Why think when someone else can do it for you? This is the reason why many people are employed throughout the world, and why so many gadgets exist. People don't want to bother looking for an item in a shop, so they have a sales assistant to it for them. People don't want to bother to add 1+2, so they use a calculator. In short, people will always want other people – or machines - to do these things for them, because it's easier.

And so you begin to wonder if the theory of “get someone else to do it for you” can apply to, say… Magic.

While they've yet to invent a Magic-playing computer, Magic-playing people abound. I mean, why bother deciding where to send that burn spell, when you have another mind sitting across from you that would just love to help? Sadly, most opponents would rather stick to doing their own thinking. Piloting one deck is hard enough without having to worry about another.

But this is where this rather amusing creation of mine comes in:

The Punisher Featured by Kostya Ross on 2006-03-19 As written about in http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/11506.html Print this deck!
Maindeck: Artifacts 3 Bottled Cloister 3 Chrome Mox 3 Ensnaring Bridge 3 Sensei's Divining Top Instants 3 Overload 3 Seething Song 3 Shrapnel Blast	Sorceries 3 Breaking Point 3 Browbeat 3 Firebolt 3 Lightning Surge 3 Skullscorch Basic Lands 20 Mountain Lands 4 Bloodstained Mire	Stats: Average mana: 1.40 Average creature mana cost: 0.00 Average creature power: 0.00 Average creature toughness: 0.00 Deck Composition: Artifacts: 20.00% Basic Lands: 33.33% Instants: 15.00% Sorceries: 25.00% Lands: 6.67%
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This deck looks like a Burning Bridges deck with a ton of very conditional burn… But it's much more than that. It is a deck that makes your opponent do the thinking. While your opponent racks his mind trying to figure out what to do, you just throw threats out there and relax.

This is not to say that this deck requires no thinking. But taking many of the tough decisions out of your hands makes playing much easier (and much more enjoyable for you). This deck is also capable of doing many rather un-red things, such as forcing discard, drawing cards, and casting Wrath of God.

Think of it this way: you can easily throw out a first-turn Skullscorch powered by a Mox. Now your opponent must decide: do I want to take four damage on turn 1 (a pretty efficient deal for you as a red player) or be hit with a red Hymn to Tourach (a very surprising, but still efficient deal for you)?

The same quality applies to all of the “punisher” spells in this deck. Since you're not doing the thinking, you can enjoy watching your opponent agonize over which is a better outcome for him or her, while you realize that they are damned either way.

This rather odd-looking creation started out rather innocuously. I was pondering Book Burning, thinking to myself: “Hey, this is a mad threshold activator. In fact, if I run Chrome Mox, I can say to my opponent turn 1: either you get hit for six, or I have threshold, right here, right now.” With this in mind, I started looking for red threshold cards. The best one I found was Lightning Surge, since it not only did it hit for a lot of damage, but could also be flashed back. Since I wanted to go off as fast as possible, Seething Song was an obvious choice. In theory, this deck could wallop for either six damage (assuming my opponent let me Millstone myself) or ten damage (assuming my opponent decided to take damage instead) on turn 2! Since I would be milling myself, I looked into several support cards, as well as the trusty land-thinning fetchlands. After this, I was away…

Or so I thought. This build proved rather impractical for a number of reasons. But what I loved was watching my opponents wonder why on earth I was doing targeting myself with Book Burning, and then see the astounded look on their faces when I Surged them (rare as it was). In subsequent games, people were much more wary of letting me mill myself, preferring taking the shot from my Book Burning, leading to a faster game for me and all my face-burn. Since I was a fairly inept player at the time, not having to rack my brains all the time was a welcome relief.

So I thought, “Why bother trying to out-think a better player? Let them try to out-think themselves! That'll show ‘em!”

However, it is absolutely no fun to lose all the time, which this deck tended to do. There are only so many derisive comments you can take before you throw something at your opponent (preferably if said object is sharp, heavy and oddly-shaped, making it difficult to extract). I was beginning to lose hope that such a deck could ever succeed.

And then it hit me like a wagon of bricks. Punisher cards were cool in their effect, and they took the thinking out of my hands. Why stick to just one card, when I can have so many more?

When I recovered from being hit by my analogy, I incorporated all the good punisher cards into my deck, cutting Book Burning out of the equation (heck, I never liked people who burned books anyway). In went Browbeat, Breaking Point, and Skullscorch.

