<DIV>I love strange formats and was excited to hear about the "Auction of the 
People" for the Magic Invitational. For those of you who aren't aware, one of 
the Invitational's formats each year has the players bidding their starting life 
points and number of cards in their opening hand in order to get their pick of 
constructed decks.</DIV>&nbsp;
<DIV>This year rather than going with the top decks of yesteryear, they asked 
people to submit decks. Not winning decks. Or powerful decks. But fun theme 
decks built around a particular creature type.</DIV>&nbsp;
<DIV>Now I'd assume that "fun" means fun to Mark Rosewater (of Unglued chicken 
fame) who runs the event and who is known to be...slightly odd with what he 
considers fun. That means fun probably isn't Engineered Plague and Tsabo's 
Decree and every tutor known to modern man to go with two Masticores.</DIV>&nbsp;
<DIV>I heard a rumor that someone already had submitted my first idea but I sent 
it in anyway:</DIV>&nbsp;
<DIV>KoboldBloom</DIV>&nbsp;
<DIV>Theme: Brave Kobold holds off enemy army while Planeswalker finishes them 
off.</DIV>&nbsp;
<DIV>1 Crimson Kobold</DIV>
<DIV>4 cadaverous bloom</DIV>
<DIV>4 squandered resources</DIV>
<DIV>4 natural balance</DIV>
<DIV>4 prosperity</DIV>
<DIV>4 impulses</DIV>
<DIV>4 vampiric tutor</DIV>
<DIV>4 lim dul's vault</DIV>
<DIV>2 drain life</DIV>
<DIV>1 elven cache</DIV>
<DIV>2 power sink</DIV>
<DIV>2 counterspell</DIV>
<DIV>3 forces of will</DIV>
<DIV>7 forest</DIV>
<DIV>5 island</DIV>
<DIV>6 swamp</DIV>
<DIV>2 gemstone mine</DIV>
<DIV>2 thawing glaciers</DIV>&nbsp;
<DIV>Nice but I was afraid Mark would mistake it for a combo deck. &lt;whistles 
innocently&gt; My next idea was this:</DIV>&nbsp;
<DIV>Phyrexian Hobby Shop Kit</DIV>&nbsp;
<DIV>Theme: Creation of life from death (horrors)</DIV>&nbsp;
<DIV>4 Hidden Horror</DIV>
<DIV>4 Skittering Horror</DIV>
<DIV>4 Flesh Reaver</DIV>
<DIV>4 Plague Spitter</DIV>
<DIV>4 Phyrexian Negator</DIV>&nbsp;
<DIV>4 Unearth</DIV>
<DIV>1 Animate Dead</DIV>
<DIV>4 Spirit Link</DIV>
<DIV>4 Death Grasp</DIV>
<DIV>4 Dark Ritual</DIV>&nbsp;
<DIV>1 Urborg</DIV>
<DIV>1 Volrath's Stronghold</DIV>
<DIV>4 Spawning Pool</DIV>
<DIV>1 Arena</DIV>
<DIV>4 Swamp</DIV>
<DIV>4 Scrubland</DIV>
<DIV>4 Caves of Koilos</DIV>
<DIV>4 Plains</DIV>&nbsp;
<DIV>When was the last time a non-combo life-gain deck won a serious tournament? 
It sounds like fun at least. The second hurdle is making it good enough for one 
of the pros to want it. As cool as getting to be one of the seventeen deck in 
the auction would be, having pros get into a bidding war wanting your deck would 
be better.</DIV>&nbsp;
<DIV>The card choices:</DIV>
<DIV>Hidden Horror and Skittering Horror are the meat of the deck. Also the 
minor theme of the deck is bringing back creatures from the graveyard. The 
Hidden Horror puts them into the graveyard. The Skittering Horror dies if you 
play a creature from the hand but not creatures which are Unearthed or Animated. 
I'm not really happy with the Phyrexian Negator since every time it comes into 
play it seems very efficient in sending my creatures to the graveyard. At least 
it fits the theme....</DIV>&nbsp;
<DIV>Plague Spitter is going to hose a lot of decks. Wizards, elves, and a lot 
of random x/1 creatures are going to die to it. But unlike Decree, it hoses them 
in style.</DIV>&nbsp;
<DIV>Flesh Reaver or Plague Spitter plus Spirit Link is the combo of the deck. 
The Reaver does 8 points of damage in combat. Unfortunately 4 of those damage 
are to you but what can you expect for 1B? Chump blocking from your opponent can 
quickly become a major problem. But with Spirit Link on it you get a net gain of 
4 life.</DIV>&nbsp;
<DIV>The Spirit Link on the Plague Spitter can often gain even more quickly. In 
any kind of creature stall, which could happen a lot in this format, you are 
going to get a point of life for each creature and player during your upkeep. 
