Welcome to Three To The Face!!! Your number 1(Hundredth) Magic Website!!!
Thursday, August 11, 2011
News Update!!!
Do you play Magic? Is Commander one of your favorite formats? Well here is one of Wizards up coming products that may interest you! Click here for a link to all of the cards in From the Vault: Legends! Yeeeaaahh!
Oh Captain, My Captain!!!
I UnSummon You!
Welcome one and all! This is Captain Red Zone coming to you with yet another deck for your viewing delight. Today is a little special for me; I get to talk about a subject I have wanted to do for a while now. You see, last week I posted a poll for the dual color decks. This poll will effect my next 10 or so articles. So, while I wait to see the final out come of that, this week I get to build a deck that will fill up the spot for the week without any real need to follow any single color or theme. So I’m taking this tie to talk about another casual format I have wanted to do for some time. This week I will take you into the UnSets!
Now, the cards in the UnSets are not legal to play in any format but Casual. The rules say something along the lines of: “Any card without a black or white border are illegal in all sanctioned formats ,” or something of that nature. This means that, with the exception of the basic lands, all cards from these two sets are not to be played with anywhere outside your casual play group. So, with that in mind, I would like to also point out that even some casual formats, like Commander, don’t allow these cards also.
The difference is this: The banned list for Commander is a suggested list. That means that you can use these cards in your play group but you may want to ask them if it’s cool first. Don’t expect it to be cool to play this anywhere outside of your play group at all. So, I have to lay down a few warnings right now:
1) If you decide to continue reading after this part, I am not to be held responsible for any beat downs in any parking lots for the usage of this deck.
2) It is solely on you to ask you group beforehand if they will allow you to play this deck.
3) In case your group says no, it is up to you to bring an additional Commander deck to use.
4) It is your job to find a group of friends that will allow your wacky deck into a game.
Just to let you know, this one is more of an idea then a deck. I’m not even sure if it can win a game but I think having fun while playing it is the real way you win here. So, with that out the way, let’s build us an UnSet themed Commander deck!
Unhanded Me!
The first step is to pick a General. I decided to go with a five-colored one just because it will give us more cards to use from the two sets. With only two sets to draw from, we need all the open space we can get, but we have one problem here… There are no five-colored Legends from the two sets!
No biggie, We’ll just pick one from somewhere else in Magic’s history. I decided to go with…
That’s right, Cromat! I figure since he’s the one five-colored Commander my group finds useless, he would fit the bill here in a deck that is useless just about everywhere. So on to the rest of the deck.
Get Your Hands Off My Ass!
If you didn’t know already, there is a cycle of Donkey creatures from the UnSets, all of which have Ass somewhere in their name. So lets start with the asses shall we ?
Assquatch, Bad Ass, Dumb Ass, Fat Ass, Smart Ass, Cheap Ass: First off, that was as fun to write as it was to read. Now most of the Asses have a ½ (half ass… get it) on them somewhere, be it in their mana cost, effect, or power and toughness. I would like to point out it may be easier to treat these like a hole… whole. So Assquatch is a 4/4 that gives other donkeys +2/+2. Bad Ass is a 4/1 that you can regenerate by paying 1B and don’t forget to Growl, like actually Growl at someone. Cheap Ass is a 1/4 that brings makes all of your spells cost 1/2 less to play. Now remember, Creatures are spells when you play them so this brings those down too. Dumb Ass is a 4/2 but you have to flip a coin and if you lose target opponent chooses if Dumb Ass can attack this turn. It may be in your best interest to let him know you won’t attack him this turn if he lets you attack… Getting political! Fat Ass is a 2/4 that gets +2/+2 if you’re eating so you many want to metagame a little by bringing a bag of chips or some M&M’s. May I suggest a can of Pringels?
But the asses doesn’t stop there…
City of Ass and Ass Whuppin’: Ass Whuppin’ can destroy just about any card in this deck . You know, like the Commander. The basic lands are able to get away, so if someone steals one of your cards with a Mind Control or something… Whup that Ass! City of Ass makes 2 colored mana if you count the half as a whole. Not too bad.
Ok, enough of the Ass jokes. Now we move on to the rest…
Avatar of Me, Johnny, Combo Player, Timmy, Power Gamer and _____________: These are my vanity cards. I’m a Timmy/Johnny according to the Wizards Personality Test. I love big game ending spells but I also like to find interesting cards that combine together in interesting ways. Timmy and Johnny do both when they’re together. I can find creatures with Johnny and Timmy can cheat them into play while Johnny finds the best combo card to go with them. Avatar will vary in coolness from person to person. For me, he’s a UU brown 6/12 and I have to say a 6/12 for 2 is pretty good indeed. Oh, and that blank line is not a typo, that’s a blue 1/1 that you can pay 1 to change its name to anything you want it to be. I like to name it Captain of the Red Zone… until Uril, the Miststalker comes along. ___________ can legend rule any commander for one mana so keep that in mind.
