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It is hard to decide what the best creatures are for multiplayer, so I established two rules for my decisions:
Is it Fun?
This is very important when picking out a creature, and is almost a catchall area for all of the other categories. By "fun," I mean that a creature like Birds of Paradise is cool, and it helps you fix mana problems turn after turn - but it doesn’t do anything crazy. Compare the Birds to Verdant Force, which makes an insane amount of tokens, or Shivan Dragon which just flies through the sky, terrorizing opponents with old-school style.
Is The Card Splashy Or Cool?
This relates is similar to fun, but is functionally different. Arcbound Ravager is cool, but people tend to whine about overplayed tournament cards, and how it just isn’t right to get killed by Disciple of the Vault or a second Kokusho in casual games. By "splashy," I mean a creature like Uyo, Silent Prophet – it has a unique ability that people don’t mind, and can even help other players.
Cards get bonus points if they are old school (like Phelddagrif), and fun for everyone (like Hunted Wumpus and his kin). Of course you can probably think up hundreds of more categories for the “best creatures," but then I'd be writing a long list of categories and I'd never get to the creatures!
Now the moment you’ve all been waiting for: the best multiplayer creatures, and their accompanying decks.
5. Wishmonger
Now, I know you think I’m on crack, but just hear me out: Wishmonger is a very “I want to be your friend” kind of card. People like you for putting Wishmonger on the table (except the guy with the burn deck). It not only creates interesting diplomacy, but also is attached to a decent 3/3 body for a reasonable cost. Wishmonger is better than the other mongers because the green, red, and black ones, create vengeance situations - and Sailmonger? Well, it was a close call.
The main reason I like Wishmonger over Sailmonger is that Wishmonger saves more creatures and can also grant evasion. All in all, the thing I love about Wishmonger is that it is fun for all players, and has a cool effect.
Living Wish…Er, Monger
Lands
24 Plains
Creatures
4 Wishmonger
3 Triskelion
3 Duplicant
4 Bottle Gnomes
4 Gold Myr
2 Blinking Spirit
2 Eternal Dragon
2 Bringer of the White Dawn
Others
4 Howling Mine
4 Glorious Anthem
4 Genesis Chamber
Of course, I abuse the effect in this deck to tilt it in your favor. Most of the creatures are artifacts so that you will almost always be able to block and target things how you choose without being stopped by your own Wishmonger. The deck kind of sits back for awhile, building up defenses, and tends not to draw much fire thanks to its player-friendly Howling Mine other all-player goodness, and then finishes with big white creatures.
Any of the large white creatures however can feasibly be replaced with another one, if you like; I just chose the Bringer because it worked well with the artifacts, and the Dragon because it helps ramp mana. The Glorious Anthems and Blinking Spirits team well with Genesis Chamber.
4. Nightscape Master
If I could change one thing about this card, I would change its toughness. Other than that, I love it. It staves off all kinds of beaters, saves your creatures with bounce, and it kills annoying weenie creatures (like Wellwisher) with ease.
Nightscape Master is better than all the other Masters simply because I prefer two abilities that affect the board over pumping creatures, giving protection, or draining life. The master only makes number 4 because it’s very color-intensive.
Master of the Night
Lands
8 Swamp
4 Underground Sea
4 Badlands
4 Volcanic Island
4 Polluted Delta
Creatures
4 Nightscape Master
2 Nekrataal
4 Ravenous Rats
2 Gravedigger
1 Crosis, the Purger
1 Sol’kanar the Swamp King
3 Stormscape Battlemage
2 Flametongue Kavu
2 Urborg Emissary
2 Thunderscape Battlemage
Others
3 Recoil
3 Crosis’s Charm
2 Crystal Shard
1 Demonic Tutor
4 Darksteel Ingot
The deck uses "comes into play" abilities to gain advantage, and then abuses them via Crystal Shard or Nightscape Master. The main game plan is to take out any creatures that present a threat to the deck, and destroy the hand of the guy who was hoping to eventually cast Obliterate.
The deck has a wide array of answers to a lot of problems, and is very versatile. The Stormscape Battlemage fill a very important role in the deck, serving as a way to stabilize using the Ingots to pay the white kicker, and an answer to pesky Akromas that may be flying around your tables. After stabilizing, the deck tends to finish with one of the two big legends – but it has won with Wizard beatdown in the past. Gravedigger helps round out the deck by giving you recursion power when you need important creatures.
3. Genesis
Incarnations hold a special place in my heart so it was a very difficult choice between Genesis and Glory. Both read “don’t you dare kill me” to your opponents, and as a result create powerful attackers and blockers.
I picked Genesis over Glory because I always like the idea of recurring creatures from the graveyard over protecting creatures in play. More than that, I see Genesis as a card that allows you to continue with proactive plans, and continues to give you steam in the mid- and late-game (which is where games usually go in multiplayer).
Glory, on the other hand, is more of a reactive card; yes, I know you can go for alpha strikes, but in general though you’ll really only use his power to save creatures in response to targeted removal, and you draw a lot more attention from the rest of the table when Glory dies. Also, considering the increase in artifacts since Mirrodin (and Glory's inability to protect against mass removal spells), Glory just isn’t as strong as Genesis in multiplayer.
