It's funny to think that Casual Magic is a niche market. There aren't any premium casual Magic websites. Nobody's paying to read about my latest two-hundred-and-sixty-three card Battle of Wits deck, and really, who can blame them? Learning how to play Chaos Magic isn't going to help your Limited Rating. Trust me. I should know.

Putting that aside, the vast majority of Magic is played in the most casual of settings. Call me a populist (Communist? Socialist?), but nothing stirs the cockles of my heart like a handful of aging Magic players like myself (24? Time for the nursing home.) sitting down to a game of 5-Color Wheel at the local game shop. I'd like to pretend we're reminiscing or chatting politely, but let's face it; we're shooting the sh** and making obscene gestures.

We're not clutching the cards as though our next rent payment depends on making Top 8. (Although some of us have spent the rent payment on a box of Italian Invasion) We're not stone cold silent, full of latent hatred, or openly mocking the player opposite us… unless of course the player opposite us is the group member that nobody likes. Don't lie; you all have one. In my experience, it's usually Brian.

Not that all the organized Magic I've ever played is like that. Just the unpleasant parts.

That brings me to the point of my article, and yes it does have one. The DCI has done all of us casual gamers the biggest favor by sanctioning a personal favorite format of mine. (Now known as a PFF, say it. It's fun. Pfffff.)

At some point we've all played Two-Headed Giant before. Whether your team had forty or three hundred life is up to your playgroup, though. I'll spare you the rules primer, but suffice to say the format is vastly different than the slugfest a Last Chance Qualifier presents. Everyone in this format has a pal, even if you hate each other. I'll expound on that later.

So let's bridge the gap between Standard and Two-Headed Giant today. While it's tempting to just take a couple of Standard decks and toss them together in a pairing, that's a good way to get murdered. Slaughtered, even. The name of the game with Giant is synergy.

Side Note: I hate synergy. Sympathetic Energy? Blech.

Consider your run of the mill Heartbeat deck. Now imagine you've got forty life to use as a resource, but you're facing down a gaggle of unpleasant threats in the form of a pair of Rumbling Slum/Kird Ape/Insert name of shamefully undercosted threat here. Bet you wish you had some counterspells and a nice, airy blow-everything-up spell to cover your ass. Or even a ridiculously good Standard deck.

Oh, who am I kidding? Just use standard decks, properly tweaked of course, if you want to win. If you want to lose (probably) and have fun (definitely) I've got a pair of decks for you today.

Player 1: We'll call him Bert.

Bert playing “Wil'n Out”

4 Kird Ape
4 Watchwolf
4 Dryad Sophisticate
4 Burning Tree Shaman
3 Rumbling Slum
4 Volcanic Hammer
3 Savage Twister
4 Lightning Helix
4 Shock
4 Flames of the Blood Hand

4 Battlefield Forge
4 Karplusan Forest
4 Sacred Foundry
4 Stomping Ground
3 Mountain
3 Forest
2 Skarrg, the Rage Pit

Sideboard:
4 Tin Street Hooligan
4 Viridian Shaman
3 Scorched Rusalka
4 Naturalize

Bert's Deck is pretty self-explanatory. Deal damage, draw cards, deal damage. Where it shines is in combination with Ernie's deck. Those two. What a pair of cut-ups.

Ernie (a.k.a. Player 2) playing “Cool Hand Luke”

4 Izzet Guildmage
4 Jushi Apprentice
2 Azami, Lady of Scrolls
4 Eye of Nowhere
3 Invoke the Firemind
4 Mana Leak
4 Hinder
4 Remand
2 Disrupting Shoal
4 Boomerang
3 Sensei's Divining Top

4 Steam Vents
4 Shivan Reef
12 Island
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds

Sideboard:
3 Pithing Needle
4 Cerebral Vortex
2 Meishin, the Mind Cage
3 Keiga, The Tide Star
2 Disrupting Shoal
1 Kaho, Minamo Historian

Ernie's game plan is pretty simple too, but there are some important things to consider here.

Normally Azami is the very last creature on anyone's mind when considering serious play. However, if she goes unanswered, which is highly likely considering what kind of threats Bert will be playing, she will (and has for myself) net tremendous card advantage down the line. Plus she can tap when she hits for a card, replacing herself usually.

