Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Rid Of You

I stumbled on this great song title by a little known group called Monsterland and decided that it was perfect, given what this deck wants to do. This is the decklist I went with:
4 Crystal Ball
2 Druidic Satchel
4 Sundial of the Infinite 
4 Galvanoth
3 Charmbreaker Devils
4 Hunted Lammasu  
4 Dragon Fodder
3 Mystic Speculation
4 Sudden Disappearance 
2 Waylay
2 Midnight Haunting 
3 Island
4 Evolving Wilds
9 Mountain
8 Plains
So far, the manabase seems to be pretty awesome, which is amazing. The combination of Scry and Evolving Wilds really helps get the colors needed when they are needed. The other thing is that while I do have some mana flood, I can sort through it using Scry effects and it's all good. A final bonus is almost always having the mana needed; turn 6  has 6 lands.

With that list, I sent it out to the brain trust to see what they thought, as well as running it myself a few times. Many of the suggestions had to do with making Sundial work more or how would cards like Humble interact; the difficulty was that I felt many ideas would've diluted the already weird focus this deck has on a three card combo. Still, there was interest so maybe other people will have different designs.

In the meantime, I took this version on the road. Or to my dining room table. My girlfriend was kind enough to take on this deck with...faeries.

So yeah, I got beat down. That said: I felt the deck made a good showing, because the games were close. Everything seemed to work like it was supposed to so I couldn't complain there, faeries is just a better deck than a new creation like this is going to be able to defeat.

I had another matchup against W/B lifegain + spirits. I won one of three games, losing one game notably because I could cast Sudden Disappearance but I couldn't use the Sundial that turn. I may have jumped the gun, feeling too anxious in that moment.

Finally, I went against a mono-green deck and despite that deck having mana issues in the first and games, I couldn't dig fast enough and the cheap beats beat mine, so I lost. The second game: I got the combo, ta-da!

I continued with some goldfishing: there were hands where I would get multiple Hunted Lammasus and no Sundial. You really, really don't want that, so I cut a Lammasu but I couldn't find a card I wanted in that slot that I liked. I also cut a Plains because I need red more and with all the Scry effects, I kept seeing more lands than I needed.

I ended up going with-of all things-Spawning Breath. Truth be told, this is one of those moments when I wish I had more Magma Jets but I don't so I'm finding out what I can use. Spawing Breath dinks a small creature and gives me a potential mana boost. There's only one, though if it works out, maybe it should take the place of Druidic Satchel. I'm not sure, because in initial tests the Satchel was pretty awesome: Land boosting, scry-synergies, the occasional life boost or chump blocker. These things are pretty good.

So why not run a 3rd, right?

Because I want more spells I can cast for free with Galvanoth. It's really that simple-my desire to use Galvanoth trumps the cool things that the Satchel can do, at least for now. Another thought might be to remove Waylay, since Hunted Lammasu has the 'drawback but awesome with Sundial' bit cornered, and is a pretty awesome card in that role. This could give me space for more flying spirits, which, when needing to survive is pretty helpful because flyers can block more creatures.

There are a few solutions and they two come from the same place: cannibalize the decks I have Magma Jets or Pyroclasms in. I mean, I could dick about for eons trying to find the right card or I could just use the best one I have and revisit the deck I took it from. Rid Of You needs two things: Scry and a low-level sweeper effect that will give me time. I can't have both, so I'll have to pick one and go from there. Thematically, this would lead nicely into next week, so that's a compelling motive.

Another tactic might be to run Overmaster, which has some pretty interesting applications for this deck, to me. Even if it ends up getting cast off of a Galvanoth, I'm getting an extra draw--in addition to the extra draw that Galvanoth provides by letting me cast a spell off the top and dig into the next card of my deck. But being able to cast the lock spell I need without interference is so important that it might overrule the board wiping effect.

That idea is so interesting to me, I think I'm going to try it. Here's what it will look like:
4 Crystal Ball
2 Druidic Satchel
4 Sundial of the Infinite 
4 Galvanoth
3 Charmbreaker Devils
3 Hunted Lammasu  
3 Dragon Fodder
3 Mystic Speculation
4 Sudden Disappearance
3 Overmaster
2 Waylay
2 Midnight Haunting 
3 Island
4 Evolving Wilds
9 Mountain
7 Plains
To finish this off, a green version of Rid Of You might look like this:
4 Forest
4 Jungle Shrine
8 Mountain
8 Plains

4 Crystal Ball
4 Sundial of the Infinite

4 Galvanoth
3 Charmbreaker Devils
4 Hunted Lammasu (Could be Hunted Troll for extra terrible)

4 Dragon Fodder
3 Assault/Battery
4 Sudden Disappearance
2 Waylay
2 Midnight Haunting
3 Ferocious Charge
This could be an interesting start for someone; I just brewed it up as a mental exercise.

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