"What've we got?"

"He stumbled in off the street a few minutes ago. Mana ratios are severely unbalanced, land count is low, and his mana curve is erratic."

"How's the creature count?"

"High, but it's inflated by numerous sub-optimal inclusions."

"What's his body mass index?"

"78 cards."

"My God! He's morbidly obese! We need to operate!"

The doctor flew down the hall, dodging interns and carts, and a few seconds later, the hospital's PA system crackled to life. "Chhhhk - Doctor Mox to operating room four, stat. Doctor Mox to operating room four, stat." The doctor then dodged, dipped, ducked, skipped, slithered, and squeezed his way back down the hall and wheeled the patient into an elevator. The elevator stopped on the seventh floor with a "ding!" and a serious looking man, clad in a white surgeon's suit, stepped across the threshold. His face had deep wrinkles around the cheeks and mouth, and his receding hairline and furrowed brow framed an expansive forehead that looked as if it would make an excellent place to stick a post-it note. One hand cradled a portfolio, out of which peeked a copy of Tobogganing and You.

The man spoke.

"Doctor Yawgmoth? I was expecting Doctor Lotus. Are you headed to O.R. four?"

Yawgmoth replied, "Lotus is in Geneva assisting on a cranial extraction. And yes, I'm headed to four."

"Those his stats?"

"Yes."

"Oh my... Jetta will be most displeased. I'll have to cancel our appointment to have her false eye polished. But as to the patient - we haven't a moment to lose! He's in critical condition!"

The elevator doors rumbled open and in no time the deck was under the bright lights of the O.R. table.

"There's so much askew that I can't decide where to begin. Maybe a mana infusion?"

"No, that would improve his mana ratio, obviously, but he's far too unstable for that. My suggestion would be a malincantamentectomy* of eighteen cards."

"I concur, Doctor Mox. Let's cut the worst spells and worry about the mana afterwards."

The doctors' hands moved expertly through the deck, and soon the lands and the spells had been separated into two piles. This was how most of their operations started, but when the patient's life is on the line, nothing is routine. Beads of sweat began to gather on Dr. Mox's forehead, and Dr. Yawgmoth's shaven scalp began to shine more brightly under the O.R. lights.

"Did you see anything glaringly out of place?" asked Mox.

"Well, Stream of Life seems like a good place to start," returned Lotus.

"But why!?"

"Who's that? Out, vermin! Where are your parents?"

"That would be me," said Lotus, helpfully. "It's take your child to work day. This is Timmy."

"Well, Timmy," said Doctor Mox, "You want to be a deckbuilder like your old man? Well, here's your first lesson. Lifegain is a blight upon the deck, a tumor and a waste."

"Certainly you're being a bit harsh," returned Lotus, "I can think of several instances during my career where a dollop of lifegain was welcome, even necessary, and recently we've seen some cards that have really pushed the envelope on what lifegain can do."

"Yes, but the inclusion of lifegain is the exception, not the rule. If further tests show that it's needed, we can add it then."

The decks innards were splayed out on the operating table. Out came Stream of Life, out came Sacred Nectar, out came Beacon of Immortality. Out came Heroes' Reunion, out came Natural Spring. In the background, monitors buzzed and the machine that goes "ping!" pinged its small metal heart out.

"Are you done?" asked Timmy.

"Hardly," said Doctor Yawgmoth.

"Time for creature enchantments, I presume?" said Mox.

"Indeed. You see Timmy, most of the time casting a lifegain card is like taking a mulligan. There's another category of cards for which this generally holds true, and that is creature enchantments."

"For one thing," said Mox, "they tend to be horribly inefficient. Leonin Skyhunter, for instance, is generally acknowledged to be a pretty efficient creature. Add a Holy Strength, and you've got a 3/4 creature with flying for WWW. Add Vigilance, and you've got a 3/4 creature with Flying and Vigilance for WWWW. That much mana will buy you a Dawn Elemental, and it only costs one card. For WWWW and three cards, you could have a Leonin Skyhunter, a Suntail Hawk, and a Savannah Lions instead. For one mana more, you could have Serra Angel, which has a point of toughness on the enchanted Skyhunter, and you'd have spent one card instead of three."

