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BMoor's Magic The Gathering Deck Garage
Conflux Contest Winner
July 22, 2009

Last time, in BMoor’s Deck Garage, we witnessed three men and a baby (of Alara) and what they could do when denied monocolored spells. Today, three more will attempt to gain glory by pulling it all together with Conflux. Let’s meet our confluxing contestants!


First up, according to his Gmail tag, is Skyler.

"Confluxicated"

4x Conflux
2x Cruel Ultimatum
4x Vengeful Rebirth
3x Punish Ignorance
3x Reborn Hope
3x Countersquall
3x Soul Manipulation

4x Wall of Denial
4x Winged Coatl
4x Tidehollow Sculler

4x Howltooth Hideaway
4x Shelldock Isle
4x Rupture Spire
4x Vivid Creek
4x Vivid Marsh

This deck is built around Conflux (obviously). The main combo with Conflux is to pull Vengeful Rebirth and Cruel Ultimatum. Using Conflux you search up five cards: 2 Vengeful Rebirths, 2 Cruel Ultimatums and 1 Conflux. Alternatively you can get rid of 1 of both Ultimatum and Rebirth to pull either Soul Manipulation or Countersquall to ensure your cards will make it regardless of what the opponent may have. The deck is built to counter and block until you can pull the cards, hence the huge blockers. Thankfully, they shouldn't die to a measly Volcanic Fallout. The hideaways make it possible to play parts of the combo earlier than originally planned. I wanted to throw in some lands that could become creatures, like Fairy Conclave, but I decided against it in an effort to keep the deck smallish. Reborn Hope is there to pull out Conflux or Rebirth in case they were actually countered, but can also be used on the limited number of creatures the deck has.

-----

Next up is Karl.

Hello BMoor,

I’m just going to sort of ramble out an explanation of cards and strategy in little clumps since I can’t really think of what other angle I could tackle this thing from, so here goes.

Creatures: 0

Other Spells: 37

[4x] Conflux (3WUBRG)
[4x] Chrome Mox (0)
[3x] Cloven Casting (5UR)
[4x] Cruel Ultimatum (UUBBBRR)
[4x] Fist of the Suns (3)
[4x] Glimpse the Unthinkable (UB)
[4x] Glittering Wish (GW)
[3x] Lim-Dûl's Vault (UB)
[4x] Manamorphose (1 R/G)
[3x] Supply / Demand (XGW / 1WU)

Lands: 23

[2x] Blood Crypt
[1x] Bloodstained Mire
[1x] Breeding Pool
[1x] Flooded Strand
[2x] Hallowed Fountain
[1x] Overgrown Tomb
[1x] Polluted Delta
[4x] Reflecting Pool
[1x] Sacred Foundry
[1x] Steam Vents
[1x] Stomping Ground
[3x] Temple Garden
[2x] Watery Grave
[2x] Windswept Heath

Sideboard: 15

[4x] Blightning (1BR)
[2x] Gerrard’s Verdict (WB)
[4x] Lightning Helix (RW)
[1x] Mind Funeral (1UB)
[4x] Reborn Hope (GW)

Conflux, Fist of the Suns, and Cloven Casting: The meat of the deck. Conflux (the uber tutor) can easily search out a variety of continuous threats to throw at my opponent(s). Ordinarily this would be rather difficult due to that nasty 8 mana cost but that’s where Fist of the Suns steps in. FotS decreases the cost of Conflux down to a much more manageable WUBRG and has a similar effect on Cloven Casting. Cloven Casting is probably the least necessary part of the deck but has a dramatic impact when included. Cloven Casting turns an ordinary conflux from a WUBRG tutor (with FotS) that gets you five cards, to a 1WUBRG tutor that gets you ten cards.

Chrome Mox and Manamorphose: The first of these works mainly as mana acceleration. A single Chrome Mox can almost always guarantee a second or third turn FotS and thus a third or forth turn Cloven Casting or Conflux. It also provides mana fixing depending on what you imprint onto it. The second, Manamorphose, provides modest mana fixing to accompany the deck need for all five colors a large portion of the time. It also combos onto a Cloven Casting since it becomes a 3 mana cost spell that produces four mana and draws two cards to replace itself, a positive swing of resources all around.

Supply / Demand and Lim-Dûl's Vault: Both of these tutor up individual pieces of the main combo or simply whatever may be needed at the moment. Demand is the simplest of the two guaranteeing a multicolored card from the deck (most likely a Conflux or Cloven Casting) in your hand (as a side note, Supply can be used in order to create temporary protection or offense through tokens but generally of the two Demand is probably what will be used 99.7% of the time). Lim-Dûl's Vault, on the other hand, is mainly used for searching out FotS, Chrome Mox, or whatever else you may need. As an added benefit Lim-Dûl's Vault also can be played earlier and often times in a more effective way than Demand since it can fix the top of your deck.

