Before we get started, I would just like to comment on Abe Sargent's recent"Vintage" article on StarCity. Whether it was an April Fool's joke or not, it was an absolute waste of time, and am embarrassment to humanity. I am quite sure that everybody who read it is now dumber as a result, and I cannot fathom the idea of wasting the time to write such a piece. (Alas, though we sell much in our voluminous shopping cart, you cannot buy a sense of humor from us - The Ferrett)

And now we rejoin our previously scheduled program. In last week's article I spoke of my experiences with a new deck I had designed, called 'That's Your A$$ Right There.' It was given that name, because theoretically, if certain cards hit play against certain decks, you stand a very high chance of winning. I piloted this deck to a Top Eight finish in the biggest Type 1 event in the United States in recent memory, going undefeated in the seven Swiss rounds, and losing in the first round of the Elite Eight (March madness, baby!). For review, here is the deck I played:

Creatures (17)
4 Goblin Welder
4 Juggernaut
3 Su-Chi
2 Masticore
3 Triskelion
1 Karn, Silver Golem

Other Spells (16)
4 Duress
3 Jester's Cap
3 Oath of Ghouls
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Memory Jar
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Chainer's Edict
2 Terminate

Mana Sources (27)
4 Mishra's Workshop
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Badlands
2 Swamp
2 Mountain
1 Strip Mine
1 Wasteland
1 Sol Ring
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Grim Monolith
1 Mana Vault

Sideboard (15)
4 Planar Void
4 Blood Moon
2 Viashino Heretic
2 Terminate
1 Masticore
2 Powder Keg

With the recent metagame shifts in the rapidly-changing Type 1 field, I often ask myself what the best cards are to hate these decks or the key components of these decks. A few specific cards seem to be good against a number of matchups and can never leave my mind - and those three cards are Blood Moon, Planar Void, and Jester's Cap. Needless to say, if your Blood Moon resolves against any deck relying almost exclusively on nonbasic lands, you will be in a very difficult position to lose (with TnT being a notable exception, as it will still be able to cast the vast majority of its spells). The underrated Planar Void is awesome in today's environment because so many decks use, abuse, or rely on the graveyard to function properly. Jester's Cap is the much0maligned card that I always felt never got enough love, especially when it can literally end games and when there are so many ways to recur it (Goblin Welder, Argivian Find, Argivian Archaeologist, etc.). However, these aren't really cards that are aggressive enough to build a deck around... So I instead designed a deck that could first and foremost bring threats to the table, and then have easy access to those three powerful cards that could cripple a number of other decks.

While this deck's lineage can be traced back to other Workshop powered decks such as Stacker, the Funker, and TnT, it is more focused on beating decks in a Psychatog and aggro tilted metagame. It was designed around two principles, swinging beats with large creatures (a la Juggernaut, Su-Chi, Masticore, Triskelion), and crippling other decks in the expected metagame (Psychatog, Emerald Alice, TnT, Mask, Keeper, Ophidian) with stellar cards such as Jester's Cap, Planar Void, and Blood Moon. Everything else in the deck and sideboard concurs with these goals.

When I originally designed the deck, my sideboard was different than what I actually ended up playing (mainly due to card availability, or lack thereof). The following sideboard is the first one I designed and is what I plan on using in the future (or until the metagame shifts again).

Sideboard (15)
4 Planar Void
4 Blood Moon
2 Terminate
2 Chains of Mephistopheles
3 Viashino Heretic (I often will take one of these out depending on what I expect, and may add something else such as Powder Keg or another Chains of Mephistopheles)

Briefly, let us review other possible choices for the deck and sideboard that I considered, some of which probably have already sprung up in your heads.

1. Wheel of Fortune
This was originally in the deck, but it seemed that I was sideboarding it out for almost every match. It is not essential to the deck, nor does it greatly benefit the two principles of the deck, so it was subsequently removed.

2. Powder Keg
Not enough can be said about Powder Keg which already hasn't been said. It blows up many of your worst enemies in Type 1, and is handy against a great many decks (Sligh, Fish, Mask, TnT, Suicide, etc.). Again, they are not pivotal to the performance of the deck, but they are a good sideboard card, and a card that I'm sure will be often going back into said sideboard.

