The Apprentice Workshop - Episode 1

The Apprentice's Workshop

KrazyCaley

16 July 2010

1961 views

Hello, and welcome to yet another new feature in the KrazyCaley Empire of Article Productions.

In this one, I will be taking a random deck that has been recently filed under the "newb" category, giving my advice on what to do to make it better, and then throwing it open to the TappedOut community to make suggestions.

Our inaugural newb deck which shall come under review is Obnoxious by mark12. The deck's description says that, and this is important, this U/W deck's goal is to prevent enemy attacks while pinging to death with tiny creatures. We will build around this goal. Here's the decklist, as I found it just now:

Obnoxious - mark12

Creature (16)

1x Archivist

1x Caller of Gales

2x Knight Errant

1x Kraken Hatchling

1x Lantern Kami

1x Tideforce Elemental

1x Veteran Armorer

1x Veteran Armorsmith

2x Vizzerdrix

2x Wormfang Crab

3x Zephyr Falcon

Sorcery (2)

1x Relearn

1x Time Ebb

Land (20)

10x Island 10x Plains

Enchantment (14)

2x Apathy

1x Arrest

1x Frozen Solid

2x Ice Cage

2x Invisibility

1x Kirtar's Desire

2x Narcolepsy

1x Slow Motion

2x Stasis Cell

Instant (8)

1x Call to Heel

1x Cancel

1x Flash Counter

2x Peel from Reality

2x Rescue

1x Trickery Charm

--

Make room for mana

Ok, so let's begin with the foundation of any deck - the land. Mark's got 20 in here, which is pushing it even for a deck with this slight a mana curve. Let's try and get him to at least 22 lands, maybe more depending on what we add. But for now, 22 lands. So let's cut two bad cards. What cards don't work with this deck, whose stated purpose is to prevent enemy attacks and get through tiny attackers of its own?

Well, Vizzerdrix, for one. Not a "tiny attacker" at all, and even if big beats were desired, there are options far superior to Vizzerdrix. For the same costs in these colors, Mike could have the similarly bland Goliath Sphinx (strictly better); Iridescent Angel is a powerful option in these colors, Ith, High Arcanist fits the theme of the deck VERY well, and Palinchron is a classic choice. Right now, I like the idea of having Ith in this deck because it's what the deck is all about- stalling attackers. However, for now let's just cut Vizzerdrix and add two lands; we'll figure out which later. In fact, we'll come back to the land once we work out our mana balance with our OTHER cards.

--

Enchantments

The job of this deck is to stop enemy attackers while pushing through its own damage. One of the deck's main problems is that it is spread VERY thin- it has 1x and 2x of a lot of different spells. It is difficult to make your deck work consistently or do what you want it to do when it's so diluted- the more focused a deck is, the better it gets. So let's examine each of our cards and make sure it does what we want.

Apathy works. It is perhaps not the best card of its type, but it's fun and it does what the deck needs, so let's keep it for now.

Arrest works just fine, as do Frozen Solid and Ice Cage.

Invisibility is questionable. Given that our creatures are generally going to be tiny, we don't get much oomph out of our invisibility- a better way to get damage through would perhaps be evasive creatures, that way we don't have to waste slots on invisibility. So let's definitely cut it.

Kirtar's Desire is fine. Same with Narcolepsy, Slow Motion, and Stasis Cell.

As a possible ADDITIONAL creature enchantment, I would suggest Prison Term, which is a great card that this deck would really benefit from.

So now we have 14 slots for Apathy, Arrest, Frozen Solid, Ice Cage, Kirtar's Desire, Narcolepsy, Slow Motion, Prison Term, and Stasis Cell. We should pick the BEST of these and leave the others out. Which are the best?

Well, NOT the best are Slow Motion, which is a glorified individual Pendrell Mists rather than a real creature-stopper, and Ice Cage, which is just too fragile. I love Prison Term because of its flexibility, so I suggest 4x that. Stasis Cell is also flexible, but it is very expensive to both cast and switch, so let's scratch that. Apathy is good; so is Kirtar's Desire because of their cheapness. I worry about Kirtar's Desire because Threshold will be difficult to achieve with this deck. So far our mana curve is bunching a bunch of stuff into one CMC and three CMC anyway, so let's pick the two CMC card- Narcolepsy, and give the deck 4x that along with Apathy and Prison Term. That's 12 creature enchantments, which is a very healthy amount of creature defusion. We have two slots left over, and I think a cool idea would be to bring out some Global Enchantments which make it difficult to attack us. Ghostly Prison and Propaganda spring to mind. 4x of each of these would be absolutely brutal! For now let's say 2x Ghostly Prison and see if we can make room elsewhere.

--

Other non-creature spells

I am not particularly happy with ANY of our non-creature spells.

Call to Heel, Peel from Reality, and Rescue are mysteries. They are of moderate usefulness, but they have no real synergy with our deck and aren't particularly efficient. I think we should cut them. Same with Trickery Charm, which just doesn't do enough for the deck.

