By Nafiz Erman
Welcome dear student to the MTGO Academy. Who am I you ask? Well, I am your Academy Rector of course! And while you are here and attending my class I demand total concentration, no absence (I accept no excuses) and absolute silence. And if you fail to silence yourself, believe me I have very powerful spells to do it myself.
Don’t make me cast this spell. Your mouth looks good on you.
I see that we’re clear now. Good. Now we can start with our first lesson.
Today we have two decks from two different MTGO-only formats. So we are going to have fun the MTGO way.
Now who doesn’t like gold? Everyone likes it of course! Therefore I thought that for our first lesson, choosing a subject that everyone likes would be great idea. And what is gold on MTGO student? Yes you guessed right, it is Kaleidoscope, the one and only format where everything is golden!
Our Kaleidoscope deck is a casual deck. No matter how obsessed we all are with our rankings and winning packs and proving everyone around us how good we are at playing the game and all, having fun is the most fundemental principle of Magic. And this first deck will prove you once again how fun Magic can be if you only wish to have fun.
Then after this first lesson, we will play some Role Playing on MTGO. What’s that you ask student? Well, as this is our first class, I forgive your ignorance and unawareness. When I say Role Playing, I’m talking about the Vanguard format of course.
Anyway… Now dear stundent without further delay, let’s start having some fun!
Lesson One:
Mind Tricks To Control Dragons
Dragons are a ferocious race. They are indipendent creatures and don’t like obeying others; especially humans. This is understandable considering the fact that they sit on the top of the food chain but that is of course no concern to us, right student? If we wan’t to control one, we simply do so. All we need is a little bit more mana than usual.
Actually there are a lot of different dragons with different mana costs but right now we will concentrate on a specific one. This one:
Ferocious and dangerous it may be, but if you have the right spells you can turn this one into your nice little harmless pet.
Now… Let’s take a look at it and its gametext. It says that when it’s attacking, you have the chance to boost its power by discarding a card. So if you attack with it and discard a, say, Figure of Destiny, this dragon will get 4/5. Nice. But nowhere near what I personally would call enough.
What if I tell you that with the right Kaleidoscope deck that has the right cards you can play this dragon on turn six and end the game the turn you play it? Confused? Let’s repeat. I say that you will play it on turn six which is one turn later than you can actually play it. But the turn you play it, the game will be over. How about that? Forget about your crappy 4/5 dragon; I’m talking about a 20/7 creature with haste, shroud and flying. Sounds nice eh? I knew you’d like it.
Here’s the recipe.
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24 Lands 4x Pillar of the Paruns 4x Steam Vents 4x Hallowed Fountain 4x Sacred Foundary 4x Exotic Orchard 4x Reflecting Pool 8 Creatures 4x Spellbound Dragon 4x Autochthon Wurm 28 Other Spells 4x Clout of the Dominus 3x Teferi’s Moat 4x Double Negative 4x Electrolyze 3x Intimidation Bolt 4x Lightning Helix 2x Odd/Ends 4x Supply/Demand |
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Got the idea? Cool isn’t it? Just wait until you see this in action. Only then you’ll realize how cool it is.
Now you may have doubts about having a combo out that requires three cards on turn six constantly. However you don’t have to worry. With the additional four copies of Supply/Demand, you are almost guaranteed to get it out on time. The only real problem is to stay alive for six turns. Which actually can be a real problem considering the current not-so-stable meta of Kaleidoscope which is leaning more and more towards aggro.
But that is the reason why you see that many removal cards in deck. Double Negative deals with those new Cascade cards. Lightning Helix, Electrolyze, Teferi’s Moat and Intimidation Bolt are self explanatory. And Odd/Ends works both ways; you can either counter their Blightning or even their Cruel Ultimatum or copy it. Or if you have enough mana you can get rid of two attacking creatures. Either way it is a you win card.
Now student, I will show you all these theoretical information in action. Just check this screenshot:
Do you see the horde waiting to attack me (and can’t attack me)? And do you see how my opponent helplessly watches my dragon ending the game in one swift strike? Now that was what I’m talking about so far.
And actually excluding the mana base, the deck is also very budget friendly. Actually even I don’t play the lands you see above in the decklist simply because I don’t own some (as you can also tell from the screenshot above). What you see above is the ultimate and the best mana base to play this deck. If you have them you’ll have no problems but if you don’t, there’s no need to worry because I can tell from personal experience that some Terramorphic Expanses and some Vivid lands of Lorwyn are also good enough.
Now that we had our fun, we can start playing some Role Playing.
LESSON TWO:
Paging Phage
Now stundent, for our second lesson our subject is the dark, the beautiful and the merciless Phage the Untouchable. We will do some Role Playing and asume the role of this black queen. Oh how I love to be so cunning and merciless and fierce! Believe me student, when this lesson is over you will feel the same way I do.
Vanguard, as you also know, is another MTGO-only format. And a very interesting format too. Just like you can play Standard or Extended or Classic, the Vanguard format is also divided into those three formats within itself. Today I will teach you how to have fun in Vanguard Standard with the Phage the Untouchable vanguard.
First let’s take a look at our vanguard:
Nice isn’t she? Basically Phage kills all the creatures that dare to touch you as well as dare to touch your own creatures. After all, they didn’t call her Phage the Untouchable for nothing. But her assistance has a price. And just like any other black mage, she demands a very high price. She demands your precious life points!
While Phage is your avatar you start the game already with fifteen life, which is very low considering the crazy fast meta of Standard Vanguard. Actually it would be a good idea to talk about the current meta first before we start talking about Phage.
