For he’s jolly good fellow!

Quick announcement.  There will be no Wacky Wednesday this week.

Why?

Well, simply, because it’s a my birthday today and I don’t feel like it! :P

Wacky Wednesday – FINISH HIM!

Hello again everybody, and welcome to another edition of Wacky Wednesday.  Wow, I can’t believe this is finally the end.  We’ve come so far, with so many crazy decks.  But alas, we have reached the end of the “you win the game” series of decks.  So recall a few weeks ago I told you I had planned today’s deck for then but, but couldn’t get the deck to work.  Well, I am still not entirely sure if the deck really does “work” yet, but it has been the best I have been able to come up with so far.  So, what is the card for this week?  Well, if you have been keeping up with the decks, a simple Gatherer search will show you the one card that I have left to build around.  Or, if you have been playing for as long as I have you probably know the one card that is left already.  But, for those who have waited patiently and not spoiled themselves I give you the one, the only, the steaming pile that is: Mortal Combat.

Uhg.

20 dudes in the yard?  Seriously?

Maybe if it were all graveyards, but just yours?

You can’t be serious?

Yeah, I am

Ok, so we gotta get 20 dudes in the yard.  Well, I don’t really see how we can play ONLY 20 dudes in the deck, if we do that getting a single one exiled shuts down the whole deck.  I think we need at LEAST 28 guys to have any real chance.  Combine that with 24 lands and 4 Mortal Combats and that leaves us with…4 cards.  4 other cards to put in the deck…UUUUUUHG

Alright, I am just going to preemptively state this deck isn’t really going to have an alternate win condition.  There simply isn’t room for one.  The only way you are going to be able to win other than MC is to smash face with your 28 dudes.

Alright, so we only have 4 cards to really play with.  Because of this, we need to make our deck build more narrow.  This deck is going to require a single metod of getting our dudes in the yard, and the creatures themselves are going to have to be able to help out.  Just throwing in 28 vanilla creatures and 4 Wrath of Gods isn’t going to work.  So, before we look at creature selection, we need to decide how our dudes our dying.

Self milling?  Not really an option.  We only have 4 cards to do it, and creatures that mill almost always jsut mill the creature they do combat damage to, and we can’t attack ourself.  I also don’t believe Dredge is an option, as returning our guys is counterproductive.

How about sacrificial creatures?  Well, the idea is nice, however going that route requires us to actually PLAY 20 dudes, and when was the last time that happened?  Tokens are also not an option as they cease to exist once they hit the graveyard.

Self discard?  Well, unfortunately we only have room for 4 or so spells, so we would need creatures that make us discard upon entering the battlefield.  However, this once again leads to the problem of of having to play our creatures.  Also, unless we have a copious amount of card draw, we are going to run of of hand to discard.  We would need to split our dudes up between discard and drawing, and you would just be miserable if you ended up with having a hand full of one and not the other.  We need to be able to discard and draw at the same time…wait…that means we could…oh…my…god…

CYCLING!

It’s discard AND draw at the same time!  How did I not think of this sooner?  Hell, this blog is named after a cycling deck!  So, we pump our deck full of cycling dudes and go nuts. And as for our 4 other cards…

:O!

Cycle away all our dudes  at instant speed..FOR FREAKING FREE?!?!?!?  HELL YEAH!!!!

IT’S LIKE…LIKE…LIKE THE ONLY WAY THIS DECK COULD EVER WORK!

Phew.

So, we have a basis for a deck, how about that decklist!

Lands

4 Polluted Mire
4 Drifting Meadow
4 Remote Isle
4 Blasted Landscape
4 Swamp
1 Island
1 Plains

Creatures

4 Viscera Dragger
4 Shimmering Barrier
4 Drifting Djinn
4 Sandbar Serpent
4 Disciple of Grace
4 Disciple of Law
4 Disciple of Malice

Spells

2 Selective Memory
4 Mortal Combat
4 Fluctuator

Since the deck is so combo oriented I only have a few quick things left to say about it:

As you see, it cut it to 22 lands to fit in a couple Selective Memorys.  This will let you get the extra Mortal Combats and Fluctuators out of your deck once you get going so you don’t hit dead cards on your cycling.

