The Apprentice's Workshop - Episode 14 (Epic Four Deck Edition)

The Apprentice's Workshop

KrazyCaley

18 April 2013

1505 views

Welcome.

I have fallen way, way behind on my Apprentice's Workshop request list. No less than a dozen decks currently sit on my list, not to mention all the ones on which I have postponed deliberation.

The solution, obviously, is to DO FOUR AT ONCE. My apologies to the folks who have been patiently waiting forever, but your decks will receive the same attention from me as they would have had your decks not been in the same article.

If your name is killroy726, theperson98, DaShPrime, GureiSeion, Cobthecobbler, wreckedd, jokercrow, or AlexOAwesome, Ohthenoises, or OutspokenFerret you guys are up next, in that order.

Let us BEGIN.

Deck 1

deck-large:recurring-annoyance

So here we have a green-black Recurring Nightmare casual deck, but not the annoying combo-y kind of Recurring Nightmare, the annoying FUN kind of Recurring Nightmare where we just keep bringing regular (although still pretty aggravating) creatures back over and over.

Non-creatures

Problem #1 - Not enough land. 21 land is basically never enough in a 60-card deck, and certainly not in one that runs cards that have casting costs ranging from 1 to 7 (with Ghoultree in there as a not-really-8). There ARE decks where you can get away with that little land, but this is not one of them. We will need to find room for really about three land at least, I would say.

We have a few one-ofs, which is usually where I cast my first suspicions, but many of them make plenty of sense. Demonic Tutor is, as always, great as it can find Recurring Nightmare if we don't have one, or a creature if we do. Necrogenesis makes sense to get extra use out of creatures. We may not want to bring back that Blood Artist, so let's turn him into a Saproling and then use the Saproling to bring back Reaper from the Abyss (or whatever). Survival of the Fittest is among the best enchantments in Magic, and fits in particularly well with this deck.

What does NOT make sense for this deck is Gnaw to the Bone. My policy towards lifegain is basically "don't use cards that ONLY gain you life unless it is a lifegain deck," and it has served me well. Magic is about board position. If your opponent is swinging in for four damage every turn and you're stalled out, all drawing a lifegain card does is buy you time; it does not change the fact that your opponent is winning. Better that the lifegain card were instead an answer, or a dude of your own, or some other board-position-affecting card. Thus, gotta cut Gnaw to the Bone. Other than that, things look fine to me, and while I could make plenty of changes based on my own preferences, a casual deck, to some extent, must be left to the preferences of its owner, as they are not built for ruthless competitive play, but for style and fun while still being effective. Let's move on to creatures.

Creatures

Most of the creatures are fun beaters that make a lot of sense. The one that I am eyeing with the most suspicion is Wall of Roots. Wall of Roots does indeed ramp, but we need LANDS before we need ramp, and we also have Viridian Emissary present to help us ramp.

We also have an EXTREME traffic jam at the 2 CMC slot on the mana curve. 21 of our 39 non-land cards are 2 CMC! We really need to ease this problem at least a little. We don't care QUITE as much about having a smooth curve as an ordinary deck since we're focused on recursions, of course, but still, 21/39 all in one slot is pretty extreme. Let's cut 2x Wall of Roots. The rest of the creatures could be muddled around with endlessly, as this is a casual deck, but they all make sense and have nice effects. None of them is a bad choice, I would say, and I'll leave the original deckbuilder's ideas alone regarding the rest of the creature base.

This leaves us with 3 slots, all of which MUST be spent on land. I'll go +2x Forest and +1x Swamp, but dual lands of some kind would be preferable, of course, if our builder can afford them.

KrazyCaley's Recommended Changes

-2x Wall of Roots

-1x Gnaw to the Bone

+2x Forest

+1x Swamp

Deck 2

Next we have this:

Say Hello to my Little Friends - Mob Boss!

Commander / EDH Altharus

3 COMMENTS | 407 VIEWS

This is an EDH deck with Krenko, Mob Boss as the general, so of course we're looking at goblin tribal.

EDH decks are tricky to mess with because they have so many moving parts, you can't really count on combos (except for REALLY interchangeable combos and/or ones that work with the actual general). It's best, when reviewing EDH decks, to just generally get the overall idea, and then evaluate each card's place in the deck.

We know the deck's idea; there's nothing too difficult about goblin tribal. We also have a bit of a chaos idea going on; there are a few ways to exchange permanents/randomly reassign stuff, which is a good idea in a goblin deck. So let's look at some of the cards. I found surprisingly few that I could take any issue with.

Cards Under the Microscope

Ashnod's Altar - Sure, we have a lot of ways to get out lots of creatures in this deck, but I'm not sure we want to sacrifice them. We have a respectable amount of ramp already, including at least one other thing already that lets us sac creatures for mana, Skirk Prospector. If we really want extra mana, why not Mana Echoes, which works quite well with this deck?

Archwing Dragon - This card makes little sense to me, in that it is not a goblin and requires a huge mana investment every turn to do anything. Of course, it works beautifully with Confusion in the Ranks, but I am not sure that this alone is a worthwhile reason to include Archwing, which has its place in formats where players start with 20 life, but might be a little underpowered for EDH. I recommend as a replacement Caterwauling Boggart, which has a fun, powerful effect for this deck.