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22 LANDS 4x Caves of Koilos 4x Fetid Heath 7x Plains 7x Swamp
30 CREATURES 4x Duergar Assailant 3x Figure of Destiny 4x Nightsky Mimic 4x Nip Gwyllion 3x Rhys the Redeemed 4x Safehold Elite 4x Stillmoon Cavalier 4x Tidehollow Sculler |
8 OTHER SPELLS 4x Beckon Apparition 4x Infest
15 CARDS SIDEBOARD 4x Batwing Brume 4x Deathmark 4x Kitchen Finks 3x Murderous Redcap |
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What you see above is a tournament winning decklist. If you want to compete in Vanguard tournaments, then this deck above has to be your target. If you can beat it, you can handle the rest too.
So what does this deck above do? Well, it does some pretty weird things like playing a turn one 3/3 lifelink Nip Gwyllion and playing a turn two 4/4 persist Safehold Elite. By the way, please note that this decklist is pre-Alara Reborn. Thus today’s Reaper King decks feature some X-blade creatures from Alara Reborn such as Jund Hackblade. Imagine yourself facing a 6/5 haste creature on turn two. Scared? You better be, because this is no joke.
So, all we have is four turns because that’s the amount of turns Reaper King decks need to end the game. If we can’t change the board position to our advantage in four turns, we will be dead for sure. And not even Phage can save us.
Imagine this:
Turn 1 – Your opponent plays a 3/3 lifelink Nip Gwyllion.
Turn 2 – Your opponent plays a haste 6/5 Jund Heckblade and attacks with these two creatures.
Just because of our avatar, we start the game already with fifteen life. Those two creatures above in our example deal nine damage on their own and to kill them via Phage, we have to pay one more life and that makes a total of ten life loss on turn two! We are sitting at five life on turn two!!!
And how do we answer this threat? How do we deal with this menace? It isn’t easy but it isn’t impossible either. Actually there is a way. And a nice one.
Here we go!
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23 LANDS 4x Seaside Citadel 2x Treetop Village 1x Wooded Bastion 1x Mystic Gate 3x Reflecting Pool 1x Sapseep Forest 4x Plains 2x Island 5x Forest
23 CREATURES 4x Birds of Paradise 4x Noble Hierarch 4x Kitchen Finks 4x Rhox War Monk 3x Rafiq of the Many 4x Battlegrace Angel |
14 OTHER SPELLS 4x Ajani Goldmane 4x Spirit Link 4x Captured Sunlight 2x Loxodon Warhammer
15 CARDS SIDEBOARD 4x Mark of Asylum 4x Guttural Response 4x Wrath of God 3x Qasali Pridemage |
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Okay student, do I have to explain you this deck? A little bit? Fine.
The main aim is to play a mana creature on turn one and a three cost creature (either Kitchen Finks or Rhox War Monk) on turn two. That is important. Remember this: considering you go second, at the beginning of your turn two you will be at five life! But the good news is that your opponent will have no creatures on table at that time.
Every card in the deck helps you to raise your life total. Even harmless looking mana creatures can become serious threats after Ajani Goldmane hits the table and starts pumping them.
As you see the deck has zero removal cards. Why would you be needing one?! You have Phage at your disposal who is constantly killing minions at the other side of the table. And this fact saves a huge space in deck.
Now student, let’s talk a little bit about the sideboard. Reaper King decks are the majority of the field but there are some other very good decks too. Especially decks that play this avatar
Actually Ashling the Pilgrim decks became popular just because of Reaper King decks. So it’s a hate deck. This deck produces tons of mana during early game with Rampant Growth, Fertile Ground as well as Garruk Wildspeaker and then starts killing everything with its avatar. And when the table is clear, Broodmate Dragon(s) seal the deal.
And that is the reason why you see four copies of Mark of Asylum in the sideboard dear student. It absolutely shuts down their defenses against our creatures.
And finally you may wonder what those four copies of Wrath of Gods do in the sideboard. Well, recently a green Elves deck became very popular. They generate huge amount of mana in no time, draw cards like mad with their Arcanis, the Omnipotent avatar and then cast a Banefire out of nowhere which happens to be big enough to kill you right on sight. You can’t counter it. You can’t prevent the damage. Phage can’t do anything about it. All you can do is to type “gg” in return. Of course you cannot allow that.
Against this deck you have to play the defensive side. You have to first play your mana creatures and deal some damage with your lifelink creatures so that you make them harder to reach that enormous X of Banefire. And when the time is right, you cast you Wrath of God and reset the game; to your favor of course.
LESSON IS (far from) OVER
Okay student, even though we have a lot to discuss let’s end our first class here. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.
Actually we, the online Magic community, are much luckier than the rest. Not only because we don’t have to argue about rules, triggered abilities, forgotten actions, counters on cards, tokens on table etc… We are lucky because we have much more format options than the paper players. I mean, all they know is a bunch of formats such as Standard and Vintage and Extended. But look the online game! From Pauper to Kaleidoscope, from Vanguard to 100 Card Singleton, we have so many different options.
In this first lesson as your Academy Rector, I tried to show you the benefits of being an online player. The decks we talked about are actually irrelevant; the main point is that Magic is fun but Magic Online is even more fun.
While you’re online you can make friends from all over the world. Isn’t it just beautiful?
And that is all I have to teach you this time student.
Welcome to the MTGO Academy.
See you online,
Nafiz Erman, aka Lord Erman
PS: A very special thanks to Mikail52 for the awesome banner!