Not bad for a cost of W.</DIV>&nbsp;
<DIV>Spirit Link is my favorite tournament card. In regionals a couple of years 
ago playing a Tinker deck, my opponent got an early Colossus. Spirit Linked it. 
He tinkered it away next turn for a Masticore going down to one card in hand. 
Spirit Linked it. That's game. Later in the same tourney I double Spirit Linked 
my Crypt Rats and gained 64 life. Then played the last card in my hand, 
Necropotence, and necroed for 7 cards down to 71. Ah, the good old 
days.</DIV>&nbsp;
<DIV>Anyway, Death Grasp completes the life gain part of the deck. If anything 
is going to be branded "not fun" in the deck its this card. But it is strongly 
in theme so I'm hoping for the best. Its the only removal in the deck since I'm 
pretty sure removal isn't much fun. Meekstone, Juntu Stakes, Rout, Wrath of God, 
and Serra's Angel might be effective but what's the fun of a creature theme deck 
without getting to use the creatures?</DIV>&nbsp;
<DIV>Dark Ritual. Well, all the creatures are pretty cheap anyway but a first 
turn 4/4 is going to be devastating. Besides, how do you expect to get life from 
death without doing some kind of dark ritual?</DIV>&nbsp;
<DIV>The land is always important but why Urborg? Why not? In a random field its 
abilities might even be useful in some matchup. Besides with the planeshift, it 
could be the new location of Volrath's Stronghold which itself helps the 
reanimator theme.</DIV>&nbsp;
<DIV>The Spawning Pool would obviously be the place where all these horrors come 
from. The Arena is the place where they battle to hone their skills. Besides 
Arena is a lot of fun to eliminate or tap creatures and to play combat tricks 
with the stack. Probably could be THE power card of the format. I'm curious if 
any of the other deck builders have figured that out.</DIV>&nbsp;
<DIV>High hopes for that deck but this one is just as fun:</DIV>&nbsp;
<DIV>Your Deck is Better than Mine</DIV>&nbsp;
<DIV>Theme: Merfolk Who Act Like Kender</DIV>&nbsp;
<DIV>4 Seasinger</DIV>
<DIV>4 Rootwater Matriarch</DIV>
<DIV>1 Rootwater Mystic</DIV>
<DIV>4 Rootwater Thief</DIV>
<DIV>4 Vodalian Illusionist</DIV>
<DIV>2 River Merfolk</DIV>
<DIV>11 Miscellaneous Merfolk</DIV>&nbsp;
<DIV>4 Unstable Mutation</DIV>
<DIV>1 Phantasmal Terrain</DIV>
<DIV>4 Curiosity</DIV>
<DIV>1 Life Chisel</DIV>&nbsp;
<DIV>1 Arena</DIV>
<DIV>4 Soldevi Excavations</DIV>
<DIV>1 Island of Wak Wak</DIV>
<DIV>14 Island</DIV>&nbsp;
<DIV>If you aren't familiar with the kender from Dragonlance, you probably still 
have your wallet. They cheerfully handle, steal, or misplace anything they get 
their hands on. These merfolk do the same thing.</DIV>&nbsp;
<DIV>The Matriarch and the Seasinger "borrow" creatures. The Illusionist 
misplaces them. The Thief gets to the opponents goodies even before the opponent 
does. The Riverfolk get into places where they shouldn't be. The primary 
characteristic of kender is Curiosity. And if anyone is going to end up with an 
artifact, its going to be a kender. The only thing kender love more than 
borrowing is visiting interesting new places like the Arena, Soldevi 
Excavations, and the Island of Wak Wak.</DIV>&nbsp;
<DIV>Some of you might not remember Miscellaneous Merfolk from Portal Third 
edition...oh, who am I trying to kid. I don't remember exactly what the last 11 
merfolk were since my printer decided to eat the last of the decklist. Scatter 
it out over 6 different merfolk cards and you'll likely be as effective of a 
deck as I put together. Just don't use Rootwater Hunter which is badly out of 
theme.</DIV>&nbsp;
<DIV>I also submitted a golem deck but it was weak on the theme and fun and has 
no chance.&nbsp; My odds of being selected on these decks? I read there were 
3000 decks submitted to the contest. I expect merfolk decks are probably the 
deck submitted most often and horror decks to be in the top five. Mucho, mucho 
competition so I don't expect my odds of being in the top 17 are very good. But 
at least I entertained myself...and maybe entertained you along the 
way.</DIV>&nbsp;
<DIV>Lonnie "ATW" Usery</DIV>
<DIV>lonnie@hotmail.com</DIV><BR>
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