"Manahopper, He Who Does His Wild Research Find Himself Holistic Wisdom."
(Note to anyone who has such a lackluster inner life that they jump at any chance to gain attention through embracing victimhood, or through finding victims, where none exist, to staunchly defend, the above quote is not racist, but rather a parody of the hit series"Kung Fu," starring David Carradine. You can look it up. However, the fact that you exist caused me to have to write an immediate disclaimer - which, in essence, means that I am now a victim of your overzealous nature, so you now have to protect me from you. In other words, go away. Thanks. Now for the laid-back, easygoing Magic players who are here to learn....)
"How does the soon-to-be-released deck theme (Wild Wisdom) even dare to contend with the current crop?" I had to ask myself that as the synergies began to appear. Many of you deckmeisters understand what it's like to begin developing a few ideas that have been running around your noggin for the past month, only to stumble into something so great that the loudest thought becomes,"How'm I gonna get credit for this monstrosity?" Maybe you've been talking about your ideas for a few weeks amidst a gaggle of junior wanna-be's who cannot design but can only copy and/or tweak, and cannot fathom much beyond the obvious 'good cards' and 'good combos' and their lack of enthusiasm soon takes its toll on you.
So when X (asked that I not mention him specifically) from Fresno, after reading my articles"Ember Beast: Piece of Crap or Slumbering Giant?" and"Deprogramming 101: A Blazing Salvo for the Closed-Minded", wrote to me regarding the card Holistic Wisdom, I replied,"You know, I don't present myself as any kind of master decksman or swashbuckling tech master. Basically, I deal with cards that are considered absolutely crappy by the majority of the baitfish inhabiting the shark-infested pools of magic forums and try to find a way to make them not so crappy after all." (That wasn't it word-for-word, but it's the same idea.)
But since X also wrote that the goobers in his area believed it was crappy, and gave the Almighty reasoning that it was due to"enchantments being vulnerable in the current format", I saw a righteous cause coming on. After all, did anyone read Jason Klein's recent"Battle of Wits" article? Seems the Wits deck is growing in popularity and - maybe I'm way off - but despite other win conditions, doesn't the deck have its share of wins by casting the Battle of Wits? I checked Apprentice twelve times and I swear it's an enchantment. I also noticed that many Opposition decks were enchantment based. What a surprise! After all,"enchantments are vulnerable in the current format", right? Oh, imagine some poor fool playing Zombie Infestation in a format where enchantments are vulnerable! (Please note the sarcasm; ZI is good). I remember Fires was pretty popular when there was just as much enchantment removal floating around. So who were those guys anyways?
It doesn't matter specifically who they were. What matters is that their attitude and the ideas that follow from it are common and to be carefully evaluated. Do they really want X becoming better than they? Do they really know that a card can't be developed beyond a certain point, or are they just repeating what they heard, and what they have logically taken to be true? It's good to see guys like X saying,"I heard what they had to say but I have to find out for myself." Now what it comes down to is this: other than me, what venues are there that really have an interest in supporting the creative endeavors of unorthodox magic players? Who is going to play Queen Isabella to the Christopher Colombi of this game? Personally, I do not have much time to devote to this - but fortunately, StarCityGames has made it possible for the relative unknowns to reach the public. I sometimes get the impression that I am the only one who is making a case for making crappy cards competitive... Not just fun, but competitive. I don't want the distinction, or notoriety - in fact, have you yet noticed I'm authoring under an alias?
It's just something to note that pioneering into forsaken lands is not a popular endeavor. Anyone ever read the history of Lewis and Clark? They had to fight off grizzly bears, rattlesnakes, and all sorts of other critters that could either eat them or make them very ill. Well, hello Lewis and Clark of the Magic kingdom, nice to meet you.
So let's expand this crappy-card-to-competitive-card effort to crappy-combo-to-not-so-crappy-combo. Enter the disastrous duo:
Holistic Wisdom and Wild Research
"Woot? You've got to be kidding me?" There's them voices again. Don't fret. They're normal, quite common. Acknowledge them or they'll give you no rest, but don't let them keep you from venturing out. Here we go:
Wild Research (Henceforth referred to as WR)
1W: Search your library for an enchantment card and reveal that card. Put it into your hand, then discard a card at random from your hand. Then shuffle your library.