Land

We have a few things in this deck that care about Mountains, including Koth, Valakut, and Strata Scythe, to name a few. Thus, we don't want to get crazy with non-basics. However, I think we can add two more than have very good effects for us: Goblin Burrows, which is nice and in-theme, and Keldon Megaliths, which will take advantage of the deck's main weakness, which is that it will often find itself topdecking.

KrazyCaley's Recommendations:

-1x Archwing Dragon

-1x Ashnod's Altar

-2x Mountain

+1x Mana Echoes

+1x Caterwauling Boggart

+1x Keldon Megaliths

+1x Goblin Burrows

Deck 3

deck-large:van-houtens-walls

This is a standard mill deck that uses defender creatures as a theme. The deck is already remarkably well put-together, and I am pressed to think of too many changes that make sense. I was toying with cutting a copy of Farseek, but it's too important to fix in this white-splash deck.

Then I looked at what we're splashing white for: Sphinx's Revelation. Revelation is a fine card, to be sure, and is definitely one of the champion cards of the format. But it does not make too much sense here in this deck, and I don't think what is really a blue-green deck needs to complicate its mana base for it. Consider- with a two color deck, we could get our mana fixed very reliably and we wouldn't need Farseek except to ramp, which is completely unnecessary in this deck. Essentially we're running three copies of Farseek and running an extremely Byzantine mana base just for the sake of Sphinx's Revelation. This makes little sense to me, good as revelation is, and so I suggest cutting it AND Farseek, adding more copies of existing stuff (and another land), and adjusting the mana base accordingly.

I also see in the sideboard Clan Defiance, which I am not a fan of. Really this is here to be removal (and really is only earning its keep as a flying-creatures-killer given our immense ground clog), but it costs a ton and is also the only red card anywhere in the deck, further requiring a crazy mana base and the splash support card that is Farseek. I think that it is best replaced by the cheaper, saner, more efficient and more flexible Plummet.

But flying creatures are not so common in standard these days to justify three copies of Plummet. I also don't think that Cyclonic Rift as a single copy is great either in the sideboard. So how about two copies of Plummet and two copies of the ever-useful Bramblecrush?

KrazyCaley's Recommended Changes:

-3x Farseek

-3x Sphinx's Revelation

+1x Manor Gargoyle

+1x Cyclonic Rift

+1x Syncopate

+1x Manor Gargoyle

+1x Increasing Confusion

-1x Azorius Guildgate

-1x Gruul Guildgate

-3x Hallowed Fountain

-1x Selesnya Guildgate

-2x Temple Garden

+1x Breeding Pool

+3x Simic Guildgate

+3x Island

+2x Forest

Sideboard:

-3x Clan Defiance

-1x Cyclonic Rift

+2x Plummet

+2x Bramblecrush

Deck 4

Zombiecrats

Standard* lockiew

SCORE: 3 | 3 COMMENTS | 1232 VIEWS

This is a WBR aggro standard deck.

For once, I have no important changes to make to the mainboard. It's tight, it's fast, it's well-balanced. You could take it in a bunch of other possible directions, but it's a great deck as-is.

What does need some help is the sideboard. The deckbuilder says that Duress will be replaced with the upcoming Sin Collector in Dragon's Maze. (Sin Collector is a 2/1 Human Cleric for 1WB, when he enters the battlefield, target opponent reveals his/her hand, you exile an instant or sorcery from it). This is a respectable choice against removal-heavy decks, but other choices in the sideboard bear some examination. My thinking on sideboard cards is that you need to identify a particular situation which you are likely to frequently encounter that this card will be good for.

Deathrite Shaman - Deals with graveyard stuff quite nicely, and graveyard stuff is a big part of standard right now. It's a little fragile, but everything in this deck is. Keep it.

Human Frailty - VERY specific. Might be too specific to help us. G/W and Naya humans are not as big as they used to be, and Gruul Aggro/RDW has some humans, but not enough to justify the use of this card, I think. What IS good about this card is that it is cheap and will help us clear out blockers early while still casting creatures. We might prefer, however, Pillar of Flame or Tragic Slip. Cut.

Mark of Mutiny - A great way to get rid of big stuff in combination with Cartel Aristocrat. We board this in against things that run, for instance, Thragtusk. Keep.

Obzedat, Ghost Council - This card makes sense against control decks that use wrath and sorcery-speed removal. We already have 31 creatures in the deck to burn through their instant-speed answers and counterspells, so Obzedat works well. Keep.

Skullcrack in one copy is not going to do much work at all. We must rely on speedy swarms of creatures to stop Thragtusk (and to a lesser extent, Mark of Mutiny ) and pals, not a single copy of Skullcrack. Cut.

Thalia, Guardian of Thraben is another great anti-control piece. Keep.

Tragic Slip is very good quick removal. Keep.

Cutting Skullcrack and Human Frailty gives us 3 slots. I'll allocate 2 to Pillar of Flame and 1 to another copy of Tragic Slip.

KrazyCaley's Recommended Changes :

Sideboard:

-2x Human Frailty

-1x Skullcrack

+2x Pillar of Flame

+1x Tragic Slip

The next Workshop will be on Sunday! Go visit the deck pages and offer our deckbuilders some more advice.