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BMoor's Magic The Gathering Deck Garage
Black Equipment deck
July 25, 2007

I have only been playing Magic for a short time and I would like to know how I could make this 60 card deck work better. The idea is to use equipment to create super-powerful units. It seems to work alright part of the time, but sometimes it just flops around and dies if the opponent uses enough battle spells. I would really appreciate some advise about what cards to get to make it better. The only change I came up with was to add a Nightmare once I get one.

Mana:
18 black

Black Creatures:
Scuttling Death
Ebon Drake
Emissary of Despair -2
Iname, Death Aspect
Dross Crocodile -3
Cyclopean Giant
Thief of Hope
Gravedigger

Artifact Creatures:
Steel Wall
Pewter Golem
Leaden Myr -4
Arachnoid -2
Myr Quadropod
Yotian Soldier -2

Artifacts and Equipment:
Vulshok Gauntlets (btw, when would the creature untap if not in untap phase?)
Ensouled Scimitar
Loxodon Warhammer
No-Dachi
Long-Forgotten Gohei
Kusari-Gama
Whispersilk Cloak
Slagwurm Armor
Vulshok Morningstar

Spells and such:
Horror of Horrors
Pull Under
Dance of Shadows
Deathmark
Consume Spirit -2
Devour in Shadow
Murderous Spoils
Plunge into Darkness
Dark Banishing
Swallowing Plague

Frequent readers of my column know my stance at using a lot of single copies of cards in your deck.  So I must be really cheesed off about this one, right?

Actually, no.  I'm fine with it.  You see, the problem with using a single copy of a card is that it reduces the chance of you drawing it when you need a card that does what that card does.  But if you have several cards that do the same thing, it's okay if they're technically "singletons".  You're just as happy to see an Earth Elemental as a Fomori Nomad if all you need is a big creature, right?

Well, that's what this deck does.  Every creature essentially serves the same purpose (to get equipped and charge into the Red Zone), every equipment serves the same purpose (to grant creatures neat abilities), and every other spell... well, we'll come back to those.

So what's wrong with this deck to the point that I deserved its own article?  (Incidentally, if you E-mail me a deck and don't get a response, it usually means your deck was already good enough that I couldn't talk about its flaws for several paragraphs).  Well, the card choices are wrong.  Many of the creatures and the Equipment are sub-par, and everything else is even worse.  Horror of Horrors?  Yes, that's a good description of the deck as it stands.  I think it'll be easier to just rebuild the deck entirely-- I'll go through each category of spells and tell you about some much better cards for your strategy.  And since you're just starting out, I'll do my best to keep it budget.  I'm always looking out for those who can't afford expensive rares.

We'll start with your lands, since you listed them first.  Eighteen Swamps isn't enough for a 60-card deck.  You need about 23.  This is not negotiable.  You will lose games because you don't have enough mana if you don't add more lands.  Also, they're called Swamps, not "black lands".  They're also not even black themselves; they just provide black mana.  All lands are colorless.

Now, we'll work on your creatures (black and artifact at the same time).  In an equipment deck, you usually are happy with small creatures but you like them to have nice, combat-relevant abilities like flying or regeneration, so that when they get +X/+X, they'll be quite scary.  You're on the right track with Yotian Soldier, Ebon Drake, and Emissary of Despair, but from there it gets dicey.  It also looks like you're going for some sort of Spirit subtheme, which is a bad idea because it will only istract from your true objective: armed brutality.  For your purposes, try Plague Beetle, Drudge Skeletons, Ornithopter, Severed Legion, Ravenous Rats, Knight of Dusk, or Nekrataal.  Any of those, really.  And that Nightmare you mentioned?  Definitely throw that in if you can get it.  Also, Steel Wall can stay, just because it's so cheap.  Which reminds me, take out the creatures here that cost any more than three mana (that means you, Iname, Death Aspect!).  You want little guys that come down early, then wear a big piece of Equipment into battle.  Except Yotian Soldier.  He can stay.  All totalled, you should have around 20 to 23 creatures for a deck like this.

Now, for your Equipment.  First, let me address you question of when a creature equipped with Vulshok Gauntlets would untap if not in the untap phase.  There's several times a creature coudl untap:

~If you control a Seedborn Muse, then it will untap during everyone else's untap step, but not your own.
~If the equipped creature is Gelectrode, it will untap whenever you play an instant or sorcery spell.
~If the equipped creature is Horseshoe Crab, then you could pay U to untap it whenever you wanted.

But in the majority of cases, the creature just won't untap as long as it's wearing the Gauntlets.  Black isn't good at untapping creatures, so your options are limited.  You could attack with the Gauntletted creature, then equip the Gauntlets to an untapped creature during your second main phase each turn.  You could add in some copies of Brass Gnat, and pay 1 during each upkeep to have a 5/3 flyer (not a bad deal).  Or you could just use the Gauntlets on a creature you don't intend to tap, like Steel Wall or Yotian Soldier.

That of course assumes you leave the Gauntlets in the deck.  Which you could; they're not too bad.  Some other powerful Equipment: Bonesplitter, Skullclamp, Dead-Iron Sledge (works great on a Drudge Skeleton; you can just regenerate it), Cranial Plating, Banshee's Blade, Mask of Memory, Grafted Wargear (Drudge Skeleton can't save itself from this one though), Loxodon Warhammer, Nightmare Lash, Neko-Te, Vulshok Battlegear.  Don't feel like you have to use all of those, now.  I'm just throwing out suggestions.  You probably want around ten Equipment cards, so pick your favorites/the ones you can get most easily.  Also, take out Long-Forgotten Gohei.  We're getting rid of the Spirit/Arcane theme.

Now for the rest of your spells.  Can I be brutally honest?  The only cards I see here worth playing are Dark Banishing and Consume Spirit.  And maybe Swallowing Plague.  Possibly Devour in Shadow too, but that's on the fence.  At this point, I think it'd just be easier for me to list a bunch of good black cards that are useful in almost every deck.

Terror, Agonizing Memories, Cruel Edict, Diabolic Tutor, Head games, Mind Rot, Recover, Underworld Dreams, Midnight Ritual.

Get some of those, and you should be fine.  Some might work better in certain decks than others, but at least they're all good enough so that you can play them and they'll have a good impact on the game whenever you can cast them.  At this point, you're just filling in the empty slots anyway I guess.

When you've got those issues fixed, try the deck out and get comfortable with it.  There's tons of cards out there you might be tempted to put in, but here's a tip: having good cards in your deck isn't as important as being a good player.  Take my advice on the deck, and then leave it that way for a while and play some games.  Get some practice under your belt.  Eventually, you'll get to know the deck well enough that you'll know yourself what cards need to be pulled and which ones you find yourself relying on.

Good luck!

~BMoor