BMoors's Magic The Gathering Deck Garage

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BMoor's Magic The Gathering Deck Garage
Burrito's RWG rush deck
January 25, 2007

Bmoor!

Welcome back from your holiday Season, I hope it went well. Mine was spent many hours on eBay trying to get the best deals for these cards, I finally got them all and here is what it looks like.

4 Birds of Paradise

2 Giant Solifuge

3 Icatian Javelineers

4 Kird Ape

2 Rumbling Slum

4 Savannah Lions

4 Scab-Clan Mauler

4 Watchwolf

Spells

4 Char

4 Lightning Helix

4 Rift Bolt

2 Stonewood Invocation

Lands

2 Brushland

2 Gemstone Mine

2 Karplusan Forest

1 Mountain

4 Sacred Foundry

4 Stomping Ground

4 Temple Garden

Sideboard (15 cards)

4 Krosan Grip

3 Life from the Loam

4 Circle of Protection: Red

4 Leyline of Lifeforce

I have only played it a few times but I think it has great potential to beat many FNM Decks.

It started as a Green/Red deck and I saw some great creatures that would help in White so I splashed it in. Usually my games play like this

1st Turn - Birds/Rift Bolt/Lions/Kird Ape With Stomping Ground Kird Ape is a 2/3 1cc on the First Turn! (Can you say HOT!)

2nd Turn - Watch Wolves/ Helix/ Sand Crab avg damage is 2-3 (I have done 6 when I used a Might of Old Krosa, trying to pick Stone or Might, I can't choose)

3rd Turn - This is where it gets to be a lot of fun, I have 3-4 mana and I can dish out the damage either a Giant Soul, 2 creatures, a char/Rift Bolt, 2 helix, Rumbling Slum or Stonewood. Avg damage is 12-15.

4th - Turn Finish them off with a Bolt, Helix, Char or creatures!

I feel this deck is fairly Tuned but I think my creature selection could be better. I am going to have some problems with Dragonstorm but who doesn't its the deck to break right now.

I shut down Control decks with Leyline, I thought about putting Ivory Mask in when I vs.. Mill/Discard Decks but I feel that 4 mana is a bit steep for my curve and COP: Red is a little more useful if I can prevent the DragonStorm Damage.

Your Thoughts? Thanks and I look forward to finally reading about my Deck on PoJo!!!!!

Craig "Burrito" Stockman

Well, Mr. Stockman-- can I call you Burrito?-- it looks like you're already well on your way to accomplishing your goal with this deck. As a matter of fact, this is a fairly close approximation of the popular "Zoo" archetype that has been widely used in Pro Tours and PTQ's since about when Guildpact was released. You've definitely put your own spin on it, though, so let's see what we can do for you.

First of all, by your own admission Ivory Mask is a suboptimal sideboard card because four mana is the top of your curve, yet you use quite a few 4-mana spells of your own in Stonewood Invocation, Rumbling Slum, and Giant Solifuge. Is there anything here we can drop in exchange for something faster?

Well, Rumbling Slum you should keep-- as a 5/5, he's the biggest thing in your deck by a wide margin, and that 1 damage a turn really adds up. Giant Solifuge, effectively more of a burn spell than a creature, I'm not so crazy about. Yes, yes, it's been in pro decklists, yes it's hybrid in a 3-color deck, I know. But I'm just not comvinced you can't do better. So I went and checked the card list for Planar Chaos, the new set, and found a few gems. Whitemane Lion could be good, and could also reset your Icatian Javalineers if needed. The magic of Echo has given us Keldon Marauders and Uktabi Drake, both worth looking at. And of course Radha, Heir to Keld makes a great beat stick as well as mana accelerant-- remember, her combat ability says you MAY add RR to your mana pool. And if your opponent is using life gain to staunch the bleeding, then Kavu Predator could be a savvy answer. I sort of want to mention Hedge Troll, but it seems like it might be a tad slow, despite being effectively a 3/3 regenerator for 3.

And then there's Stonewood Invocation. Now, a true aggro deck needs to attack first, leaving mana open, and then cast more creatures during the postcombat main phase, so you can cast combat tricks if necessary. The exception is haste creatures-- those come down first so they can come down swinging. Given this, four mana isn't too bad for a combat trick, but Stonewood's true power isn't the +5/+5, it's the "Avoid Fate" functionality that protects your creatures. And that really requires leaving mana open during your opponent's turn, which is quite suboptimal. You can get effectively the same thing for much less mana. If it's just the bonus you care about, my endorsement goes to the old standard Giant Growth, or its new baby brother Brute Force. If you want something to stop targeted removal, go with Avoid fate itself, or possibly Mana Tithe. I'd also like to mention Sunlance-- it doesn't really do anything that Stonewood does, but it's just about the most awesome one-mana instant I've ever seen. I'm mentioning it here simply because I don't really think there's anything you can replace with it and maintain functionality (except maybe Rift Bolt) but it's too awesome not to mention at some point. And, it's a common. A COMMON. There's no way this card will not revolutionize Standard, to say nothing of Limited.

But anyway, Burrito, that should pretty much do it. This deck did come to me already pretty well-tuned, so there isn't a lot of replacements to make. Good luck this Friday!

~BMoor