Mana Tax: How To Annoy Anyone
Annoy your friends with this rage inducing gem. Definitely not a tournament quality deck, more for casual table matches.
My original creation (the very early version of this deck was much more simple, and relied on land destruction more because there was no Contaminated Ground or Pooling Venom at the time, so I could only use Psychic Venom.
This deck revolves around annoying your opponents with land venom and mana starvation cards. The best part about it is you probably have many of these cards laying around, collecting dust.
Mana Tax is NOT a theoretical deck. This is my personal deck that has evolved over the years and has been play tested extensively. It works well. Speed is not a factor here as your repertoire of crippling enchantments slow your opponent down to a screeching halt. And this is not a one trick pony deck either. It does not matter in what order you get your enchantments out, as long as you continue to play them, all the cards work together to keep your opponent locked down.
How to Play
Pooling Venom and Contaminated Ground as many lands as possible naturally.
Play Seizures on your friend's tap effect creatures (especially their mana producing creatures).
Paralyze, Propaganda, Slow Motion, Mark of Eviction, Icy Manipulator and Mind Whip provide the defense. Fatties or Weenies, Flying, Fear, Shadow, or just plain Unblockables, these spells do not discriminate and will provide you with almost all your defensive needs.
Mind Whip + Seizures is your heavy hitter, dealing up to 5 damage per pairing. Ideal targets for Mind Seizures combo are tap-utility creatures, so that if they cannot pay, it taps the creature for them, denying them the ability to attack and use tap effects while forcing them to take damage. Also decent for big creature defense but Paralyze and Mark of Eviction work better.
For extra fun and irritation, toss your opponent a Sleeper Agent and then Mind Seizures it.
Icy Manipulator forces the tapping of the poisoned lands and/or Seizures victims as well as providing additional defense.
Use Zur the Enchanter to put your poisons and debilitators straight into play.
Play Paradox Haze to double up the mana tax per turn, making him/her pay 6 mana per Mind Whip per turn and take 4 damage a turn per Sleeper Agent.
Once enough venom is on the field, Mana Short during his/her beginning phase, you will most likely force him/her to skip his main phases, it will hurt like hell, and it will annoy the crap out of him/her.
Copy Enchantment gives you excellent flexibility, once you get a couple spells on the field, to help keep your opponent pinned.
Mana Web helps keep your opponent's mana locked down during their main phase, and works together with Contaminated Ground to take more damage.
Remember to trash talk as much as you can by attempting to "persuade" your friend that it's OK to tap his/her lands/creatures. Be as smug as possible, as half of the annoyance is in your attitude about the cards you play.
