Back To The Primitive

Once upon a time, I tried to make a deck that was Standard legal. How long ago?

Invasion block, which is 14 years ago. You can see the skeleton of the block in Back To The Primitive, no question, and the sonics of the early '00s in the name from Soulfly's debut album. Because times were like that, yo.

3 Pernicious Deed

4 Sword of Fire and Ice

2 Hellhole Rats
3 Gravedigger
2 Thunderscape Battlemage
2 Spiritmonger
1 Darigaaz, the Igniter
2 Darigaaz's Charm
2 Flametongue Kavu
4 Thunderscape Familiar
3 Vulturous Zombie

3 Hurricane
2 Hull Breach

4 Terminate

3 Darigaaz's Caldera
3 Jund Panorama
5 Swamp
5 Forest
7 Mountain

I've clearly changed the deck since then and it's often been OK, at least but it's also been awhile since I've picked it up. Perhaps I've just burnt out on Primitive, after playing it for so long. But, when Viceroy needed Flametongue Kavus, I yanked those from this deck so I feel like now's the time to revise.

In many ways, this deck is emblematic of what I had to do to win when I played all day sessions of Magic; prepare for everything. Hull Breach for the artifact/enchantment destruction, Pernicious Deed as a catchall, Sword of Fire and Ice because Jason didn't play decks that would react to that, and blue and red were often colors I faced.

One thing I'm less than enamored with is the focus on red; why use mono-red cards like Flametongue Kavu when Thunderscape Familiar is there to reduce the costs of green and black spells? In addition, there are a ton of new multicolored spells to pick from so now is a good time to pick something else up. And as it happens, I have two Reaper of the Wilds in the binder that need something to do! If all goes well, I could drop Familiar on turn 2, Reaper turn 3. Not bad.