I will use my personal charisma to bind Darksteel Colossus to my service. I have these visions of him on my side, pounding my opponent to dust. I want him. I need him. And I will have him. I have a plan, you see. And in time, he will be mine! Bwahahahaha!

Look out, Tooth and Nail. I am here to steal your thunder! When do you get your fatties out, anyway? Turn 5? Turn 6? That's way too slow for my taste. I want my Darksteel Colossus out and attacking on turn 4. On a good day, he's pounding my opponent on turn 3. How do I do this? It's easy. And it all starts with one bad rare.

Animal Magnetism.

That's right... Animal Magnetism, that crappy rare from Onslaught that occupies the first green slot of your binder. Reduced to its essence, it has a great ability: put a creature into play from your library. Powerful stuff in the right spell - look at the abusive Tooth and Nail, which fuels one of the toughest decks in Standard right now.

Unfortunately, Animal Magnetism is no Tooth and Nail. It takes this excellent ability and waters it down with two of the worst drawbacks in the game: randomness and giving your opponent a critical choice.

After all, there may be no creatures in the top five cards of your deck. If so, you just wasted five mana doing nothing. That is the worst deal since Swirling Sandstorm - and at least with the Sandstorm, you had an idea if it would be effective.

If there is one creature, that's what you get. It could be Silvos; it could be Birds of Paradise. And if there is more than one creature, then guess what? Your opponent gets to pick the one he thinks is least likely to make a difference to the game state. If you have a creature-light deck, you run the risk of casting a dead spell. If you run a creature-heavy deck, then you run the risk of paying five mana for something that costs less and is worth less. Under these circumstances, any card drawing effect would have been a better deck building choice.

But we don't want another choice. We want to break this card.

All we have to do to break this card is to make the drawbacks go away. How do we take away the randomness and take away the opponent's choice? We have to do these things:

• Ensure that the creature we want is in the top five cards.
• Ensure no other creature is in the top five cards.

The way to get our creature in the top five cards is to put it there. To my mind, the most suitable way to do this is with a crappy uncommon card also from the Onslaught block: Long-Term Plans. For two colorless and a blue, we can take any creature in our library and put him right where we want him - in the top five cards. (Actually, Long-term Plans will always put our creature in the three spot, but we don't care. As long as we don't have to shuffle our library before our next spell, we are good to go.)

Now, how do we ensure that no other creature is in the top five cards? The obvious way: we don't put any other creatures in our deck. We have two to four creatures, but they are all of the same kind. That way, we always get what we want. That makes for a happy combo player. If Animal Magnetism reveals two Akromas or two Myojins of Infinite Rage, we don't really care which one the opponent chooses.

With only one type of creature available, you want a lot of bang for your buck - which is why my choice of targets is the big bad Colossus. An early Colossus means a very short game. He tramples for an immense amount of damage and is indestructible to boot.

And speaking of boots, if he is doing all that stomping, he probably needs some. Lightning Greaves are a good choice. They make your Colossus so fast that he can attack the turn he comes into play and dodges all those pesky spells your opponents may think will stop him. Another benefit of the Colossus is that if your opponent finds a way to deal with him, he often goes right back into your deck, ready to be picked out again. If he is in your hand, use discard effects like cycling to get him back into your deck.

Now for the rest of the deck. We need land and it has to make blue and green mana. We need cards to help us find our combo pieces and, in the worst-case scenario, to slow the opponent down a turn or two.

13 Forests
9 Islands
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
3 Darksteel Colossus
4 Animal Magnetism
4 Long-term Plans
4 Lightning Greaves
4 Chrome Mox
4 Rampant Growth
4 Moment's Peace
4 Serum Visions
4 Thirst for Knowledge
2 Break Asunder

Other options I tested for the deck included Echoing Truth, Condescend, Tel-Jilad Justice, Naturalize, and Serum Powder. These turned out to be useful sideboard cards, depending on the matchup. This deck needs cheap card drawing and deck-fixing effects to help set up the combo in the first few turns, so scry is a very useful mechanic. Index is actually useful in this deck.

The deck's ideal draw is an opening hand with two lands, Chrome Mox, Animal Magnetism, Long-term Plans, Lightning Greaves, and Serum Visions. Turn 1 you lay island and Chrome Mox, removing Serum Visions, then play Lightning Greaves. Turn 2 you draw a land and play a forest, then Long-Term Plans for Darksteel Colossus. Turn 3 you draw a colored spell, play the second Mox removing the just-drawn spell from the game, which gives you the five mana necessary to cast Animal Magnetism for the Darksteel Colossus, equip it with the Greaves and beat for eleven. Oh yeah!

Now, wasn't that a nice daydream?

Let's wake up.

Playing the deck, I discovered that the combo goes off more often than not by turn 5 or 6 (and in my play testing, "more often than not" means a bare 55% of the time). Sadly, in almost any competitive environment (including Extended, for which this deck is legal), that is far too slow. I never did get a turn 3 Colossus attack, though it's possible, but I had the occasional turn 4 beatdown.

The deck did some nice random things in play testing. Darksteel Colossus has nice synergy with Thirst for Knowledge. I once was desperate enough to use Animal Magnetism without Thirst for Knowledge and lucked into a Colossus. It didn't save the game, though, since what had caused my desperation was a white weenie rush - and one big guy, no matter how indestructible, couldn't stop the masses. In another game, I had problems getting my combo pieces, but did manage to cast eight Moment's Peaces in a row. Yes, my opponent was a little irritated.

This deck will not win you any tourneys. It may win you some games and even the occasional match. As a casual deck, however, it is viable, it is fun, and playing it will improve your game. It has so many early turn choices. Do you play your Serum Visions on turn 1 or drop a Mox and play Rampant Growth to accelerate your mana base? Do you play Thirst for Knowledge on turn 3 to search for the last land necessary for your combo or do you cast Long-term Plans and gamble that one of the two cards above your Colossus will be a land? Do you cycle your Break Asunder?

Of course you do. Naturally, your opponent then slaps down Worship on his next turn. Oops.

All right, I confess. This deck is not strictly better than Tooth and Nail. But in any given game, it can be. If your Animal Magnetism and careful planning nets you the toughest, baddest minion available, you will have a good game.

Even if you lose.