1U: Search your library for an instant card and reveal that card. Put it into your hand, then discard a card at random from your hand. Then shuffle your library.
Holistic Wisdom (Henceforth referred to as HW)
1GG, Enchantment, Odyssey Rare
2, Remove a card in your hand from the game: Return target card from your graveyard to your hand if it shares a type with the card removed this way. (The card types are artifact, creature, enchantment, instant, land, and sorcery.)
So perhaps the immediate synergy is obvious to you: WR is used to fetch an enchantment or an instant. If it survives the discard requirement, then great. If it doesn't, then HW helps you to fish it back out. Initially, this seems just okay - more for a fun deck than anything competitive. But this really is about going beyond the obvious, remember? So what you'll see are bits and pieces of what you and others have probably thought up or heard of combined in one deck to create a mind-boggling lifegain engine that requires relatively little to keep it going. Keep in mind, though, the current design I'm sharing can be played with success; your thoughts will be appreciated in fine-tuning it.
First, let it be said that the deck is designed to win without the HW and WR combo. HW is the least essential of the two, so you won't be seeing four of them in the deck. Currently there are two, but three is not out of the question, especially since WR'ing for them can lose them both to the graveyard. Furthermore, in responding to X (the person who wrote me with the inquiry), I mentioned that the only way I saw us able to win was through a Domain design since we were going to be, out of necessity, light on creatures. So you'll find a Domain shell with a few Harrows, Lay of the Lands, and Collective Restraints.
Now, it's almost inevitable that when you mention Domain to someone, the list of associations comes up,"Oh, you have to play at least one Ordered Migration, dude. That would spell game over." Sure it would... For us. We have a gameplan with WR and HW, and not too many sorceries are included unless they are essential to what we need. I agree it would be sweet to cast Ordered Migration just to win several turns later, but in a counter-heavy environment, it will, more than likely, come to be a wasted turn; a decrease in an already low tempo, and an inspiration for our opponent. What we need to cast are the staple cards that are much lower in cc and which, even if countered, will still be working for us.
In Walk the Bursts
or
Burst-o-Matic
Life Burst has its obvious use. Put four in a deck, and theoretically you'll be racking up more and more life with each cast. And who hasn't thought of using Bursts of any kind with Wild Research? I'm sure a lot of you did that research and immediately discarded the idea (no pun intended). What good is a Life Burst if it ends up in the graveyard? Some might say, it's worth four more points when you cast the next one. That is a positive way of looking at losing a card for which you just paid 1U using WR... But again, let's remember nuances such as timing, and strategy. Many thought of WR in conjunction with the Bursts, but few realized the how and the when of researching. Casting four Life Bursts is not a strategy. Using WR to fetch a Life Burst while you already have one in your hand is a strategy. If you lose one of them to the discard required by WR, then you are still able to immediately cast the other. It's important to try to turn off the strict logic mindset when thinking about this (notice I said"try").
The argument some can make is that we are losing the potential of the discarded Life Burst. So I apologize. This strategy nets us only sixteen life, not twenty-eight. Or twelve life, not eighteen, depending on how many Bursts are already in the graveyard. But we can't assume out of a deck of however many cards are remaining that we are going to keep drawing Bursts. Magic players seem to hate uncertainty, which is why WR has not yet become famous, but one thing is certain this time: If you WR for a Burst with another Burst in your hand, you'll either get to cast both or you'll get to cast the one you had but which has just been enhanced by four.... And for only two mana.
That right there's pretty good, but it's certainly not enough to make even many of you die-hard explorers willing to rush out and start building on the theme. How will we stop our opponent's creatures? Aether Bursts work the same way as the Life Bursts would. The important thing to note is that WR is there even for desperate situations when you get caught. The strategy is to WR while you have one of the same Bursts in your hand, but you don't have to wait for that if you're going to die otherwise! Wild Research is also there to support you when you are desperate for another card. The arguments begin again.
"Well, I would rather have four more useful cards to keep me from ever becoming desperate than having four WR."
