MTG: Amazingly dumb yet effective deck ideas

[Deepblue706]

Gfaw!

Egads!

Another MTG thread.

While I know little of what other players enjoy doing most when playing MTG, I find it most entertaining to pull a 180 on everyone I sit down with, doing what appears to be amazingly dumb, but in the end doing something fairly effective.

Really, I build about 90% of my decks based around this concept. I really enjoy seeing the attitudes I notice go from "Haha, you're an idiot" to "WTF!"

For instance, my longest running deck is a "Re-animator". The basis of the deck, for those that do not know, is to put (big) creatures into your graveyard, and then put them into play via necromancy spells. Right well...I don't use any big creatures. I use ANNOYING creatures.

There's this old card from Visions called "Necromancy", which is an enchantment (2B) that revives a creature, keeping it alive so long the enchantment itself remains in play.

Now, some might say it's not so good, because 1) It's slower than Reanimate (B, pay life equal to converted mana cost) and 2) It's an enchantment, which can easily be disposed of in a number of ways.

So, when I play it, most of those I play with seem to be thinking "Wow, ghetto".

There's a neat little attachment to the spell, which says it can be played instantly - however, the enchantment would then be destroyed at end of any turn.

Now, why would anyone do that? Unless the creature had haste, it couldn't attack. Well...I found a nice use for it.

See, this Re-animator of mine is Black/Blue - it has a lot of draw cards, and counterspells!

I run 4 Dazes ( 1B or return an island to hand, counter unless caster pays 1), and 4 Forbids (1BB counter target spell, buyback - discard two cards: This lets me drop creatures from hand to graveyard for reanimation).

Counterspells are something I love - and they're very important if I want to live long enough to deal the proper amount of damage (as I said, it's harder because I don't run big creatures).

And so, I added a Mystic Snake (1GBB).

How do I use it without the green mana? First, it needs to be in my discard pile (which first time witnesses are seemingly always appauled at) - from there, Instant Necromancy. At end of turn, it dies, and so does the enchantment. Now, if I stopped there, I still have over 10 counterspells in the deck, that means. Which, is quite annoying, especially considering the fact that the deck can deal significant amounts of damage quickly, despite not being absolutely amazing at it.

There's a card called "Tidespout Tyrant" from Dissention: 5BBB, 5/5, flying, whenever you play a spell, return target permanent to owner's hand. I added this card IMMEDIATELY upon discovering it in my small collection. And, well, this is annoying for many reasons - which is why it's always the first creature I go for.

First, I can return enemy lands to their hand, slowing them down quite a bit (considering how many low-cost draw spells I run in the deck). But more importantly, I can retrieve the Necromancy enchantments before they are destroyed from being played instantaneously. All I need is a Telling Time, or Truth or Tale - heck, I'd even burn a Dark Ritual to take it back, if necessary.

And, in return, I get another counterspell for 2B...much to the dismay of my friends. 4 Necromancy cards with Mystic Snake, 4 Daze, and 4 Forbid = 12 counterspells, not considering the buyback of Forbid, and the retrieval of Necromancy. I love it!

It's now common for those that I play with to refer to my little technique as "Snaking".

"Look out, he might SNAKE ya."

Because it sounds a little ambiguous, it adds even more humour to the table. But even so, it is actually regarded as a fair tactic among my fellow players, if a little...odd.




So that's my tale. I'm curious, has anyone else managed to pull anything like this out to the gaming table?

[Artanis]

I once built a white not-quite-weenie deck for free-for-all Genocide* games me and my friends had all the time. It revolved around staying out of the way long enough to put together my game-winner combo, them pummel the other guy to death with it. It was by far the weakest of the three decks, but since it was a free-for-all, I actually won a few games!

(*Note: "Genocide" was a variant where everybody played a "race" deck: the only cards allowed in a deck were basic lands and cards explicitly related to one specific race.

i.e. I had a deck with nothing but Plains and Soldiers (this was during the Urza's block, when Soldiers were still nothing special), one friend had nothing but Swamps, Thrulls, and a couple Thrull-related spells like Breeding Pit, and the other friend had nothing but Mountains, Goblins, and a couple Goblin-related spells like Goblin Grenade.)

