Ah, the crap rares. Nothing wakes you up in the morning like going into your local gaming shop, buying a booster, opening it up and finding a Tide of War staring you in the face. Yes, we've all been victim to these Abominations (actually, Abomination is uncommon, and isn't that bad), and they have terrorized every person who has ever bought a booster pack.

Bad rares really suck; you wasted hard-earned money on a pack, only to get a card that is useless to you. You can only trade a crap rare to someone who wants to collect the whole set, some fool you can trick into trading (if you don't have morals, that is), or to some Johnny that is interested in building a deck around it.

With that said, it's time to make these bad rares useful for a change, I think I'll start with Tempting Wurm, Leveler, and Mudhole.

Wait - what's that? I already did those three? Well, I guess I'll do three different ones instead. I wonder if the Ferrett ever gets annoyed at me citing my past articles. (Nope - The Ferrett, who loves cross-references)

To start with, lets begin with a card that is the bane of all multiplayer groups without sleeves: Confusion in the Ranks (though Thieves' Auction is also pretty bad). Confusion in the Ranks is a mess to play with (or against), as you constantly have to change control of permanents and choose new ones of which to gain control. Also, you can't keep anything you play after you lay down Confusion in the Ranks since the ability is not a "may" (of course this would defeat the purpose of the card).

But Confusion in the Ranks works rather well with a few types of cards: cards that can't be targeted, cards that have multiple permanent types, token generators, enchant creatures, and cards that can dodge the exchange. Note that if one target leaves before the exchange is done, the exchange does not occur. Also note that phasing does not trigger "comes into play" abilities.

Lands (25)
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Darksteel Citadel
4 Great Furnace
4 Shivan Reef
4 Island
2 Mountain
2 Undiscovered Paradise

Creatures (23)
3 Frenetic Efreet
3 Flametongue Kavu
4 Razorfin Hunter
3 Timid Drake
3 Ghitu Slinger
4 Sea Scryer
3 Raven Familiar

Spells (12)
4 Confusion in the Ranks
3 Nuisance Engine
2 Sword of Fire and Ice
3 Diplomatic Immunity

The deck has one of two paths to victory: Option number one is to steal your opponent's permanents while getting back yours. The other way is to win through beating your opponent down with your own creatures. Some of the tricks the deck can pull would be stealing land using Undiscovered Paradise, stealing creatures with Timid Drake, giving your opponent creatures in which they can't pay the echo, using Nuisance Engine, and playing the oh-so-evil Diplomatic Immunity.

The way "enchant creature" cards work with Confusion in the Ranks is simple. First, the enchantment goes on the stack and you choose the creature you wish to enchant. Then, the Immunity comes into play, enchanting that creature. After that, you choose an enchantment your opponent controls that you would want. You and that opponent then swap control of the enchantments. You now have control of a different enchantment, but you will still have your creature be the one enchanted with Diplomatic Immunity. Your opponent controls it, but since Diplomatic Immunity doesn't have any choices the controller can make with it, it shouldn't be an issue.

Aside from this, there are other clever tricks you can play with the stack that will allow you to keep your Kavus if you don't feel like giving them up. It is truly a fun deck to play - a little clunky at times and a real nightmare if your group doesn't have sleeves and you're all playing blue/red decks, but overall a fun deck.

With Confusion in the Ranks dealt with, it's time to move onto another crap rare: Krark's Thumb. The thumb has a distinct disadvantage over other crap rares, mainly in the fact that you must use random cards... And by random, I mean coin flips. This is not exactly what most people want to do, especially since most coin-flipping cards tend to be bad cards themselves. Also, you can't have multiple Thumbs out in play to help you, and extras just sit in your hand until the first Thumb is destroyed. Still, coin flipping can be some fun - and with a little Un-help (help from the Un sets), a pretty interesting deck can be formed.

Land (24)
2 R&D's Secret Lair
4 Volcanic Island
4 Shivan Reef
4 Caldera Lake
8 Mountains

Creatures (20)
4 Goblin Bookie
1 Scoria Wurm
3 Dumb Ass
2 Mogg Assassin
3 Wild Wurm
3 Goblin Psychopath
4 Frenetic Efreet

Spells (16)
4 Krark's Thumb
2 Wirefly Hive
1 Mirror Gallery
1 Chance Encounter
4 Goblin Tutor
4 Squee's Revenge
2 Risky Move

As you can see, the deck is all about flipping coins. You win by beating down with your creatures or by another bad rare by the name of Chance Encounter. The deck tends to be a lot of fun, even if you don't get your Wild Wurm to stick the first time, or if you get killed by your Goblin Psychopath, or perhaps can't block the two fliers heading at you because you killed your Wirefly while trying to make another. I know from playing the deck that it can sometimes be annoying to be Thumb-less for a bit - but that is where the Goblin Tutors and Squee's Revenge come in. They help make your deck more consistent despite the interactions on the board may be inconsistent (who am I kidding, these tutors aren't consistent either). The deck also features three other bad rares other than the thumb; Scoria Wurm, Risky Move, and Chance Encounter.

