They say every rose has its thorn, every up has its down, and every tricky controlling blue strategy has its chaotic, balls-to-the-wall red strategy. In our case, the blue strategy was covered by our very first Turn 'Em Casual article... Tinker. Tinker is many times a beatdown deck, but it is also, in many other situations, a tricky controlling blue strategy. Today, we'll be discussing its much less-subtle red cousin, Wildfire.
Wildfire, like its cousin Tinker, was a World Championship-Winning deck. It was piloted by none other than the German Juggernaut himself, Kai Budde. The deck is very similar in construction to Tinker as well: They both play a core of lightning-fast mana producing artifacts from the Urza's block, as well as some interesting utility artifacts, but Wildfire accomplishes some of the same things done in the Tinker deck a little differently.
Wildfire uses Covetous Dragons to smash the opponent instead of Phyrexian Processor tokens; it uses Temporal Aperture instead of Stroke of Genius or Urza's Blueprints for card advantage; and it uses a red"blow up the world"-style spell for control. Despite all their differences, however, the interesting thing is that both decks use essentially the same strategy: Play quick artifact mana, and either do something to kill your opponent very quickly, or do something to cripple them and give you time to do so. Both can use Mishra's Helix to lock down your opponent's lands... But while Tinker uses Upheaval to reset the board, Wildfire uses, well - Wildfire to cripple your opponents' mana base and leave you relatively unaffected with your copious artifact mana.
Their casual strategies, however, shall be radically different.
The casual version of Tinker splashed for white and used the synergy between Angelic Chorus and Phyrexian Processor to produce huge creatures and constantly increase in life. It was a deck that could end it relatively quickly if no one could find defenses, or could make the long haul to the late game. The casual Wildfire deck we will be crafting today works very differently: It is not designed to make it into the late game. It is designed to wait for a key turn and end the game if possible... Very quickly. If it does not, it has little chance of winning in the end. It is a deck designed to end the game in short order, either for every other player...Or for you. Either way, it's a great deck to break out if you want a short game, but if you're looking for a better long-term multiplayer choice, go with Tinker.
All that said, I bring you casual Wildfire.
We begin with a look at Kai's Worlds 1999 deck:
Lands:
4 City of Traitors
3 Ancient Tomb
13 Mountain
Spells:
4 Voltaic Key
4 Cursed Scroll
4 Fire Diamond
4 Grim Monolith
4 Thran Dynamo
2 Worn Powerstone
2 Mishra's Helix
4 Temporal Aperture
4 Wildfire
Creatures:
4 Covetous Dragon
3 Masticore
1 Karn, Silver Golem
Ah... It was a good one, wasn't it? Well it actually is quite solid in this form as far as multiplayer games are concerned. The problem is that it would take quite a long time to kill everyone else - especially players who are prepared for multiplayer - and you are not equipped for the long game as well as they are. Early Covetous Dragons are well and good, but when you see plenty of Mazes of Ith and even the occasional Island of Wak Wak, you'll have to rely on more than a single creature to win you games.
There are a lot of different possible ways we could turn this into a casual deck; I'll be using my friend Rob's idea. (Rob, if you're reading this, thanks...I always got a kick out of your stuff.)
Basically, Rob's strategy entailed playing out multiple Repercussions and then blasting the board with mass damage spells. This (provided your opponents have any creatures) can deal twenty damage in a hurry, especially to the typically creature-laden decks of the multiplayer world. Since we will be using spells that deal damage to all creatures though, and our strategy is not to win with them, we will be removing all of the creatures from this deck.
GASP!!! I know... But I've tried it, I've seen it played against me. It works.
Not that they're not amazing creatures... But all the Covetous Dragons, Masticores, and Karn come out of the deck.
That instantaneously gives us eight more spots in the deck to work with, which is probably all we'd really need, but there is some excess stuff in there that is sub-par in multiplayer. So we'll yank those, too, and see what we can do with the slots.