Artful Looter, Cheatyface, Elvish House Party, Rocket-Powered Turbo Slug, and The Fallen Apart: Each of these bring a little bit of fun to the table. Artful Looter is here as a draw/discard outlet but mostly because I like the fact that he’s stealing a Merfolk Looter painting. Cheatyface is fun to try and slip into play. Elvish House Party is as big as the current hour. Quick, look at what time it is. The hour? That’s how big it is right now. Usually my group plays around 6 or 7 pm and we usually keep playing until about 11pm. Rocket-Powered Turbo Slug is the fastest thing in magic history and I can’t miss a chance to cast it attacking the turn before I play it! The Fallen Apart is one of the few UnCards I feel could be allowed for regular games. If they add the word “counters” after arms and legs, it would make perfect since.
Creature Guy, Laughing Hyena, Goblin S.W.A.T. Team, Greater Morphling and Keeper of the Sacred Word: These are the guys that may get under everyone’s skin. The Gotcha effect catches player doing random things they would usually do during a game. Have you ever laughed, shuffled your hand, or said something like Kill/Creature/Dies/or Guy during a game? Well, the Gotcha cards will make sure your opponents watch what they do and say. The Gotcha effects allows you to bring certain cards back to your hand from the grave if you say Gotcha when another player does one of these. Oh and don’t even get me started about the Sacred Word! Greater Morphling does just about everything it could at the time it was printed and with a wall of text like that, I’m sure you could just say anything and the group would believe you just so they don’t have to read it. Goblin S.W.A.T. will leave someone with a sore hand.
Emcee, Paper Tiger, Rock Lobster, and Scissors Lizard: These are here because I like Rock, Paper, and Scissors. But Emcee is going to make the table either A) Die laughing watching you do your best ring announcer voice or B) Get really mad every time use it on someone else’s guy.
Goblin Bookie, Goblin Bowling Team, and Hurloon Wrangler: The Bowling Team can do a little extra damage while the Bookie makes sure you hit higher rolls… Or at least try to. The Wrangler is usually unblockable in Texas. Not that I’ve been or anything.
Under Wraps!
Now with the dudes out of the why, let’s move on to the Enchantments.
Ach! Hans, Run!, Checks and Balances, Drawn Together, Handcuffs, and Staying Power: Ach! is a creature search engine but don’t rely on it too much. Checks and Balances can counter spells for you but you’re going to need the table to all agree. Drawn Together is one of my favorite cartoons and now it’s also in a deck. Handcuffs can be a way of dealing with unwanted cards. Staying Power will help with all the pumps and can help with Ach! too.
Yet Another AEther Vortex and The Cheese Stands Alone: Y.A.AE.V. can help to speed up the game by giving all creatures haste while The Cheese can be a win con if you can figure out a way to lose your lands, hand, and whatever else you have on the field.
Now it’s time for some METAL!
Ashnod’s Coupon, Bronze Calendar, Jack-in-the-Mox, Letter Bomb, My First Tome, Pointy Finger of
Doom, Rod of Spanking, and Super Secret Tech: Bronze Calendar helps with your mana as long as your willing to sound like Miss Piggy. Jack-in-the-Mox can get you some mana as long as you don’t roll a 1. My First Tome will draw you some cards cause I’m sure not to many people know the flavor text on any of the UnCards. Pointy Finger is good for some random destruction. Rod of Spanking can deal with 1/1 and I want you to see how many 1/1 tokens you pop off before their owner even remembers to say, “Thank you, Sire. May I have another?” Super Secret Tech can help bring down your spell cost if you’re the kind of guy who likes to foil out your deck. Ashnod’s Coupon can be fun when you don’t feel like getting up to get a drink.
Eye to Eye, Face to Face, and Mouth to Mouth: A few little Mini-Games always help make the bigger game fun… or at least that’s what I learned from video games.
AWOL, Duh, Rare-B-Gone, Touch and Go, Prismatic Wardrobe, and Kill Destroy: A few removal spells couldn’t hurt. Just make sure to RtFC before casting any of these.
Land Aid ’04 , Incoming! , Gerrymandering, Growth Spurt, and Graphic Violence: And these are to round out the lot with one more left…
Who/What/When/Where/Why: Yes, that is all one card. No I’m not telling you how it works. Just sit back and let your mind wonder.
Becoming UnDone!!!
