First, I want to thank everyone for his or her response to my last article. I also want to thank Star City for posting my letter concerning what I believe to be an important issue. I was so pleased to see - but not surprised - that Magic is alive and well. Second, I would like to wish everyone at States good luck. I think that it marvelous that WotC has the forethought to allow the one of the last major amateur events on the schedule to consistently be the new testing grounds for the new major block set. What a great idea. Third and finally, who named the new Odyssey card,"Nut Collector?" That is just too funny. That Mark Rosewater is one funny guy. What's next - Booty Call? (Booty Call: Instant…just kidding) Ass Hunter (wait - that is what teenagers do at those"teenage dance clubs")? Or how about the Oogoler (Summon Construction Worker - Tap: Oologer whistles at nearby hot chick)? They have got to think of some more sinister-sounding names if they expect anyone to take green seriously again.

I was once told that Vince Lombardi, general of the gridiron, had a sign on his desk in his office that read"Keep It Simple Stupid." Now as everyone but me gears up for States (I being a law student and chained to a desk in the law library until mid December), I want to stress how important this statement truly is. We have a new set, and we have all been victims of the"new deck" or"killer combo deck" bug, hunting feverishly for the new complex cards and strategies. However, we must all remember that Dave Price, Jon Finkel, and Kai Budde have all rode the wave of consistency to Pro Tour fame. I have written two articles on this subject - one about three months ago, and another just weeks ago. The first article dealt the idea of repetition and consistency. The second, just days ago, dealt with - gasp - a combo deck. I could tell you that the first article was right and the second was wrong, but the truth is they are both right. Combo decks, you see, really only work when they are consistent and have a high number of cards with redundant effects, while beatdown decks only work well when they are synergistic in construction. So really keeping it simple works regardless of whether you choose the paper, the rock or the scissors (that is, control, beatdown, and combo respectively - according to Adrian Sullivan, I believe).

Past Lessons
Towards the end of the summer, the last breath of the Masques cycle, I was playing a very straightforward deck at nearly every tournament I went to. It had a modicum of success, putting me into the finals at a number of small local tournaments. It was very similar to Don Lim's W/r Rebels deck, although it was a bit simpler and designed independently. Here is a decklist:

4 Ramosian Sergeants
4 Fresh Volunteers
4 Spectral Lynx
4 Voice of All
4 Urza's Rage
4 Seal of Fire
4 Chimeric Idol
3 Order/Chaos
3 Orim's Thunder
2 Flametongue Kavu

10 Plains
6 Mountains
4 Battlefield Forge
4 Rishadan Port

Sideboard:
3 Mageta, the Lion
3 Reprisal
3 Boil
3 Last Breath
Rest varied for metagame

The deck was very effective. It was loosely based on a W/g deck Mike Flores designed for Nationals - PT Junk. Like Junk, it used only the minor Rebel engine, and instead stocked up on other good white creatures. I did not have access to Armageddon, but I did have much better spot removal in the form of Rage, Order, and Thunder. It was not spectacular, nor was it as flexible as other Rebel decks, but it did its job very well. It cast creatures, attacked, removed threats, and attacked some more. The Orim's Thunder was simply devastating against Fires, with the ability to knock out Fires itself and all but the largest beasts in the deck. If I were lucky enough to hit a Saproling Burst, well... Then some other big demon is going down too. The Spectral Lynx proved its mettle quite quickly. Even without the ability to regenerate, this guy was the second-best card in the deck. The MVP, however, was Voice of All. He is simply one of the best creatures out there, and was even better when Fires was around. The minor Rebel engine threw my opponents for a loop. They sided in a ton of cards for eight of mine, the best of which was essential a bear tutor on legs. The result was a deck that was a brutal metagame tool. The Reprisals out of the sideboard decimated those who counted on evading my red removal and the Voice of All were the ultimate clock once they hit the table. It was simple and very consistent. Reprisal is still an effective tool in current November metagame, slaying Spiritmongers, Beast Attack tokens, and other big beatsticks. Even the obstinate Questing Pheldagriff and Sabertooth Nishoba are swept away by unexpected white removal.