While a five-mana cantrip that doesn't do anything isn't impressive, consider down the line, when you're tapping Izzet Guildmages for cards while forking Boomerangs. Not. Fair.

Ernie counters anything that disrupts Bert's beatdown action while building towards a late game Invoke the Dragon-With-Poorly-Conceived-Flavor-Text that should support all that hard work that Bert did. And it will be hard. I have another side note…

Side Note: There is a ton of good one-for-one removal in Ravnica. I haven't seen this many even trades since the Canarsies fooled the Dutch into thinking they owned the land that modern Manhattan rests on. (History Majors unite!) More importantly, I need to stop getting two-for-oned using Moldervine Cloak.

Additional Side Note: Moldervine Cloak. Rancor-ing elves all over again.

So, if you've read this far (and you probably haven't so I'll feel free to make fun of you) you probably want some match-ups and strategy and whatnot. Well, I aim to please so if you could give me some two-headed pairings I'll be glad to help you out with that.

To be quite honest, there isn't really a metagame for Two-Headed Giant in my neck of the woods, and any information I gave you on “serious” match-ups would be bogus. So I will instead tell you tales of adventure from the casual section of POP Comics and Games Magic Arena.

Match 1:

Bert and Ernie (a.k.a. The Heterosexual Life Partners) versus Sonny and Cher.

I'm not kidding actually. Sonny and Cher had their names changed a year ago to display their commitment to each other. That is some ironic… irony.

Anyway, Sonny was running the “Worst Combo Deck Ever”™ , this time in the form of… Tidewater Minion/Freed from the Real/Dimir Aqueduct (Please don't laugh at Sonny, he's very sensitive. Plus, he's scary in a I-might-flip-out-and-bring-an-AK47-to-FNM kinda way), while Cher was playing a pretty good Mono-Green Beats deck featuring some Iwamoris (laughable) and Kodama of the North Tree's (Not so laughable).

Game 1: Since I'm Bert, I played a Kird Ape on a Stomping Ground, and while that's not so impressive in a Two-Headed game, my second turn Watchwolf, third turn Burning Tree Shaman, and fourth turn Rumbling Slum amazed the Gods of Probability into thinking we had a pretty good offense going. Not to mention the fact that my partner had played a Jushi Apprentice followed by a Hinder countering a pretty nasty fourth turn Kodama that I was just going to have to attack into with a Slum.

Long story short, we keep their board clear, Burning Tree makes sure that there's no freeing anything from the real, and we go on to Hulk SMASH them into zero life.

Game 2: This time my hand is full of land and a couple of burn spells, so Ernie and I debate whether or not I should mulligan. We don't, and I spend my spells bumping off lil' Green dudes to buy time for Ernie's setup. It doesn't work because I can't shuffle, and I draw a total of three creatures: Kird Ape (Trampled over), Scorched Rusalka (Ditto), and a Watchwolf (There's a pattern), while Ernie gets his Kodama-countering counterspells counterspelled by Sonny's own Hinder. Good game. I guess.

We lose to a Kodama of the North Tree that I can't target. Where was that stupid Twister?

Game 3: Oh, did I mention Azami could draw some cards? Especially when she comes in for free on the opponent's turn 3 with a Jushi down and they don't have a response. Of course, you can't count on good players always playing Bad Cards, so take that with a grain of salt. In any case, Ernie bounced that Iwamori with the duo of cards drawn by Azami and Juicy, and countered it on the replay. I was doing my job, which is hitting in the face mostly. I was a little stalled by a Tidewater Minion that was doing defense department work, but a little burn, a little beats, we win on the back of Flames of the Blood Hand. Nice work, Ogre Guy. You should get some cream for that though. Seriously.

Analysis:

It's a tough call as to whether I should bother with this one. I mean, you're never… ever going to see these decks at a serious event. Besides this one, of course. Let's just say that some quick beatdown and burn always beats a really unwieldy combo deck backed by a color with few answers to your threats. Plus I had counterspells. So… score one for Sesame Street.

Match 2:

Bert and Ernie (Alright, It's Joe and Mike) versus Ryan and Rob

Ryan's playing Ghost Dad, and Rob's playing Counter/Burn. (I think it may have been Izzetron, but he never played any Tron. I didn't either. Tron was before my time.)