Now I say drop in 7 of each basic land, Command Tower and one more land of your pick. Like always, I advise that you look into your own mana base edits because I know that the lands can be the most taxing part of building. It’s easy to get cards but you’re not going to see many lands in the trade binders outside of say, a store owned one. Well that wraps up this week’s article. I’ll see you next week when I start my dual color decks.
Hope you had fun and please leave any comments or suggestions. Until next time,
This is your Captain speaking… We’re heading into the Red Zone!
Welcome one and all! This is Captain Red Zone coming to you with yet another deck for your viewing delight. Today is a little special for me; I get to talk about a subject I have wanted to do for a while now. You see, last week I posted a poll for the dual color decks. This poll will effect my next 10 or so articles. So, while I wait to see the final out come of that, this week I get to build a deck that will fill up the spot for the week without any real need to follow any single color or theme. So I’m taking this tie to talk about another casual format I have wanted to do for some time. This week I will take you into the UnSets!
Now, the cards in the UnSets are not legal to play in any format but Casual. The rules say something along the lines of: “Any card without a black or white border are illegal in all sanctioned formats ,” or something of that nature. This means that, with the exception of the basic lands, all cards from these two sets are not to be played with anywhere outside your casual play group. So, with that in mind, I would like to also point out that even some casual formats, like Commander, don’t allow these cards also.
The difference is this: The banned list for Commander is a suggested list. That means that you can use these cards in your play group but you may want to ask them if it’s cool first. Don’t expect it to be cool to play this anywhere outside of your play group at all. So, I have to lay down a few warnings right now:
1) If you decide to continue reading after this part, I am not to be held responsible for any beat downs in any parking lots for the usage of this deck.
2) It is solely on you to ask you group beforehand if they will allow you to play this deck.
3) In case your group says no, it is up to you to bring an additional Commander deck to use.
4) It is your job to find a group of friends that will allow your wacky deck into a game.
Just to let you know, this one is more of an idea then a deck. I’m not even sure if it can win a game but I think having fun while playing it is the real way you win here. So, with that out the way, let’s build us an UnSet themed Commander deck!
Unhanded Me!
The first step is to pick a General. I decided to go with a five-colored one just because it will give us more cards to use from the two sets. With only two sets to draw from, we need all the open space we can get, but we have one problem here… There are no five-colored Legends from the two sets!
No biggie, We’ll just pick one from somewhere else in Magic’s history. I decided to go with…
That’s right, Cromat! I figure since he’s the one five-colored Commander my group finds useless, he would fit the bill here in a deck that is useless just about everywhere. So on to the rest of the deck.
Get Your Hands Off My Ass!
If you didn’t know already, there is a cycle of Donkey creatures from the UnSets, all of which have Ass somewhere in their name. So lets start with the asses shall we ?
Assquatch, Bad Ass, Dumb Ass, Fat Ass, Smart Ass, Cheap Ass: First off, that was as fun to write as it was to read. Now most of the Asses have a ½ (half ass… get it) on them somewhere, be it in their mana cost, effect, or power and toughness. I would like to point out it may be easier to treat these like a hole… whole. So Assquatch is a 4/4 that gives other donkeys +2/+2. Bad Ass is a 4/1 that you can regenerate by paying 1B and don’t forget to Growl, like actually Growl at someone. Cheap Ass is a 1/4 that brings makes all of your spells cost 1/2 less to play. Now remember, Creatures are spells when you play them so this brings those down too. Dumb Ass is a 4/2 but you have to flip a coin and if you lose target opponent chooses if Dumb Ass can attack this turn. It may be in your best interest to let him know you won’t attack him this turn if he lets you attack… Getting political! Fat Ass is a 2/4 that gets +2/+2 if you’re eating so you many want to metagame a little by bringing a bag of chips or some M&M’s. May I suggest a can of Pringels?
But the asses doesn’t stop there…
City of Ass and Ass Whuppin’: Ass Whuppin’ can destroy just about any card in this deck . You know, like the Commander. The basic lands are able to get away, so if someone steals one of your cards with a Mind Control or something… Whup that Ass! City of Ass makes 2 colored mana if you count the half as a whole. Not too bad.
Ok, enough of the Ass jokes. Now we move on to the rest…
Avatar of Me, Johnny, Combo Player, Timmy, Power Gamer and _____________: These are my vanity cards. I’m a Timmy/Johnny according to the Wizards Personality Test. I love big game ending spells but I also like to find interesting cards that combine together in interesting ways. Timmy and Johnny do both when they’re together. I can find creatures with Johnny and Timmy can cheat them into play while Johnny finds the best combo card to go with them. Avatar will vary in coolness from person to person. For me, he’s a UU brown 6/12 and I have to say a 6/12 for 2 is pretty good indeed. Oh, and that blank line is not a typo, that’s a blue 1/1 that you can pay 1 to change its name to anything you want it to be. I like to name it Captain of the Red Zone… until Uril, the Miststalker comes along. ___________ can legend rule any commander for one mana so keep that in mind.