Future Lessons
I thought of adapting this deck to the current environment, but the loss of the Rebel engine hurt quite a bit - plus, I just wanted to try something different. I do believe that a good White/red deck is still viable in the current environment. Red can definitely speed up the good white threshold cards, but still I think the deck has some holes, especially the ability to deal with the ubiquitous Finkel. We must all realize that this single card is the first card every deck out there must be able to deal with. It alone kills mono-color decks (especially mono-blue) and places high priority on the ability to kill three-toughness creatures. Finkel is the most clearly metagame-shifting card Magic has seen since the re-release of Ernham Djinn. Instantly, every deck, in order to be viable, must be able to deal with one card — Finkel. If your deck can't, you may as well go play jacks or tic tac toe.

With this in mind I though long and hard. I had a few goals in mind. First, I knew I wanted a deck that could deal with Finkel. Second, I also wanted to make a deck that purposely avoided using the staple rares that Wizards is forcing us to play with in Odyssey. That is, I do not want to play with Call of the Herd or Finkel. I know that this is not the criteria a tournament player should use to determine what cards go in a deck, but I think we need to protest this disturbing trend (see my last post on Star City). Also I have yet to get my requisite four of these card, so…Anyway, I planned on reviving what seems to be the Net writer's pet deck… That's right, B/R.

Undoubtedly, we are all tired of seeing these decks - but before you click on the back button, give me a chance. Towards the end of the IBC season, we saw an evolution of the deck everyone thought was going to be the gunslinger at Tokyo. But B/R decks had some problems. First, they teetered between aggro and control, never deciding between the two, and hence lacked focus. Second, it had a really top-heavy mana curve, with Skizzik, Scuta, and Specter all pushing the curve far too high, with an average casting cost around 3.5 or 4. Third, it lacked a good aggressive spell at the three-mana curve. Late IBC decks fixed this in two ways: They added Phyrexian Arenas and/or Phyrexian Ragers. The last seemed to be a good creature and a slight piece of card advantage, while the first card proved to be too weak to make a deck and required too much dedication to break an existing one.

With this tech in mind, I set out to revive the B/R archetype.

B/R 3.0
Decklist, Mana Curve Breakdown

1cc
4 Duress

2 cc
4 Terminate
4 Shivan Zombie
4 Tainted Pact

3cc
4 Urza's Rage
4 Phyrexian Rager

4cc
*4 Skizzik (although not really)
4 Phyrexian Scuta
3 Flametongue

5cc
4 Skizzik (this is where he really falls on the mana curve)

Land
4 Sulfurous Springs
4 Urborg Volcano
7 Swamp
6 Mountains

Overview:
The deck and its mana base is loosely based on a deck used by YMG regulars, Michelle Bush and owner Rob Dougherty, at US Nationals. I used it at the time to test other decks and I thought that it was very good. However, the deck's creatures just could not go toe-to-toe with the creatures and speed of a Fires deck. Essentially, Fires could ignore this deck's greatest strength, creature removal, in that Fires hastened its beasts and Saproling Burst and Blastoderm were, for all intents and purposes, not affected by them. But this is not the YMG player's fault: Fires had too many broken cards. The deck worked quite well in that Plague Spitters, in theory, stopped Fires mana acceleration - but only in theory….

Creatures:
The Rager was chosen because of the missing three-mana creature. Plague Spitters essentially are the same bodies, but are not as good in the more open metagame. Against mana-accelerating green creatures they are better - but come States, I am not sure these creatures will play as big a role as they did before Odyssey and after Masques. Plague Spitters is one of the cards that had this deck sitting on the edge between aggro and control. Spitters were essential to the control element in the deck, but I honestly believe they hamstrung the deck more than they helped. With the Spitters in play, the B/R player was less likely to make an all-out assault, given the already-weakened state of his troops. By removing the Plague Spitters and replacing them with Ragers, the deck gets a) more aggressive creature b) takes less self-inflicted damage thereby making the Scuta's kicker easier to play and c) gains some card advantage. With the wide-open field, Rager is just a better card in an aggro deck. Its card advantage and ability to block Finkel and live makes it just slightly better than the Spitters. The Shivan Zombie works much the same way - and I expect it is much better against white weenie.

