Tuesday, April 22, 2014

The Casual Gamer



It's almost time to Journey Into Nyx!

The spoilers have all been released and one of the most interesting cards to come out is Athreos, God of Passage. His ability and casting cost make him one of the most powerful cards to be released in the block. He doesn't do damage with his ability but takes life. That means his damage can't be prevented. In a black/white weenie deck he quickly forces your opponent into a lot of tough decisions.

I for one had one thought when I first saw Athreos and that thought was that he created a perfect match for Purphoros.

In my mind these two are the power couple of Magic the Gathering. When working together they make a weenie deck something to truly deal with. Damage when you enter and lost life when you die (or rebirth for 2 damage). That means to deal with a basic 1/1 from entry to attack to death you could hang 6 damage with a little engine that could. Finally we feel the true power of Mon's Goblin Raiders. (You've played this game too long if you get that joke)

Why even play anything but creatures. I haven't tossed a deck together yet but 24 lands, 6 gods, and 30 low casting cost creatures sounds like fun to me. The thirty creatures don't even matter. Just grab ones that die easily. That is why I call this deck idea, "The Suicide Squad".

The only problem is that Athreos is already sitting at roughly $30 and Purphoros is quickly climbing towards $10. To run 3 and 3 will end up costing you close to $120 just in gods. Even with thirty cheap creatures and land you're still dropping close to $125 for a deck. Not a price tag this casual gamer is comfortable with. Then again my birthday is coming soon and price tags get fuzzy around that time.

Until then I am still working on my land destruction deck. Last week I had talked about Junk Jund and gave a bare bones alpha deck list. As you'll see a lot usually changes between Alpha and Beta deck construction.

Earth Day Is Cancelled 
(Name Under Review)

Creatures: 15

4 Elvish Mystic
4 Satyr Hedonist
3 Voyaging Satyr
4 Ember Swallower

Spells: 22

3 Magma Jet
3 Mizzium Mortars
4 Bramblecrush
4 Demolish
4 Desecration Plague
2 Peregrination
2 Frenzied Tilling

Lands: 23

10 Forest
13 Mountain

Sideboard: 15

2 Fog
2 Pithing Needle
2 Ratchet Bomb
3 Scouring Sands
2 Mindsparker
4 Peak Eruption

As you can see I've dropped the black from this deck and decided to streamline it with just green and red. That causes less mana problems in the early game and the introduction of Desecration Plague made black very expendable. I've also started to fill in the gaps with the deck to help deal with any issues that might arise.

The main focus is of course on land destruction. The earlier the better. In a perfect world your first four turns go like this:

Turn 1 - Forest into Mystic
Turn 2 - Mountain into Hedonist
Turn 3 - Mountain into Swallower
Turn 4 - Forest, sac hedonist, and monster Swallower.

That's a 7/8 attacking on turn 4 as your opponent watches three lands go bye bye. You lose three lands too, but luckily you've got enough mana producers to keep you at 2 mana with the ability to roll out more quickly.

The sideboard is built to help against certain matches. If somebody plays any red then sideboarding Peak Eruption is a must before game two. Ratchet Bomb takes care of token decks for 2 mana and Needles stop heavy planeswalker decks. I like Mindsparker to spank on control decks.

Again this deck will have holes. It also has a price tag more comfortable than The Suicide Squad. The Mizzium Mortars are the highest priced card in the deck and those should only run about $4. Even with sideboard nobody should pay more than $25-30.

It's now time to actually put this deck together and begin play testing. Keep checking back for future blogs to follow the progress of this deck (and it's new name).

Until then remember we have our Prerelease tournament this weekend. Currently 20 of the 48 slots have been reserved. You can preregister by stopping into the store. The tournament sign up starts at noon and deck construction begins at 1:00 PM SHARP. First prize will get a booster box of Journey Into Nyx and each player is guaranteed to win a booster pack of Journey Into Nyx. Entry is $25.

Can't wait to see everyone this Saturday as we finally take a Journey Into Nyx!

1 comment:

  1. Never even hit me, the combo with Athreos and Purphoros. Have I mentioned I love getting these blog updates in my RSS lol?

    ReplyDelete