The Black Sheep of the Maro Family
Having played Magic for as long as I have, I've learnt a few things about the game. Life is good; the more life, the better. Creatures like to have high power and be unblocked. Bad cards are really just great ones waiting for the right moment to twist the game into a horrific vestige of its former self. But today, I have a secret for you. When you read this, you'll understand the game better than you ever have before. It will be like parting the fake blue mist in the sky to reveal its true shade - a rather fetching pink. Are you ready to see the light? Here it is:

The more cards you draw, the more likely you are to win.

Okay, so that's not really a revelation. In fact, it's something that every Magic player worth his salt (and even those worth only a sprinkling of pepper) are intimately familiar with. There are other things in there - your deck is never going to win if it focuses on playing Eater of Days twenty times in a turn, no matter how many cards you draw. But generally, if you've got even a mediocre deck, you're far more likely to win if you can draw twenty cards in a turn.

See also: Skullclamp.

Here's my point: Especially in Saviors of Kamigawa, your opponents will want a full hand. Chances are, they've got a ton of tools at their disposal to facilitate this. Enter Ebony Owl Netsuke. The first thing I thought when I saw this card was, "Wow! That card has such a cool name!" The second thing I thought (after repeating the word "Netsuke" to myself for maybe half an hour) was, "I wonder if there are any other cards like this."

So I looked, and was delighted to discover Adamaro, First to Desire, and the power of his dirtiest look, Gaze of Adamaro. Turns out, Adamaro really likes it when his enemies have a full hand. He has the unique gift of being able to hurt people based on how many cards they hold - which makes him excellent in battle, but also means, rather riskily, that the enemy has more resources to fiddle around with.

Of course, in order to hurt someone with Adamaro, you have to be sure that they'll have a lot of cards. Turns out there aren't too many things that make target player draw cards in Standard - but there is one. Adamaro's favourite playmate is Jushi Apprentice, a guy who is initially unhelpful - Adamaro doesn't care how many cards you have. But once you have enough of those precious rectangular sheets of wisdom, Jushi Apprentice flips into a far more powerful tool: Tomaya the Revealer, whose ability allows target player to draw a bunch of cards, instead of cruelly forcing you to draw them yourself.

Making your opponent draw may seem counterproductive - even unnatural. This is because it's a horrendously unwise thing to do. If you just make your opponent draw willy-nilly, there's going to be trouble. In other words, don't let your draw finger get all itchy. Save Tomaya's ability for yourself until you're confident enough in your ability to Gaze of Adamaro your opponent into a steaming pile of ash. Card advantage matters not to ash.

Adamaro, First to Desire Featured by Jonathan Cockayne on 2005-09-25 As written about in http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/10509.html Print this deck!
Maindeck: Artifacts 4 Ebony Owl Netsuke Creatures 4 Jushi Apprentice 3 Pain Kami 3 Sokenzan Spellblade Instants 4 Gaze of Adamaro 4 Oppressive Will	Legendary Creatures 4 Adamaro, First to Desire 2 Jiwari, the Earth Aflame 4 Kami of the Crescent Moon Sorceries 4 Counsel of the Soratami Basic Lands 12 Island 8 Mountain Lands 4 Shivan Reef	Stats: Average mana: 1.83 Average creature mana cost: 3.10 Average creature power: 1.30 Average creature toughness: 2.05 Deck Composition: Basic Lands: 33.33% Lands: 6.67% Sorceries: 6.67% Creatures: 16.67% Instants: 13.33% Legendary Creatures: 16.67% Artifacts: 6.67%
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This deck was originally Blue-Black-Red, incorporating Pain's Reward. I'll admit - I loved the idea of playing the deck often enough that my opponent would learn never to bid any life, allowing me to draw four cards for 2B. I'm not sure if I loved that more than the idea of my opponent bidding ten life to draw four cards that will ultimately hurt him more than they will help. However, realistically speaking, it didn't work that well, and there were too many early double-Blue or double-Red casting cost cards for it to be justifiable.