Glittering Wish: While it may seem odd to separate the other tutors from Glittering Wish, since they essentially do the same thing just with different sets of cards, Glittering Wish deserves its own explanation anyway. Glittering Wish, I would almost go as far as to say, is essential to the deck’s function but, since it isn’t quite that important, I won’t. It is however very useful. Glittering Wish basically gives the deck access to a variety of cards that would ordinarily overextend its self-imposed sixty-card limit. More specifically it can keep the flow of threats constant at a low cost.

Cruel Ultimatum: Among the threats the deck has this is by far the nastiest. Ordinarily getting hit with a Cruel Ultimatum means your going to lose or your going to have one heck of a time trying to recover enough resources to win. This deck takes advantage of that by hitting with more than one thanks to Conflux’s ability to search for up to three at a time. The basic idea would be to (once you’ve either drawn it or searched it out) play a Cruel Ultimatum for five mana (thanks to FotS) then duplicate it with Cloven Casting for one more mana and watch as you either devastate two opponents or utterly crush one opponent beyond any possible chance of recovery.

Glimpse the Unthinkable: While this is not in any way a Cruel Ultimatum it is almost as destructive a force. The real magic behind this card is the boost it gets from Conflux and Cloven Casting. Conflux can get out two Glimpse the Unthinkable while Cloven Casting turns each into a 1UB sorcery that mill 20 cards. After playing two Glimpse the Unthinkable and Cloven Casting them most opponents would be too shut down to be any real threat.

Blightning, Gerrard’s Verdict, Lightning Helix, and Mind Funeral: These last four are the final threats the deck has to muster. All of these can be swapped into the deck or pulled in through Glittering Wish in order to counter the general problems that creep up. Blightning and Gerrard’s Verdict both perform about the same task; they both force an opponent to discard (disrupting any nasty plans they may have) while either dealing them damage or recovering life. Lightning Helix is an awesome card for handling creatures or finishing off opponents while also gaining life at a low cost. Finally Mind Funeral (the one seemingly random card) reinforces the secondary mill strategy and can be very effective since it has to hit four lands before it stops. Much like Cruel Ultimatum and Glimpse the Unthinkable all of these are also turned into even more monstrously efficient cards when you can throw in the one extra mana needed to copy them with Cloven Casting.

Reborn Hope: The last card and another hidden jewel. Reborn Hope really shines here because it can recover any of the decks various dangerous cards and can also be utilized with Cloven Casting to great effect. In the late game a deck like this might begin to run out of things to hurl at its opponent’s but Reborn Hope easily prevents this and more. With a Reborn Hope in a graveyard and one in your hand you can use Cloven Casting to copy it and then get back two cards, the Reborn Hope in the graveyard and something like Glimpse the Unthinkable. You can then proceed to hit them with the dangerous card and then next turn repeat the process until you’ve won.

-----

And finally, Zachary.

Creatures
4 Composite Golem
2 Copper Myr
2 Gold Myr
2 Iron Myr
2 Leaden Myr
3 Silver Myr

Other Cards
4 Conflux
4 Backlash
3 Gerrard's Command
4 Surge of Strength
3 Black Lotus

Land
4 Acadamey Ruins
4 Crystal Quarry
3 Deserted Temple
4 Fire-Lit Thicket
4 Graven Cairns
4 Mystic Gate

I'm not sure if I really need to explain the strategy of this deck, but just in case I do, here it is. Alright, so it's a whopping 60 cards strong. As you might have guessed this strategy actually only works on an opponent who puts out a creature. If mono-colored were allowed I'd sideboard some donate just in case. For this strategy I have to have conflux in my hand in order to win the game, I actually need two of them and having one will get me the other two. You see it yet? That's right I play Conflux as quickly as possible and get out two more Conflux (white and blue), two Surge of Strength (green and red) and one Backlash (black). I play the two surge of strengths on their creature and discard the two conflux's as part of their cost. (If that rule wasn't on this contest I would search for two Progenitus and discard them instead for +20/+0) Their creature gets jacked up +16/+0 and then I backlash for their creatures power +16. Best case scenario: They use it for something allowing me to untap it with Gerrard's command. The lands are there to help me play the multicolored cards I need to play and the academy ruins to get composite golem back if need be or if they try to rush.

There we have it. Now to evaluate them!

1: How does each deck win?

Skyler’s plan is to Conflux up Cruel Ultimatums and Vengeful Rebirths, plus a second Conflux. Each Ultimatum will do 5 damage, as well as crippling their board position, and then each Vengeful Rebirth (returning the Ultimatums) will do another 7, for a total of 24 damage. If the opponent somehow survives that, Skyler has his Ultimatums back in hand for another go-round. He also seems to be trying to cheat the mana costs on these back-breaking spells by hiding them under Howltooth Hollow or Shelldock Isle.

