Why hello! Welcome back to your guilty pleasure, the casual series dedicated to massaging that casual twitch you have hidden away from your competitive Magic friends. Well, probably not, but it sounds good!

Today, I want to do something very simple. I want to build decks! Yay! However, there is one little trick. There’s just one simple little thing to spin today’s article. I cannot use any card that I normally use. No Swords to Plowshares, no Goblin Bombardment, no Harmonize, nothing. The only exception – lands. I don’t want to screw up mana bases.

Other than that, nothing else is allowed.

This way I can build fun decks with a different slate of cards with the intent of just having some fun and unearthing some goodies. Are you ready? Here we go!

MBR (Mono-Black Recursion) Featured by Abe Sargent on 2009-06-21 As written about in http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/multiplayer/17629_The_Kitchen_Table_291_Lets_Build_Some_Decks.html Print this deck!
Maindeck: Creatures 4 Fog of Gnats 2 Necrosavant 4 Nezumi Graverobber 4 Skinthinner 4 Undead Gladiator Instants 2 Death Denied	Legendary Creatures 2 Akuta, Born of Ash 4 Korlash, Heir to Blackblade Sorceries 2 Dread Return 2 Infernal Harvest 2 Skulltap 4 Unnerve Basic Lands 24 Swamp	Stats: Average mana: 1.80 Average creature mana cost: 3.00 Average creature power: 2.00 Average creature toughness: 1.25 Deck Composition: Basic Lands: 40.00% Creatures: 30.00% Legendary Creatures: 10.00% Sorceries: 16.67% Instants: 3.33%
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We’ve all played mono-Black decks with severe recursion themes like Nether Shadow, Spirit of the Night, and so forth. What I wanted to do was build a recursion style mono-Black deck, but with slightly different cards that I have used in the past, in order to steer clear of the usual.

I think I have used Korlash, the Gladiator, Necrosavant, and Fog of Gnats once each before, and the other cards rarely make appearances, if at all. However, these are great cards, and the deck really seems to work well. The only card in here I’ve used in more than one deck is Dread Return, but I’ve only used it two or three times, so I think I’m good there.

The two things Akuta needs to shine are more cards in hand and Swamps. Unnerve causes every opponent to discard two cards each, which is very powerful. That can really help you have more cards in hand, plus it’s quite powerful on its own.

Skulltap is a nice small way to draw a couple of extra cards. You can get many of your creatures back easily. Death Denied is a last game house, with the power of an instant Stroke of Genius, returning all of your dead creatures back to your hand for some serious card advantage.

Undead Gladiator is happy to cycle, and then trade places with Necrosavant or Akuta in order to bring them back, or Dread Return with its flashback, or creatures with less value, like Fog of Gnats or Skinthinner against certain decks.

You don’t have much pure removal, but Infernal Harvest can be used to both activate Akuta’s ability and as a late game finisher. You only have two copies, so do not use except in case of emergency.

Nezumi Graverobber is a great early drop, putting pressure on opponents. It is fine just as a way to strip graveyards clean of recursive goodies, so that you are the only one with the toys. If you can flip it, it becomes your recursion engine of death, bringing back any and all creatures you desire as long as you have the mana.

In this deck, I would almost always Grandeur Korlash into two Swamps. It is very hungry. Akuta wants Swamps, and a variety of abilities require mana, from regeneration to the Graverobber and morph.

Skinthinner is a great way to off an opposing creature, and you can do it again off a Death Denied recursion. After that, though, I’d just use it as an extra body, fodder for a Skulltap, switch for Undead Gladiator, and so forth. It’s just here to add to our Density of Creatures.

There are ways to amp up the deck’s power, from Buried Alive to Phyrexian Horror, from Ashen Ghoul to Phyrexian Vault, and from Shriekmaw to Twisted Abomination. Despite all of the regular suspects being absent, the deck still works well and emphasizes card advantage and graveyard trickery. Enjoy!