"Another reason to avoid them is that if your opponent has spot removal like Shock or Terror, he can kill the creature you're trying to enchant before the enchantment resolves, and often he can kill it later on as well, canceling your massive investment of cards and mana with a relatively miniscule investment of his own.," continued Doctor Yawgmoth.

"We should note, however," said Doctor Mox, "that there are a few historical exceptions to this rule, most notably Rancor and Empyrial Armor-the former is an example of negating the card disadvantage drawback, and the latter an example of negating the inefficiency drawback."

"Furthermore, powerful Auras seem to be strong sub-theme in Ravnica," concluded Yawgmoth. "Many of the set's creature enchantments actually create card advantage if they resolve."

Primal Frenzy never knew what hit it. Neither did Web, nor Hero's Resolve.

"Next, we expand our search to look for all cards that say 'do nothing' on them," explained Doctor Mox, "like most lifegain, and most creature enchantments, but typically less conspicuous. If there isn't a reasonable situation where a non-creature spell could replace itself or trade for one of the opponent's cards, we cut it."

Doctor Yawgmoth's scalpel was merciless and precise. Out came Vassal's Duty, out came Vedalken Orrery. Out came Summer Bloom, out came Monstrous Growth.

"Why did you leave in Giant Growth if you cut Monstrous Growth?"

"Giant Growth is what we in the medical profession call a 'combat trick,'" explained Doctor Yawgmoth. "You can use it on your creature after it has been blocked to kill the blocking creature. Monstrous Growth, on the other hand, is a sorcery, meaning that for it to do anything, you have to cast it during your first main phase, and even then, your opponent can simply not block if he so chooses. Are we ready to move on, Doctor Mox?"

"I think we can move on to the creatures now."

"Indeed. Once we take out the dead weight from the non-creature spells, the creatures typically go under the knife next. We thin the herd, so to speak."

"Why do you cut the bad spells before the bad creatures?" offered the precocious youngster.

"The simple answer," explained Doctor Mox, "Is that even the worst creatures can typically impact the game in ways the worst spells simply can't."

Timmy had a blank look on his face.

"Tell me Timmy," said Doctor Yawgmoth, "How many turns would it take a Chimney Imp to win the game all by itself?"

"Um, twenty?"

"Correct. And how many turns would it take a Telepathy to end the game all by itself?"

"I don't understand... I can't see how Telepathy will win the game at all."

"Precisely! Telepathy can never win the game for you. It can help, certainly, but usually not as much as, well, a creature, which brings us full circle."

"Doctor Yawgmoth," droned the other physician, "I hate to interrupt, but we do have a patient lying on the operating table."

"Right, let's get down to it."

"Oh my. Is that a Body of Jukai**?" chided Doctor Mox.

"Noooooooooo!"

"What's wrong, Timmy?" sighed Mox.

"Oh... for a second I thought you were going to cut that Body of Jukai."

"I am."

"Noooooooooo!"

"You do realize that it costs nine mana?"

"But it's huge!"

"And the deck only has nineteen lands."

"But-"

"And one of those is The Tabernacle At Pendrell Vale."

"But-"

"Which is a good card, but not really a 'land' as we usually use the term."

"But it's huuuuuge! Nothing can stop it! Nothing!"

"Look, young Timkins, when we're done with cuts, this deck will be sixty cards, eighteen of which will tap for mana."

"Bu-"

"But nothing! Nine is half of eighteen, which means to get to nine lands you would have to draw, on average, half of the deck, which, in turn means that this fetid mass of awfulness will come out on about..."

"Turn twenty-four on the play, turn twenty-three on the draw," advised Doctor Yawgmoth.

"Which is a little bit past 'fashionably late,'" concluded Mox. "Now, moving on, let's take care of that Myr Mindservant."

"Ah yes," said Doctor Yawgmoth. "You see, Timmy, there are many small creatures with abilities that are very good. Myr Mindservant's ability, however, is all a ruse. It wants you to think it does something, but it really doesn't. The card is a colorless Fugitive Wizard."