Artful Looter, Cheatyface, Elvish House Party, Rocket-Powered Turbo Slug, and The Fallen Apart: Each of these bring a little bit of fun to the table. Artful Looter is here as a draw/discard outlet but mostly because I like the fact that he’s stealing a Merfolk Looter painting. Cheatyface is fun to try and slip into play. Elvish House Party is as big as the current hour. Quick, look at what time it is. The hour? That’s how big it is right now. Usually my group plays around 6 or 7 pm and we usually keep playing until about 11pm. Rocket-Powered Turbo Slug is the fastest thing in magic history and I can’t miss a chance to cast it attacking the turn before I play it! The Fallen Apart is one of the few UnCards I feel could be allowed for regular games. If they add the word “counters” after arms and legs, it would make perfect since.
Creature Guy, Laughing Hyena, Goblin S.W.A.T. Team, Greater Morphling and Keeper of the Sacred Word: These are the guys that may get under everyone’s skin. The Gotcha effect catches player doing random things they would usually do during a game. Have you ever laughed, shuffled your hand, or said something like Kill/Creature/Dies/or Guy during a game? Well, the Gotcha cards will make sure your opponents watch what they do and say. The Gotcha effects allows you to bring certain cards back to your hand from the grave if you say Gotcha when another player does one of these. Oh and don’t even get me started about the Sacred Word! Greater Morphling does just about everything it could at the time it was printed and with a wall of text like that, I’m sure you could just say anything and the group would believe you just so they don’t have to read it. Goblin S.W.A.T. will leave someone with a sore hand.
Emcee, Paper Tiger, Rock Lobster, and Scissors Lizard: These are here because I like Rock, Paper, and Scissors. But Emcee is going to make the table either A) Die laughing watching you do your best ring announcer voice or B) Get really mad every time use it on someone else’s guy.
Goblin Bookie, Goblin Bowling Team, and Hurloon Wrangler: The Bowling Team can do a little extra damage while the Bookie makes sure you hit higher rolls… Or at least try to. The Wrangler is usually unblockable in Texas. Not that I’ve been or anything.
Under Wraps!
Now with the dudes out of the why, let’s move on to the Enchantments.
Ach! Hans, Run!, Checks and Balances, Drawn Together, Handcuffs, and Staying Power: Ach! is a creature search engine but don’t rely on it too much. Checks and Balances can counter spells for you but you’re going to need the table to all agree. Drawn Together is one of my favorite cartoons and now it’s also in a deck. Handcuffs can be a way of dealing with unwanted cards. Staying Power will help with all the pumps and can help with Ach! too.
Yet Another AEther Vortex and The Cheese Stands Alone: Y.A.AE.V. can help to speed up the game by giving all creatures haste while The Cheese can be a win con if you can figure out a way to lose your lands, hand, and whatever else you have on the field.
Now it’s time for some METAL!
Ashnod’s Coupon, Bronze Calendar, Jack-in-the-Mox, Letter Bomb, My First Tome, Pointy Finger of
Doom, Rod of Spanking, and Super Secret Tech: Bronze Calendar helps with your mana as long as your willing to sound like Miss Piggy. Jack-in-the-Mox can get you some mana as long as you don’t roll a 1. My First Tome will draw you some cards cause I’m sure not to many people know the flavor text on any of the UnCards. Pointy Finger is good for some random destruction. Rod of Spanking can deal with 1/1 and I want you to see how many 1/1 tokens you pop off before their owner even remembers to say, “Thank you, Sire. May I have another?” Super Secret Tech can help bring down your spell cost if you’re the kind of guy who likes to foil out your deck. Ashnod’s Coupon can be fun when you don’t feel like getting up to get a drink.
Eye to Eye, Face to Face, and Mouth to Mouth: A few little Mini-Games always help make the bigger game fun… or at least that’s what I learned from video games.
AWOL, Duh, Rare-B-Gone, Touch and Go, Prismatic Wardrobe, and Kill Destroy: A few removal spells couldn’t hurt. Just make sure to RtFC before casting any of these.
Land Aid ’04 , Incoming! , Gerrymandering, Growth Spurt, and Graphic Violence: And these are to round out the lot with one more left…
Who/What/When/Where/Why: Yes, that is all one card. No I’m not telling you how it works. Just sit back and let your mind wonder.
Becoming UnDone!!!
