Fantastic Four

So I’ve been cleaning out my stock of cards.

I pretty much play Vintage now exclusively, and even though that has the largest cardpool to choose from theoretically, in practice it’s cardpool is probably the most limited. As such, I can get rid of a lot of cards.

I pulled a bunch of rares out that I plan to trade in at the rate of a quarter per card over the next several years, and I pulled a bunch of playables out under the theory that they might actually be used in a deck or at a tournament at some point, and I have a whole bunch of random jank left over in my cardbox whose fate I’m still deciding.

Some cards from all of those groups, however, made it into The Worst Type 4 Stack Ever.

And now I really want to try it out.

For those of you who don’t know, the rules of Type 4 are pretty simple. You take regular Magic, give everybody infinite mana, and limit them to one spell per turn (including opponent’s turns). This means that instants are premium and that big, splashy effects and creatures are the norm, especially those that can be ruined by tiny utility spells. Don’t include anything that can do infinite damage too easily (so no Fireballs), and defensive abilities always win out (so Azorius Guildmage will always be able to save your Draco from your opponent’s Mox Monkey).

That’s pretty much it. The rules of Type 4 neatly contained in one relatively short paragraph.

Funny for such a high, noobish stack of cards.

I counted them up; there are 475 unique cards in the stack. As much as I’d love to devote a paragraph to each one telling why I included it, and as much as I’m sure you’d love to read that, I think I’ll just hit some of the highlights and move on with my life. Sound good?

From what I’ve read online, there are a few keys to making a good Type 4 stack, and I tried to follow most of them even while making The Worst Type 4 Stack Ever.

I apologize in advance for not having the ability to put pictures and cardtext in this blog. I need to get the Gamers Lounge to start storing the M:tG artwork again.

First is that creatures that can avoid removal are key. The problem with that is that creatures that can avoid removal are worth playing or expensive, so I’ve probably traded most of them away or a using them. So there’s no Akroma or Simic Sky Swallower in my deck because they’re in Oath right now, and Darksteel Colossus is in Gifts. I don’t own Kodama of the North tree or Mist Dragon, and both of them are pretty good too.

What you get out of my list are things like Frenetic Efreet, Flickering Spirit, Deadly Insect, and the infinitely activatable Combat Medic. All of them can dodge targeted damage, the Efreet and the Medic can miss damage to the board, and the Spirit, the Insect, and the Efreet can avoid targeted removal. Of course, the Efreet’s survival depends on your being lucky, but I thought that was fun.

The most Type 4 way to avoid creature loss, though is to bend the removal spell to your own wishes. Mischievous Quanar was the creature who actually inspired the construction of The Worst Type 4 Stack Ever because I remembered he was actually good in Type 4. His morph ability doesn’t use the stack, and he’s also infinitely activatable. Meddle, Rebound, Fork, and Willbender are all in the stack as well.

Mischievous Quanar
4U
Creature – Beast
3UU: Turn Mischievous Quanar face down.
Morph 1UU
When Mischievous Quanar is turned face up, copy target instant or sorcery spell. You may choose new targets for that copy.
3/3

Of course, with all of this there has to be some removal to dodge, and that’s the second key to a good Type 4 stack.

I have all kinds of removal—probably too much in fact. For board sweepers I have Nevinyrral’s Disk, Jokulhaups, and Akroma’s Vengeance, among others. Targeted removal gives me cards like Feast or Famine, Kill Destroy, and Cruel Revival in black; Lightning Axe, Torrent of Fire, and Fissure in red; Chain of Acid, Desert Twister, and Venomous Breath in green; Smite, AWOL, and Hobble in white; and a truckload of blue bounce and counterspells.

Actually, I think almost every color has a counterspell of some sort. Blue, obviously, has a lot including Counterspell, Forbid, Blue Elemental Blast, and Arcane Denial. Black has Withering Boon to counter a creature spell. Red has Burnout and Molten Influence. White has Illumination for pesky artifacts and enchantments. And I think there’s an Avoid Fate in there for green.

Instants are also important, and I have a lot of them in there that just do random neat stuff. Tidal Wave is one of my favorites since it makes a surprise hefty blocker or sacrifice target. Most of the charms that don’t suck made it in there, especially the Planeshift ones like Darigaaz’s and Dromar’s. Urborg Justice makes more creatures die. Congregate is always a crowd pleaser. And things like Surprise Deployment and Flash allow creatures to enter play when they shouldn’t.

Dwarven Catapult is another great instant and a Type 4 staple.

Dwarven Catapult
XR
Instant
Dwarven Catapult does X damage, divided evenly among all of opponent’s creatures (round down).

I’m pretty sure that with infinite mana Dwarven Catapult kills everything you don’t control. It’s like Plague Wind, and it’s from Fallen Empires.

At this point, you’re probably wondering what kinds of fatty creatures you’ll have to deal with in The Worst Type 4 Stack Ever. Lemme tell you, uh, it’s pretty much just varied. Ishan’s Shade is pretty good, even though I never understood why he didn’t have the actual shade pumping-ability. Titanic Bulvox, Crash of Rhinos, and Silvos are all nice and big and green. Silvos even regenerates. Clockwork Aven and Clockwork Beast are both inconvenient fat so say the least. Shivan Wurm is big and tramply. Draco’s in there. Brine Elemental’s pretty big and comes with a neat ability. Soulgorger Orgg, Eron the Relentless, Pheldagriff, Johtull Wurm, and Ivory Giant are all, umm, interesting.

Probably the best one in there would be Platinum Angel if she didn’t come with a huge, glow-in-the-dark target on her forehead.

After all that, I’m pretty sure randomness and reminiscing are the keywords for my stack.

Stangg is in there because I had him and always wanted to build a deck around him.

Keldon Warlord is in there because I’m pretty sure he made it into every creature-based red deck my friends and I ever had.

Steel Leaf Paladin and Sawtooth Loon are both in there because they’re pretty bad and came out of my playgroup’s venture into sealed deck at the beginning of the decade.

Bottle of Suleiman, Wild Wurm, Skittish Valesek, and Desperate Gambit were all favorites for me and made it in out of the Chance Deck.

Uktabi Kong, Cheatyface, and Avatar of Me all made it in out of the stack of Un-Sets that I have, as did Timmy Power Gamer and, of course, The Cheese Stands Alone.

I’ve got cards in there from every prerelease I’ve been to and different cards that my friends and I have hyped and used to varying degrees of success like Pit Trap, No Mercy, Rubinia Soulsinger, and Urza’s Bauble.

And one Elvish Ranger, the one with the gigantic breasts that do four damage.

Basically, it’s a total crapshoot what you find in your section of the The Worst Type 4 Stack Ever, and I think for that reason alone I really want to try it out. As for right now, it will sit in my box of Casual (Sex) Magic between the Land Game and my Un-Set cards, which could easily just be shuffled into my Type 4 stack.