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by Aaron Benanav
Deck Design 101 #4 This month I decided to make a deck that uses Stronghold. I, being a control freak when it comes to magic, jumped at Ensnaring Bridge. I LOVE this card, and the ways to abuse it are endless. All you have to do is get yourself down to one card in hand, and you cannot be attacked by much of anything. Of course, you can't attack either, so what you need is an alternate form of damage. For your winning card is only one choice, Cursed Scroll. Like it wasn't already good enough and hard enough to get, this is yet another deck that depends on it. And just like my Proppa-Orb deck, this two card combo wins you the game. One great thing about the Ensnaring Bridge and Cursed Scroll combo that possibly makes it even better than Proppa-Orb (though I guess it is also a drawback), is the fact that the combo is composed entirely of artifacts, which allows it to be used in a deck of any colors. One obvious choice is black. With all of its discard spells and Poxes, it has almost a guaranteed win, but I knew that there had to be something better. There had to be something even faster than black, and the sick part is that I was right. What I came up with is a ludicrously fast, insanely reliable green and white deck. Green provides us with amazing speed and white gives us control and tutors. One of the green cards I choose was Eladamri's Vineyard. It is a key damage card as there are not many decks that can use two green mana every turn, and it is amazing speed. Another choice was Wall of Roots. It's a nice early blocker and it to provides huge amounts of mana. The white cards I chose were Enlightened Tutor and (I know I am going to get bashed for this) the one and only worst card in Tempest and most hated rare in the set, Pegasus Refuge! That card is perfect for this deck. If you have already drawn a bridge and don't need another, just discard it for a token. Too many cards in your hand for the combo to be effective? Discard all but one! Another amazing thing is that this card provides insane amounts of damage. The little tokens fly so they are hard to block, and their one power means they are probably the only creatures on the board that can attack. Cool, huh? Artifacts, of course, are the thrust of this deck, and other than the combo cards I chose Bottle Gnomes and the card that we all know will be the hottest card in Stronghold, Mox Diamond. Now, the diamonds or moxen, or whatever you want to call them, will probably make this deck almost impossible to make, so until you get them, any card that gets cards out of your hand and is cheap, such as Lotus Petal, which is a mini version of the mox, will work. That makes the deck:
All we need now is some back up. For this I'm going to use Disenchant, Aura of Silence, and Hidden Retreat, which is another good way to get rid of cards from your hand. I threw the deck together on Apprentice, which is my deck tester of choice, and made a few adjustments. A tip or two from Gandalf, were to use Verdant Touch and Disrupting Scepter, good mana sinks, which I really needed. I dropped the number of diamonds (thankfully) and some other stuff, and added those. That makes the final deck:
I used twenty land because more is overdoing it on mana sources and any less renders the moxen ineffective and creates bad draws. Being a tournament player, a sideboard is needed. For this I went with:
Now I just want to give you a quick overview of how to play the deck. First turn you want to drop a Vineyard if possible, which means you have a mana sink, such as a Disrupting Scepter or a Cursed Scroll in your hand. Turn two, play an Ensnaring Bridge if you can, and if not play your mana sink. Either of the first two turns are optimal for playing a Mox Diamond and either Enlightened Tutoring or playing a Cursed Scroll. The moxen are also good for getting out a Bridge second turn without a Vineyard. If you can't use the mox, then don't play it unless you have already played an Ensnaring Bridge. After those first fast turns, the game pace slows almost to a halt and the game is yours. Play Pegasus Refuge and more mana sinks as desired, trying to Cursed Scroll every turn. Remember that it is best to scroll at the end of your opponent's turn if possible. Also, you can buy back the Touch and respond to it by scrolling, so you don't have to worry about the Touch messing up your scrolling fun. If you don't have the cards you need, don't fret. Use the Wall of Roots and Bottle Gnomes as blockers and sacrifice the Gnomes as a fast effect if they are going to die. Hang in there till you draw a tutor or some other key card, and try to keep your hand size low. Against counterspell decks, try to get out as many things as you can before they even have a chance to counter. If you go first, it is easy to establish the lock before they have two blue mana. Both the Vineyard and the Scroll kill slow decks. I guess that's it... Good luck in all your matches and remember to have fun. See you next month! Please direct any comments or questions to s***a@m***a.com. Please write in and tell me what you would like to see from me in later issues. Do you like these deck articles? If so, any requests for a certain deck type in the future? Would you prefer a deck clinic? Or a strategy article? I write these for you and I would like you to get the most out of my work.
Aaron Benanav
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