The Basics: The deck was popularized by Maximilian Bracht, who won the 2006 German Nationals with it. The deck uses cheap cards such as Ornithopter , Mishra's Bauble , Repeal and Birds of Paradise to quickly reach the 4-spells-per-turn mark needed to flip Erayo . The 0-power flyers filled another role as well: enabling a turn 2 Ninja of the Deep Hours . A typical ideal game would go like this: Turn 1: Ornithopter . Turn 2: Attack, then when your opponent raises an eyebrow you swap it with Ninja of Deep Hours . Turn 3: Play Erayo (1 spell), play Ornithopter (2 spells), play Repeal on Ornithopter (3 spells), replay Ornithopter (4 spells, flip!). Oh, and attack with the Ninja for another card. Turn 4: Opponent scoops up cards in disgust.
The Basics: Aggro Loam abuses the amazing synergy between Life from the Loam and cycling lands. It is a ridiculous card draw engine, so the deck runs 3 Life from the Loam and 4 Burning Wish maindeck, thereby maximizing the odds of drawing the deck-defining sorcery. If you feel you’ve drawn enough cards with the Loam plus cycling lands combo, you can discard the lands to Seismic Assault , which can kill an opponent instantly. Aggro Loam also has an aggro element in Wild Mongrel , Terravore , burn spells, and Thoughts of Ruin . They fit in the deck perfectly. Wild Mongrel has great synergy with Life from the Loam , Terravore works well with the fetchlands, and Thoughts of Ruin can make for ridiculous starts such as turn 1 Birds of Paradise , turn 2 Terravore , turn 3 Thoughts of Ruin . Plus destroying your own lands has good synergy with Life from the Loam . The fast creatures can deal a lot of damage quickly, at which point the burn spells and Seismic Assault can finish it. Dredging a Firebolt into the graveyard also feels nice.
Aggro Loam is the best deck in Extended at the time of writing (August 2006). According to BottomDeck, Aggro Loam doesn’t really have bad matchups with the exception of Heartbeat Storm Combo deck. Psychatog and Isochron Scepter decks are hard to beat game 1, because you have no answer to Psychatog or Isochron Scepter . After sideboard those matchups get a lot better, since you can add Naturalize for Isochron Scepter and Pithing Needle for Psytchatog . If you can stop those key cards, you have enough time to easily outdraw them with the Life from the Loam engine. Any aggro deck is pretty easy with the maindeck Lightning Helix and Loxodon Hierarch to frustrate their burn and it’s very hard for them to deal with a fast Seismic Assault . The matchup against Gifts Rock usually goes long and depends on your playing skill, but you should be able to beat them more often than not.
The Basics: Gifts Rock is arguably the second best deck in Online Extended at the time of writing (August 2006). A thing that might strike you is maindeck Leyline of the Void . The card belongs maindeck, since Extended truly resolves around the graveyard nowadays. Life from the Loam , Psychatog , Nostalgic Dreams , Gifts Ungiven , Firebolt , the list goes on. It is really worth it to run Leyline of the Void in your deck to shut down your opponent’s graveyard recursion. The format is that crazy. That said, let’s analyze this Gifts Rock deck further. It plays typical Rock cards, such as Birds of Paradise , Sakura-Tribe Elder , Eternal Witness , Cabal Therapy , Living Wish , Putrefy , and of course Pernicious Deed . Green-Black Rock control decks are as old as the format itself, and this deck builds on that archetype. But Gifts Rock adds something extra. As the name might suggest, it runs blue for Gifts Ungiven .