Basically, every game came down to seeing which would happen first: the Breeding Pits outproducing the Goblin Warrens by 25ish, or the Goblin player drawing his fourth Goblin Grenade. Meanwhile, I would just sit back and wait for three key cards: Kjeldoran Skyknight, Icatian Lieutenant, and Kjeldoran Royal Guard. Neither friend could block the Skyknight, so once one of them was taken out, the Icatian Lieutenant would buff him as high as possible and he'd go in and pound the survivor. The Kjeldoran Royal Guards, in the meantime, were sacrificed to keep me alive long enough to finish the guy off. Literally the entire rest of my deck existed for the sole purpose of keeping me alive long enough for the Goblin/Thrull stalemate to ensue.

[Erloas]

Although I haven't played in years... I think Exodus was the last set I collected any reasonable amount, though I think I have a little bit up until Invasion. Looking at their site now it looks like they've released a ton of expansions since then.
So I only have a vague idea of what 99% of the cards anyone mentions now actually do.

I ran a lot of random decks that weren't really built do stomp on someone, but just to be annoying and hope to come out on top.

Though my favorite deck and the one I used most of the time was a red destroy everything deck. Its goal was to destroy as much as possible and make sure I came out a little ahead in the end. Things like Nevyrils Disk and Joghulhops (no idea on spelling at all), earthquakes, infernos, that sort of thing. The best times were when someone thought they had me beat and decided to toy with me just a little too long (the liked to do that since I was hard to beat) and I would turn the game around and kill them in very short order. Or at very least kill us both at once.
My favorite part was always "pick your death" when I knew I had it won and had my opponent randomly choose which way (usually between 3-5) I would kill them.

The one nice thing I found is when I played last (about a year ago, while on a trip back) against my younger brother and his friends, even with all the new and more powerful cards they release with every expansion I was still able to beat them a good portion of the time.

[Reinforcements]

I haven't played since Kamigawa started, but I still have two good decks lying around.

The first is an Affinity deck - which is terribly boring, but also really good. Ambushing people who don't know what to expect with Broodstar is tons of fun.

The other (my favorite) is an elf deck that was Type-2 legal during the Mirrodin block. One word - Skullclamp. What? That's one word.

Erloas, I think you would like

The made-up Magic card I'm most proud of.

[Tor the Fallen]

Rats. All black.
Terror'd any creatures that the opponent played, then just played one or two rats a time with strength buffs. Mostly feast of the unicorn or unholy strength. Tiny deck, at 40 cards, could end someone in 3-5 turns. I think.

[Tor the Fallen]

Hey deepblue, you might want to try using some sort of card that 'bounces' permanents back to your hand, so instead of losing that enchantment, it goes back to your hand and the creature goes to the graveyard wher eyou can easily reanimate it again.

[Douglas]

I've only ever actually played this deck in a computer game and with fake cards, but it's entirely legal, often effective, and a bit unusual. It revolves around four cards and variants on them: Stasis, Kismet, Black Vise, and Rescue. If you can survive long enough to get stasis out (I used counterspells to help with this), you can usually get the full combo in play and win.

For those not familiar with those specific cards, here's how it works:
Stasis is a blue enchantment that makes everyone (including you) skip the untap phase. It has an upkeep cost of one blue mana.
Kismet is a white enchantment that makes all your opponents' permanents come into play tapped.
Black Vise is an artifact that damages an opponent by one for each card more than four in his hand at the end of his turn.
Recall is a blue instant with only 1 mana cost that returns a permanent you control to your hand.

1) Get Stasis on the field. Now no one can untap anything. This means, among other things, most creatures can't attack more than once and lands can only produce mana once before becoming useless.
2) Get Kismet on the field. Now your opponent(s) don't even get to tap their lands and other permanents once before they're useless.
The above combination means, among other things, your opponents have no mana. No mana => no casting spells => no getting cards out of hand => hand size grows.
3) Get Black Vise on the field. Your opponent(s) should have pretty large hands by now, so they'll be taking damage every turn.
4) When you're running low on mana to maintain Stasis, use Recall to return it to your hand at the end of the turn just before yours. Stasis is no longer in play, so you get to untap everything. Now cast it again. You got to untap, but no one else did.
5) Watch as everyone in the game but you sits by helplessly as their life points diminish every turn until they die.

