First, let me point out that "lockdown" decks are generally bad for multiplayer politics. If you last long enough in the first game to get your lock on, then you will be public enemy number one in the next game. With that said, it's the Multiplayer Lockdown Challenge!

In what ways can you lock down a board of several players? Perhaps the oldest way was to deny them mana. This came in the form of Winter Orb and Kismet. The problem was that one had to time a Wrath of God just right to make sure that no one had any creatures on the board before you dropped your lock. Stasis decks worked on the same principle, though they were arguably better. However, they were vulnerable to creatures that did not tap to attack - an ability now called Vigilance.

Another, more recent, way to lock multiple opponents out would be to keep them from winning. This was seen in Type 2 Tooth and Nail decks running Platinum Angel and Leonin Abunas. Another example of this was the Solitary Confinement mutation in Extended Scepter-Chant decks. Both of these locks are vulnerable to removal. Wrath of God takes care of the Plat/Abunas combo, and any number of enchantment removal spells or graveyard hate spells will break your Confinement.

Also from Type 2 is the MycoMarch deck, which turns everything into artifacts, then turns all of the artifacts into creatures with Mycosynth Lattice. Lands have a casting cost of zero, so they all die from having no toughness, and the March of the Machines player has artifact mana on the board in the form of Talismans and Darksteel Ingot, which attacks repeatedly for the win. This lock has difficulties with other players having non-land mana sources or X/4 creatures on the board.

This leaves us wondering what kind of a lockdown can be effective against a wide variety of decks, at least one of which will be packing Wrath, Disenchant, or Naturalize (to name a couple), fat creatures and/or artifact mana. Well, do I have the lockdown for you! Your opponents will not be able to attack you, will never have more than one mana available, and won't be able to cast any spells. Now that's a lockdown!

The idea for this deck came to me in small parts. At the start of the Extended season there was a large discussion of what to sideboard against Affinity. In addition to the obvious "destroy all" spells, I stumbled upon Kill Switch, which would lock out their mana and attack phase and keep their Aether Vial out of the picture. The only problem was that by the time it could come online, Affinity had practically won.

What would happen if you could turn everything into artifacts? You'd lock the board up tighter than a drum. Opponents would be able to use only the mana from the land they played that turn, and could only attack with hasty creatures. This is a bad thing, one mana. One mana can cast Oxidize. Oxidize ruins the combo. To combat this, I included Chalice of the Void.

What's this? A three-card combo? It'll never work! That's why tutors were invented and the theory of redundancy was thought up.

Trinisphere makes even "free" spells cost three mana - but only when it's untapped. Aphetto Alchemist untaps artifacts. Synergy. To pull this off, play the Alchemist's ability targeting the Trinisphere, then stack Kill Switch's ability on top of it. Kill Switch taps everything, then the Alchemist untaps the Trinisphere, making everything cost three again. Aphetto Alchemist can also be used as a tool to gain support from other players at the table. Untap some creatures or artifacts for them, let them think you are useful and worth keeping around for a while.

The deck would still need a win condition. Players who can't play spells will get large hands pretty quickly, so a threat that doesn't need to be untapped and can take advantage of these large hands is a good thing. Enter Skullcage. Skullcage will deal two damage to each opponent per turn for the rest of the game.

How could this actually work in a multiplayer environment? Well, not playing in a group with skill rivaling that of Abe Sargent's helps (yes, there is a stain on my nose… politics!). In general, countermagic can be bad enough for political reasons that many people keep it to a minimum. Combine this with the high probability that someone else will look like a bigger threat than you, and you should be safe for the first 4-5 turns. That should be long enough to assemble your pieces. Then you pray nobody has kept any artifact destruction in their hand. (As previously noted, Oxidize can be your worst enemy once a soft lock is in place.) Turning everything into artifacts should help, as players will be more likely to waste their spells on juicier targets before you lock everything down.

Now, the part you've all been waiting for:

Masterlock

Lock
4 Kill Switch
4 Mycosynth Lattice
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Trinisphere

Kill
4 Skullcage

Search/Draw
4 Fabricate
4 Thirst for Knowledge

Utility/Acceleration
4 Vedalken Engineer
4 Aphetto Alchemist
2 Wayfarer's Bauble

Mana
10 Island
4 Urza's Tower
4 Urza's Power Plant
4 Urza's Mine

Some of the choices made deserve an explanation, particularly the mana base.

The Urzatron is used in place of Mishra's Workshop for three reasons: First, I can't afford Workshops, plain and simple. At $200+ apiece, neither can most people. Second, the mana only works on artifacts. If you want a turn 2 Engineer or Alchemist, you can't play one until turn 3, at which point there is no point. Third, I wanted to keep the card pool confined to Online Extended, so more people could play with it.

Cost and card pool are also why there are no Moxen, Type 1 artifact mana, or Power 9 cards. If you want to add them to your deck, feel free. Another reason for not including any "power" cards is that they will draw everyone's attention to you… and you need to avoid attention until your pieces are in place.

In place of the more cash intensive options, I chose to use Vedalken Engineer for fast mana and Wayfarer's Bauble for some land acceleration. There are only two Baubles in the deck because of bad synergy with a Chalice set on one, but I found enough otherwise-playable hands that lacked blue sources to include a couple to avoid mulliganing good hands.

It is possible to pull off a hard lock on turn 5 with this deck. An example turn order would be:

Turn 1- Urzaland, go
Turn 2- Urzaland, Chalice, go
Turn 3- Island, Engineer, go
Turn 4- Urzaland, Mycosynth Lattice, go
Turn 5- Kill Switch, activate.

Or:

Turn 2- Island, Engineer, go
Turn 3- Urzaland, Chalice, go
Turn 4- Urzaland, Lattice, go
Turn 5- Kill Switch, activate.

Why not drop both the Switch and Lattice on the same turn? You have the mana! Because you really, really do not want to cast the Lattice and Switch on a turn that you cannot go off. That's equivalent to yelling out "kill me quickly!"

Remember that if you manage to pull this off you will be painting a big red bulls-eye on your forehead for the next game, or the next several to come. In order to avoid the target, publicly announce that you will not be playing the deck for the remainder of the night, and then retire it permanently.