Addtional Info: A typical Gifts setups is Genesis , Eternal Witness , Cabal Therapy , and another card, for example Pernicious Deed . The best thing your opponent can do is usually to put Genesis and Cabal Therapy in your hand. After all, if he chooses to put Genesis in the graveyard, he has put it right where you want it to be. Nevertheless, you can still get Genesis in the graveyard by sacrificing him to flashback Cabal Therapy . Then, you can return Eternal Witness , which in turn gets Pernicious Deed back. You blow up the board, including Eternal Witness , which is then in the graveyard once again, ready to be recurred by Genesis once more. This is only one of the many Gifts setups you can do with this deck. You can also go for a life gain package in Living Wish , Loxodon Hierarch , Ravenous Baloth , and Eternal Witness against burn decks. Or you can select 4 lands if you’re mana light. I can’t cover all the options, since there are so many, but with Cabal Therapy , Deep Analysis , and Genesis in the deck, Gifts Ungiven is ridiculously powerful since those cards are just as good in the graveyard as in your hand. Not to mention how good it is to include Eternal Witness in the four cards you search with Gifts. The sideboard includes silver bullets for Living Wish , ranging from Boeseiju, Who Shelters All against counterdecks to Withered Wretch against graveyard dependant decks. Furthermore, the sideboard features discard spells to put in against control or combo decks. Rock Gifts is rock solid against the entire metagame, with the exepction of 1 deck: Tooth and Nail . It’s very hard to beat that, since none of your cards truly disrupt their combo.
This deck is an interesting and good T1 deck and there are different versions in Extended, T1.5 and also in T2 thanks to TIME SPIRAL and the timeshifted card of Miss America . I’ll show you an Extended and a T1 version of the deck. You can build the deck a little more aggressive and less control, having, in less quantity (between main deck and sideboard), all the control cards for any eventuality. Remember also that shoot cards (and shoot creatures ) are good to destroy creatures (so that you can make control also with them). It would be more similar to a Boros Deck Wins.
This is an example of a more aggressive Miss America, which is really good in Extended. "The Decklist(s):"Show
Here’s an example of MISS AMERICA for the T1 format, where this deck had been really famous and really strong for a little (and now, anyway, is still a good deck): "The Decklist(s):"Show
Other Notes: this version of the deck show the real CONTROL-aggro of Miss America. You’ve only to make a big control (countering, Misdirection /ing, Stifle /ing, etc…, taking also the cards from sideboard thanks to Cunning Wish , and than you can hit thanks to your creatures (also quickly with the support of Umezawa’s jitte ). There’re no combo to win quickly (maybe in future there’ll be something, perhaps with the add of another/other colour/s…. Swords to Plowshares and Hurkyl's Recall are the good cards to eliminate the huge presence of Darksteel colossus (after sideboarding you can also take 1Swords to Plowshares and the Hurkyl's Recall to have tham into maindeck and 1Swords to Plowshares in sideboard which can be “Cunning Wish ed”. Absolute Law is good against goblins or sligh deck. Stifle is the perfect card against many abilities, also the dreadful STORM (from cards like Tendrils of agony ), for example from cards like: Pernicious deed , Oath of druids , Goblin welder , Worldgorger dragon , Bazaar of Baghdad and also Goblin piledriver . If you want you can also use Trickbind (which is very good on Psychatog ) with or instead of Stifle . Pithing needle is good too. You can also draw obtaining a considerable advantage of cards in your hand, block cards with the divine Meddling Mage , destroy enchantment and artefacts, remove creatures and destroy with Red Elemental Blast & Blue Elemental Blast , block artifacts with Null Rod , etc… At the beginning of the game you’ve to make control ,but with few cards (so be careful in deciding what to use, what to counter or to nominate with Meddling Mage ). Than you’ve only to make more and more control (also drawing cards and using tutors or Cunning wish ), and, in the end, win with your creatures. It’s not difficult, it’s easy and can be really quick to be done.