Now I say drop in 7 of each basic land, Command Tower and one more land of your pick. Like always, I advise that you look into your own mana base edits because I know that the lands can be the most taxing part of building. It’s easy to get cards but you’re not going to see many lands in the trade binders outside of say, a store owned one. Well that wraps up this week’s article. I’ll see you next week when I start my dual color decks.
Hope you had fun and please leave any comments or suggestions. Until next time,
This is your Captain speaking… We’re heading into the Red Zone!
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Oh Captain, My Captain!!!
Beast Mode!
Welcome one and all! This is Captain Red Zone coming to you with yet another deck for your viewing delight. I have to be honest with you, I like to think of myself as a Green mage. Green has been one of my favorite colors in Magic. It has the biggest creatures, the best artifact and enchantment hate, the second best card draw, and the fastest mana ramp in town. The only thing Green has problems with is counter magic and creature kill. This is the reason I have always liked green, it hates countering things as much as I do. The creature kill is easy to solve… just play a bigger creature then the other guy. Up until recently, green mages had this part on lock and key. But I have to tell the truth, I’ve played green so much that I couldn’t come up with a deck for this week. So I reached out to a few fellow Green mages and we talked about what to do and it went a little something like this.
Me: Ok guys, this week I have to make a mono-green Commander deck for my readers and I’m coming up blank. I need your help here so where should we go?
Nissa: You can always build an Elf deck.
Me: No one wants to see another one of those.
Nissa: What!? Elves are so cool, and we’re a good choice in every format!
Me: That’s the problem. Why should we play Elves here if we could do the same thing in any other format already?
Sarkhan: What about something with hasty creatures? We could even go with a steal creature theme! Oh and Dragons! Lots and lots of flying 5/5 with firebreathing and raining down fire and…
Me: Woo there buddy! One that sounds more Red then anything green I’ve ever seen and two, who let you in here? I don’t remember calling you?
Garruk: I did… he’s my ride.
Me: Oh, well you should have said that before.
Garruk: Hey, he said he use to do things in green before so I figured why not.
Me: This is going nowhere fast, so let’s get back on topic here.
Nissa: So like I was saying elves are…
Me: Not happening.
Garruk: What about Beasts?
Me: The only Legend they have is Uril and he has a thing for Auras.
Garruk: So, pick a human. Humans make great beastmasters any way.
Sarkhan: And Brimstone and ashes and smoke and boom and…
Me: Ok beasts it is! Just please get those matches away from that guy!
So after and few hours (and a call to the local fire department because of a little incident with a garbage can and some lighter fluid Sarkhan found) we settled on beasts. Garruk pretty much built this deck and just to keep Nissa happy I build a Standard Elves deck.
We sat down and Garruk told me his basic plan. He’s idea was: play Beasts, Ramp into Beasts, Overrun with Beasts, Play More Beasts, draw cards into Beasts, and in case Beasts are too small... play Wurms.
That was it. I started to think maybe an elf deck wasn’t such a bad idea, but I will never tell Nissa that. Women never let you live that kind of stuff down. So it was on with Plan Garruk or, as I like to think of it as, keep pushing the punch button until you win!
Play Beasts!
Let’s start with our Legend. We need a Commander who can help out our dudes and I have to tell you beast aren’t cheap. So, I picked Azusa, Lost but Seeking.
I picked the one I think is the best for what we need. Low cost, Helps us fix our mana, and the “beauty” to help tame our Beasts. Hey, I needed some way to decide between her and Omnath. So now it’s on to our Beasts.
Fangren Firstborn, Fangren Pathcutter, Krosan Warchief, Paleoloth, Spearbreaker Behemoth, and Rampaging Baloths: These are our beast “lords”, or pack leaders at least. Firstborn passes out +1/+1 counter to our attacking team making our beasts a little bigger then they already are. Pathcutter gives the same team Trample if they don’t already have it, Warchief helps with the cost of these big monsters and is ready to regenerate any beast in need. Paleoloth brings back fallen beast when other bigger one show up. Spearbreaker can give a big enough team Indestructible for the right cost. While Rampaging Baloths pumps out tokens for ever land we drop.
Brontotherium, Feral Throwback, and Venomspout Brackus: These guys help to take care of pesky creatures that refuse to block, attack, or try to fly/evade our guys. Brontotherium and Feral Throwback provoke creatures into fights they don’t want to have while Brackus takes out the fliers for 2 mana.
Canopy Crawler and Glowering Rogon: What’s better then playing a big creature? Playing an even bigger creature! These two and Feral Throwback have Amplify, so for each beast in your hand, they come out a little bigger then their regular size.