"Speaking of Fugitive Wizard, let's nab him too."

"In light of the fact that this deck has no sources of Blue mana, I'd tend to agree."

"How'd it get in there?" asked Timmy.

"My guess would be accidentally," conjectured Doctor Yawgmoth.

"Or else the owner employed it as some kind of twisted good luck charm," added Mox.

"Yeah... well, only three more cuts to go!" said Doctor Yawgmoth.

"Shall we turn our attention to the curve?"

"I dare say we shall."

"What's a curve?"

"Shush, Timmy, I'll tell you when you're older."

The doctors once again went to work in earnest. Soon the deck's spells were divided into several piles, each pile representing a different converted mana cost. One pile was noticeably taller than the rest.

"Well," observed Doctor Yawgmoth, "it doesn't look like we even have to count. This deck has far more cards that cost four than any other converted mana cost."

"No wonder-most of the deck's best cards cost four," said Doctor Mox. "Iworami of the Open Fist, Blastoderm, Explosive Vegetation, Beacon of Creation...to bad the rest of it isn't of this quality..."

"So what now?" inquired the precocious Timmy.

Doctor Mox answered, "Now, Timmy, we make room in the four slot. The best decks have cards with a variety of casting costs. As your father suggested, there's more to the story then that, but for now we're just going to unclog the mass of tangled four-drops here and hope for the best."

"Might I suggest Oracle's Attendants, Uproot, and Altar's Light, for lack of anything worse?" said Yawgmoth.

"That's as good as anything I would have come up with, Doctor Yawgmoth. Let's do it and move on to the mana base."

A few quick incisions later, and the deck was beginning to look much less bloated. Then the doctors rearranged the cards again, this time into five piles; a pile of green cards, a pile of white cards, a pile of artifacts, a pile of Forests, and a pile of Plains.

"Where does the Tabernacle go?" asked Timmy.

"Out," said Mox, flatly.

"But you said it was good."

"It is. It is a highly effective countermeasure against creature-based strategies. In fact, if I was designing a foil to this deck, I could do much worse than to start with The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale."

"A better strategy might be Stone Rain," said Doctor Yawgmoth, "Because for all its faults, we're only just getting to the biggest problem with the deck now."

"What do you say we just go with the standard twenty-four lands, and adjust the count after we've seen how the deck evolves during our post-op checkups?"

"An excellent suggestion, Mox. So with Tabernacle out of the way, that means we need to make five more cuts."

"And then a mana transfusion, and then we sleeve him back up."

"Agreed," said Doctor Yawgmoth. The two set to work once more, looking for the weak links in much the same fashion as before. When all was said and done, Run Wild, Divergent Growth, Tel-Jilad Lifebreather, Crown of Awe, and Takeno's Cavalry were extracted and disposed of.

"Excellent," said Doctor Yawgmoth. "Doctor Mox, what is the ratio of the colored spells?"

Mox was lost in thought for a moment, and then, opening his eyes and un-furrowing his brow, announced "Approximately sixty-five percent White, thirty-five percent Green."

"Sixty-five percent of twenty-four is about sixteen, so we put in sixteen Plains and eight Forests."

The mana transfusion went without incident. The doctors sleeved the patient back up, and left the O.R. for the barns-er, orderlies to clean up.

"Excellent work today, Doctor Mox."

"Thank you, sir, you were an excellent partner. Now I must take my leave. Jetta awaits, and I know better than to keep her waiting."

*Literally, a removal of bad spells. I get to make up words, remember?

**The author whishes to tell Adam Chambers that he once won a game with a **FOIL** Body of Jukai. Or rather by having his Foil Body distract the attention of the opponent's Cage of Hands from his other large attacker, but he cast it and it was relevant, and he figured that was close enough. The author will now stop talking in the third person.

The author will now stop talking.

Grant Babcock
Bobvader314 on the forums.
Not Doctor Mox. Just another fan.
Not a great medical fiction writer, but he tries.