3. Spinal Villain
Who plays Spinal Villain?! This oft-forgotten Legends card may actually provide quite useful with the rapid ascent of Psychatog over the past few months. A 1/2 creature for R2 that can tap to destroy target blue creature (Psychatog, any Fish creature, Morphling) is pretty good in my book.

4. Royal Assassin
Similar to Spinal Villain, a creature for three mana that taps to destroy target creature is pretty good (and this can kill practically anything, regardless of color). The trouble here is the double black in the casting cost. While BB is not impossible to come by, it is enough to make me doubt that I can reliably cast this suddenly-fantastic old-school standby.

5. Vampiric Tutor
There has already been a great debate regarding Vampiric Tutor in Keeper for some time now, and you may be wondering why I did not play it. Even though I only have one tutoring effect present, I am not wild about card disadvantage in any form - and with so much redundancy in this deck, Tutor was the first card to get cut when I was forming the deck.

6. Goblin Sharpshooter
This card is good against things such as Sligh and SquirrelCraft, but in light of the recent restriction of Earthcraft, I felt that Sharpshooter was unneeded.

7. Squee, Goblin Nabob
While Squee is a great card in certain decks, and can be abused in this deck via Masticore, it didn't quite make the cut here because of how often I would side it out and side in Planar Void.

If you do choose to play this deck, I certainly advocate changing the sideboard to accommodate whatever you expect to see in your tournament field. Cards I would not discourage using in the future are Powder Keg, Plaguebearer, Spinal Villain, and maybe even Royal Assassin if you play a little more black. Now that we have seen why the deck is constructed as it is, let's take a look at sideboarding against the most popular (read: not random) decks in the current Type 1 field.

Sideboarding vs. Control
Against control decks such as Keeper, URPhidian, or Mono-Blue, the deck is a nightmare because of the ability to play large creatures very early (with Mishra's Workshop) that must be dealt with quickly, and then keep the pressure on by recurring threats with Goblin Welder and Oath of Ghouls. Equally important is getting a Jester's Cap to resolve. As mentioned earlier, this can remove their precious few win conditions (Morphling), and can also remove their answers to your deck (such as Shattering Pulse via Cunning Wish). Chains of Mephistopheles is great against anything that loves to draw cards (namely, any blue-based deck), and Blood Moon owns Keeper.

vs. Keeper:
-2 Terminate
-1 Masticore
-2 Triskelion
-1 Vampiric Tutor
+4 Blood Moon
+2 Chains of Mephistopheles

vs. Mono Blue or URPhidian:
-1 Vampiric Tutor
-1 Karn, Silver Golem
+2 Chains of Mephistopheles

vs. Oath:
-2 Terminate
-3 Oath of Ghouls
-1 Yawgmoth's Will
+4 Planar Void
+2 Chains of Mephistopheles

Sideboarding vs. Aggro Control
Psychatog, Emerald Alice, and Gro decks will have a number of dead cards or less useful cards against you, most notably being their Misdirection effects which are so powerful against most archetypes. Psychatog and Gro variants really do not like to see Planar Void or Blood Moon, so I will usually aggressively mulligan until I get a hand with one of these, hopefully along with a threat or something such as Duress to force through a gamebreaker.

vs. Gro-A-Tog:
-1 Memory Jar
-1 Yawgmoth's Will
-3 Oath of Ghouls
-4 Goblin Welder
-3 Jester's Cap
+4 Planar Void
+4 Blood Moon
+2 Chains of Mephistopheles
+2 Terminate

vs. Emerald Alice (with Werebear and Nimble Mongoose):
-1 Vampiric Tutor
-3 Oath of Ghouls
-1 Yawgmoth's Will
-3 Goblin Welder
+4 Planar Void
+2 Chains of Mephistopheles
+2 Terminate