Cystbearer, Deepwood Tantiv, Hystrodon, Krosan Cloudscraper, Plaguemaw Beast, Spinebiter, Thresher Beast, and Ravenous Baloth: These will help change up our battle plans a bit. Cystbearer, Plaguemaw Beast, and Spinebiter bring a infect package making blocking them here a bit of a bad choice while also leading to a chance to posion out a player or two. Deepwood Tantiv and Ravenous Baloth can gain us a little life while Hystrodon can draw us a few cards. Thresher Beast can get a little LD in there. Krosan Cloudscraper, like a few our other guys, has morph so it can sneak in for a lot of damage your opponents won’t see coming.
Garruk’s Companion, Garruk’s Horde,Garruk’s Packleader, Krakilin, Leatherback Baloth, Obstinate Baloth, Root Greevil, and Terra Stomper: These round out the rest of our beast group. Terra Stomper is our big beast. Companion and Leatherback are our low cost beatsticks. Obstinate brings a little lifegain but is more of a cheap 4/4. Karkilin is as big as we need it to be at any point in the game. Root Greevil is for some enchantment hate. Horde basically is a Future Sight here with this deck being mostly creatures while Packleader brings the draw.
Ramp into Beasts, Draw into Beasts, and Overrun with Beasts!
So now we’re on to the few “Beast Trainers” I added to help keep these creatures under control.
Garruk Wildspeaker and Garruk, Primal Hunter: Who better to keep our beasts under control than the man who came up with the deck?
Argothian Elder, Frontier Guide, Fyndhorn Elder, Elvish Piper, Joraga Treespeaker, Keeper of the Beasts, Seedborn Muse, Totem Speaker, Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger: So I talked this thing out with Nissa and we agreed that a few elves could at least help ramp out our beasts. Agothian Elder, Fyndhorn Elder, and Joraga Treespeaker are walking 2 mana dudes. The Piper can skip around any mana cost we have here. Keeper of the Beasts helps us keep pouring out beast while Totem Speaker makes sure we’re gaining life for each one. Seedborn and Vorinclex are here to double our mana.
Master of the Wild Hunt, Oracle of Mul Daya, and Primeval Titan: The Master of the Wild Hunt is a little slow in this format, but he still provides another creature generator for us. Oracle is here to help Garruk’s Horde with the top of the deck and hey if you need mana, Prime Time is one of the best at what he does.
With that out of the way we move on to ramp…
Mana Reflection, Deconstruct, Explosive Vegetation, Journey of Discovery, Rampant Growth, and Seek the Horizon: Basically, these are our land search cards. Deconstruct destroys artifacts for free. Mana Reflection gives us extra mana while everything else on this list gets us extra lands to the hand or field.
Now, some card draw…
Collective Unconscious and Harmonize: Draw 3 with Harmonize and Draw X with the Collective Unconscious. This combined with Big Garruk, Garruk’s Packleader, and the various other land search cards should make for a good amount of deck control here.
And of course Overruns…
Overrun, Overwhelm, Overwhelming Stampede, and Triumph of the Hordes: These are our game enders. These all basically say “My Team is even bigger than before, they have trample and/or infect, and you may want to take a moment to kiss your loved ones good-bye.”
In Case of Emergency, Play Wurms!
So here we are at the last point in Garruk’s “Flawless Plan”. If Beasts can’t kill ’em, Wurms will!
Bellowing Tanglewurm, Engulfing Slagwurm, Pelakka Wurm, Penumbra Wurm, Plated Slagwurm, and Symbiotic Wurm: Bellowing Tanglewurm brings Intimidate for our team which in some cases is unblockability. Engulfing Slagwurm brings even more lifegain and some creature removal. Penumbra draws a card and gains life. Penumbra Wurm and Symbiotic Wurm replace themselves when they die. Plated Slagwurm brings a nice size body that can’t be targeted by removal or Pacifism like effects.
I felt we needed a few other things so while Garruk was playing fire chief with Sarkhan I slipped in a few favorites. At least that way I can say I had something to do with this deck.
Desert Twister, Genesis Wave, Pulse of the Tangle, and Savage Conception: Twister is just a way to deal with any permanent. Pulse of the Tangle and Savage Conception are for extra Beast tokens. While Genesis Wave can help fill our board with lots of creatures and lands. This deck has only 15 non permanents so we should be able to ride the wave without worries of missing too much.
While I was going over the deck something seemed a little… off. I couldn’t put my figure on it. Then I look the deck over a few times and it hit me. We’re short one card!
Raking Canopy: A Green Ghostly Prison type card. There. I feel better… What? Stop looking at me like that… Don’t Judge Me!
Out in the Wild!
With 34 Forest, we reach the end of yet another article. Next week we’re headed into… strange waters… really strange… I’m talking cards with borders that aren’t black kinda deal. But the week after that we’re going to start seeing doubles! So go and vote in the new poll to pick which color combination we should start with and I’ll see you next time!