Cancel and Flash Counter are decent ideas, as the deck might need counterspells for threats that its enchantments can't handle, but why those two counters? They're both completely inferior to Counterspell. Let's cut them both and add in 4x Counterspell.

Now, in the sorceries, we have Time Ebb and Relearn, neither of which makes too much sense. Time Ebb is very temporary, and Relearn isn't good enough to justify being in the deck. Cut!

These cuts, even after adding Counterspell, give us six slots to spend on enchantments, or possibly creatures. I'm presently salivating at the prospect of 4x Propaganda AND 4x Ghostly Prison, so I'm going to add in 2x more Ghostly Prison, bringing us to a full four, and then 2x Propaganda, and maybe we can find room for the last two Propaganda elsewhere.

--

Creatures

Our creatures are a mess! Even after cutting Vizzerdrix it's an odd assortment of inefficient fliers, randomly-thrown in creatures with no particular adherence to the idea of the deck or even usefulness in some cases, Veteran Armorsmith and Veteran Armorer in a deck with no other soldiers, etc.

Let's start from scratch, knowing that we have about 15 or so slots to spend on creatures, AND knowing that they have to be our win condition, because it ain't coming from anywhere else.

What do we need? We need tiny creatures that are evasive so that they can do damage. They don't necessarily have to play any defense because of our array of attack-stoppin' spells. What fits the bill? Well, fliers do, but lots of decks have fliers, and fliers are a bit expensive, so that's not my favorite idea.

My favorite idea is shadow! Shadow is PERFECT for this deck because we don't need to worry about Shadow's drawback! Who cares if we can't block the enemy creatures? They won't be attacking anyway. And conveniently, shadow creatures are often cheap, and to be found in abundance in blue and white. Here's a suggested loadout, with Ith, High Arcanist thrown in there because he works well with the deck's main idea, is nice and beefy, and just generally makes the deck cooler:

3x Infiltrator il-Kor - Nice big beater that we can suspend.

3x Soltari Champion - Pumper!

3x Soltari Foot Soldier - All-important one-drop.

4x Thalakos Dreamsower - Fits the idea of the deck! If something gets by the enchantments, you can STILL keep it tapped with this guy.

1x Ith, High Arcanist - For the lulz.

I submit to you that that is a solid set of creatures, and with 14, we have room for two more of those Propagandas to fulfill my dream of 4x Propaganda and 4x Ghostly Prison.

Or, if you think shadow is too janky, let's try some unblockable guys for our loadout:

4x Phantom Warrior

4x Hada Spy Patrol

4x AEther Figment

2x Ith, High Arcanist

Still, I prefer shadow, so I'm going with that.

--

Final land balancing

So now we have 4x Ghostly Prison, 4x Propaganda, 4x Counterspell, 4x Narcolepsy, 4x Prison Term, 4x Apathy, 3x Infiltrator il-Kor, 3x Soltari Champion, 3x Soltari Foot Soldier, 4x Thalakos Dreamsower, and 1x Ith, High Arcanist. This is more or less even between blue and white, and we have a couple spells on each side with double casting costs, so no special concerns there. Let's just say we're dead even between the two colors, with 22 land slots.

Now, if Mark wanted to be a real bastard, he could use Maze of Ith, but let's just assume that's too janky a card for him to run without his friends beating him up. So let's just focus on mana lands. Having lands that come into play untapped is fairly important for this deck, so we can't overdose on dual lands. Still, having at least a few dual lands is important. I, modestly, recommend 4x Glacial Fortress, although you could also add in Sejiri Refuge or some such if you were feeling adventurous, perhaps even a Hallowed Fountain set if you had the budget. Let's keep things simple and user-friendly with Glacial Fortress, and then add in the balance of just islands and plains. So what does that leave us with as a final decklist?

--

Final KrazyCaley-recommended decklist

Creature (14)

4x Thalakos Dreamsower

3x Soltari Foot Soldier

3x Soltari Champion

3x Infiltrator il-Kor

1x Ith, High Arcanist

Land (22)

4x Glacial Fortress 9x Island 9x Plains

Enchantment (20)

4x Apathy 4x Narcolepsy 4x Prison Term 4x Propaganda 4x Ghostly Prison

Instant (4)

4x Counterspell

Total (60)

--

So what do you think, Mark, and everyone else? I liked the original idea of this deck, and have tried to tune it up to make it tighter and more focused. In the above build, it's hilariously effective at stopping attacks, pings to death with efficiency and grace thanks to Shadow, has the potential to create fun moments with Ith, High Arcanist and other cool stuff, and can even defend itself against weak matchups like direct-damage decks/mill/etc. with its Counterspells, which also do general-purpose duty in any case. I think it's a winner of a deck that truly lives up to the name "Obnoxious." What do you think?