As long as I don't open them in a booster pack, I love crap rares. In fact, I love them so much, I oughtta marry them. Unfortunately, even in Canada this is still illegal. So, for the time being at least, I will have to hide the secret pleasure I get from this conversation:

"So, how is that good?"

"You'll see."

A Quick Lesson In Becoming A Target
In multiplayer, there are many ways to get noticed, not the least of which is to use Nivea skin lotion. Trevor Childs wrote an article a little while ago in which he explained that in multiplayer it is often better to play smaller, less-obvious threats, lest you incur the wrath of the table. The Voice of All diverting attacks or swinging for two will typically be much lower on the list of "Stuff your opponents have to deal with" than the more powerful Akroma, Angel of Wrath.

In the interests of creating unnecessary jargon, I will call these threats Red Alert Level Threats. What I will term Yellow Alert Level Threats are usually combo pieces (but not always), or the kinds of cards which tie a deck together and allow it to function, but aren't perceived as a significant threat. Often this is because your opponents don't know what exactly you're planning to do with the cards. Fist of Suns, for example, is ignorable in the sense that it does precisely jack squat on its own.

Yellow Alert Level Threats can be upgraded to Red Alert if people have figured out your game plan - after you cast that fourth-turn Myojin of Night's Reach using Fist of Suns, for example. In future games, Fist of Suns is going to give you a lot of unwanted attention as people groan and say, "Oh, you're playing that deck..."

The deck I'm about describe contains a handful of rares that fall into this category.

Build enough decks with these kinds of cards and you may get a "reputation" in your group. Consequently, strange or "crappy" cards, in general, can leap from Yellow Alert status to Red, strictly because you played them.

Worse yet, making your multiplayer opponents have to read the cards you play is definitely not a good idea, especially if the card has some unusually unpleasant effect.

To illustrate:

You: I'll tap a Mountain to cast my Crazed Goblin.

Opponent: Crazed Goblin, you say? That sounds dangerous. What does it do?

You: [long-winded explanation]

Opponent: Isn't that, like, the worst card ever?

Now, contrast that wholly imaginary scenario with this one:

You: I'll tap seven Swamps...

Opponent: "Whoa, that seems like an inordinate amount of Swamps you're tapping. Heavens to Murgatroyd, what are you casting?"

You: "It's a, uh, 4/4 creature from Legions."

Opponent: "Yeah, but what does it do?"

You: [long-winded explanation]

Opponent: Let's kill him.

Do you see what I mean?

Before I get to the list, I would like to say that building a deck around one crap rare is easy. Building a deck around, say, fifteen of them presents a bit more of a challenge. The precise crappiness of the rares I have chosen can be debated all night long provided you cook them breakfast in the morning. I am in no way saying that these rares are Mudhole-caliber, but really, who wants to spend all week reading about Traumatize + Mudhole + Sway of the Stars decks? Not me and certainly not Billy.

Judging by the raging popularity of Mark Gottlieb's exercises in extreme mana denial involving Mycosynth Lattice, even the most casual of players can appreciate being shut out of the game entirely - provided the process is complicated, unwieldy, fragile, and expensive. Not unlike my last relationship. (No more ex-girlfriend jokes, I promise).

That said, here's the dreck - er, I mean deck:

U/R/w Patronizer

One of These Things is Not Like the Others
4 Patron of the Moon
3 Peacekeeper
2 Fountain Watch
1 Meloku the Clouded Mirror

33% Less Crap than a Pile of Crap
4 Eon Hub
4 Sunder
4 Mana Flare
4 Phyrexian Lens
4 Blood Oath
3 Wild Research
2 Territorial Dispute
1 Brand of Ill Omen
1 Squeeze
1 Illusions of Grandeur

It Can't All Be Crap, Can It?
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Burning Wish
1 Cunning Wish
1 Sol Ring
1 Mox Diamond
1 Chrome Mox

Please Don't Play Blood Moon
4 Caldera Lake
4 Grand Coliseum

Okay, Enough With the Crappiness
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Shivan Reef
4 Flooded Strand
4 Volcanic Island
4 Tundra
4 Island
4 Mountain
2 Plains
3 Glacial Chasm

Sideboard Wish Targets
1 Replenish
1 Planar Birth
1 Braingeyser
1 Tinker
1 Overmaster
1 Armageddon
1 Fireball
1 Upheaval
1 Cleansing Meditation
1 Pyroclasm
1 Time Stretch
1 Beacon of Immortality
1 Force of Will
1 Evacuation
1 Capsize

The decklist, unnecessarily large as it is, reminds me of one of those Magic Eye illusions. Keep staring and eventually you'll be rewarded. Okay, maybe not, but here's your best case scenario, or as I like to call it, The Section Where You Don't Cringe:

The Section Where You Don't Cringe
Turn 1: Land, go.

Turn 2: Land, Mox, Mana Flare, go.

Turn 3: Land, Patron of the Moon, go.

Turn 4: Land, go. At the end of your opponent's turn cast Sunder, then use the Patron's ability to return your lands to play.

Turn 5: Land, Eon Hub, Territorial Dispute, go.

This is the part of the show where we dance. Or dodge flaming projectiles. How was I to know people like to play land?

Now, as I'm sure you've noticed, the mana is uglier than Miss Northern Ontario and curves in roughly the same places. Barring an early Mox or Ancient Tomb, you won't be doing much until turn 3. Even then, if your opening play is a Phyrexian Lens, your only path to victory may be to hope that your opponents' pants-soiling fit of laughter distracts them for two or three more turns.