I know of at least one near equivalent for each of Black Vise (Iron Maiden) and Recall (Boomerang), but Stasis and Kismet are unique as far as I know. You should have four of each, of course, and any card that lets you search your library for Stasis is also a good idea. I haven't really tried too many variations on it, but lots of lands make maintaining Stasis long enough to make sure you get a Recall easier.

[ilovefire]

Oooh, I've got a really nice combo deck, a UWG. Blue, White, and Green all in one deck? three colors of mana? *GASP!* you say!

But I Only have 4 forests and 4 plains, the rest of my mana consisted entirely of islands. Why did I include forests and plains? Well, I had some enchantments with costs including W or G mana... but I hardly ever had to use more than my blue mana.

Why, do you ask? Academy Researchers. Followed Footsteps. AR, when played, allows you play any enchant creature card from your hand onto them. FF creates copies of the enchanted creature (exact copies, down to the ability text).

Of course, it dosent' actually work all that well, but hey. it's a cool deck.

[Mr. Moon]

Amazingly dumb? Yes. All my decks have been amazingly dumb. Effective? Erm... No. Somehow, the concept of me and a good deck is, well, unplausible. Sure, they all sound good. (My current deck is a Shadow/Flying mix, for example.) They have a great concept, but when put into play... *winces*

[That Lanky Bugger]

I think my most effective deck was my Sliver deck (because I had the cards to get that infinite Sliver combo going, where the only real limitation to the number of creatures I could field was my imagination), but my favorite (which was also fairly effective) has always been my deck based around the artifact card which allowed you to give a creature +1/+1 and flying, in exchange for killing it.

As I recall, I basically loaded my deck up with buffs, large creatures, and four of those cannons. The basic strategy was actually pretty simple... Because a lot of creatures which fly are small, by deploying LARGE flyers as part of my army I could get around those annoying blocking rules! Plus, the imagery of a bunch of goblins shoving a Giant Growthed, (Whatever Green Instant Grants Trample) Craw Wurm into a giant cannon and launching it at my foe was too funny to pass up.

[Deepblue706]

Hey deepblue, you might want to try using some sort of card that 'bounces' permanents back to your hand, so instead of losing that enchantment, it goes back to your hand and the creature goes to the graveyard wher eyou can easily reanimate it again.

I explained that I already do that, retrieving the Necromancy enchantment via casting a simple spell, which activates Tidespout Tyrant's ability to bounce a permanent.

On another note, I found some old 0 casting cost artifacts of some use, and added them in for the possibility of getting a storm of spells going (play a 0 casting artifact, return a 0 casting artifact to hand, repeat). With that, I can now use stuff like Tendrils of Agony as another win-condition.

[Evil_Pacifist]

I play this deck:

I play a Johnny-ish Wirefly Hive deck. I use Krark's Thumb + the hive, and turn my opponents creatures into wireflies using Unnatural Selection so that the hive kills them if I fail to make a guy, then I Skullclamp my wireflies for the cards, defend myself primarily with Steel Walls and the thumb + Impulsive Manuevers, then Enrage a wirefly (Plus double damage!) for the win. In theory. Plus, of course, I have other annoying coin flipping based cards, such as Planar Chaos and Fiery Gambit, and Transmuting spells as well.

It's quite dumb, very fun, but not so successful on the "Winning" front.

[Lord Iames Osari]

I play with a crappy all-color deck. Well, actually, I'm doing it a disservice... it's not that bad, just slow to build up.

[Aidan305]

I have many decks. My favourite is my Boros Ravnica, but another deck I play involves a fun little combinaiton of Stuffy Doll and Pariah's Shield. It's great fun in multiplayer.

Another one I like is a black rat deck. Crypt rats, Marrow-gnawer, Scythe of the Wretched and Loxodon Warhammer.

[Dhavaer]

The dumbest deck I ever used was a 75 card booster, straight from the pack. I didn't even look through it. It won, too.

[StevieWonderMk2]

My mates and I did a bunch of nuerotic proxy decks, we came up with two amazing weenie decks.

I had a White Weenie deck. Bunch of plains, 4 howling mines (draw an extra card each turn), 4 glorious anthems (enchantment: all your creatures get +1/+1) , the rest white weenies costing less than 2 mana.

