Recently, I wrote an article for StarCityGames.com about the latest Type II deck I had been testing; a re-visitation of the old Masques Block Black/Green powerhouse "Snuff-O-Derm." (For those interested, the article can be found at http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/expandsub.php?Article=1054.) From my testing, I've found the deck to be pretty effective (and it's a lot of fun sacrificing six Saproling Burst Tokens and a Llanowar Elves to your Fallen Angel and swinging for seventeen points in one turn).

I've also been testing a few other deck ideas, with varying degrees of success. In doing so, I have to admit that my frustration has been building somewhat. My creativity is feeling a bit stifled.

In an interview last year with Orgg of the Casual Player's Alliance, Wizards of the Coast head R&D guy Mark Rosewater suggested that there were three basic kinds of Magic players. (The whole interview is located http://www.magic-singles.com/cpa/article/get.php?
action=getarticle&articleid=175.)

Maro: "R&D tends to think of the player base as a combination of three different groups who we've started calling Timmy, Johnny, and Spike. Timmy is the power gamer. The Timmys of the world enjoy the adrenaline rush of playing Magic. Casting the giant spell or attacking with the humongous creature. Timmy likes to win and win big . . .. Johnny is the combo player . . .. [He] enjoy[s] the neat interactions of the cards. Players who take great joy in the creativity of deck building. The Johnnys of the world enjoy winning with style. Spike is the tournament player. While Timmy likes to win big, Spike just likes to win period. Spike gravitates to whatever it takes to win."

I very much tend to think of myself as a Johnny. I enjoy card interactions. Sometimes I even find myself playing decks with fun combos and bizarre card interactions built into them even though I know that the decks don't stand much of a chance against the field. I also thoroughly enjoy deck building and tweaking. I don't claim to be great at it, but I enjoy it nonetheless.

So what is there to be frustrated about? Well, the return of multicolored gold cards and the new Invasion block multi-colored lands have really opened up a lot of deck building doors. Whereas last season's Artifact/Masquerade Block Standard environment was filled with predominantly mono-colored decks and strategies, the current Masquerades/Invasion block environment is full of two-color and even some three-color decks.

My problem is that they are all allied colors.

I don't mind designing decks using allied colors, but I also like to have the option of using opposed colors when they complement each other well. However, the fine folks at Wizards of the Coast have created an environment where the card pool favors allied-color strategies to the near exclusion of all others. As playable choices for multicolored lands, we have the Ice Age allied color pain lands (reprinted in Classic, and presumably in 7th Edition as well if the spoilers are to be believed), the Invasion dual-colored taplands, Planeshift lairs, and City of Brass. Of those, only the Lairs and City of Brass are useful if you are playing opposed colors... But neither is really a great choice.

The Lairs are decent, don't get me wrong. They tap for one mana of any of three allied colors. Still, the tempo loss suffered by having to return a land to your hand when you play them can be serious depending on the deck. For instance, in my Snuff-O-Derm deck, I've limited myself to playing two Darigaaz's Caldera in order to smooth out my Black and Green mana production. Any more than two and the Lairs might really stall out the deck's crucial mana production, which could be a severe problem since that particular deck really needs to get to five mana for a Fallen Angel or Burst.

Likewise, City of Brass can be useful at times. However, with Rishadan Port and Tangle Wire both legal and very much being played in Standard right now, the drawback of the City can be pretty painful. As such, I don't really recommend playing them unless you absolutely MUST.

It's a shame that there isn't some other, better solution. There are a number of opposing color decks that I think could approach the level of Tier Two decks with the proper tuning and a solid mana base. Here are just a handful of half-fleshed out deck lists for some opposing colored strategies that I have considered. Of the five, I have only spent a significant amount of time on the Snuff-O-Derm deck. I don't claim that these are optimum versions or that these decks will wreck the current field or anything of the sort. Still, they are interesting decks that could be quite viable in Type II right now with some tweaking and tuning.

R/W - Red/White Land Destruction
4x Veteran Brawlers
4x Chimeric Idol
4x Skizzik
4x Armageddon
4x Stone Rain
4x Pillage
3x Seal of Fire
4x Disenchant
3x Tangle Wire
2x Fire Diamond
4x Rishadan Port
2x Dust Bowl
4x Sandstone Needle
2x Remote Farm
7x Mountain
5x Plains

W/B - Pestilence
4x Glittering Lion
4x Glittering Lynx
2x Cho-Manno, Revolutionary
4x Nightwind Glider
4x Plague Spitter
4x Chimeric Idol
4x Pestilence
1x Marble Diamond
1x Charcoal Diamond
2x CoP: Black
2x Story Circle
2x Cursed Totem
2x Enlightened Tutor
2x Tsabo's Web
13x Plains
9x Swamp

B/G - Snuff-O-Derm
3x Llanowar Elves
4x Birds of Paradise
4x Hidden Horror
4x Blastoderm
3x Fallen Angel
4x Chimeric Idol
2x Snuff Out
2x Vendetta
2x Terminate
4x Saproling Burst
4x Dark Ritual
4x Rishadan Port
1x Dust Bowl
10x Forest
7x Swamp
2x Darigaaz's Caldera

G/U - Mungha Waters
4x Birds of Paradise
2x Utopia Tree
2x Spiketail Hatchling
4x Blastoderm
4x Mungha Wurm
4x Sky Diamond
4x Counterspell
4x Fact or Fiction
4x Rising Waters
2x Harrow
4x Rishadan Port
8x Island
10x Forest
4x Treva's Ruins

U/R - Counter Burn
4x Seal of Fire
4x Urza's Rage
3x Scorching Lava
2x Magma Burst
3x Counterspell
3x Daze
3x Foil
3x Ghitu Fire
3x Brainstorm
4x Wash Out
4x Accumulated Knowledge
4x Rishadan Port
11x Island
9x Mountain

So what's a deckbuilder to do? I've heard a lot of people wishing that Wizards would reprint the Tempest block opposing color painlands in 7th Edition. Alas, it seems like this is not going to be the case. Of course, when you really think about it, the Tempest opposing color painlands aren't even as good as the Planeshift Lairs. Both slow down your mana production a turn (the Tempest lands come into play tapped, slowing you down on the turn they are played, while the Lairs make you bounce a land, slowing you down on the following turn), and the Lairs give you three colors pain-free.

What we really need are opposing-colored pain lands on par with the Ice Age allied painlands. I had hoped that perhaps Planeshift would continue the multi-colored theme by giving us these, or opposing color taplands similar to the Invasion lands.

Even better would be a land on par with Gemstone Mine that could produce any color of mana pain free, but become depleted after a few uses. Trevor Blackwell submitted a card along these lines to R&D as his entry for the 2000 Magic Invitational:

Roxland
Land
Roxland comes into play with two rock counters on it.
T, Remove a rock counter from Roxland: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool.
T: Add one colorless mana to your mana pool.

Presumably, this would have also gained the text "If there are no rock counters on Roxland, sacrifice it." This would have been a great card - but Jon Finkel won the invitational, so this card won't get made. (Of course, it wouldn't have a chance to be printed until the second set of the next cycle anyway.)

I'd love to see opposing color decks get a card along these lines, and I am crossing my fingers to see what Apocalypse holds in store. I have a feeling that it will continue the allied colored theme that the Invasion block has held to so far, but who knows. If not in Invasion, then perhaps we'll see some opposing color lands and gold card in the next large expansion, Odyssey, when it hits the tournament scene this fall.

Ken Collier