Sideboarding vs. Aggro
With the deck and sideboard configured as I have presented them, you really do not have a lot against Sligh and Suicide Black, because the main deck is pretty strong against them. Jester's Cap is not that great in any of these matchups, and is probably going to be sided out most of the time as a result. The main points to note for the Sligh match up are that Triskelion and Masticore do a great job at controlling the board and eliminating their peasant creatures while you beat on their heads with Juggernaut and Su-Chi. If you are facing a version of the newer Ankh Sligh, you may even want to side in the Viashino Heretics to blow up Ankh of Mishras and Cursed Scrolls. Against Suicide, your creatures are bigger in general - and if they leave Phyrexian Negators in after sideboarding, your Triskelions and Masticores should have a field day. You can expect that they will board in the obligatory Null Rod, so be prepared to sub in the Viashino Heretics in case they do.

vs. Ankh Sligh
-1 Jester's Cap
-1 Memory Jar
-3 Oath of Ghouls
+3 Viashino Heretic
+2 Terminate

vs. Suicide (assuming they will board in Null Rod)
-3 Oath of Ghouls
-2 Jester's Cap
+3 Viashino Heretic
+2 Terminate

vs. Tainted Mask:
-3 Su-Chi
-2 Oath of Ghouls
+3 Viashino Heretic
+2 Terminate

Sideboarding vs. The World (everything else)
You will notice that against a number of decks that abuse the graveyard (Reanimator, Dragon, Oath, Pandeburst, Full English Breakfast, TnT, Gro, etc.) you will actually be siding out the Oath of Ghouls in favor of one of the best graveyard hate spells ever printed, which goes by the name of Planar Void. It is imperative to aggressively mulligan into a hand with Planar Void against decks like Reanimator, Dragon, FEB, and Academy, as they can all win the game within the first few turns. The combo matchup is certainly scary for any aggro deck, and this coupled with Blood Moon will help give you a fighting chance against most forms of it.

vs. Full English Breakfast
-3 Oath of Ghouls
-1 Yawgmoth's Will
-1 Memory Jar
-1 Wheel of Fortune
-3 Goblin Welder
+4 Planar Void
+3 Blood Moon
+2 Terminate

vs. Academy
-3 Oath of Ghouls
-1 Yawgmoth's Will
-2 Terminate
-1 Chainer's Edict
-3 Goblin Welder
+4 Planar Void
+4 Blood Moon
+2 Chains of Mephistopheles

vs. Pandeburst
-3 Oath of Ghouls
-1 Yawgmoth's Will
-2 Terminate
-1 Chainer's Edict
-3 Goblin Welder
+4 Planar Void
+4 Blood Moon
+2 Chains of Mephistopheles

vs. Dragon:
-3 Oath of Ghouls
-1 Goblin Welder
-1 Yawgmoth's Will
-1 Memory Jar
+4 Planar Void
+2 Terminate

vs. Reanimator:
-3 Oath of Ghouls
-1 Yawgmoth's Will
-2 Goblin Welder
+4 Planar Void
+2 Terminate

As stated, this deck owes part of its heritage to the Germans and their beautifully-crafted TnT decks. Most TnT variants have three things in common: Large fatties, utility creatures, and graveyard recursion. Whether it is the R/G, R/G/B, or /R/GU variety, TnT is mainly such an astounding deck because of its ability to play early threats and search its deck with Survival of the Fittest, while having the added bonus of being able to recur things and gain card advantage with Squee, Genesis, or Oath of Ghouls (in the RGB version touted by some Canadian, Germans, and Steve O'Connell, a.k.a. Zherbus of TheManaDrain.com fame). This deck can nearly match TnT's explosive starts, but I feel that it just simply can sideboard better against most decks (Planar Void even shuts down TnT tricks with Survival, Squee, Genesis, and Goblin Welder).

The inherent weakness of a Black/Red/Artifact deck is the inability to deal with enchantments once they are on the board. The best idea is to be proactive in removing the killer enchantments from your opponent's deck via Jester's Cap. Aside from this problem, I believe the deck is strong enough to compete with other top echelon decks because of the ability to play huge first turn threats (a la TnT), as well as effectively use game-breaking cards such as Blood Moon, Planar Void, and Jester's Cap to significantly cripple a large percentage of the current Type 1 field. It is definitely fun to play and is an interesting alternative if you are looking for something new and competitive in today's Psychatog and TnT infested environment. Any questions, comments, and/or criticisms are welcome at bigballashotcaller@hotmail.com.

-PEACE-
Jason Jaco
A.k.a. doublej20
A.k.a. bigballashotcaller