Sunday 21 June 2015

Megrim? You grim!


In 1999, Randy Buehler and Erik Lauer created a deck that led to the emergency banning of a card in the middle of a season. The win condition of the deck was Megrim. Seriously. Now of course, that was not the card that got banned – but it proved that Megrim could be a card you build around as a win condition. In the spirit of emulating the pair’s success, today’s deck uses both Megrim and The Rack to damage the opponent and win the game. Today we are playing: Megrim? You grim!


To start off, let’s focus on the win conditions themselves: Megrim and The Rack. Both cards are a 4-of in the deck because they work so well together. Ever heard of playing nice? These two are the perfect example of it. For example, The Rack and Megrim both stack with multiple copies on the board, thus dealing more damage when they are out. They are also potent together because you are ensuring that your opponent can be losing life whether they have no cards to discard or they do. All that is without even mentioning the psychological warfare being waged, as your opponent knows they’re going to be losing life on both their turn and yours.

Alright, so we’ve established the key pieces of the deck and how awesome they are.  Great. Now let’s talk about the actual win conditions: the mana denial and discard packages. First let’s talk about the mana denial provided by our friends Wasteland, Sinkhole and Vindicate. You want to focus on their lands early on, as it means they can’t cast their spells and thus always have something to discard. That said, you might want to change your strategy entirely if The Rack is in your opening grip. If that’s the case, focus on getting rid of their hand ASAP. Vindicate is a very versatile card, as it can act as land destruction, but also as creature removal should you require it.

And that brings us to the discard. You’ve got your typical All-Stars in Hymn and Duress, but the deck plays a few you might not be as familiar with. Gerard’s Verdict is, in my opinion, a very underplayed card. Yes, the opponent can choose which 2 cards to discard, but so what? It’s a 2-for-1 that can also (and often) gain you life as well. The card is awesome! Not to mention that it, along with Hymn, can quickly make Blackmail a very real card. Due to the main deck’s lack of efficient creature removal, you might also want to lead off with an Ostracize as it can really ruin your opponent’s opening plan.

The main problem with the deck that I posted is its lack of creature interaction/control. Other than Vindicate, you don’t have a lot of ways to deal with weenie decks pre-sideboard. Some players might want to focus on this in their own build of the deck, or just jam a bunch of answers in the sideboard as I did. As always – Happy Brewing!



Megrim/Rack

Land:

4 Scrubland
5 Swamp
7 Fetchlands
4 Wasteland

Total: 20

Creatures:

Total: 0

Spells:

4 The Rack
4 Megrim
4 Sinkhole
4 Dark Ritual
4 Duress
4 Blackmail
4 Ostrasize
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Gerrard’s Verdict
4 Vindicate

Total: 40

Sideboard:

2 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Pox
4 Tormod’s Crypt
3 Engineered Plague
4 Swords to Plowshares

Sunday 7 June 2015

Nic Fit


Today I’m going to talk about a deck whose name I can’t explain. There seem to be several different stories behind it, that don’t really seem to match. Where one person claims it’s the result of a misspelled word, another says it stems from a portion of a key card. Heck, I even read somewhere that it’s just a joke about game lengths and cigarette addiction. Figure it out yet? If you somehow missed the deck title above this paragraph, then you’re not very observant. Anyway, today I’m going to be talking about Nic Fit.

Veteran Explorer and Cabal Therapy. This interaction is probably the defining factor of the deck. Your ideal Turn 1 is to play a Veteran Explorer, followed by a Cabal Therapy on T2. A lot of decks do not play the number of basic lands that Nic Fit does, and thus it will almost always give you an edge in both tempo and card advantage. This is especially true when one considers the effect of land drops, as well as the use of Cabal Therapy x 2.

Sacrifice outlets and your creatures. The deck has several different ways of sacrificing your Explorers and getting out threats. Recurring Nightmare and Phyrexian Tower are both good secondary options if you do not have a Therapy in your hand. Nightmare costs more to cast, but can be re-used not only to sacrifice creatures but also to recur them. For example, sacrificing an Explorer with Nightmare to bring back a Wall of Blossoms can be very frustrating for your opponent.

Finding your cards. Nic Fit has a few options of looking through your library for the cards that you want.  I added a singleton Mirri’s Guile as a pseudo Explorer because it can be cast on T1 and help find them if they are not in your hand. There are 2 Sylvan Library however because once you get a Explorer, you want Library over Guile. This is because it can survive the 1 mana Pernicious Deeds you use on your Explorer/their creatures. Another option the deck has is Survival of the Fittest, which works quite nicely with Basking Rootwalla and Squee, Goblin Nabob.

Threats. You know how I’m always talking about the days before creature power creep? I would ALMOST consider Spiritmonger to be an exception. He’s just that good. The main thing that keeps him fair-ish is that he can be chump blocked. The addition of Rancor in the deck helps mitigate the drawback however, as it allows him to trample over blockers and deal damage. Because of this, I had considered adding in more Rancors, but since the deck has good card drawing and deck filtration engines I decided against it.

Other cards I had considered for the deck were Unearth, Disturbed Burial and Innocent Blood. You might also want to add more variety in your win conditions (including more Rancors). There are tons of options available in Ancient and how you want to win is up to you. Happy Brewing!


Nic Fit

Land

3 Bayou
2 Savannah
4 Forest
2 Swamp
2 Plains
7 Fetchlands
1 Phyrexian Tower

Total: 21

Creatures

4 Veteran Explorer
4 Basking Rootwalla
2 Deranged Hermit
3 Spiritmonger
2 Wall of Blossoms
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Monk Idealist

Total: 17

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Survival of the Fittest
4 Pernicious Deed
1 Mirri’s Guile
2 Sylvan Library
2 Recurring Nightmare
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Vindicate
1 Rancor

Total: 23

Sideboard

4 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Withered Wretch
4 Duress
1 Engineered Plague
3 Vindicate
2 Defense Grid