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…
This deck is goofy as hell but I dig it :P
Comment by Clayton — August 5, 2010 @ 7:19 am
Just one thought on self-mill: crab people could get that job done, and so far they fit in with the color of this deck. ‘Course, that would take out cycling creatures at this point, but just thought it worth mentioning.
Comment by Ryan — August 5, 2010 @ 12:54 pm