March 30, 2010

Deck 2 of 3
Psst - this was posted

The second deck is my favourite of the bunch. It’s a three-colour Esper deck that is quick to start up, and has so far done well against multiplayer opponents.

The deck: Etherium

4x Arcane Sanctum
3x Plains
3x Glacial Fortress
3x Drowned Catacomb
1x Island
2x Swamp
2x Seat of the Synod
1x Vault of Whispers
4x Tidehollow Sculler
4x Vedalken Outlander
2x Sphinx Summoner
4x Lodestone Golem
2x Sphinx Soverign (ooh, foily!)
4x Esper Stormblade
1x Master Transmuter
1x Umezawa’s Jitte
2x Time Sieve
1x Master of Etherium
2x Fieldmist Borderpost
2x Mistvein Borderpost
3x Open the Vaults
1x Etherium Sculptor
2x Divination
2x Howling Mine
2x Damnation
1x Sword of the Meek
1x Thopter Foundry

This deck is a favourite because of the black and blue cards in it (as with Deck 1 of 3, Discard, you can see I’m a sucker for those colours), and because it relies heavily on artifacts, something I’ve never been to quick to do in the past.

This deck works on a bunch of different levels, all intended to deal with multiplayer games. The first way is to get a ton of creatures out. Normally, decks with multicoloured permanents take a while to get rolling because of mana requirements. This deck has 13 two-drop creatures, some of which have dual-mana costs (meaning they are either black or white). All of these creatures are great on their own, but also can help one another get bigger to take on the world.

In multiplayer, Sphinx Soverign is a powerhouse. Provided you can get her in play, she either gains you 3 life to hits one of your opponents for 9 and the rest for 3. Big enough to block attacks, a black artifact that can’t be Terrored, and flying. Pretty sweet.

The deck only has one Master of Etherium, which pumps up my other artifacts, and I think it needs two. No matter how many are in the deck since almost all of the other cards are artifacts, MOE gets huge, quick - and makes everything else get bigger too.

The Sphinx Summoner and Master Transmuter are great ways to get Sphinx Soverigns in play quickly to start the beats.

The most powerful creature in the deck has to be the new Worldwake artifact creature, Lodestone Golem. Multiplayer games are a great place for them to come into play as they make every non-artifact card cost extra mana to cast. Seeing as most of yours are artifacts, you’re pretty much set. It helps you slow down your opponents’ actions and late-game spells, giving you more time to get your combos going.

One of the big combos in the deck is Damnation and Open the Vaults or Time Sieve and OTV. The idea is, later in the game you can reset the board of creatures with Damnation and then put all of the ones you had in play back with one little white spell. Same goes for Time Sieve - sacrifice a bunch of your creatures to take an extra turn, then OTV and do it again. Taking extra turns with a couple of Sphinx Sovereigns in play is a great way to end a multiplayer game.

In one game, one of my enemies saw I was amassing too many creatures and later in the game, dropped Day of Judgement to wipe all the creatures in play out. The next turn was mine and I played OTV to bring them all back, then sacrificed some (and my Artifact lands) to the ‘Sieve to take an extra turn and finished everyone else off in two rounds.

There is a Thopter Foundry and Sword of the Meek combo in the deck, but I haven’t used it yet. Having said that, I’m not really sure I want to. I know it’s a powerful combo, but I think I’d like to slot in another Master of Etherium and Master Transmuter.

What do you think? Do you have a deck like this one? What do you think I should keep in or take out?