The Cursed Scrolls aren't the most amazing thing in multiplayer: They are repeatable damage, but there are a lot of other repeatable damage sources out there. They cost a lot to activate - and more importantly, they cost many dollars. Something that I have been woefully slow to pick up on in this series is the fact that a lot of the conversions I do are extremely rare-heavy, and can cost a lot of money to put together. I will thus make an effort (wherever possible) to cut needlessly-expensive cards. In some cases, I will merely suggest that you replace with whatever you see fit, but in others I will do something with the spot. In this case, we'll be using them for something cheaper. Out go the Scrolls.
Next out are the Worn Powerstones... To tell the truth, in multiplayer I don't think you'll miss them. If you still want the acceleration you can always play one of them as a Sol Ring, and the other as something else. I tend to think they're relatively useless, though, and I haven't missed them. Out they go.
The last thing to get cut are the Mishra's Helixes. We cut them out of the Tinker deck, too, since they're basically useless in multiplayer. You can't get enough mana to target everyone at once - and they tap, so you can't really spread it out well. And you probably won't have the mana to lock down all of your opponents anyway. So long, Helixes!
To Summarize:
-4 Covetous Dragon
-3 Masticore
-1 Karn, Silver Golem
-4 Cursed Scrolls
-2 Worn Powerstone
-2 Mishra's Helix
Now that that's over with, we have sixteen spots to fill. We've already seen our basic strategy, so let's spring off from there.
In go the four Repercussions: Our main strategy will be to play out these babies and then smack down a Wildfire or other such damaging spell and deal lots of damage to lots of critters... Hopefully offing said critter's controllers. This spell is deadly enough when your opponents have lots of creatures, and it's even deadlier in multiples.
The next cards to get put in are four Burning Wishes. Since the deck really wants big splashy sorceries at its disposal in order to burn the board this will be your best tool for finding them. Besides what you have in your deck, you'll want to pack a Wishboard (did I just coin that term?) of a few Infernos, Pyroclasms, Earthquakes, and even a few Obliterates for emergencies. They'll be your best and most useful tool for having what you want when you want it. It also doesn't hurt to pack some extra sorcery targeted burn, too: Think Hammer of Bogardan, Chain Lightning, and Pyrotechnics. Red also provides you with some nifty utility sorceries such as Pillage, Anarchy, and many more. Use them.
I think with all these nice sorceries at our disposal, the deck at this point screams to include my favorite Legendary artifact: The Mirari. The ability to fork the power spells in this deck can be huge: You'll want to have these out early and often. Without the ability to tutor for them and with the Apertures as your only source of card drawing, I think three is the right number. These work exceptionally well when you can fork a Burning Wish in order to grab a Sorcery of your choice and a previously-used Wish, thus starting a perpetual cycle.
Breath of Darigaaz will fill three spots in the deck. This will give you the flexibility to do one or four damage to all grounded creatures as necessary. Don't be tempted to use the kicker if it's not necessary. If someone has ten or more creatures in play and you've got them low on life, go easy on the Breath; no need to take extra damage.
That leaves two discretionary spaces for you to do with as you wish. These were effectively the two Worn Powerstones we removed, so theoretically we could just leave them in. I, on the other hand, will be replacing mine with a Sol Ring and an Aladdin's Ring. The Ring is expensive, but it can be powerful with the mana you can produce, and they're pretty easy to come by.
To Summarize:
+4 Repercussion
+4 Burning Wish
+3 Mirari
+3 Breath of Darigaaz
+1 Sol Ring
+1 Aladdin's Ring
As I said before, this deck is not designed for the long haul. A lot of your spells will be dealing damage to yourself, and you have no way to gain life. You also don't have a lot of defense, save your burn and board wiping capabilities. You should plan to Wildfire or Inferno or Earthquake for a lot as early as it makes sense to do so. If you can play out an early Repercussion or two and people have creatures go for the kill. One forked Inferno or Wildfire will probably win you the game right off if it resolves. If you feel that you can wait safely, then it doesn't really hurt to do so: The more creatures your opponents have in play the better, as long as they're not killing you.
Until next time, may your opponents suffer for every elf that hits the board,
Sam Zitin
Sped2500@aol.com
P.S. The Onslaught spoiler is rolling in pretty quick now; as soon as it is complete, we'll begin our first ever Turn Em Casual set review.
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