Crawl From The Wreckage

Yes, Dragon's Maze previews are happening! Which is awesome but I don't know enough about the set to really comment, so that will have to wait for a few weeks. Instead, I'm going to talk about what I do know.

First, I made changes. Orzohv did bring some goodies in Gatecrash that I feel could make this deck stronger, so adaptation then testing.

I really like Divinity of Pride but as a one-of that costs five, I just felt I couldn't afford it. This card wants a dedicated deck or a Commander one. Next up was the Blind Hunter, which was difficult to axe. Four mana for a four point life swing, a body and the potential for another four point life swing is a really good deal! However, with all of the cheap spells that I can cast I felt this would be an opportunity to give the new Extort mechanic a whirl.

Three Kingpin's Pet came in to test the mechanic and two Zealous Persecution were added because of how they can swing a combat step in my favor, kill tiny creatures (tokens especially) and it's low casting cost means that it's easy to pay the Extort if that's available.

I had a couple games against Fuz who was playing a prototyped GW Auratog deck. Essentially, Rancor + Auratog = some bad times.

However, the trouble with the aura based deck is that it didn't have a lot of resilience and when I cast Unmake on the Auratog in response to the casting of Rancor, there wasn't much left for him to do. I put Edge of Divinity on a Gwyllion and rode that pony.

I was reminded how cool the 'Hidden' enchantments in green were; the biggest drawback to them is that they are generally 'sideboard' cards--things that become creatures based on something the opponent has or does (artifacts, nonbasic lands, etc.) But there's still a deck there and I look forward to helping Fuz make it a better one.

It was in the multiplayer game I had last weekend that Extort really had an opportunity to shine. It was a simple three player chaos match, yet I managed to land a midgame Kingpin's Pet that allowed me to Extort twice, giving me an eight point life swing (four for me, two from each opponent) before the Pet was killed. Eventually, I lost the game but the bleeding mechanic was effective.

My issue at the moment is that it feels like something is missing from this deck. A piece that should be there but isn't. When I played against this deck I would just die to 4/4 fliers hitting for 8 on turn 4 so I'm a little concerned that this deck isn't giving me as consistent results.