Simply put, I love playing multiplayer Magic. It has been nearly ten years since I first tapped a land for mana, dropped a Dark Ritual, and sicced a Hypnotic Specter on someone. The Hypnotic Specter used to create a great deal of havoc by brutally smacking someone at the table without a decent flyer to stop him. You lose two life and one card! Hahahaha!

As time passed by, it seemed that discard became a detrimental strategy in my group. When a player employed discard, usually the rest of the table quietly formed an alliance and trounced the offender. Ultimately, discard was not a very powerful ability in multiplayer... At least for awhile. The costs were too high to sustain at high levels of multiplayer play, and discard didn't have enough mojo to stave off the forces of a unified kitchen table load of Serra Angels and Sengir Vampires.

But nowadays, I find that you can play discard on a regular basis, employing varying strategies - and you can even win a bunch of games too. It doesn't matter so much anymore that everyone at the table is irritated with your"nasty" discard deck, because now you have the muscle to back it up. And you can get the wins without some annoying or broken combo going off.

I recently put together several decks designed primarily to throw a hitch in my group's metagame. The discard deck has been one of my favorites for this tactic. Oh how I love to tinker with the metagame! When the pendulum starts to swing one way, I love to nudge the thing back the other direction. In this case I am trying to punish some slower and more combo-reliant decks. There simply is a heavy reliance on deck types that can easily be punished by a discard strategy within the group I play with. I know that a nice creature rush could get me, but I really don't have to worry about that too often in my group's metagame (at this point, anyway). The end result I am ultimately looking for is a shift in the mind set of my opponents when they build their decks or choose a specific deck to play. I want people to wonder just how their deck will function when they face this deck. I want them to seek out ways to work around my strategy. I even want the other players to make me have to stop using this deck in the coming weeks due to the changes they have made to beat!

In multiplayer, I believe strongly that creatures are crucial. They are a lasting table presence (hopefully). They can do damage and stave off damage (hopefully). They can have great abilities (once more, hopefully). So it is in creatures that I will look to find the heart of my discard strategy. Before I do that, I cannot pass up Unnerve - which is a card that single-handedly made discard move from an"okay strategy" to a"good strategy" in multiplayer Magic. I start my discard deck building process with Unnerve, which results in each of your opponents choosing and discarding two cards. Ouch!

As I have stated before, creatures are very important so I need not look far from fellow Urza's Saga mate Unnerve to see Cackling Fiend and its nifty"comes into play" ability to make each opponent discard a card. Onslaught's Screeching Buzzard offers another nifty ability much like the fiend - only in this case, it activates when it hits the graveyard. That card there is a nice chump blocker with some ability to punish an attack. A card featuring a buzzard also allows for many conversational interludes, so it is good all around.

Originally, I played Marsh Crocodile in the deck, but I have removed him because it just seems that I had more than enough creature-based discard (and of course this guy causes me to discard too - BAD!).

I also did not want to hear my fellow players abusing their Crocodile Hunter imitation voices for half the game either... Cracky, this kitchen table is teaming with Crocodiles! Ugh! No thanks to that.

In his place is Cavern Harpy, which gives me a decent re-usable blocker and can also return the Cackling Fiend to my hand for another comes into play possibility.

These cards round out my list of creatures that are geared up for discard purposes. But there are a couple more creatures to come later...

Sorceries are where the discard beauties reside. Syphon Mind is one of the very best multiplayer cards ever conceived (when I am playing it), and at the same time one of the most heinous (when someone else is playing it). In my group, that card is making its presence felt far too often! Splashing black for this card is not uncommon. It is just that good. Until people start maindecking Dodecapod and more madness cards, Syphon Mind will run rampant.

I have my doubts that madness or Dodecapod will stop it anyways... Syphon Mind is all about card advantage at its finest, replenishing your hand and thinning your opponents' hands. You can't beat that!

I also threw Strongarm Tactics into the deck. This card creates a dilemma for each player - and this card seems to always fish out some good cards every time I play it. The drawback is that I discard a card, too, so I will need to find some work around later to get cards back, especially creatures...

So far I have put together a nice core of discard. I think it is quite enough to get my table load of opponents on their heels, but I need finishing power. It is time for the big guns...

A couple of cards I have personally grown to associate with discard are from Prophecy. Nope, they have nothing to do with discard, but they do piggyback off the strategy beautifully! These are the Avatar of Will and the Avatar of Woe. Think about it... Avatar of Woe will be played for two black mana because after all of this discarding frenzy, there will be ten total creatures in the graveyards. Avatar of Will will be played for two blue mana because someone will have an empty hand. These guys are fat. Both are evasive, and one can tap to destroy a target creature. When these hit the table, my opponents can see that the end draweth nigh. Have a few taunts ready for any of your opponents who begin the yellow-bellied scoop maneuver.

All that is needed now is a little more utility in the deck. Innocent Blood helps me out in the early game to clear away some creatures and maybe even later when I want the Screeching Buzzard to die. Volrath's Stronghold helps me to get some of the creatures back that I had to discard to Strongarm Tactics or sacrificed to Innocent Blood. It also is just plain fun to bring back my guys who got killed in the line of duty. A Cackling Fiend who has been born again twice is just plain demoralizing to the player across the table who managed to squeak out a few white weenies. I do expect for some more needs to arise in the area of flexibility in the future as my fellow players challenge this deck even more.

With only the content above, the deck hums along nicely. It soon occurred to me that a newer card that is also disgustingly nasty in multiplayer would fit well into this deck: Blatant Thievery is a game buster! When you can gain control of one target permanent that each opponent controls you can bring the game to a close quickly with this deck. Blatant Thievery fits in many decks, as a matter of fact, but in this one it seals the deal almost too nicely. It is so unfair that I may remove it!

On second thought - no! How else are Blue and Black going to deal with Worship in multiplayer?

In the end, I didn't necessarily create this deck for winning games as much as I wanted to tweak the metagame. Right now it has won half of the games it has played in and performs the best in four- or five-person games. As a matter of fact, I hope it does lose more often in the future! It will be played at least once every time my group gets together for the next couple of months, because the pendulum has swung towards slow strategies, game locks, and combos. I want the pendulum to swing the other way. I want to see more Slivers, Squirrels, and well rounded decks... Which are just the types of decks that have beaten this discard deck so far. Whatever the case, I am giving the pendulum a nudge - or even better, a shove!

Black Spells
4x Innocent Blood
4x Strongarm Tactics
4x Syphon Mind
4x Unnerve
4x Avatar of Woe
4x Cackling Fiend
4x Cavern Harpy
4x Screeching Buzzard

Blue Spells
3x Blatant Thievery
3x Avatar of Will

Land
4x Underground Sea
3x Volrath's Stronghold
7x Island
8x Swamp

And there you have the deck as it currently stands... And feedback is appreciated!

Kevin Donaldson
multiplayermtg@yahoo.com