Again, oh argumentor, logic-restrained master of Dominaria, remember the aim of this deck is trying to show that Holistic Wisdom can be a surprisingly useful card in a competitive design. It is not about creating yet another deck with more obviously useful cards. There's probably a few hundred articles surrounding mine on this site's server that will satisfy the urge to be common in you. Please do not hesitate to read any one of them rather than arguing with me for your right to remain normal and predictable; in fact, I played the HW/WR deck versus someone on Apprentice. As the enchantments started dropping, he remarked:
"What the hell is this? Is it some kind of a goof deck? Tribal Flames? Global Ruin? Random cards?" etc
I told him it was an unfinished deck I was testing for an article. He was playing a very fast deck with cards like
Grafted Skullcap/Ensnaring Bridge/Repentant Vampire/Darkest Hour/Mortivore. He also included Plague Spitters and Crypt Rats to ensure nothing ever got to attack. It was a funny match-up actually because we each seemed to have the answer for everything. He ended up decking himself and blamed it on having too many Skullcaps out. But what he didn't blame it on was the timing of my Aether Bursts, which saw his 7/5 Repentant Vampire (w/Sinister Strength) discarded at the end of his turn due to a well-timed bounce taking advantage of his Skullcap's discard effect. He didn't mention my patiently taking eight points of damage from a Mortivore before doing the same. Some players might react to getting hit with 8/8 Mortivore and just bounce it immediately, but he had enough mana to recast it. Never once did I cast an Evasive Action when he cast Grafted Skullcap. He didn't mention these things and failed to see the Holistic Wisdom behind the deck I was playing. According to him, he lost not because I played well, or had an unorthodox deck, but because of his mistakes. It also had nothing to do with my having cast the third Life Burst about three times using Holistic Wisdom to help... Or so he thought.
Back to researching for the Bursts. The bonus which the logic-dominated mind cannot appreciate is that WR is used strategically, not whimsically - yet, should there be a moment of desperation, you are not reduced to topdecking. In moments where you are caught by surprise, or your opponent topdecks his best weapon, logic such as"Yeah, well, paying two to use WR and two to HW and then having to pay two more to cast the Burst is too mana intensive" doesn't wash because having to do that - ready? - is not the strategy. Keep reminding yourself of that, and often. It happens to be an option that is available in difficult moments. As the game progresses, however, that option becomes available even when you are not in a desperate situation. In other words, you have a parachute and a rip cord. It also has a back-up rip cord, and just in case, it has an emergency back-up rip cord.
"But doesn't a back-up rip cord imply an emergency already?"
Is there no end to that logic-monster?
All right, now it's important to show the design:
Wild Wisdom, a.k.a. Be Still, Manahopper
4 Wild Research
2 Global Ruin
4 Life Burst
2 Reclaim
4 Collective Restraint
4 Æther Burst
2 Gainsay
4 Evasive Action
3 Lay of the Land
3 Harrow
2 Holistic Wisdom
3 Questing Phelddagrif
1 Millstone
4 City of Brass
1 Swamp
1 Battlefield Forge
2 Yavimaya Coast
3 Plains
3 Mountain
4 Island
4 Forest
My only concern at present is the lack of non-penalty card drawing like Opt or Fact-or-Fiction (FoF). Again, Domain brings up memories of Reviving Vapors or Allied Strategies - but both, plus FoF, are still ripe for a counter, leaving us with a wasted turn. If it comes down to it, I would Opt for the Option of Opt (how's that for an Optical illusion?).
Holistic What's-dom?