Hope you had fun and please leave any comments or suggestions. Until next time,
This is your Captain speaking… We’re heading into the Red Zone!
Welcome one and all! This is Captain Red Zone coming to you with yet another deck for your viewing delight. I have to be honest with you, I like to think of myself as a Green mage. Green has been one of my favorite colors in Magic. It has the biggest creatures, the best artifact and enchantment hate, the second best card draw, and the fastest mana ramp in town. The only thing Green has problems with is counter magic and creature kill. This is the reason I have always liked green, it hates countering things as much as I do. The creature kill is easy to solve… just play a bigger creature then the other guy. Up until recently, green mages had this part on lock and key. But I have to tell the truth, I’ve played green so much that I couldn’t come up with a deck for this week. So I reached out to a few fellow Green mages and we talked about what to do and it went a little something like this.
Me: Ok guys, this week I have to make a mono-green Commander deck for my readers and I’m coming up blank. I need your help here so where should we go?
Nissa: You can always build an Elf deck.
Me: No one wants to see another one of those.
Nissa: What!? Elves are so cool, and we’re a good choice in every format!
Me: That’s the problem. Why should we play Elves here if we could do the same thing in any other format already?
Sarkhan: What about something with hasty creatures? We could even go with a steal creature theme! Oh and Dragons! Lots and lots of flying 5/5 with firebreathing and raining down fire and…
Me: Woo there buddy! One that sounds more Red then anything green I’ve ever seen and two, who let you in here? I don’t remember calling you?
Garruk: I did… he’s my ride.
Me: Oh, well you should have said that before.
Garruk: Hey, he said he use to do things in green before so I figured why not.
Me: This is going nowhere fast, so let’s get back on topic here.
Nissa: So like I was saying elves are…
Me: Not happening.
Garruk: What about Beasts?
Me: The only Legend they have is Uril and he has a thing for Auras.
Garruk: So, pick a human. Humans make great beastmasters any way.
Sarkhan: And Brimstone and ashes and smoke and boom and…
Me: Ok beasts it is! Just please get those matches away from that guy!
FIRE!!!
So after and few hours (and a call to the local fire department because of a little incident with a garbage can and some lighter fluid Sarkhan found) we settled on beasts. Garruk pretty much built this deck and just to keep Nissa happy I build a Standard Elves deck.
We sat down and Garruk told me his basic plan. He’s idea was: play Beasts, Ramp into Beasts, Overrun with Beasts, Play More Beasts, draw cards into Beasts, and in case Beasts are too small... play Wurms.
That was it. I started to think maybe an elf deck wasn’t such a bad idea, but I will never tell Nissa that. Women never let you live that kind of stuff down. So it was on with Plan Garruk or, as I like to think of it as, keep pushing the punch button until you win!
Play Beasts!
Let’s start with our Legend. We need a Commander who can help out our dudes and I have to tell you beast aren’t cheap. So, I picked Azusa, Lost but Seeking.
I picked the one I think is the best for what we need. Low cost, Helps us fix our mana, and the “beauty” to help tame our Beasts. Hey, I needed some way to decide between her and Omnath. So now it’s on to our Beasts.
Fangren Firstborn, Fangren Pathcutter, Krosan Warchief, Paleoloth, Spearbreaker Behemoth, and Rampaging Baloths: These are our beast “lords”, or pack leaders at least. Firstborn passes out +1/+1 counter to our attacking team making our beasts a little bigger then they already are. Pathcutter gives the same team Trample if they don’t already have it, Warchief helps with the cost of these big monsters and is ready to regenerate any beast in need. Paleoloth brings back fallen beast when other bigger one show up. Spearbreaker can give a big enough team Indestructible for the right cost. While Rampaging Baloths pumps out tokens for ever land we drop.
Brontotherium, Feral Throwback, and Venomspout Brackus: These guys help to take care of pesky creatures that refuse to block, attack, or try to fly/evade our guys. Brontotherium and Feral Throwback provoke creatures into fights they don’t want to have while Brackus takes out the fliers for 2 mana.
Canopy Crawler and Glowering Rogon: What’s better then playing a big creature? Playing an even bigger creature! These two and Feral Throwback have Amplify, so for each beast in your hand, they come out a little bigger then their regular size.
Cystbearer, Deepwood Tantiv, Hystrodon, Krosan Cloudscraper, Plaguemaw Beast, Spinebiter, Thresher Beast, and Ravenous Baloth: These will help change up our battle plans a bit. Cystbearer, Plaguemaw Beast, and Spinebiter bring a infect package making blocking them here a bit of a bad choice while also leading to a chance to posion out a player or two. Deepwood Tantiv and Ravenous Baloth can gain us a little life while Hystrodon can draw us a few cards. Thresher Beast can get a little LD in there. Krosan Cloudscraper, like a few our other guys, has morph so it can sneak in for a lot of damage your opponents won’t see coming.