Back From the Dead
Lands
4 Llanowar Wastes
14 Forest
6 Swamp
Creatures
2 Genesis
2 Viridian Zealot
2 Eternal Witness
2 Ravenous Baloth
1 Nekrataal
1 Duplicant
3 Ravenous Rats
4 Krosan Tusker
1 Crypt Creeper
4 Wild Mongrel
2 Bane of the Living
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
Other
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Cranial Extraction
2 Buried Alive
4 Pernicious Deed
This is the only deck where I won’t be including four copies of the creature because it is a little too redundant in multiples. Just like the Nightscape Master deck, it packs a lot of different "answer" cards, and can easily adapt to a changing multiplayer game. The deck feels a lot like the Rock from Extended… But I wouldn’t consider running this deck in a team game.
Now that I’ve just made the Rock reference, I need to defend why I think Genesis is better in multiplayer than just throwing in a copy of Volrath’s Stronghold. Genesis can attack and block and does not stop you from drawing cards when you want to use it, and you can use multiple Genesis – a feat which you can only dream of with Volrath’s Stronghold.
Getting back to the countdown.
2. Phelddagrif and Questing Phelddagrif*
Who doesn’t like anagrams of Richard Garfield, Ph. D? Phelddagrif is so much fun to play with. He makes you happy because you have a cool creature, he makes your opponents happy because they get compensation for the hippo’s brokenness - and who doesn’t like the hippo art?
Phelddagrif’s only drawback is that he’s legendary, so you usually can’t put a second into play. Rather than play the clunky Mirror Gallery, instead I chose to make good use of the near-identical Questing Phelddagrif. They make hippos, they beat down, and they dodge removal - what’s not to love?
The only thing left is to give our heroes a home.
Hungry Hungry Hippos
Lands
4 Forbidden Orchard
4 Windswept Heath
4 Forest
3 Tropical Island
2 Plains
2 Tundra
4 Savannah
1 Island
Creatures
1 Phelddagrif
4 Utopia Tree
1 Kamahl, Fist of Krosa
1 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
4 Questing Phelddagrif
4 Avatar of Might
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
Other
2 Gaea’s Blessing
4 Oath of Druids
2 Sterling Grove
2 Ray of Revelation
4 Brainstorm
3 Roar of the Wurm
I know most people don’t think Oath of Druids when they think Phelddagrif, but considering you're not the only one who gets to abuse it, and the fact that the deck is one of the few that can actually get the discount on Avatar of Might, it’s worth looking into.
There are two rewards for playing this deck: 1) beating people down with huge creatures, and 2) beating people down with flying hippos. And no one I know has ever been upset at being killed by a flying hippo.
For an alternate build, you might want to drop some of the non-creature spells and the non-hippo legends, for Treva, some of Treva’s Charms, and some Battlemages.
Now what creature could be so cool that it beats our very own Richard in creature form?
Why none other than…
1. Richard Garfield, Ph. D.
For those of you who have not played with Un-sets, drop your jaws. (On a secondary note, if you’ve never played Mental Magic, you don’t know what you’re missing.)
Seriously. Richard has to be the most fun, cool, and powerful card made to this date because he can turn any card into any other card that shares a mana cost. Of course, he needs a deck built for him - and I’ve been building them all article, so feast your eyes on this!
And He Doth Spake
Lands
17 Islands
4 Volcanic Island
3 Flooded Strand
Creatures
4 Richard Garfield, Ph. D.
4 Faerie Squadron
2 Air Elemental
3 Wall of Air
2 Squee, Goblin Nabob
Other
3 Spell Counter
4 Accumulated Knowledge
3 Number Crunch
3 Isochron Scepter
3 Unsummon
3 Fire / Ice
2 Who What When Where Why
The deck can win without Richard - but it is more likely to win if you have him. There are so many ways to abuse his powers, but let me break down the use of the few non-blue cards in the deck.
Isochron Scepters help fuel Fire / Ice and Who What When Where Why. With the large question or split card on a Scepter, you can easily play dozens of different spells with Richard, and can even turn him into a token generator. Squee is a good chump blocker - but like the gotcha cards in the deck, he returns to your hand free for repeatable effects (namely, burn).
Speaking of the Gotcha cards, they are mainly there to try and milk card advantage through recursion - because when you play in a group of four people or larger, someone is bound to set the triggers off. Here are some ideas for cards to use while Richard is in play.
Broken Cards You’ve Always Wanted To Use, But Don’t Have
Ancestral Recall
Time Walk
Timetwister
Wheel of Fortune
Protecting Richard
Force of Will
Misdirection
Rewind
Dismiss
Thwart
Foil
Returning Richard To Your Hand To Do It Over Again
Evacuation
Unsummon
Number Crunch
Repulse
Winning The Game
Morphling
Urza’s Rage
Reins of Power (bounce Richard while this is on the stack)
Keiga, the Tide Star
In fact, if you’re down to the last opponent feel free to drop Checks and Balances on the table.
Thank you for reading this far you can contact me at ordrion@yahoo.com or use the message boards. Constructive criticism is welcome - but please, under no circumstances use the email address to send me your own best creature lists. (Because you can write them and send them in for a chance to earn money!)
* - Technically, this makes it the six best creatures - but they’re so similar, and who can be mad at me when they’re looking at the art work on these things?
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