Slow Burn Featured by Abe Sargent on 2009-06-21 As written about in http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/multiplayer/17629_The_Kitchen_Table_291_Lets_Build_Some_Decks.html Print this deck!
Maindeck: Creatures 4 Avatar of Fury 2 Dominus of Fealty 4 Flowstone Salamander 2 Hateflayer 4 Knollspine Dragon 4 Wall of Diffusion Enchantments 4 Seal of Fire Instants 4 Dead / Gone 2 Shattering Pulse	Legendary Creatures 2 Tahngarth, Talruum Hero Sorceries 2 Fanning The Flames Basic Lands 18 Mountain Lands 4 Forgotten Cave 4 Smoldering Crater	Stats: Average mana: 2.30 Average creature mana cost: 5.55 Average creature power: 4.09 Average creature toughness: 4.82 Deck Composition: Basic Lands: 30.00% Creatures: 33.33% Instants: 10.00% Enchantments: 6.67% Lands: 13.33% Legendary Creatures: 3.33% Sorceries: 3.33%
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This is designed to be a Red control deck instead of your normal Red ANGRY ANGRY fast kill deck. Instead of the normal Red power cards, I decided to go elsewhere for death and destruction.

I have used many of these cards once or twice before, from Avatar of Fury to Wall of Diffusion to Tahngarth and Shattering Pulse. However, none of these cards are on my normal suspects list.

Normally, ask me to do a mono-Red control deck and you’d see cards like Rolling Thunder, Arc-Slogger, Browbeat, Lightning Bolt, etc. None of those are here.

I didn’t skimp on the burn in order to build this deck. I didn’t just want to add burn that was worse than Lightning Bolt and call it a day. In this deck, Seal of Fire is more synergetic than Lightning Bolt because it works well with the Knollspine Dragon. You can sacrifice it before playing Dragon, allowing you manafree two extra cards, or you can drop it down and keep it down despite discarding your hand.

Similarly, Dead/Gone offers you an expensive but useful bounce to supplement the Shock to a creature. It gives you a different and useful kind of versatility which I like.

I really enjoy Flowstone Salamander. Attacking with a 3 power creature with its threat is a really powerful thing to drop onto people’s face. Barring a defender like Commander Eesha, Cho-Manno, Indomitable Ancients, or Silver Knight, this guy is almost guaranteed to get through for 3 damage each attack.

Avatar of Fury can come down later and begin to roar through the air. It takes a lot of heat off your Salamander. People will obsess over the 2 mana 6/6 Shivan Dragon, and not the 3/4 on the ground. Commander Eesha is order to switch blocking duties and frees up your Salamander, while Terminates will now go above and not below.

Joining the beatingness of Avatar of Fury is Dominus of Fealty, another creature than flies and can severely impact the game state. Steal a creature and beat with it. It’s a cheaper and better Bringer of the Red Dawn.

After that, we still have a large number of beaters in the deck. Tahngarth is just a 4/4, but the combination of vigilance and a strong tap ability make for some powerful plays. Hateflayer wants to be declared an attacker. Then it untaps and shoots something or someone for some damage.

Finally, we have my favorite flyer in the deck, rocking seven power of flying beef for seven mana, plus a great ability. Hit with the Flowstone Salamander for three, sacrifice the Seal for two more, and then drop the Knollspine Dragon for a new grip of five cards. Playing this guy after hitting with an Avatar of Fury or a Dominus and a stolen creature is glorious. Knollspine Dragon is a perfect Armageddon-effect under my WALD Theory

WALD Theory:

Powerful cards change the game-state thusly:

Wrath of Gods take a losing situation and move it back to neutral.

Armageddons take a state in your favor, and make is massively more so.

Living Deaths, although harder to set up, can take a game from a losing state to a winning state in one card.

Knollspine Dragon, in this deck, acts as an Armageddon. If you manage to get a hit or two in, you are ahead. Then you drop this and you are really, really, ahead.

The deck features card advantage. Buyback the Shattering Pulse and get multiple artifacts with one card. Knollspine Dragon can easily outdraw the most powerful card drawing spells. Tahngarth and Hateflayer are sources of reusable removal, and Fanning the Flames can be used and reused as creature kill.

In order to help you set up, Wall of Diffusion was deemed to be a strong enough choice to see play. It stops attackers from one flank altogether, and can be played when you are setting up to keep you alive and healthy until the big cards start coming.

Pyrohemia and You

I have built a ton of Pestilence style decks over the years, and I’ve used Pyrohemia just once, despite saying previously that Pyrohemia was flat out better because Red better suited it.

One way to use and abuse Pyrohemia is to run it with high toughness creatures in Red from Wall of Diffusion to Wall of Stone. Then you can Pyrohemia several times each turn, while keeping it around because you have high toughness creatures.

A better way to run it is to use the several “Protection from Red” Red creatures out there – Beasts of Bogardan, Keeper of Kookus, Skirk Fire Marshall, Subterranean Spirit, and Thick-Skinned Goblin.