The other one was a saproling deck. Normal saproling stuff, rith,maybe riptide replicator, and coat of arms.

I got killed by 83 83/83 saproling tokens.

[Tekar]

Lol, I'm currently trying to make a deck revolving around sleight of mind work. In theory it should work well with cards like insight, chill, ... but it's proving rather dificult to support those 'combos'.

[Exachix]

I play some silly decks.

I played in a booster draft once, dissension prerelease. I played R-B. (Red-Black). With 1/2 Azourious Signets so I could play Overrule =).

I lost, spectacularly. Usual really, I usually only win Byes.
I got a Rakdos the Defiler from that though.

[Deepblue706]

I didn't like the Ravnica block too much. A lot of cards really seem limited in regards to creative usage (I would say the Azorious and the Simic are the only exceptions).

Aside from my Reanimator mentioned above, I'm making another silly deck using a card called Celestial Convergence (2WW enchantment...prophecy set?). Has 7 "omen" counters, remove one during you upkeep. Once the last one is removed, whoever has the most life wins.

I'm making it a white/blue deck, with lots of life gain and lots of counterspells. Win without killing.

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Also working another deck out, based around a card called "Pygmy Hippo", (Visions set). GU, 2/2, if attacks and is not blocked, you may deal no damage, and instead tap all of your opponent's lands and gain one colorless for each land tapped. Drop a Winter Orb (2, players may not untap more than 1 land during their untap step), and use a Magus of the Candleabra (G, 1/2, X: Untap X lands). Plenty of counters (I dunno, I just love 'em), too.

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And lastly, I've recently begun cooking up something involving removing creatures from the game and returning them to gain their benefits multiple times (inspired by the Time Spiral block). Lots of like gain, lots of drawpower, and lots of damage.

[The Glyphstone]

I know of at least one near equivalent for each of Black Vise (Iron Maiden) and Recall (Boomerang), but Stasis and Kismet are unique as far as I know. You should have four of each, of course, and any card that lets you search your library for Stasis is also a good idea. I haven't really tried too many variations on it, but lots of lands make maintaining Stasis long enough to make sure you get a Recall easier.

Actually, that deck is even easier now with Planar Chaos. They "reality-shifted" Kismet as a Blue enchantment called Frozen Aether, with exactly the same effect, and same cost (but blue, not white). Now you can focus your mana base more.

[Galorien]

I didn't like the Ravnica block too much. A lot of cards really seem limited in regards to creative usage (I would say the Azorious and the Simic are the only exceptions).

Aside from my Reanimator mentioned above, I'm making another silly deck using a card called Celestial Convergence (2WW enchantment...prophecy set?). Has 7 "omen" counters, remove one during you upkeep. Once the last one is removed, whoever has the most life wins.

I'm making it a white/blue deck, with lots of life gain and lots of counterspells. Win without killing.

I'd like to call that my pacifism deck, works nice with angels and congregate :D

[Tyas]

I had two decks that everyone thought were dumb but effective.
The first was the 'banzai!' deck. Every card was one that 'encouraged' attack. Juggernaughts and Erg raiders were a couple I remember most (It's been a long time since I played... sorry I can't remember well). It was an interesting deck because it had little real defense, but became effective because most players couldn't handle the constant attack (with modifier cards to give 'walks', fly, etc...) I rarely had double digit hp at the if I won though.


My 'cutthroat deck' (playing for ante, none of those silly 'tournament' card restrictions) was like 50 cards. 25 mountains, 25 lightning bolts. People laughed at it. No monsters. All red. Easy to beat...
iirc I averaged about an 80%-90% win rate with that deck. A wining game rarely lasted more than 6 rounds.
And I had plenty of mountains and lightning bolts to drop back in the deck if I lost. I think that deck won me two clones one night.

[tgva8889]

I have a few decks, but my favorite deck, which some people just laugh at the existance of, is my Chance Encounter deck. You see, Chance Encounter is a card that gets a luck counter for every coin flip you win. And at the beginning of your turn, if there are 10 counters, you win. So, this coin-flipping deck does some stupid things, like play Krark's Thumb, a card that increases the chances of you winning a flip by letting you flip 2 counts and choosing which result to use. The deck has yet to win any games, but it's pretty funny that it works.