I still think it would be quite amusing though, so if the idea grabs you, feel free to run with it. I also like Choice of Damnations in the deck instead of Jiwari and the Pain Kami, but that's just because I think the card's really neat.

Healing and Dealing (the Deathblow)
Another card that grabbed my eye in Kamigawa was Horobi, Death's Wail - a card that, if you sort of tilt your head to the side and take a gander at it through a prism, crystal ball, or some other distorting glass object, is kind of reminiscent of Death Pits of Rath. Horobi is interesting to me for two reasons:

1. If you combo it with Endless Whispers, it gets you a bunch of really cool creatures that your opponent had to pay for. This pretty much forms the deck's win condition. Obviously, it's a far less effective strategy when your opponent's deck is less creature-based - but even control decks tend to use creatures for the win, and this is easily capable of winning a shiny new Meloku.

2. You can put it in a regular deck that just uses a bunch of targeting effects, and once it comes into play, the entire deck switches from basic beatdown to a whupass machine. The deck that I have built starts off as a mediocre Black-White beatdown deck, using cards like Samite Healer and Waxmane Baku for their conventional uses. Once Horobi hits the table, Waxmane Baku could easily become a one-sided wrath, and Samite Healer is revealed to have been an evil mastermind all along. I'll bet not even Wizards knew he was this evil.

I find the latter point very amusing. I'd like to think that playing this deck against someone for the first time might go something like this:

Opponent:
You're actually playing Samite Healer? Ha! Your deck will never defeat me - for I wield Umezawa's Jitte, and next turn I'll be able to get some counters and then activate it and your puny healer will be reduced to a 0/0! What good will he be then?

Me:
I play Horobi, Death's Wail.

Opponent:
Well then I'll... OH MY GOD, ALL MY CREATURES ARE DEAD! MY DECK, MY BEAUTIFUL DECK! And what's that? Endless Whispers... OH MY GOD, THEY'VE ALL JOINED YOUR SIDE. CRUEL FATE, WHY DO YOU MOCK ME SO? YOU'LL BURN IN HELL FOR THIS, ISAMARU! BURN IN HELL WITH THE CRUEL, UNSPEAKABLE DEMON THAT IS SAMITE HEALER! Now I must rush off to build a Samite Healer deck in his honor.

Hordes of Spectators:
All Hail Samite Healer.

Or words to that effect. Maybe not words quite that melodramatic.

And I might cackle a little more when Horobi hits the table.

Horobi, Death's Wail Featured by Jonathan Cockayne on 2005-09-25 As written about in http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/10509.html Print this deck!
Maindeck: Creatures 4 Kami of the Waning Moon 4 Leonin Battlemage 4 Samite Healer 4 Waxmane Baku 4 Wicked Akuba Enchantments 3 Endless Whispers	Instants 3 Rend Flesh 4 Soulless Revival Legendary Creatures 4 Horobi, Death's Wail Basic Lands 10 Plains 12 Swamp Lands 4 Caves of Koilos	Stats: Average mana: 1.68 Average creature mana cost: 3.00 Average creature power: 2.00 Average creature toughness: 2.17 Deck Composition: Basic Lands: 36.67% Creatures: 33.33% Lands: 6.67% Legendary Creatures: 6.67% Instants: 11.67% Enchantments: 5.00%
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I really like the subtlety of this deck - I've tried to make it as dual-mode as possible. All of the targeted abilities that I've provided for hurting stuff with Horobi should be useful even if you never see a Horobi. There are sixteen Spirits and seven Arcane spells to activate Waxmane Baku and Kami of the Waning Moon - so basically, you get to neutralize a creature for free if you have one of those two creatures in play with the majority of the spells in the deck (although with Waxmane Baku you will need to pay one). Leonin Battlemage serves a similar purpose.

I decided on a Black and White build, although I did create a Green alternative. I just didn't like it as much - partially because I appreciate the irony of Samite Healer becoming a cheap Visara the Dreadful, but mostly because the number of Green creatures with repeatable targeted effects in Standard at the moment is few. The main point that Green had over white was Natural Affinity, which puts even more kick into Horobi's already muscular tail.