Another way to run it is to toss in White. Here you can just prevent the damage to all of your creatures (Light of Sanction perhaps) or prevent the damage to yourself (Sphere of Law). There are a lot more Pro Red creatures here, everything from Pristine Angel and Voice of Law to Silver Knight and Disciple of Law.

Right there we have three solid ways to build your Pyrohemia deck. What about a fourth?

Pyrohemia and You Featured by Abe Sargent on 2009-06-21 As written about in http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/multiplayer/17629_The_Kitchen_Table_291_Lets_Build_Some_Decks.html Print this deck!
Maindeck: Artifacts 4 Pariah's Shield Creatures 4 Beasts of Bogardan 4 Keeper of Kookus 4 Skirk Fire Marshal 4 Subterranean Spirit 4 Thick-Skinned Goblin	Enchantments 4 Furnace of Rath 4 Pyrohemia Sorceries 4 Browbeat Basic Lands 20 Mountain Lands 4 Forgotten Cave	Stats: Average mana: 2.27 Average creature mana cost: 3.60 Average creature power: 2.20 Average creature toughness: 2.00 Deck Composition: Basic Lands: 33.33% Sorceries: 6.67% Creatures: 33.33% Lands: 6.67% Enchantments: 13.33% Artifacts: 6.67%
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Here is my new Pyrohemia deck. I pushed the theme as far as I could go with several of the earlier options included. The Pro Red creatures are maxed out with all five here. Note that you have to activate the Keeper and the Thick-Shinned Goblin in order to get them Pro Red.

Pariah’s Shield, on a Pro Red creature, will send all of that Pyrohemia damage to the creature, which will then get prevented. The result of a Pyrohemia activation is that your creature lives, and you take no damage. It’s a good combination.

With 12 goblins in your deck, it is not out of the question to be able to activate Skirk Fire Marshall, which will lead to absolute devastation. Make a few Pro Red, then tap them and dole out 10 damage in one swoop. Rar!

Furnace of Rath is great here. It ratchets up your Pyrohemia significantly, allows your Fire Marshall to dole out 20 at a time, makes Browbeat unbearable and it allows the Subterranean Spirit’s ability to be pertinent to the board.

Browbeat is better in this deck than normally. Opponents are much less likely to be able to afford the five life here.

Since Pyrohemia is the key card in the deck, I added a few of the cycling lands, but not too many, because we have some early drops in this deck, and we don’t want to encourage the player to get rid of too many lands, since this deck wants a solid amount of mana.

Here we are! Enjoy!

Combo-Clasm Featured by Abe Sargent on 2009-06-21 As written about in http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/multiplayer/17629_The_Kitchen_Table_291_Lets_Build_Some_Decks.html Print this deck!
Maindeck: Artifacts 4 Genesis Chamber 2 Goblin Cannon 4 Phyrexian Altar Artifact Creatures 4 Steel Wall Creatures 4 Nether Traitor 2 Uncle Istvan 4 Undercity Shade 4 Wall of Souls	Planeswalkers 2 Liliana Vess Sorceries 4 Night's Whisper Basic Lands 22 Swamp Lands 4 Barren Moor	Stats: Average mana: 1.57 Average creature mana cost: 2.67 Average creature power: 0.56 Average creature toughness: 2.56 Deck Composition: Basic Lands: 36.67% Creatures: 23.33% Artifacts: 16.67% Sorceries: 6.67% Planeswalkers: 3.33% Artifact Creatures: 6.67% Lands: 6.67%
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The interaction between Nether Traitor, Genesis Chamber and Phyrexian Altar is quite alluring. Here’s what you can do:

Have out Chamber, Altar, and Traitor (Or another creature with a Traitor in the yard)

1). Sacrifice the Traitor to the Altar to make a Black mana.
2). Make a 1/1 token off the Chamber.
3). Sacrifice the token to make a Black mana.
4). Return the Nether Traitor to play by spending a Black mana

Net result – 1 extra Black mana is in your mana pool.

Repeat as you will any number of times, and you can have 5000 Black mana in your mana pool. Yay, mana!

What can you do with that mana? Well you could Consume Spirit, but that’s a bit boring, I’ve used Consume Spirit lots of times. You could pump your Undercity Shade and swing with its feared self. One player dead, boom! You could also put a ton of Goblin Cannon activations on the stack, killing every player in the game in one fell swoop. Bang!