Also, I only included the cycling lands of the colors that the deck uses.  Having off color lands is pointless, and a few basics isn’t going to kill the deck.

Finally, this deck will not ever beat graveyard hate, so if you run into a Leyline of the Void, Tormod’s Crypt, or Relic of Progenitus, you just lose.  Period.

Well, that is it folks.  it has been a long haul, be we finally got there. (not the nice book end there with the first post in the series?  oh yeah, I’m a genius.)

Join me next week when we have another wacky deck, and this time the deck will likely win by deal 20 points of damage…maybe…

Wacky Wednesday – Big Song

Hello again everybody, and welcome to another edition of Wacky Wednesday!  We are coming down the homestrech.  Next week we finish up our series of “you win the game” deck!  However, before we atart worrying about next week, there is the small matter of THIS week’s deck.  This week we need to go big.  I mean, really, really big.

Hmm, so a 20/20, that could be kind of rough.  There are dozen of ways to get there.  We could go with some fatties pumped by Auras and Equipment, but that would take a lot of cards to achieve.  We could use the card as designed and just let it pump our guys until they hit 20, but that is going to take a long, long time.  A serviceable option is to use something like Ivy Elemental and an infinite mana combo, however we just had an infinite mana combo a few weeks back, so I don’t want to go that route again so soon.  So what are we to do?  There are not creatures printed that are 20/20 (unless you wanna count BFM from Unglued, but Un cards are a whole other article.)  No, whilst there are no creatures printed at 20/20, there are single cards that can get there.  Serra Avatar or the Avatar token Ajani Goldmane makes are options, but slow and fragile ones.  We need something faster and more resilient.  hmmmm…

A 20/20 flying and indestructible token?  Hells yeah!  Now, we just need to generate 30 mana to make it…oh, wait, no we don’t.  We have the mondo combo that defined Extended prior to it be cut down a few weeks back.

Alright, so now we have our three key cards, so how about that decklist?

Lands

4 Dark Depths
4 Vivid Crag
4 Vivid Marsh
4 Reflecting Pool
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 Vivid Grove
4 Vivid Meadow

Creatures

4 Vampire Hexmage
4 Dark Confidant
4 Bloodbraid Elf

Spells

4 Mayael’s Aria
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Lightning Helix
4 Demonic Tutor
2 Nature’s Claim
2 Amulet of Vigor
4 Sensei’s Divining Top

Manabase

Now, this deck is pretty color intensive.  Double black for Hexmage, and RGW for Aria. We need to get those colors as soon as possible, these best way to do that in my opinions is the classic Vivid Lands + Reflecting Pool manabase.  Throw in the singelton Urborg and give us the possible turn 2 Marit Lage and we are set!

Removal Package

Swords is the premier targetd creature removal spell.  All white decks should run it if possible.  Lightning Helix is another solid piece of removal, against both dudes and Planeswalkers. And Nature’s Claim, in my opinion the best Art/Ench removal spell ever.

Card Advantage

I went over how awesome Dark Confidant is last week.  Throw him in long with his best buddy, Sensei’s Diving Top, and he becomes even more awesome.  Even without DC Top is still awesome.  Top also fixes your Cascade of Bloodbraid Elf.  ohhhh yeah.  And of course, Demonic Tutor is just awesome.

Amulet of Vigor

Just a nifty card.  Get your Vivd lands into play untapped.  Pretty sweet.

Well that is all for this week folks, join me next week for the long awaited finale!

Wacky Wednesday – Are You Experienced?

Hello there, and welcome to another Thursday edition of Wacky Wednesday.  Sorry for the late post again, but my intenet connected computer is a old piece of junk that has issuses quite frequently.  Anywho, I’ll table that before I get going on a big rant about it.

