Going Once, Going Twice, Sold!

I hope I’m not breaking some sort of trust dealy or whatever by revealing my deck, but I’d just like to say that this year’s Auction of the People is pretty fun and accessible even for casual mages like me.

The link to the announcement is up above there, but the basics are that you build a 60 card deck, choosing 26 unique cards one for each letter of the alphabet, excluding basic lands. So obviously your roadblocks are the odd letters, like J, Q, X, Z and sometimes Y. Oh, and it’s got to be Legacy legal.

Anyone else think they’re possibly looking for some decks featuring the creature newly reinstituted to the hall of power, Quirion Dryad?

Well, I did not take the bait. I decided to build my deck around one of my favorite combos—a combo that begins with W and Z—Words of Weirding. Words of Worship and Zur’s Weirding make a soft lock as you gain life with Words of Worship and spend that life on Zur’s Weirding to deny your opponent’s draws. As long as your opponent doesn’t have anything relevant in hand (which you’ll see with Zur’s Weirding), the game is as good as over.

With Howling Mine and Kami of the Crescent Moon, it’s even more ridiculous—gain 5 life, pay four to deny two draws, draw a card and still net one life.

I won’t keep you in suspense about the deck. Here it is in alphabetical order:

4 Adarkar Wastes
2 Brushland
2 Cephalid Coliseum
1 Discombobulate
4 Enlightened Tutor
4 Force of Will
1 Ghostly Prison
4 Howling Mine
4 Island
1 Ivory Mask
1 Jodah's Avenger
2 Kami of the Crescent Moon
2 Logic Knot
2 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
1 Nevinyrral's Disk
1 Opal Archangel
2 Plains
1 Prohibit
1 Questing Phelddagrif
1 Rhystic Study
1 Seal of Primordium
3 Telling Time
2 Urza's Bauble
1 Vedalken Shackles
3 Words of Worship
2 Xantid Swarm
4 Yavimaya Coast
3 Zur's Weirding

Zur’s Weirding and Words of Worship were the obvious choices. I wanted to get four of each of them in there, but ultimately I decided against it since I could use Enlightened Tutor as a four-of. Then too I could use Enlightened Tutor as the hasp on my toolbox of artifacts and enchantments. It’s efficient and effective, and the draw power I have with Mines, Kamis, Baubles and Telling Times make it all that much better.

Against creature decks, I can get Vedalken Shackles and Ghostly Prison. If I’ve got some enchantment or artifact breathing down my neck, I go find Seal of Primordium. If I’m getting burned out, it’s Ivory Mask. And if I want to blow up the world, Nevinyrral’s Disk does quite nicely. I can even set up a big threat by finding Opal Archangel.

One thing that I hope sets my deck apart from the others submitted is the playset of Force of Wills. (I doubt it will). There are eight counterspells in the deck—Discombobulate, four Force, two Logic Knot, and a Prohibit—that I hope will let the deck play some semblance of a control role. If that happens, the deck should let me dig through it fast enough to find either the combo or one of my game ending guys: Jodah’s Avenger, Questing Pheldagrif, or the aforementioned Opal Archangel.

Speaking of counterspells, I really hope Xantid Swarm will give some protection from them. For this deck, Xantid Swarm wasn’t just filling the role of “card-whose-name-begins-with-X”; I honestly wanted to fit more copies in. It plays perfectly into the strategy: First turn Bees; second turn Mine or Kami; third turn Words; fourth turn Weirding.

The card that really deserves some attention though is Rhystic Study. This is one of my favorite cards since it does so many different things, especially in this deck. It’s searchable with Enlightened Tutor, for one, and I highly recommend it. Second, though it doesn’t actually prevent my opponent from playing spells, it should. If they play around it by paying the extra mana, it’s a Sphere of Resistance. With Words of Wisdom out it’s a life-gain engine, and with Zur’s Weirding there’s a decent chance that I’ll be able to draw more cards than they’ll be able to stop.

Rhystic study has potential; I would have included more of these if I didn’t feel it was such a win-more card.

The manabase should actually be pretty solid. Though I wanted to use a fetchland manabase, Tundra and Tropical Island conflicted, as did Flooded Strand and Force of Will. It just wasn’t going to work out. Luckily my A’s weren’t doing anything, and I was happy to not have a filler card at Y. The painlands are a little, well, painful, but I think they’ll be okay. There are a lot of opportunities for colorless mana, and there should be enough Islands and Plains to stay safe.

The interesting choices are Cephalid Coliseum and Mikokoro. The Coliseum reads “T, U, pay 6 life: Target player puts the top three cards of his or her library into his or her graveyard and discards three cards” when I have Zur’s Weirding in play. That seems strong. Otherwise, it lets me dig either for answers or for the combo and that seems pretty good too.

Mikokoro is a little different. Its effect is essentially a mid-turn Howling Mine, so you can gain life with Words, shut down your opponent’s draw with Weirding, or do both with the combo. It’s an interesting card, and the colorless mana doesn’t hurt too much.

There were many cards that I wanted to include that because of the restrictions ultimately did not make the cut. I believe I already mentioned Xantid Swarm and Rhystic Study. Brainstorm was a big one; it came out for Brushlands, and Telling Time went in its stead. In fact there were lots of other counterspells and draw spells in and out at different times, including the laughable Arcane Denial.

Actually Telling Time has a benefit over Brainstorm in that, under Zur’s Weirding, the card goes into your hand directly, rather than you drawing it.

Another card that I wanted to include was Sylvan Library. With two available mana, Sylvan Library and Words of Worship read “2: Gain ten life.” That’s strong, especially against aggro. Unfortunately I ultimately felt that the Library was redundant with Rhystic Study, and the Study made the cut in part as being a pet card of mine and in part as being pitchable to Force of Will.

So that’s it, I guess.

If anyone wants to see a tournament-ready version of the deck, you can reference this list that I somehow convinced Justin Dewey to play in the first Mox tournament I ever attended:

6x Island
2x Plains
4x Tundra
4x Flooded Strand
1x Strip Mine
2x Faerie Conclave
1x Library of Alexandria
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Mox Pearl
1x Sol Ring
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Black Lotus
4x Words of Worship
4x Zur’s Weirding
4x Howling Mine
2x Rhystic Study
2x Disenchant
3x Cunning Wish
3x Miscalculation
4x Brainstorm
4x Force of Will
4x Mana Drain

That seems… amazing.

I think during the first round of the tournament, Roland Chang Duressed Justin and said, “What the hell?” Then Justin lost to Stax. Then to a whole bunch of other decks. It was epic.

Anyway, I’ll leave you with just that—“What the hell?” Here’s hoping my deck sees play at the 2007 Magic Invitational!