In order to set up, we have cards like Uncle Istvan, Steel Wall and Wall of Souls to get you the time you need. Uncle Istvan does not get the respect he deserves but he is fine here. I wanted Will-o’-the-Wisp, but I use them too much so I went with the one drop Steel Wall instead, which is a fine compromise since it is not as mana hungry.

Liliana Vess is my subtle choice here. Use her tutor ability to collect combo pieces and you can get two tutors off her while you defend her from attackers with your 10 defensive creatures. She can also buy you time while she forces discards and pushes your opponent. I doubt you’ll ever get close to her ultimate activation, but it is possible, after all. I mainly used her to get you combo pieces.

And there we have another combo deck courtesy of yours truly. I like building and showing these things off, so I hope you like it!

Okay, let’s do one more before calling it a day.

How about another combo deck?

He Who Loots, Bonds Will He Also Featured by Abe Sargent on 2009-06-21 As written about in http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/multiplayer/17629_The_Kitchen_Table_291_Lets_Build_Some_Decks.html Print this deck!
Maindeck: Creatures 4 Cephalid Broker 4 Fog Bank Enchantments 4 Telekinetic Bonds	Instants 4 Clutch of the Undercity 4 Counterspell 4 Dissipate 2 Stroke of Genius Sorceries 4 Cranial Extraction 4 Deep Analysis Basic Lands 10 Island Lands 4 Lonely Sandbar 4 Lotus Vale 4 Salt Marsh 4 Underground River	Stats: Average mana: 1.97 Average creature mana cost: 3.00 Average creature power: 1.00 Average creature toughness: 2.00 Deck Composition: Basic Lands: 16.67% Instants: 23.33% Lands: 26.67% Sorceries: 13.33% Enchantments: 6.67% Creatures: 13.33%
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Okay, let’s take a look at the combo in this one.

1). Tap a Cephalid Broker on an opponent. They draw two and discard two.
2). Two triggers will go on the stack for Telekinetic Bonds.
3). Tap the Lotus Vale and make 3 Blue mana. Use the first trigger to untap the Vale.
4). Tap the Vale for 2 Blue mana. Use the second trigger to untap the Broker
5). Tap the Broker, putting two more triggers on the stack.
6). Use the two floating mana from the Vale to untap the Vale.
7). Tap the Vale, make 3 Blue mana, repeat as needed.

Now, the beauty of this combo is that it decks players and does not mill them. This prevents any Gaea’s Blessing Shenanigans. You do not have to worry about the Blessings.

However, this combo is stopped by the subset of cards like Legacy Weapon, Serra Avatar, and Darksteel Colossus that shuffle back into the deck. This deck has several ways of handling that.

First, you’ll notice that the deck has a few cards that can force your opponent to draw. If they have 2 Legacy Weapons in their deck, then they’ll have two cards left in their library. Use Deep Analysis or Stroke of Genius on them to force them to draw their cards and then they will die.

Alternatively, you can use Cranial Extraction on them to remove the offensive card from the game, giving you your combo win.

Clutch of the Undercity is included for three reasons. First, it can be used to bounce and remove any permanent that might prevent you from winning that turn. This could be anything from an Ivory Mask or True Believer to a Wild Mongrel with Serra Avatars in the deck (even if forced to draw the Avatar off a Deep Analysis, they can restock immediately by discarding it to the Mongrel).

The Clutch is also useful for transmuting for two cards of high value – Cephalid Broker and Cranial Extraction (it can get Dee Analysis too). The Broker is the most fragile part of your combo, so protect him well. If you are several turns before going off, feel free to Clutch your own Broker and lose 3 life instead of losing it to a removal spell.

In order to find your cards, you can Broker yourself, cycle Sandbars, or play Deep Analysis and Stroke of Genius on yourself.

Please note that if you have out two Telekinetic Bonds, then you can make mana with each tap of your Broker and a Lotus Value out. With infinite mana, Stroke of Genius will flat out kill someone that might otherwise take a lot of Cranial Extractions and such to defeat.

The deck sports a solid suite of countermagic for protecting your cards and keeping you alive. It also rocks Fog Bank in order to persuade attackers to go elsewhere or to block them if they come knocking your way.

…

And that brings us to the close of yet another article. I hope that you enjoyed these 5 decks and what they have to offer. I had fun making them! See you next week.

Until later…

Abe Sargent