3 more decks!  Only 3 more decks left based around the “You win the game” cards.  This week we have the newest entry in the collection.  The card that has, in my opinion, the greatest flavor text of all time.  Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Near-Death Experience

Hmm, one life at the beginning of your upkeep?  That is doable.  Now, I need to point out that this will NOT trigger if you have more than one life when your upkeep starts, so you can’t put yourself to one during your upkeep, you will have to be at one at the end of your opponent’s turn.  So, what we need is an instant speed method to get ourself to one.  Unfortunatley we can no longer use mana burn for this.  However, there are still numerous ways to go with this.  The red route will allow you to burn yourself down to one.  However, most red burn does multiple points of damage, so getting to exactly 1 can be rough.  Nothing would be more miserable than have only a Lightning bolt for burn in your hand and being at 3 life.  What this deck will need is ways to get to the exact life total you need, and be able to do it no matter what you life total is. There is only one solution to this: Black.

Black is such a wonderful color.  It specializes in destruction, however black is special.  Black can do anything other colors can do, merely at the cost of spending some life.  Normally this can be risky, but we are trying to gt to low life, so we can make quite good use of this.  So, a black instant that can put us from whatever we are at to exactly one?  Well, one of my all time favorite cards can do that.

So there we go.  A cheap, easy, and instant way to get to one life reguardless of where we start at.  So now we have a nice combo.  However, this is still one problem.  We are at one life. Being at one from your opponents end step until your upkeep is a long time.  All your opponent nedds is one point of instant speed damage and you are dead.  I had been struggling with this for a while, which is why I had not made this deck weeks ago.  Thankfully, the greaness that is Magic 2011 gave me the perfect answer to this dilemma.

Oh yeah, free troll shroud baby.  Even better, it is an enchantment, which most decks that would be able to kill you during their end step simply can’t deal with.  Well, alright then.  We have a nice core deck concept, time to brew up the rest.

Near-Death Experience

Lands

4 Marsh Flats
2 Swamp
2 Plains
4 Tainted Field
4 Caves of Koilos
4 Scrubland
4 Godless Shrine

Creatures

4 Dark Confidant
4 Tidehollow Sculler
4 Platnium Angel

Spells

4 Near-Death Experience
4 Vindicate
4 Vedalken Orrery
4 Yawgmoth’s Bargain
4 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Plunge into Darkness

Dark Confidant

DC is one of the best cards ever printed.  An extra card ever turn.  Now I know what you are saying: “Why not just use Phyrexian Arena?  It gives you the same effect but only costs 1 life!”  Yes, that is true. However, DC has advantages that make it simply better.  The most obvious one is that you have the ability to hit a land with it, and not lose any life.  However, the bigger advantage by far is that it is a creature.  This gives it two distince advantages.  Firstly is that it is significantly easier to get rid of when it is about to kill you.  You can sacrifice it to Plunge into Darkness to gain some life if you need to, you can block with it, or you can let your opponent kill it with their own removal, which they will likely do to stop you from getting cards.  Secondly, as a 2 power creautre, you can bash face with it!

Tidehollow Sculler

Sculler is another favorite of mind.  It’s a bear that lets you disrupt there hand.  What more could you ask for?

Platnium Angel

Big plats is also good in this deck.  She provides a second way to survive that time spent at one life if you don’t have a Leyline out.  She can also bash face, and she can keep you alive if your Dark Confidant tries to kill you.

Vindicate

Quite simply, the most effient targeted removal ever. 3 mana, any card.  Greatness.

Vedalken Orrery

Love this guy.  Being able to do ANYTHING instant speed is just awesome.  imagine this scenario.  You have 7 mana and nothing in play but a Leyline.  Your opponent goes to his end step.  ou spend 2 of your mana for a Plunge Into Darkness, going to 1.  You then find a Near-Death Experience into your hand, and cast it right then and just win on your turn out of nowhere. Nice.

Yawgmoth’s Bargain

You may be thinking: “Wow, that card is insane!”  You are correct.  Bargain is crazy.  You know a crd is crazy when it is Restricted in Vintage.  Now, some of your friends might complain about that, in which case I would suggest replacing it with Greed.  However, if they don’t complain…ooooohhhhh yeeeeeaaah.

Well, that is all for this week.  Only two more decks to go!

More Fail

Due to technical issues, Wacky Wednesday is being pushed to Thursday.

I suppose I could try to post in from my phone via email, but…no :|