The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men

It’s been a while but I’m still alive and still playing Magic the Gathering; in fact more than ever. I’ve now got two gathering groups but I’ll save that for a different blog. For now I shall discuss my new deck.

This deck design is based around ‘Laboratory Maniac’;

when I got my lot of Innistradcards I managed to get two ‘Laboratory Maniac’ cards. I thought to myself, “This is great as most of my decks are designed to deal damage”. The problem with decks that are designed to win in another means becomes obvious too quickly, and therefore can be countered. How was I going to get around this?

Well, while brainstorming a way to use this card to the best of my ability I obviously began gathering all the self-decking cards I could. What helped with this bit was the return of the Flashback mechanic. This meant I could play cards like “Dream Twist’ twice.

This also meant I could keep my deck nice and small, because let’s face it if you’re looking to deck yourself, you want the smallest amount of cards possible to do this with.

As such I kept my deck size to a safe 40 cards, with all of the spells aimed at drawing cards or discarding cards; this was enough of a balance to be able to draw the ‘Laboratory Maniac’ card.

My wild card for this deck is ‘Curse of the Bloody Tome’.

This of course guarantees to lose two cards a turn which then speeds up the process of decking myself; I do however need to be able to draw from an empty deck before the need to discard arises.

With everything in mind, I want to keep ‘Laboratory Maniac’ for the last minute as I don’t want to give away my main game-plan. So I need something to keep my defence up as I don’t intend to deal any damage at all. A creature with a regenerate power would be my best option. This is when I remembered that ‘Nightscape Familiar’

not only has this regenerate power but it makes Blue and Red Spells 1 less to play. Well all my spells are blue.

While looking for ‘Nightscape Familiar’ I stumbled across ‘Psychatog’.

This card is powered up from discarding cards and consequently removing cards from the graveyard. Well, I will be going to throw cards into my graveyard from the very beginning of the game, so now I have a smoke screen for my ‘Laboratory Maniac’.

Having played this deck a good number of times, I can safely say that if it’s being played for the first time against someone who hasn’t been up against it before they are fooled and think I’m throwing my cards away to power ‘Psychatog’ for a massive attack. Being that I wasn’t dealing damage in a 6-way all on all game, everyone sat building their defences, and focused on attacks that they felt they could get on the other players while they appeared weak. One deck was gaining life quite happily so of course they thought they were safe from any massive attack I was building up without them realising. Naturally they were all surprised once I pulled out ‘Laboratory Maniac’ and with an empty deck, I played ‘Think Twice’.

However, where this deck falls down is within the fact that when your opponent knows what is happening, they throw everything imaginable your way. Of course I still have a creature with the regenerate power and I can also power ‘Psychatog’ with the cards that I don’t need in my graveyard.

All in all I am happy with this deck design; even if it is a deck to open with to impress. Below you can see my deck list.

                                Black Creatures:

                                                Nightscape Familiar x4

                                Blue Creatures:

                                                Laboratory Maniac x2

                                                Screeching Skaab x2

                                Multi-coloured Creatures:

                                                Psychatog x4

                                Blue Others:

                                                Secrets of the Dead x2

                                                Thought Scour x2

                                                Dream Twist x2

                                                Think Twice x2

                                                Curse of the Bloody Tome x2

                                                Forbidden Alchemy x3

                                Land:

                                                Island x7

                                                Swamp x3

                                                Salt Marsh x4

                                                Darkwater Catacombs x1