The second deck that I've been currently playing is a somewhat competitive deck based around the Suspend cards from Time Spiral and Planar Chaos. It is a rather fun deck that shouldn't be competitive, yet can pull off quite powerful turns. I dealt 20 damage in one turn with the deck. My opponent was at 24 (stupid Faith's Fetters), but that damage is impressive.

I love making fun, exotic decks. Whenever there is a card I think is interesting, I try to figure out how to turn that card into a useful game-winning deck idea. For example, I had a Knight deck based around Haakon, Stromgald Scourge, a Zombie Knight which can only played from the graveyard, instead of the hand, and allows you to play Knights from your graveyard while he's in play.

And actually, Necromancy is considered a quite good card. Ever heard of Worldgorger Dragon combo? Well, Necromancy is a part of that combo deck, as an alternate Animate Dead.

[Deepblue706]

Ah... Knights. I remember having a White/Green deck that ran Knights and Lure, combined with stuff to give creatures trample, and rampage...adding more mayhem to their already powerful Flanking.

Really, it should never have won. But it did. Somehow. Fairly often.

Yeah, I remember making another silly little deck based entirely off the idea of only have 1 or 2 mana cost spells. All blue. The Unstable Mutation and Cunning enchantments gave a pitiful 1/1 quite a punch. Yeah, my friends who played decks based around "Tinker" and "Darksteel Colossus" were pissed about losing to it...

I mean, not only because I threw it together in about 10 minutes, but because decks like theirs actually cost money. Gyahyahya!

[Thervold]

Wow, I feel old when a card from Visions is considered an "old card" (That's about when I stopped playing). I've used the Stasis/Kismet combo mentioned above (add critters who don't tap when attacking to make it even more fun).

My combo back in the day was a 0-cast artifact critter like Ornathopter, Enduring Renewal, and Ashnod's Alter (I think that was the name of it). Basically, if you get all these down, you have infinite mana to play with. While the RX burn cards work here, there are many many other ways to use this to finish your opponents.

My other combo was Armageddon Clock, Armageddon, Dingus Egg, CoP:Artifacts (with a Sol Ring to power it). I only got it once, but in a multi player game, it can easily kill off everyone else, as nobody has the the land to get the clock down.

Note that I have no clue what cards are out there now, so these combos might easily be countered now. But they were fun back in the day.

[TheThan]

I have a few decks, but my favorite deck, which some people just laugh at the existance of, is my Chance Encounter deck. You see, Chance Encounter is a card that gets a luck counter for every coin flip you win. And at the beginning of your turn, if there are 10 counters, you win. So, this coin-flipping deck does some stupid things, like play Krark's Thumb, a card that increases the chances of you winning a flip by letting you flip 2 counts and choosing which result to use. The deck has yet to win any games, but it's pretty funny that it works.

accually i use that combo, take a look:

4 mana clash
4 fiery gambit
3 stitch in time
3 wall of stone
4 goblin bookie
2 urza’s armor
2 chance encounter
2 library of leng
2 squee’s revenge
4 brain storm
4 repeal
2 fabricate
4 shock
4 izzet chronarch
2 krank’s thumb
2 spellweaver helix

The idea behind this deck is to:
1. Burn them with fiery gambit and the mana clash/urza’s armor combo
2. throw 10 counters on the chance encounter before I die


Now the cool thing is the krank’s thumb lets me flip any coin flip twice, while the bookies (I know their unglued) let me reflip any bad coin tosses. A side effect of the fiery gambit is it fills my hand, combined with my ability to draw cards like a madman, its easy to set up the combo. Repeal, shock, wall of stone stitch in time all hold off the enemy until I can set up the kill with the mana clash/urza’s armor combo. The funny thing about mana clash is that each time you flip that coin the rules count it as a new instance of damage, so urza’s armor takes into effect each and every time I flip a coin ( I had this confirmed by the judge on the magic website). Meaning that with an urza’s armor out I’m immune to the side effects of mana clash. Unfortunately mana clash doesn’t affect chance encounter because mana clash doesn’t state win conditions.

edit
It's won a few games here and there, but never when I'm playing it (bad luck I guess), my freinds hate it when i pull it out becuase it's really annoying.

[TheOOB]

I acually had a pretty successful five color deck using invasions domain mechanic. Global Ruin wins when you have all five land types out.