As previously stated, the Encounter serves as an alternate win condition if you've been winning flips, but you just can't seem to kill your opponents. The Risky Move, on the other hand, serves as pseudo-permanent creature take. Sure your opponent gets to choose what creature to give up, and there is a chance that an opponent might gain control of one of your creatures, but it's still a lot of fun.

As for Scoria Wurm, he's just a cheap beater. One rather cheap combo is also in the deck. If you have a Frenetic Efreet and a Chance Encounter in play, you can activate the Efreet several thousand times for several thousand flips. Chances are in your favor that ten of these flips will land in your favor. This, in turn, gives you ten luck counters on Chance Encounter, which will give you the game.

What? They gave an errata to Frenetic Efreet? Well, we'll just fix that by packing an R&D's Secret Lair or two. Note that Mirror Gallery allows you to play multiple of both the legendary Thumb and Lair - and where multiple Lairs do nothing but give you more mana, the extra thumbs let you flip double the coins.

As I have previously stated, the deck tends to be a lot of fun to play, and it is hilarious when your five-power beat sticks totally destroy your opponent(s) or take down other creatures in combat that are far better than they're worth. If you wish to add green for Flock of Rabid Sheep, be my guest. I would venture to guess that you could even streamline the R&D's Secret Lair/Frenetic Efreet/Chance Encounter combo with green, but I'll leave that to someone else.

(Aside from that, since the green version could go off with the combo more often, the name could be Flipping Off...okay, it wasn't that funny.)

With two rares down, there's one more to go. Just like the other two, it's red. But, I'll actually be showcasing one other fairly bad rare in the processes - except that it's white. The first rare is Grand Melee. Yes, Grand Melee is a pretty bad rare, since it doesn't really do anything other than forcing everyone's creatures to attack and block. All it serves as is a catalyst to creature combat - and since it usually doesn't help you or do anything you would particularly enjoy, it sits in the trade binder.

The second Marquee rare of my last deck none other than (drum roll) Hold the Line. This too is a bad rare, waiting for the situational occurrence when your opponent attacks with multiple creatures. Yet Hold the Line is usually nothing more than a more expensive Righteousness. But nothing says "screw you" to your opponent other than playing one crap rare, forcing your opponent to attack, and then playing another crap rare to kill all their creatures. Sure, you need to figure out how to put up a defense if all your creatures are attacking - but vigilant creatures seem to solve that problem, if your opponent's creatures didn't all die to your blockers.

Land (25)
4 Battlefield Forge
4 Plateau
4 Tendo Ice Bridge
1 Kor Haven
4 Mountains
8 Plains

Creatures (20)
1 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
1 Fumiko the Lowblood
4 Avenger en-Dal
2 Lieutenant Kirtar
4 Expendable Troops
3 Serra Angel
3 Alaborn Grenadier
1 Godo, Bandit Warlord
1 Jareth, Leonine Titan

Spells (15)
4 Grand Melee
4 Hold the Line
3 Vengeful Dreams
4 Sensei's Divining Top

The deck focuses on one main objective: defense. From the vigilant creatures to the Avenger en-Dals, to even almost every single other non-creature spells. Heck, even one of the lands serves as a defensive weapon.

The deck's early turns are spent building up your mana and playing your little guys and beating down. Later, when you have enough mana to play the melee and use some of your defensive powers, you play the melee in your main phase after your combat. On your opponent's turn, they'll be forced to attack you - and they'll suddenly have all their forces trashed by your superior defensive creatures like Lieutenant Kirtar, Jareth, Leonine Titan, and others. This is, in turn, backed up with things like Hold the Line and Vengeful Dreams to make sure your opponent will hate playing against the Grand Melee deck.

Fumiko serves as a great defender, since she's a pseudo-copy of the melee and leads the forward charge when you're attacking. Godo is just in there for overkill in using your vigilant creatures and lone samurai. As for the Divining Tops, they serve as a one-drop and are used to help straighten out your draws. The Avenger en-Dals and Vengeful Dreams serve as great defensive cards (as I have previously stated), but they also can discard anything that's clogging up your hand (like extra copies of the Melee or frivolous land).

If you wish to tweak the deck to create a cheaper version, you could always use cheaper substitutes like AWOL or Wing Shards. Possible creature replacements could include things like Defiant Vanguard, Mine Bearer, or even Sentinel, which is kind of a crap rare in itself.

I hope everyone enjoyed my little bad rare tangents as much as I enjoyed. Actually, I hope you enjoy it more than I enjoyed it.

Matthew Lubich