BG Thallid – BeJoSe

Don't worry, I'll get back to fixing your decks very soon but this time I thought I'd show my of my favorite decks and give an insight into the decisions that went into making it

The Deck

4x Thallid

4x Deathspore Thallid

3x Thelon Of Havenwood

2x Pyschotrope Thallid

4x Sporesower Thallid

2x Mycoloth

3x Profane Command

2x Primal Command

3x Sprout Swarm

3x Shred Memory

1x Squall Line

1x Naturalize

4x Putrefy

3x Llanowar Wastes

3x Vivid Grive

2x Vivid Marsh

1x Pendlehaven

7x Forest

8x Swamp

• Thallid; A nice turn one play and the opportunity to hit for 2 on turn 2 with a Thelon is nice. Unless your playing a very controlling deck you should always have some early turn plays
• Deathspore Thallid; Another nice early play that also doubles as removal
• Thelon Of Havenwood; Incredibly good here giving major pumps to all of the creatures. Why not run 4 then? Mainly because of its legendary status and the double GG cost which can sometime be hard to pull off
• Pyschotrope Thallid; This is mainly a filler thallid in in that it fills a hole in my curve* and has a midly relevant ability
• Sporesower Thallid; another core card of the deck. This card helps with two problems. Firstly waiting 3 turns for 1 token is a bit poor, this speeds that up nicely. The second hole that it fills is that thallids are generally weak without a Thelon on the board, not so in this case being a respectable 4/4 for 4.
• Mycoloth; excellent card. Theres usually at least 1 token lying around for this guy to devour and truth be told all you need to do is devour 1 card to make him an efficient threat.
• Profane Command, I really like the commands, profane and primal ironically being my favorites. They allow you a nice choice of options at a very reasonable cost. Profane is a stellar card. Most often I will use it to kill an opposing creature with resurrecting a key creature of mine (thelon or mycoloth usually)
• Primal Comamnd; This will usually give me a life buffer and fetch a relevant creature although at times it can serve as a nice tempo card
• Sprout Swarm; at first I wasn't really sure this was such a great cad, but after testing it I am very impressed. It can effectivly fog one of your opponents creatures and lets you build up an army very quickly as well as give you fodder for mycoloth, deathspoere and pyschotrope.
• Shred Memory, this is a very odd card for a thallid deck and indeed many people are surprised when I use it but I quite like it. Originally its only purpose was to fetch Thelon but then I figure I could out it to to better use. Now it can fetch the one-of's to deal with either fliers and artifacts/enchantments, thelon himself or a utility card like profane command.
• Putrefy, all around great card really and should be in most BG decks.

A lot of people have asked with I don't have Thelonite Hermit. This is really comes down to my style of play. I find the hermit to slow and can't find a place in me deck for him anyway, Another question that people often raise is that why I don't I use diabolic tutor. While the tutor has a greater flexibility in being able fetch any card I prefer shred memory for two reasons. Firstly its cheaper cost, while the tutor only costs 1 more mana I find that it is too slow for the deck. Secondly the shred memory gives me the versatility to hose a graveyard-based deck on the off-chance I run into one.
 

I wrote this article for two reasons

1. I wanted to show that just because a deck may seem straightforward, it doesn't mean you can make innovations on it. Most people wouldn't think of adding tutors to a thallid deck but I found they really work. This is turn lead me to include profane command a card I hadn't considered before. My point here is always think outside the box. (Another good example is a WR aggro deck that popped up recently. It runs Painter's Servant, a 1/3 for 2. Why would an aggro deck run a card like this when there are so many other better option? Chaotic Backlash is the answer, this gives the deck a powerful late-game spell often dealing 8+ damage.
2. Sometimes you may not always agree with my choice of cards. Thats fine and in fact I encourage it. Like I said before, always think outside the box. I can only offer MY advice on a deck. However if you think that diabolic tutor would work better in your deck than shred memory then by all means use it! Try cards for yourself, you'll often be surprised at the results. Not only that but your card choices may be better depending on what decks other people around you are palying. Another simple fact is that I may simply forget the mention a card that may work well in your deck.

*In the marjority of decks you want to have a curve. This means that you want to be able to play something on every turn. This maximizes your mana use and allows you to maintain tempo.