Champions Block - U/W Dampen Thought

A new and surprising twist after the Paris Grand Prix was the appearance of a 
creature-less deck archetype: Dampening Thought. While the deck could be very 
abused very easily in draft, people have tried it in constructed, where

it is harder.

Land: 22
6 Plains
10 Island
4 Cloudcrest Lake
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
1 Eiganjo Castle

Creatures:
1 Hikari, Twilight Guardian

Spells:
4 Consuming Vortex
4 Ethereal Haze
4 Candle's Glow
4 Dampen Thought
4 Peer Through Depths
4 Reach Through Mists
4 Psychic Puppetry
4 Eerie Procession
4 Reciprocate
1 Honden of Seeing Winds

Yes, I know. This should be a creature-less deck. I have seen a version with

Hikari, Twilight Guardian in it, and frankly, it's decently effective as a 
blocker in a deck devoted to Arcane. A Honden is also an unlikely sight, but

I figured some card draw power was needed to help fuel the arcane spells. 
Technically, a Teller of Tales would work just as fine, but I tend to lean 
more towards enchantments since they're harder to get rid of.

Anyways, the basis of this deck is to mill your opponent to death. How this 
is more effective than Brain Freeze from Scourge will be beyond me. It's probably 
the re-usability of arcane.

There are versions out there that splash in red for removal like Glacial Ray, but 
I find that it dilutes the deck a bit going three colors without any mana fixers. 
Still though, it keeps its same effectiveness. White cards like Ethereal Haze and 
Candle's Glow help make sure you stall and stay alive

to mill out your opponent. One never plays these spells alone of course; splicing 
on Psychic Puppetry, Candle's Glow, and Dampen Thought are the three things 
necessary to help slow down opponents. These three cards are meant to be spliced 
onto every other spell you play, mainly the blue draw engines, and should never be 
used unless as a last resort.

However, this presents itself as a weakness. You're forced to hold onto these cards 
to be spliced continually. This makes any sort of black discard very, very useful 
to combat them. Distress is the best since you get to choose, but the other nasty 
stuff: Honden, Nezumi, He Who Hungers, etc. are all fine in dealing with the deck. 
Cranial Extraction reigns supreme again in knocking off the one card that gives the 
deck life.

With no creatures to defend except a Hikari, a quick and powerful rush to drain the 
life is the only viable way to counter the deck. Course, my version has Reciprocates 
to help alleviate certain annoyances, but at least they aren't arcane. White Weenie 
should have the easiest time in hopefully finishing off the job. Plus, since the 
deck doesn't require that much land, one can hope that it'll be land that is mostly 
lost.

Red has some fast hitters as well, and green's fatties or swarm, though slow, can 
also help. Green's Dosan the Falling Leaf helps render the white protection useless. 
However, red has one fun little trick I like a lot: 
Sideswipe. Since most spells in here are arcane, you can have them mill themselves 
instead! This might not seem too special, but then it somewhat becomes a race to see 
who decks out first, and by milling themselves instead

risks loss of more arcane spells to splice onto.

Blue can't really counter against this deck. Sure it can counter the spells played, 
but not the spliced spells. Uyo, the Silent Prophet is most likely the best counter 
to this deck; copy their spliced spell and have them mill out first.

Artifacts immensely help against this deck as well. Uba Mask means they must

play their spells once they draw it. This renders their white protection useless and 
should they draw something like Dampen Thought, they will be forced to play it early 
on. Shell of the Last Kappa's can be particularly troublesome as well. Another great 
idea is to use Sensei's Divining Top. 
They declare to mill you for 4, you respond with the Top. Should you find something 
that you most definitely don't want to be in your graveyard, switch it with the top 
instead. A small trick, but handy.

- Natsume


NOTE: This is just my version of what the deck should be, as well as my thoughts on 
playing with the deck and against it, although I think playing with it is self-explanatory.
Should there be any concerns or better ideas, feel free to tell me so at 
FORTRAN_MAN@hotmail.com