So what's the big Kahooneys about Wisdom? In the Ember Beast article, I wrote how so many players logic fails them when it comes to actual gameplay. So many have insisted that Ember Beast sucks. So if it sucks, why counter it? Why Terminate it? Why not let it into play, or leave it there, so you can cast your Flametongue? After all, it sucks right? But most of the time, I watched player after player reacting to the Ember Beast as if it were something to be taken seriously. Contradiction between words and actions noted. So who, thinking HW sucks, is going to counter HW? Maybe you think I mean no one would, but I think everyone who has an ounce of intuition left in him would counter it in a heartbeat. It gives us the kind of access to the graveyard that has me sporting wood right now. So this here alone ought to tell you that many players think a card sucks because they can't figure out how to make it good. It's an ego thing, ya know? But if you're a halfway decent player and you cast it, your opponent, to his credit, will at least figure out that you figured it out... Or enlisted the aid of someone who did (See Christopher Columbi)
When playing, you're more likely to see a WR before an HW, so you might find yourself using WR to fetch an HW. Although we are not dependent on HW for winning, it is very useful to us, so pray this isn't lost. I once lost both HWs to the WRs discard effect and became very interested in Reclaim. Restock is too expensive for this deck's goals. Reclaim, however, is utility in that it isn't there only to salve the fear of losing both HWs. It can also be used to Reclaim that third or fourth Life Burst for the extra life, or to Reclaim a tempo-turning Global Ruin. Anything that was cast or lost to WRs discard is fair game. This is good because it further exploits our strategy for using WR in the first place.
Collective Restraints hold off the swarms and Aether Bursting big stompers in a post-Global Ruin environment spells major slowdown for the opponent. Evasive Actions are excellent early on after Lay of the Land and Harrow (ideally sac pain lands first), and also post-Global Ruin. Later, they become great pitch-bait when using HW to retrieve that third or fourth Life Burst yet again, or that Aether Burst. Or, as needed, you could pitch an unneeded Aether Burst to retrieve a much needed Evasive Action, or Gainsay. I wonder how many of you are still following! It's not that this doesn't work. It's that the real synergy is difficult to comprehend and the setup is deceptively simple.
Alternative win conditions include Questing Phelddagrif and Millstone. Be patient with the Questy, making sure you have enough of the right mana to protect it (namely, saving G or W to protect it from certain deaths from Prophetic Bolt and/or Flametongue Kavu). Activating its flying ability gives your opponent a card, but Questing Phelddagrif is so good that this already realized as an acceptable trade-off. Knowing that you have a Millstone in your deck somewhere makes it an even more acceptable trade-off. Two Gainsays are maindecked because of blue's popularity. If it turns out to be useless, it can still be traded in via HW or as pitch-fodder for WR. Such is life, but the metagame makes this an understandable choice.
The painlands, including City of Brass, are there to ensure the necessary mana for the early game, and are later to be sacrificed to Harrows and destroyed by Global Ruin. Know why they are there and don't hesitate to let them go when the time comes. Keeping in mind this is just another option, not the strategy, Holistic Wisdom can be used to return a City of Brass if you should ever find a reason to need one.
Sideboarding
The Sideboard seems pretty simple to me, since this Domain design basically negates beatdown and burn decks. The biggest threat, in my estimation, is land destruction, which can be offset by Sacred Ground. You would obviously include as many Gainsays needed to bring your total four. Discard could be the other big threat, though it could actually enhance our Bursts, so I would sideboard the forgotten Dodecapod. We'll be able to use HW to get some of the discarded items back, even though we'd rather not have to go that route.
Some sideboard ideas at-a-glance:
Sacred Ground (versus land destruction)
Gainsay
Dodecapod
Aegis of Honor (for Sligh or other burn decks))
Extract (wrecks one-shot wonders like Rice Snack)
Disenchant (Not too worried about artifacts, so you decide how crafty you want to be with the alternative enchantment removal. Hull Breach? Aura Mutation for the 1/1 tokens? Aura Blast for the cantrip? Orim's Thunder for the extra damage? I'd go with Aura Blast for the card, and secondly with the Hull Breach in case Orbosition was big
Pyroclas (not so much for pesky attackers, but for small creatures with pesky abilities, and to slow down decks that rely on mana animals.)
Tombfire (in case any deck relies heavily on Flashback)
Now that I'm within minutes of sending this to be published, Arcane Laboratory comes by to say hi. Hi. Bye.
Again, that's not the final draft. There's room for anyone to tweak to his heart's content.
Thanks for reading!
If you want to reach me, email me at
Crazy_Tech_Manor@Yahoo.com
for I am
The Phantom of Crazy-Tech Manor
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