The five-toughness creatures in the deck are finally as good as they should be, without having to contend with the broken ‘Derm and Burst. No longer is Scuta simply a card that trades with ‘Derm; it is now a legitimate threat. Skizzik, well... Skizzik has always been awesome. The FTKs — well, I think it fair to say that these cards are requirements in any deck with red. They are amazing, as Mike Flores recently pointed out.

You may notice the lack of Blazing Specter. This card is no doubt an excellent choice, but I tried to push the deck towards a more aggressive stance - and a four-mana 2/2 creature, even with haste, just does not cut it. Plus, Specters coming in from the sideboard game two or three against control will be quite a surprise, and hopefully catch them after they removed their Dodecapods.

Spells:
Previously, the single biggest problem with B/R, aside from its ineffectiveness against Fires, was the inability to get just the right card at just the right time. It seemed like B/R decks were always one turn away, one card away from breaking out big time. Enter Tainted Pact. This card, in my testing, has proven to be the card that pushes this deck over the edge. Essentially this card gives you a good card whenever you need it, land, creature, removal whatever. There are some risks, but with a reduced amount of basic land the"drawback" kicks in much less often. Duress is simply the best one-drop in the new environment and smooths out the mana curve considerably. Terminate, likewise, is the best creature removal in the environment. Rage is the best burn. This compilation makes the deck quite brutal.

Sideboard:
Geez, I would hate to make a sideboard, given how wide-open the metagame is... But I will try anyway. The result will not be a tool ready for tournament play, but a sketch or abstraction of what the sideboard should look like. There are no clever cards here, not yet anyway. Plague Spitter will definitely be there. As would be Blazing Specter. The high number of instants and low-cost sorceries make Ghastly Demise an excellent metagame choice. Slay and Execute are also good choices, depending on the metagame. For the pro: black and/or red creatures, Emblazoned Golem is not too bad. Crypt Angel is also not a bad choice, but his casting cost is a little high for a deck designed to be aggressive. He would probably show up in a sideboard geared toward a more midline approach, and obviously in an environment heavy with white weenie.

Here is what a sample would look like in a creature-heavy metagame:
3 Slay
2 Ghastly Demise
3 Plague Spitters
3 Void
2 Boil
1 FTK

In a more controllish environment:
2 Ghastly Demise
3 Void
4 Blazing Specters
2 Boil
3 Addle
1 Obliterate

Essentially, in a creature environment the deck would go from aggro to anti-creature. In a control environment, it would go from aggro to discard. Clearly there are middle ground sideboards, but it largely depends on the local metagame.

Bottom line is that the deck is rather consistent, with lots of two-power creatures, lots of heavy hitters, and a healthy dose of removal. The deck, while not achieving the perfect spell-to-creature symmetry of, say, Alex Borteh's Nationals masterpiece, is about 60-40 creatures to flexible removal, the ideal ratio for an aggro deck that does not stray into the weenie aggro design. The mana curve is still very top heavy, but it has gotten much better with the removal of Blazing Specter. The Tainted Pacts help in this situation too, allowing a desperate player to fetch that fourth or fifth much-needed land. I hope that this will give you some ideas. And good luck at States!

By the way, I have tweaked the Time Stretch deck even more and it has gotten much better - if you want a current run down of the decklist, email me. Thanks for everyone's input and email me with comments, questions, or results for this deck or the Stretch deck at scu09144@suffolk.edu. Thanks for reading.

Tony Sculimbrene

Ric_Flair on IRC, especially at #apprentice.