a comboriferousupadupafly' deck. Well, good luck and happy Shocking! [ Back to December 1997 Table of Contents ] [ Back to Beyond Dominia ] Magic: the Gathering is a Registered Trademark of Wizards of the Coast