Oh, and be careful. Remember that Horobi is symmetrical, so when you play him, your opponent's four Samite Healers also become death machines, targeting your Horobi... or worse, your own Healers. If your opponent has targeted effects when Horobi comes down, be prepared to lose him... but take out all of your opponent's creatures, too. And if this happens while Endless Whispers is in play, insanity will ensue.

Play Them to Slay Them
The Kamigawa Dragon Spirits have seen a lot of tournament play. It doesn't take a genius to figure out why - for one, they're all 5/5 fliers, which makes them tough to dispatch and tough to defend against. For another, they all have a converted mana cost of six, making them cheap and playable, especially Keiga and Ryusei, each of which require only one colored mana. (Incidentally, neither of them have seen much tournament play - what does that tell you about them?)

Oh, and in case you hadn't noticed, they have pretty nifty effects when they're killed, too.

So basically, these cards are big beatsticks that hurt as much dead as they do alive. But here's the thing... wouldn't you pay 4WW just to tap five of your opponent's permanents and have them skip an untap? Isn't five of their life coming around to your life total worth a measly 4BB? And wouldn't you pay 5U to get one of their creatures?

My answer to the first question is, "Hell yeah!"

My answer to the second is, "Okay, I guess that's pretty good."

My answer to the third is, "No, I'd rather just play Confiscate. It's superior in every way."

So, to sum up, Yosei, the Morning Star and Kokusho, the Evening Star rock. Keiga the Tide Star does not. But he's sticking around for now, so we'll just have to ignore him and hope that he goes away.

Okay, so we've established that you'd pay six mana for Kokusho and Yosei's death effects alone. Now I'm thinking, "How much would I pay for double that effect?" Ten mana? How about... 3BB?

Yeah, that sounds pretty good. Enter Patriarch's Bidding.

I've long thought that the Dragon Spirits and Patriarch's Bidding are ideal buddies. Your opponent gets some creatures out of it, sure, but that's nothing when your two Yosei pop into being, catch sight of one another, do a double take, consult the Legend Rule, then take a slam for the graveyard, making a bunch of your opponent's stuff very sleepy for a while. And it's nothing compared to the twenty-life swing that a pair of Kokusho will give you.

And if you manage to get both of those things happening off a single Patriarch's Bidding... well. Your opponent will probably be in tears.

Okay, so that's all well and good. But I want to do that every turn. How much would I pay to do that every turn? Well... I can't rely on getting a Bidding for more than four turns consecutively, which isn't going to happen unless I've covertly stacked my deck before the game. So Patriarch's Bidding...

...meet Panoptic Mirror. Panoptic Mirror, Patriarch's Bidding. Panoptic Mirror and Patriarch's Bidding, these are the Dragon Spirits.

I would say it's a match made in Heaven, but people tell me that God really prefers it when only two people join in matrimony. Four is way out... but these are little bits of card, so maybe He won't care that much.

Patriarch's Bidding Featured by Joanathan Cockayne on 2005-09-25 As written about in http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/10509.html Print this deck!
Maindeck: Artifacts 4 Panoptic Mirror 4 Sensei's Divining Top Creatures 4 Sakura-Tribe Elder 4 Undead Gladiator	Legendary Creatures 3 Jugan, the Rising Star 3 Kokusho, the Evening Star 3 Yosei, the Morning Star Sorceries 4 Buried Alive 4 Patriarch's Bidding 3 Zombify Basic Lands 12 Forest 12 Swamp	Stats: Average mana: 2.37 Average creature mana cost: 4.35 Average creature power: 3.59 Average creature toughness: 3.12 Deck Composition: Basic Lands: 40.00% Artifacts: 13.33% Creatures: 13.33% Legendary Creatures: 15.00% Sorceries: 18.33%
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Setting up the combo in this deck is tough, and more often than not you'll find yourself hard-casting or reanimating Dragon Spirits early, if you don't have the time to get Bidding imprinted on Panoptic Mirror. But when the combo actually goes off, it's a really great feeling. You've beaten the system. Your Timmy beatstick became a Johnny game lock. And you didn't even need one Samite Healer.