None of this should be taken to imply that I'm any great shakes as a player. I've got lots to learn, as recent matches have demonstrated. The point of this commentary is that for me, half the game of Magic is in brewing, and when I have to play net deck vs. net deck, I feel like we've started watching Star Wars at the trash compactor scene. That's what makes the Brewer's Battles so awesome -- we get to play the full game of Magic.
A couple of Brewer's Battles ago, I put together a couple of medium-strength decks and loaned them out to friends. One played a Selesnya populate-based deck with the added little bonus of splashing black for Pack Rat, since it turns out the easiest way to multiply rats is to get one token into play and then populate the heck out of it. I got to watch him play a hilarious game against GP San Antonio champ Tyler Lytle, who despite repeatedly casting Mutilate couldn't keep the tokens from spiraling out of control.
Couch Pirate Jake needed a last-minute deck, so I tossed him the Golgari brew I had been thinking about playing, with lots of Splinterfright and Lotleth Troll action. I never got to see it in action, and I don't remember how well he did, but he said the deck was good enough for a Brewer's Battle, so I'll take that as a win.
In the meantime, I played this crazy idea I'd had with Call to the Kindred and Worldspine Wurm. Naturally, I lost every match, and every game except one: the one where I successfully landed a Wurm and proceeded to bash face with it. It was the one moment that made the rest of the evening entirely worthwhile.
I'm no stranger to the fast, cheap aggro strategy. I have a (self-brewed, tyvm) Burning-Tree Emissary deck that I love and which tends to do very well. But there's something about dropping massive creatures on the board that really appeals to me. Dropping Champion of the Parish on turn 1 is good, but seeing an opponent's face after a "too expensive to be castable" creature hits the board is AWESOME.
I like Travis Woo's various ramp decks, and I like that some of them are putting poor unemployed rares like Tyrant of Discord back to work. I also like the fact that he doesn't refrain from doing something just because someone says it can't be done. Turns out Craterhoof Behemoth can get the job done. Who knew?
So with Travis as my inspiration, and Wizard's Norman's Joseph McKinney as my sounding board, I set out to build ramp decks for the sheer joy of it.
There are two main issues with ramp decks: getting the mana to cast your bombs, and surviving long enough to cast them. Green is the natural choice for ramp, and Farseek is by far the most popular spell. Other green options include Axebane Guardian, who when paired with Gatecreeper Vine tends to produce explosive mana (he landed my Worldspine Wurm). Gatecrash has dropped Verdant Haven and Greenside Watcher in our laps, and there are always the ever-popular "mana dorks", Avacyn's Pilgrim and Arbor Elf. In artifacts we have the various keyrunes, Chromatic Lantern, and Gilded Lotus.
These were the options I started with. My main desire was to see Armada Wurm hit the table, and I had picked up a set of Angel of Serenity on the cheap that also begged to be played. My playset of Thragtusk seemed like an easy choice, as with Restoration Angel to play bouncy-castle with Thraggy and Wurmy.
My main test competition was against my Naya Humans deck, which has gone 4-1 pretty consistently at FNM, with the losses more than likely being my fault as a player rather than a weakness in the deck. I figured if I couldn't beat a lightning fast aggro deck, it probably wasn't worth trying.
My first cut looked something like this:
| Creatures: 4 Arbor Elf 4 Avacyn's Pilgrim 4 Restoration Angel 4 Thragtusk 4 Armada Wurm 4 Angel of Serenity | Spells: 3 Blind Obedience 3 Farseek 4 Oblivion Ring 2 Verdant Haven | Land: 7 Forest 2 Gavony Township 7 Plains 4 Sunpetal Grove 4 Temple Garden | Sideboard: 3 Cathedral Sanctifier 1 Farseek 3 Selesnya Keyrune 2 Sigarda, Host of Herons 3 Wasteland Viper 3 Young Wolf |
I played it against Joseph's Naya something (humans?) build, and it struggled. Opponents tend to waste no time these days nuking mana dorks, and even if they don't you're generally reluctant to chump block with them, which gives the enemy free beats to your face. I went home a little disheartened, and almost went to the following FNM with my good old reliable Emissary build. Somewhere in the next 24 hours, I discovered my new favorite ramp spell: Heartless Summoning. Sure, it messes up your creatures a bit, but if you're playing with big enough dudes it probably doesn't matter, given that the field average seems to be about a 3/3 or smaller.
Throwing caution to the wind, I splashed black, tossed away my mana dorks, added some Centaur Healers for early blocks and lifegain, and loaded up on Heartless Summoning. The deck I took to FNM looked like this:
| Creatures: 4 Centaur Healer 4 Restoration Angel 4 Thragtusk 4 Wolfir Silverheart 4 Angel of Serenity 2 Elderscale Wurm | Spells: 1 Tragic Slip 3 Farseek 3 Heartless Summoning 4 Oblivion Ring 3 Ultimate Price | Land: 2 Cavern of Souls 2 Forest 4 Overgrown Tomb 2 Plains 4 Sunpetal Grove 4 Temple Garden 2 Vault of the Archangel 4 Woodland Cemetery | Sideboard 3 Cathedral Sanctifier 1 Farseek 3 Selesnya Keyrune 2 Sigarda, Host of Herons 3 Wasteland Viper 3 Young Wolf |
To be honest, I added in the Cavern of Souls out of habit. I'm not sure it was a good decision, but I've spent so many FNM's not being able to play at all due to counterspells that I'm gun-shy about it. Also, the sideboard is sloppy because I was in a hurry at the end.
The deck performed pretty well, and I was only stymied by one player who had an evil build around Zealous Conscripts with Cloudshift, though he missed the opportunity to perma-steal my creatures. I completely threw away a game vs Travis Woo's Black Wolf Run (piloted by Chris Allen) due to my own stupid failure as a player, and might possibly have been able to win that match had the event not completely rattled me.
What's best though, is that I had a lot of fun playing it. Dropping big creatures is a blast, and seeing people look a little confused when the "unplayable" card lands and messes up their plans is a great feeling. One opponent found himself frustrated by the fact that I refused to block while my Elderscale Wurm was sitting on the table, instead opting to just swing in the air over his dudes while casting Thragtusk after Thragtusk. And yeah, he was totally holding two Tragic Slip to nuke the Wurm had I killed one of his guys.
With those experiences under my belt, I came back to the drawing board and have been giving it another go. The options I see in other underplayed cards just look like too much fun to pass up, and I've already discovered some highly entertaining combos that I can't wait to try out on the unsuspecting.
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