[Talyn]

Hehe... I loved playing defense. I also went "theme," so my favorite deck was called "Desperate Crusade."

For footsoldiers I used the standard white weeny soldiers - Pikeman x2, Ication Infantry x2, Benalish Hero x2, Icatian Javilineers x2, Crossbowman, D'Avenant Archers, Sacred Longbowmen, Heavy Ballista, Icatian Phalanx, Standing Troops x2 and whatever the buffed Standing Troops card (2-6 white, attacking does not cause it to tap.)

Then, I had my specialists and hitters. Abbey Gargoyles, White Knight, Northern Paladin, Angry Mob (Power and toughness equal to 2+ number of swamps opponents control!) and, of course, the Lancers en-Kor x3.

The Lancers en-Kor allowed me to redirect damage however I wanted. This was useful because I then specced clerics - Combat Medic, Master Healer, Sanctum Custodians x3, whatever that super-common 1/1 white healer is called.

Finally, I rounded out my force with Congregate, Crusade (all white creatures get +1/+1), Glorious Anthem, and, the real kickers, Divine Sacrifice (remove target artifact from the game, gain life equal to that artifact's casting cost) and Allay (WW, Buyback 3, destroy any enchantment). Those two allowed me to keep the blue uberenchant decks and artifact juggernaut decks from eating me.

I won more than I lost - but then, I never went against people who were nuts about the game, either (no major tournaments or league stuff).

[tgva8889]

I acually had a pretty successful five color deck using invasions domain mechanic. Global Ruin wins when you have all five land types out.

My brother has a 5-color Slivers deck based around the Elder Dragon Highlander format, an insanely fun format which I could explain if anyone wants to hear about it. The deck is so awesome because it has Coalition Victory as an alternate win condition.

He also had a Domain deck with Collective Restraints, Allied Strategies, and various other good Domain cards. It was a cool deck, to say the least.

Right now, the deck I'm currently trying out is a deck based around the Words cycle from Onslaught (Words of Worship, Winds (I think), Waste, War, and Wilding) and Psychic Posession/Mind's Eye. You see, with this, I can supposedly lock down my opponent's draws, destroy their board positions, and gain tons of life (I don't use the Red or Green ones currently). The deck is still in the works, because it's, well, totally worthless right now. It's a fun idea, though, and I plan to test it more.

[Jade_Tarem]

I more or less stopped playing halfway through Ravnaca, but I have a surprising number of Mirrodin Block Cards - here's my "stupid but ridiculously effective" deck idea.

Blue/Artifact - all lands are islands or darksteel citadel.

There are 20 myr in the deck - in short, all the myr that can create a point of normal mana. i.e. Iron myr, silver myr...

There are two platinum angels in the deck, as an afterthought thier job is to keep me alive. The same is true for darksteel forge.

I play these cards quickly because of an old rare called Tinker. Tinker lets me sacrifice one of my cheap mana mongering myr and pay 3 mana to take even the most retardedly powerful artifact from my deck and put it directly into play. I also have four reshapes to do the same thing, but there I have to pay the card's mana cost +2 blue, which isn't nearly as good. Tinker usually goes to darksteel forge. The second goes to platinum angel. Now the angel is surprisingly hard to kill. Indestructability goes a long way.

With that out of the way I concentrate on my big combo

Mycosynth Lattice + Blinkmoth Urn + Door to Nothingness.

When I play the Door to Nothingness, I usually get laughed at. After all, you have to pay 2 mana of every color to get the ability to work. Problem is, Mycosynth Lattice makes all mana into rainbow mana. Blinkmoth urn gives me a bonus point of mana for, essentially, every permanent once the whole combo is out. I usually end up with a ridiculous amount of mana and paying the DtN cost is a snap. All those players who sneered at Door to Nothingness as infeasable and worthless are generally stunned.

It gets better. Blinkmoth Urn + Mycosynth Lattice can kill players all by themselves if my opponent doesn't have non-tap ability to dump his extra mana into. I've killed players with thier own mana.

For the final insult, sometimes Memnarch takes the place of Door to Nothingness. Since everything is an artifact I essentially pay 4 mana to take whatever I want from the opposing player(s).

So that's my silly deck.