The deck's performance suddenly shot up. My deck actually worked, forcing my ever-suffering opponents to do even more of my thinking. It was a choice between more damage, or un-red effects and less damage. Not much of a choice, really. My strategy changed as well, as I focused on burn to the dome, which together with the punisher cards, allowed me to win through damage before my opponents could come online…

In theory.

Sadly, not every deck was slow enough for that to be the case. All sorts of fast aggro decks (particularly those featuring untargetable or regenerating creatures) could race me by simply ignoring the dome-burn and going for broke. This caused many a loss for me. Furthermore, this deck was pre-Ravnica at the time, and once Ravnica hit, I thought it was pretty much out of the equation. Boros killed it, Selesnya killed it, Dimir killed it… Hell, everything killed it. Sadly, I put the deck away, marking it for deconstruction.

Then I had the fortune of playing a friend, and he had exactly the right deck to give me a thorough caning. At the end of the game, he told me: “You empty your hand real fast. Why don't you run Ensnaring Bridge?”

Suddenly, a huge number of cogs all turned simultaneously in my brain.

What he said was correct, but I needed a guarantee. What better than a card from the very set that murdered my deck? Yes, I could use Bottled Cloister. I don't recall the rest, as I was already pondering exactly what to remove for it

This (finally) brings me to the deck's current build. I still play it on occasion, but only for fun. The deck is very easy to play: simply throw burn at your opponents, accelerate, shut down any attacking creatures with the combo of Bottled Cloister and Ensnaring Bridge, and throw down those punisher cards like there's no tomorrow.

This deck has ways to deal with many threats. Large attacking horde? Hit them with a Breaking Point and watch your opponent wonder what they value more. Alternatively, lock them down with Cloister/Bridge (or Ensnaring Bottle, if you prefer) and watch them dig like mad for their artifact removal. Empty hand? Use your Top to try and find a Bottled Cloister or a Browbeat, and suddenly you're back in the game.

This deck also has plenty of utility. Both Firebolt and Lightning Surge can be fired twice, which makes them ideal for those last few points of damage. Overload is designed to deal with annoying artifacts which ruin your day, while your fetchlands admirably thin your deck so that you don't draw land you don't need. Bottled Cloister, just like Howling Mine in Anti-Social, ensures you draw a business spell every turn, helped along by the Sensei's Divine Top of Cheating.

“But wait a second – why on earth is he sticking to Extended? Surely there are better choices for this deck?” Ah, well, there's a story in that one too. You see, I was actually crazy enough to try and make this deck competitive in the Extended environment.

Back when I was working on this, everyone was testing “post-rotation” decks… So I decided to try my hand at it too. Needless to say, I don't give up easily. Even losing ten or twelve straight times to Psychatog decks couldn't dampen my enthusiasm. I was testing admirably against Goblins (with Aether Vial) and Arcbound Ravager (with Disciple of the Vault), and I thought I had a half-decent competitor that might go 3-2 at a tournament…

And then Ravnica came out.

My deck fell to pieces under an onslaught of new cards that it simply couldn't compete with. Cards like Loxodon Hierarch, Lightning Helix, and Vitu-Ghazi, the City-Tree simply took my deck apart and handed it back to me piece by piece. Even when I added Bottled Cloister, the deck still couldn't compete.

Can this deck be run in Extended? Yes, it can. For those brave souls out there willing to take this deck into that environment, I have a sideboard constructed for this deck:

3 Recoup
3 Shatter
3 Scrabbling Claws
3 Oblivion Stone
3 Sulfuric Vortex

Recoup already works fairly well with my entire deck, and only size considerations stopped me from running it maindeck. I generally use this card against decks that force me to play a longer game (basically any decks with permission, although it is also useful against lifegain). Shatter was included to deal with artifact-heavy decks (read: Ravager), and can sometimes be useful in other situations (such as decks running both Umezawa's Jitte and Sword of Fire and Ice). Scrabbling Claws deal with reanimation decks, as well as providing some saving grace against Tog (little though it is), Oblivion Stones scream “red enchantment killing,” while Sulfuric Vortex deals with the bane of this deck – prolonged or sustained lifegain. Once again, only size considerations stopped me running this maindeck.

Will this deck be able to compete in the current environment of Extended? I doubt it. This deck isn't for that format. It is quirky, fun and potentially explosive, but has nowhere near the versatility or consistency to run in that format. However, if I ever see a version of this deck succeed (no matter how it's been modified), I will smile.

Meanwhile, I will enjoy playing this deck in the environment it should be played in: casual.