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