Given that, Mana Flare becomes the most important card in the deck. It seems counterintuitive, since this is supposed to be a mana denial deck. The thing is, this is a bit of a trick deck, with little resiliency. You're basically going to have to do something dramatic in a single turn, since your opponents ought to be able to put two-and-two together, especially if you are forced by circumstance to play your cards in an undesirable order.

Still, you might be able to fly under the radar for a while, since about one-half of your cards, like Null Rod and my coworkers, do nothing, but don't count on it. I think I have included enough stuff to keep you alive, just in case everyone turns on you before you can lock them out the game.

Synergy: Not Just For Good Decks Any More
One of the best things about trying to exploit a crap rare is the feeling you get when you find another crap rare that combos with it perfectly. I've already written about using Whirlpool Warrior and Uba Mask to effectively Mind Twist your opponents before your Lavaborn Muses and Avatars of Will go to town on their life totals. Sometimes, these crap rare combos even see tournament play, with the most obvious example being Illusions of Grandeur and Donate. There are others, of course. In particular, I like Terravore and Balancing Act - which combined nicely with the Invasion and Odyssey sac lands, back when they were legal in Standard.

I would be remiss, and even more remiss than usual, if I didn't point out the hilarious and kidney-punch inducing synergies in the deck listed above. Hark:

Sunder + Patron of the Moon
Sure it costs twelve mana. One-sided Armageddons haven't been this pricey since I cast a Radiate on my Chain of Acid after animating my lands with Kamahl, Fist of Krosa. The advantage of this combo is that you can do it over a couple turns if necessary. Cast the Patron first, obviously.

Territorial Dispute + Eon Hub
This was the nastiest thing I could think of using Eon Hub.

Sunder + Blood Oath
It's too bad Blood Oath doesn't hit each opponent - but we have to play the cards we're dealt, or in this case, mashed together at random. Late in the game, you can easily send twenty damage straight to The Dome, c/o Nug Ya, PO Box 1337, Alameda, CA, 90112.

Blood Oath + Brand of Ill Omen
This one takes a bit more time, but the result can be very similar to Sunder + Blood Oath. Brand of Ill Omen is obviously best against unusually creature-heavy decks such as Elf, Zombie, or Goblin decks. I recommend slapping Brand of Ill Omen on an Elf as soon as possible, since their mana production will allow the Elf player to exploit Sunder and Territorial Dispute + Eon Hub better than you can.

Eon Hub + (cumulative) upkeep costs
Hopefully, Peacekeeper, Glacial Chasm, and Illusions of Grandeur will be enough to keep your life total in the pluses as you go about assembling your combo.

Eon Hub has the side benefit of neutralizing (or at least weakening) many commonly-played cards which have powerful upkeep triggers such as Phyrexian Arena, the Bringers of the Various Dawns, the Kamigawa Shrines, and the card I wrote about last week, Defense of the Heart.

A Few Notes On Some of the Cards

Meloku the Clouded Mirror
I feel like I'm betraying the spirit of the Challenge by including this... but what are you gonna do? Replace it with Impatience, for one. This is about the only crappy, rare, non-attacking damage source that doesn't require mana and doesn't trigger at the beginning of your upkeep... you know, just in case you have Eon Hub, Territorial Dispute, and Peacekeeper on the board, with no land and no Patron of the Moon.

Peacekeeper
I'm still undecided on this slot. I originally had Propaganda here, but then I realized that Propaganda and Mana Flare is not a combo. Peacekeeper gets slightly better with Eon Hub, but significantly worse with Sunder. Perhaps I should just go with plain old Swords to Plowshares, or, keeping with the crap rares, Harsh Mercy.

Squeeze
As we all know, one of the downsides to Mana Flare is that your opponents will typically get to use the extra mana before you do. What usually happens is that the opponent whose turn follows yours will deploy some huge threat and use the remaining mana to cast an Orim's Thunder with the Kicker, destroying your Flare and probably your Peacekeeper, too. That's why I've included the Fountain Watches.

The other obvious problem is that someone, usually playing a mono-black control deck, will cast a series of nasty sorceries with the mana boost, not the least of which is Consume Spirit. Hence the Squeeze. Making Corrupts cost nine with a Mana Flare in play isn't particularly devastating to the Black mage, but at least you will have slowed down any kind of Bubbling Muck or Mirari nonsense. Plus it really puts their nethers in a vise after a Sunder - something which the D. Terlizzi artwork amply demonstrates.

If Squeeze is too narrow for your tastes and you're certain that you're going straight to hell anyway, go ahead and play Trinisphere. It's actually a good idea, given what the deck is trying to do. Chalice of the Void wouldn't be too shabby, either.

So it's decided then. Squeeze it is.

Phyrexian Lens
Now, you know you're a bad rare when you are made obsolete by a common (Darksteel Ingot). That's gotta be a serious blow to your self-esteem. [Tell me about it - Fanatical Fever, eyeing Predator's Strike, dare I say, green with envy] You're going to need artifact mana after Sunder, and the usual suspects (Fellwar Stone, Star Compass, Talismans) are either entirely useless in this scenario, are not rare, or weren't purchased by me, intentionally, a few years ago for reasons that elude me to this day.

Tips on Playing the Deck
Don't.

Thanks for reading!

Chris Millar
Cmillar2 at hotmail dot com.

In case you missed 'em:

Old Man Gottlieb
Geddon Warmer

Trevor Childs
Surviving the Rumble: Spikes CAN Play Multiplayer!