Game 1: You know what just kills Ghost Dad? Neither do I. That hurt. With no serious counter backup (It looked like World Counter War III out there), I get molested by Pillories and the like. I know that sentence was in the passive voice, but I did get molested.

Game 2: More of the same. I'm just going to leave it at that.

Analysis:

It was a good matchup for them, plus Ernie's deck just didn't show up this time. To be honest, I think we would have won if some more counters had shown up second game, but no deck is going to win every time. Double that for two decks.

So we're at 1 – 1 on the evening.

Match 3: This time, it’s personal.

Bert and Ernie versus Tim and Micah

Tim and Micah are both running Mono-Blue Ninja decks. Really fun mono-Blue ninja decks at that. But Ornithopters do not constitute a late game threat. Let me expound.

Game 1: Both Tim and Micah play Ornithopters on their first turn. That kinda sucks. But I've got a Shock in hand and that's a Good Thing. When Tim hits the rocks of mana screw and can't get that Ninja of the Deep Hours in, he swears. Oh boy, did he swear. His buddy, who did manage to get that ninja in? It totally got electrocuted.

In the face.

I proceed to play a handful of other threats, like Kird Ape (that monkey sure can swing) and the like. They get in a good chunk of damage before they get Evacuated. Didn't see that one coming. No problem though, as my good friend Ernie has prepared a lovely Invoke the Firemind for them with Flames of the Blood Hand doing the final four points.

Game 2: Here's something unexpected. Imaginary Pet comes in from their sideboard. Are you kidding me? I can't attack through that. So I team Scorched Rusalka with Lightning Helix to take it down. Stupid two-for-one on my part. Amazingly enough, we manage to keep cards in hand. That is to say my partner does, because I play two Dryad Sophisticates (which didn't become unblockable killing machines… stupid mono-color) and a Rumbling Slum and get to face smashing. Another unexpected twist, a pair of Ivory-Crane Netsukes hit the board. They're gaining a ton of life here. So we turn on the heat by keeping my threats on the board with counters, and through the clever use of new bouncing technology - Izzet Guildmage + Boomerang + Mana = Plow Under/Artifact Removal - we manage to eke out a win against a really tough duo.

Analysis:

Not your usual match-up and I think they really did a damn fine job with those decks and their strategy. That said, I don't think mono-color decks have the legs in this new world of shocklands and Zoo-philiacs. Long story short, we whupped em.

So what have we learned from this little experiment? Not much. There's a little synergy between our decks, but nothing really outstanding. It's more like two strategies that you could never fit into a single deck coming together to play nice. It seems to me, and this is a total shot in the dark, that a solid strategy when it comes to Two-Headed play would be to examine the poor match-ups for a given deck, and design a deck that could shore up those weaknesses while providing viable threats of its own. Not necessarily the decks listed here, but I'm sure you can figure something out.

Bonus Strategy Section!

You should run Moldervine Cloaks in any deck that'll have ‘em. I regret not doing it in my build above.

Let me explain.

For the measly cost of two cards, all of your creatures are beefy. That Kird Ape that can't quite make it past a Hierarch can just grow some vines and bust that Ravenous Baloth Wannabe in the teeth. Scorched Rusalka becomes more than just an easy way to keep your creatures from doing damage on the way to the bin and to avoid all those Pillories.

In short, Moldervine Cloak is a freakin' house. Don't just listen to me though. Here are some testimonials (These are all fictionalpleasedon'ttakethemseriouslyplease.)

Zvi Mowshowitz – “X to the forty fifth power = Moldervine Cloak + creatures = A winning percentage above 50% > Losing another game to Lin Sivvi ever again.”

Anthony Alongi – “I love cards, and rattlesnakes, and pigeons. Also I love Moldervine Cloak because it reminds me of my children. My horrifying children.”

Geordie Tait – “Mother%&#@#!@ Moldervine Cloak kicks Mother%&#@#!@ ass… You Mother&$!(@#”

Matt Cavotta – “I don't know what I'm doing commenting on a Magic Card. I don't actually know how to play. I do know how to play with cardboard though. Like my box?”

The Ferrett – “Hundroog!”

See? Solid Gold. [I've gotta get a catchphrase… - Craig.]

Till next time, keep Moldervine-ing elves.

Joe Johnson,
Moldervine Cloak Lover