Garruk’s Companion, Garruk’s Horde,Garruk’s Packleader, Krakilin, Leatherback Baloth, Obstinate Baloth, Root Greevil, and Terra Stomper: These round out the rest of our beast group. Terra Stomper is our big beast. Companion and Leatherback are our low cost beatsticks. Obstinate brings a little lifegain but is more of a cheap 4/4. Karkilin is as big as we need it to be at any point in the game. Root Greevil is for some enchantment hate. Horde basically is a Future Sight here with this deck being mostly creatures while Packleader brings the draw.
Ramp into Beasts, Draw into Beasts, and Overrun with Beasts!
So now we’re on to the few “Beast Trainers” I added to help keep these creatures under control.
Garruk Wildspeaker and Garruk, Primal Hunter: Who better to keep our beasts under control than the man who came up with the deck?
Argothian Elder, Frontier Guide, Fyndhorn Elder, Elvish Piper, Joraga Treespeaker, Keeper of the Beasts, Seedborn Muse, Totem Speaker, Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger: So I talked this thing out with Nissa and we agreed that a few elves could at least help ramp out our beasts. Agothian Elder, Fyndhorn Elder, and Joraga Treespeaker are walking 2 mana dudes. The Piper can skip around any mana cost we have here. Keeper of the Beasts helps us keep pouring out beast while Totem Speaker makes sure we’re gaining life for each one. Seedborn and Vorinclex are here to double our mana.
Master of the Wild Hunt, Oracle of Mul Daya, and Primeval Titan: The Master of the Wild Hunt is a little slow in this format, but he still provides another creature generator for us. Oracle is here to help Garruk’s Horde with the top of the deck and hey if you need mana, Prime Time is one of the best at what he does.
With that out of the way we move on to ramp…
Mana Reflection, Deconstruct, Explosive Vegetation, Journey of Discovery, Rampant Growth, and Seek the Horizon: Basically, these are our land search cards. Deconstruct destroys artifacts for free. Mana Reflection gives us extra mana while everything else on this list gets us extra lands to the hand or field.
Now, some card draw…
Collective Unconscious and Harmonize: Draw 3 with Harmonize and Draw X with the Collective Unconscious. This combined with Big Garruk, Garruk’s Packleader, and the various other land search cards should make for a good amount of deck control here.
And of course Overruns…
Overrun, Overwhelm, Overwhelming Stampede, and Triumph of the Hordes: These are our game enders. These all basically say “My Team is even bigger than before, they have trample and/or infect, and you may want to take a moment to kiss your loved ones good-bye.”
In Case of Emergency, Play Wurms!
So here we are at the last point in Garruk’s “Flawless Plan”. If Beasts can’t kill ’em, Wurms will!
Bellowing Tanglewurm, Engulfing Slagwurm, Pelakka Wurm, Penumbra Wurm, Plated Slagwurm, and Symbiotic Wurm: Bellowing Tanglewurm brings Intimidate for our team which in some cases is unblockability. Engulfing Slagwurm brings even more lifegain and some creature removal. Penumbra draws a card and gains life. Penumbra Wurm and Symbiotic Wurm replace themselves when they die. Plated Slagwurm brings a nice size body that can’t be targeted by removal or Pacifism like effects.
I felt we needed a few other things so while Garruk was playing fire chief with Sarkhan I slipped in a few favorites. At least that way I can say I had something to do with this deck.
Desert Twister, Genesis Wave, Pulse of the Tangle, and Savage Conception: Twister is just a way to deal with any permanent. Pulse of the Tangle and Savage Conception are for extra Beast tokens. While Genesis Wave can help fill our board with lots of creatures and lands. This deck has only 15 non permanents so we should be able to ride the wave without worries of missing too much.
While I was going over the deck something seemed a little… off. I couldn’t put my figure on it. Then I look the deck over a few times and it hit me. We’re short one card!
Raking Canopy: A Green Ghostly Prison type card. There. I feel better… What? Stop looking at me like that… Don’t Judge Me!
Out in the Wild!
With 34 Forest, we reach the end of yet another article. Next week we’re headed into… strange waters… really strange… I’m talking cards with borders that aren’t black kinda deal. But the week after that we’re going to start seeing doubles! So go and vote in the new poll to pick which color combination we should start with and I’ll see you next time!
Hope you had fun and please leave any comments or suggestions. Until next time,
This is your Captain speaking… We’re heading into the Red Zone!
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