Hi guys, i'm Beusapu, and i present the first part of a series about some fringe archetypes of decks (Brick will make the second part, probably tomorrow).
First of all, being a fringe deck doesn't mean the deck is bad. As we'll see later, they can all work very well. The problem is that they are decks that are difficult to get, and they are usually all-in strategies, where you can either get an awesome deck, or finish forcing something that doesn't work. As some "fringe deck" examples, we have the Dampen Thought deck from Modern Masters: you could get a bunch of Arcane spells and be successfully milling opponents, but you could also force a bad control deck.
Boros Blitz:
This deck basically tries to get a lot of cheap creatures, possibly with combat-positive abilities, tricks and pump spells, and overrun the opponent before he gets to play his big threats.
Key Cards:
We have cheap and efficient creatures. Deathbellow Raider and Leonin Snarecaster are our best commons. They are both good at swinging while avoiding blockers. Deathbellow Raider is cheap usually bigger than our opponent's creatures (the 3 toughness is really important). He's also very good at mind-tricking our opponent, since we also have to attack, and they'll usually block with a bigger creature, giving us the chance to use a combat trick to kill it. Leonin Snarecaster, on the other side, isn't an ideal play for turn 2, but he's much better on turns 3 or 4, when we want to push our attackers through our opponent's defenses, specially when they are hiding behind a single big creature.
First of all, being a fringe deck doesn't mean the deck is bad. As we'll see later, they can all work very well. The problem is that they are decks that are difficult to get, and they are usually all-in strategies, where you can either get an awesome deck, or finish forcing something that doesn't work. As some "fringe deck" examples, we have the Dampen Thought deck from Modern Masters: you could get a bunch of Arcane spells and be successfully milling opponents, but you could also force a bad control deck.
Boros Blitz:
This deck basically tries to get a lot of cheap creatures, possibly with combat-positive abilities, tricks and pump spells, and overrun the opponent before he gets to play his big threats.
Key Cards:
We have cheap and efficient creatures. Deathbellow Raider and Leonin Snarecaster are our best commons. They are both good at swinging while avoiding blockers. Deathbellow Raider is cheap usually bigger than our opponent's creatures (the 3 toughness is really important). He's also very good at mind-tricking our opponent, since we also have to attack, and they'll usually block with a bigger creature, giving us the chance to use a combat trick to kill it. Leonin Snarecaster, on the other side, isn't an ideal play for turn 2, but he's much better on turns 3 or 4, when we want to push our attackers through our opponent's defenses, specially when they are hiding behind a single big creature.
Other cheap creatures we always want for our deck are Lagonna-Band Elder, Minotaur Skullcleaver, Satyr Rambler, and the obviously good Wingsteed Rider. Borderland Minotaur is a good curve-ender (yeah, we should finish the curve at 4 or 5).
At uncommon, we get the the all-stars Akroan Hoplite and Arena Athlete. Hoplite is going to attack for 4 or more damage most of the time, while Athlete is a powered snarecaster. Another good uncommon is Phalanx Leader (though the double white cost is a huge drawback).
Now we've discussed the creatures, it's time to talk about the other main part of the decks: the tricks. We want to be able to swing with all our creatures, without losing them, and our colors offer the best tricks avalible. At common, we have Titan's Strenght, Battlewise Valor and Gods Willing. They help to trigger heroic, can act as Lava Spikes, or as removal, and the scry is also very good. Uncommon gives us the 2x1 (or more) pump spells Coordinated Assault and Dauntless Onslaught.
We also want ways to clear blockers, like Last Breath (really good here to eliminate walls), Lightning Strike and Portent of Betrayal.
Drafting the deck:
We want to get, basically, a lot of cheap creatures and tricks. If you see there aren't many little creatures wheeling, it might be because someone else is drafting heroic, so it's better to take a safer route and go for a more stable built. If you force it, and don't get enough creatures, you'll have to include awful last picks, or get a slower curve, which will make all the cheap drops much worse.
An optimal version should have 16 (or even 15) lands, 16-18 creatures, and the rest should be ways of pushing damage.
Problems of the deck:
Yoked Ox and Guardians of Meletis shouldn't be a big problem, if you can manage to use your Leonin Snarecasters at the right moment, and kill them with tricks. But midrange decks can stop us easily. Nessian Courser, followed by a 4-drop or a removal spell, and a Nessian Asp will usually mean we're in trouble. We have an awful lategame, and that's why the deck works only if you get enough cheap creatures and tricks to make it really fast.
Izzet Scry:
This deck can't be really considered an archetype, since it's usually a tempo deck that takes massive advantage of Flamespeaker Adept.
Flamespeaker Adept is great for our deck, since most of our removal/tempo spells have scry, but she's an uncommon, and we can't really build an archetype on an uncommon. If you manage to get 2 or more copies of her, then sure, you got an Izzet Scry deck, but that isn't likely to happen. Fortunatelly, UR tempo with some Adepts is a very good deck.
Key Cards:
Obviously, Flamespeaker Adept is the only card with "scry matters" we can get. Having cards with scry can also help to find her. One of the cards that plays better with Adept is Aquoeus Form. A 4+/3 unblockable creature is a really fast clock, specially when we pair it with the two colors with best removal/tempo cards.
Voyage's End, Griptide, Rage of Purphoros and Lightning Strike are all great for our deck, and many of them have scry. We also want goodstuff creatures, like Ill-Tempered Cyclops, Vaporkin, Nimbus Naiad and Prescient Chimera.
Drafting the deck:
Basically, you want good cards, like removal, tempo, and efficient creatures. Try to get as many Flamespeaker Adepts as possible. The deck should have 17 lands, and big number of spells. You might be a bit low on creatures, and Mnemonic Wall becomes really good in this deck.
Problems of the deck:
The main problem here is that you might end having a worse version of UG tempo. Our creatures aren't as good as the green ones, and the deck is worse against fast aggro decks. You should have one or two copies of Guardians of Meletis in the side against them. Another option could be playing UGr tempo, splashing for removal and Adepts.
GBx Dredge:
Another uncommon-oriented deck, this one tries to get advantage of Nemesis of Mortals and Pharika's Mender, along with cards that fill our graveyard, mainly Commune with the Gods.
Key Cards:
Basically, we want to play an early Commune with the Gods, get a copy of Nemesis of Mortals, and drop it on turn 3 or 4. To do that succesfully, we need at least two nemesis and a good number of creatures, to make sure at least two go to the graveyard when we use Commune with the Gods. About Commune with the Gods, it's really easy to get 4 copies, since they always wheel and are late picks.
Pharika's Mender can get your Nemesis of Mortals back from the grave, or just bring other creatures that were placed there with Commune.
A solid option is splashing Red, which has good creatures, and Satyr Hedonist is another way to get a turn 3 Nemesis or Nessian Asp.
Drafting the Deck:
You should never pass Asps or Menders, they are the core of the deck. For the rest, you can get good creatures like Nessian Courser to fill the deck and have a decent midrange plan if the first one fails. Black has good removal, but it should be more like a secondary color, since its creatures are pretty mediocre.
Well, that's all for today. I hope this helped you! Tomorrow Brick will write about MonoBlack Merchants, and BR Minotaurs, and soon we'll be posting samples for the archetypes. If you know any card we missed, or would like to read about an archetype we missed, feel free to discuss it in the comments!
Until next time, have fun drafting!
-Beusapu
No comments:
Post a Comment