Karl’s plan is to knock that [3] off of Conflux’s cost with Fist of Suns, which will then allow him to afford the cost of Cloven Casting to make copies of his Conflux, as well as whatever instants and sorceries he chooses to search for with them.

Zachary has discovered a combination of cards that will allow him to win the very next turn for [1BRRRGG], assuming his opponent controls a creature. And two of those cards are Conflux itself.

2: What are each deck’s flaws?

Skyler’s biggest problem is undoubtedly his lands. He only has twenty and eight of them don’t provide more than one color of mana, in an all-multicolor deck. His Vivid lands are going to run out of counters, and unless he has multiple Rupture Spires to back him up, I can just see him with a grip full of spells he can’t cast. Not even Conflux itself can find him any mana-fixers.
Karl’s problem is that he seems primed to end up with a ton of cards in his hand. If he can’t muster enough mana to cast them all, he’ll be discarding down to seven at end of turn. Copying a Conflux to get ten cards, only to discard three of them?

And Zachary, as he admitted to me himself, is completely dependant on his opponent having an untapped creature when he goes off. Since his only creatures are mana-producers, it’s likely any creatures the opponent does have will have attacked him, thus needing him to use Gerrard’s Command. Also, his combo gives the creature +16/+0 (without the Command) before dealing its power to the opponent. Assuming he can find a creature with nonzero power to target, that’s still 3 damage short, which means he needs the Command to guarantee a kill, or he needs to attack a few times with his artifact mana producers.

After thinking about it, I realized that Zachary could’ve eliminated these problems fairly easily. By using Forbidden Orchard as one of his nobasic lands, he could give his opponent creature tokens. And including a single copy of Autochthon Wurm in his deck would let him use that as the white card he Confluxes for, discard it to a Surge, and then he could give his Backlash target +23/+0. They’re small oversights, but they add up.
3: You never draw Conflux. Now what?

Skyler would just have to hold an opponent at bay with his counterspells until he draws an Ultimatum, most likely using Vengeful Rebirth/Reborn Hope on a counterspell or two in the process.

Karl would be drawing a slew of the muscle spells he has to Conflux into, and possibly Cloven Casting to double them. He’d have mana issues trying to accommodate so many different casting costs, but with all those power cards he might flail out enough potency to win despite his spells not really having a common theme besides “sucks to be you if I resolve it”.
Zachary would have to hope he draws his combo naturally, or else try and win with Composite Golem beats and Academy Ruins recursion. Either way looks like a long shot.
This one’s a pretty tough call. Zachary has definitely impressed me by finding five gold cards that cover all five colors between them and kill the opponent in one glorious, if easily disrupted, combo. Skyler’s more direct focus looks like it would be pretty savage if he’d built a better mana base for it. And Karl’s “brute force” approach of copying Conflux, searching out the most painful gold spells in Magic’s history, and then copying them for massive damage looks like a nightmare to go up against, but I can’t tell if Karl is taking a stance of adapting to his opponent’s strategy, or just can’t decide what he wants to win with. He’s gone part mill and part… Ultimatum. It literally took me hours to try and decide which deck was the best. But for most thought evidenced in which five spells to Conflux up, I’m going to give Zachary’s Surge of Strength/Backlash win condition the nod as winner of the Conflux division! Congratulations, Zachary! Send me your address in an E-mail to claim your prize!

Now, it’s my turn to whip something up. My plan is similar to Karl’s, only instead of Fist of Suns to make Conflux easier to cast, and Cloven Casting to copy it, I’ll use Panoptic Mirror to cast it for free every turn.

4 Panoptic Mirror
4 Conflux
2 Call the Skybreaker
2 Spitting Image
2 Worm Harvest
2 Titanic Ultimatum
4 Flame-Kin Zealot
4 Esper Charm
4 Exploding Borders
3 Flurry of Wings
4 Darksteel Ingot
4 Grixis Charm
4 Rupture Spire
4 Terramorphic Expanse
3 Plains
3 Island
3 Swamp
3 Mountain
3 Forest

The theme here is to get Conflux on a Panoptic Mirror, then search for some of your big token producers, Flame-Kin Zealot, and Grixis Charm or Titanic Ultimatum. Then imprint the biggest one, Call the Skybreaker or Spitting Image, and cast the others. Now you can make a suitably large token creature every turn, or search your deck for five spells when you’ve played out your hand. Once you’ve got a suitable amount of tokens, use the Zealot, Ultimatum, or Grixis Charm (Trumpet Blast mode) for a lethal alpha strike. Flurry of Wings makes a decent Fog effect, or a supply of tokens. Esper Charm is pure support, but can help you draw into a Mirror or a Conflux.

There you have it, folks. Two down, four to go. Come back on Friday, and we’ll see what people did with Fusion Elemental. You know you’re dying to see what people figured out to do with a vanilla 8/8 for [WUBRG]!

~BMoor