The Basics:Terravore ’s deck is a control-combo deck which works in a really simple way. You’ve only to put your common lands from invasion (so that: Sulfur Vent , Ancient Spring , Geothermal Crevice , Irrigation Ditch & Tinder Farm ) and also from odyssey (Timberland Ruins ), wait some turn in which you would play FOR EXAMPLE Orim's Chant , Mana Short , Moment's Peace , Cunning wish (for anything you need) & Pithing needle to keep control and wait those turn with serenity, than (with also the help of Insidious Dreams ) you have only to sacrifice all your lands (which, in this way, add 2 mana of 2 different colours each one, a part from Timberland Ruins which, however, is sacrificed too for 1 mana of any colour) adding enough mana to play for first Balancing Act & for second your VERY BIG Terravore , seeing your opponent with nothing into play. Wonderful, no? There’re also many other big defence-cards and mana-accumulators (and also drawers); than there’re also two other good creatures: Anurid Brushhopper , which you can play quickly to defend yourself (but also to attack) and than you can remove it from the game to play Balancing Act maybe discarding some lands for your bigger and bigger Terravore ; the other is Nimble Mongoose , which is enough big with threshold and easy & fast to be played. Here’s a good decklist of that deck, a little modified by me (Emross) to add some new cards and fill the 4 empty spaces of the decklist he forgot to sign!!!
The Basics: UG Aggro is a Flores deck which has settled in as one of the miryad of established archetypes in the RGD-TSP-9TH Standard, having made a strong showing in 2006 Champs. The deck plays very easily: The goal is to get a Turn 1 Birds of Paradise or Llanowar Elves and drop Ohran Viper or Call of the Herd on Turn 2. From there, you keep on the pressure with the angry beats. Viper and Looter il-Kor help you dig through your deck to get past those land clumps and find the spells you need. Moldervine Cloak plays a huge role in the deck, turning Looter into a 4/4 evasive monster and enabling your other cards against mid-sized men. The deck also runs a light counterspell suite in Rune Snag (or Mana Leak ) and Remand . These serve as pretty much your only answer to Wrath of God , so they become quite important.
The Basics: Solar Pox derives its name from Solar Flare (aka Japanimator), although the deck plays very differently. Solar Pox seeks to abuse the synergy between Haakon, Stromgald Scourge and Court Hussar . Ideally, the deck starts by dropping Haakon into the 'Yard early through Smallpox . Play Haakon from the Graveyard and then start playing unenhanced Hussars. Impulse from the Hussar's CIP and send them to the Yard, only to be played again via Haakon's static ability. The ultimate goal is to either hardcast or dump one of your win conditions (usually Akroma, Angel of Wrath , Angel of Despair , or Skeletal Vampire ) and pop them back out with Dread Return . The Time Spiral reanimation spell takes preference over the slightly-cheaper Zombify because you can sac Haakon and Hussars to play the flashback cost... and then you can start re-playing those men the very next turn! The deck is someowhat complicated, and it has a distinct learning curve. But if you know how to play it properly, it can also be extremely powerful.
The Basics: The idea behind this deck is to play Dragonstorm with a storm count of at least three and search 4 Bogardan Hellkite out of your deck, dealing 20 damage to your opponent right away. In case you have drawn a Bogardan Hellkite, you can still search one of the two Hunted Dragons out of your deck as a backup. Since the deck is focused around generating a high storm count for a 9 mana spell, it has to play some mana producers. Rite of Flame, Seething Song, and Lotus Bloom are cornerpieces in this strategy.
To ensure a consistent combo, the deck holds Telling Time, Sleight of Hand, and Remand, which allow you to dig for Dragonstorm or Seething Song, whatever you need to pull of the huge stormy turn. Telling Time and Sleight of Hand are particularly good in this deck, because they allow you to put any dragons you see on the bottom of your deck instead of in your hand; right where you want them to be. The game plan against control decks with countermagic is Gigadrowse. Usually, you first sit there charging up your Dreadship Reef for a couple turns. When the time is right, you unload it and tap down all your opponent’s lands at the end of his turn with Gigadrowse; then you go off on your own turn.
Other Info: There are some variations on the Dragonstorm theme. Some decks play 12 Urza lands, which allows them to easily hardcast any Bogardan Hellkites they might draw, as well as offering a potential transformal sideboard plan. That involves taking out the Dragonstorms and Lotus Blooms, and putting in typical Izzetron control elements, such as Demonfire. This can be a valid strategy if you’re scared of Trickbind, Shadow of Doubt, and whatnot in games 2 and 3. The concept of switching “decks” is pretty cool, but switching from Dragonstorm to Izzetron isn’t the only option. How about switching from Dragonstorm to Vore after sideboard? lchu2003 posted a top8 with this strategy. He had a regular Dragonstorm deck with a couple random Wildfires maindeck, and after sideboard he could suddenly play Cryoclasm, Stone Rain and Magnivore. Shadow of Doubts, Trickbind, and other sideboard hate are the Achilles heel of the Dragonstorm strategy, so switching to a Magnivore plan that is largely unaffected by such cards is quite a nice find. You can definitely get quite funky with Dragonstorm decks!
The Basics: The namesakes of this deck, Scryb Ranger and Spectral Force , are the star attractions of one of the biggest, angriest decks in the late 2006 metagame. The game's ideal draw would be finidng a manaman Turn 1 and dropping Spectral Force by Turn 3. But the deck is perfectly happy beating with the likes of Call of the Herd tokens. Psionic Blast and Stonewood Invocation serve as powerful finishing spells, enabling you to get that last spot of damage just that much faster.
Other Info: The deck has some additional choices. Moldervine Cloak and Ohran Viper , a borrow from Mike Flores' UG Aggro deck, showed up in a Scryb&Force build that won Pennsylvania Champs. Some versions of the deck run additional countermagic to go alongside Mystic Snake .
A little of history: TPS is an extreme-COMBO(and control)-deck, which had had many successes since it was created. Played in the T1 format, it’s one of the best deck ever conceived for that format. From it now (2006) it’s been created his “brother-deck”: Gift (it substantially works like TPS, but it uses Gifts ungiven for tutors and also 4 Mana drain to take mana and keep control, and other differences… which is another of the best T1 decks.
The Basics: How does it works? After the invention of the triggered ability called “storm” (which appeared for the first time in the edition called “Scourge”, many someone started to think how to use it in the best way. And someone had invented a deck, which shows the great power of which that is called the best ability in the game of magic-cards (by now): STORM. The deck’s name was, precisely: The Perfect Storm (TPS). The ability “Storm” needs only that many spells are played: than the ability works perfectly with a really dangerous effect for your opponent. The card used by TPS to make his own storm is: TENDRILS OF AGONY .You’ve to play 9 or more spells and than play it to kill your opponent and gain much life. TPS can do it quickly helped by accelerators like Dark Ritual , and cheap (about the cost of mana) spells like Black lotus . You can say: “How hard! 10 or more spell in a turn! It’s too much!”. There’s only one thing to be said after that: this deck is famous for his great skill of making the “first-turn-kill”, so that the capacity of winning at the FIRST TURN. Impossible? Not at all: Moxes, Black Lotus , Mana Crypt , Mana Vault , Sol ring and Dark ritual gives you mana, than drawers, tutors (like Demonic Tutor ) and the great Yawgmoth’s will will help you to make your big and letal STORM with Tendrils. And this is not all: there’re at least other 2 usual closers for this deck, so that Brain Freeze and Darksteel colossus , usually putted into play thanks to Tinker (this closer is more used in the Gift deck, but also in the TPS decks). And between all of those things there’re also control pieces like Force of will and Duress (which is really used to make the “storm” effect greater and also well defended!). Chain of Vapor is really used too: can be used to bounce something of the opponent or to bounce things to make a more numerous “storm”, like bouncing moxes or something like Sol ring …really useful. Things like Memory Jar are perfect to be used to draw cards and play the spells drawed to make a big combo and a big effect of storm! Look: play your hand (all or quite) Memory Jar included; than use it, draw 7 cards and close the combo playing more cards you can and Tendrils of agony .If you can’t, put into play mana accelerators, play discard against your oppo, and than try again the combo drawing new cards the turn/turns after using the great amount mana you should have. Before giving you a sample of the deck, I want to show you a first turn kill, protected by Force of will and with some limited cards (I know: it would be a lucky hand, but with drawers and tutors, you can make something similar, or also something better!): - put 1 land into play which gives you black mana and play Duress (Storm 1; 5 cards in your hand); - play Black lotus and sacrifice it for 3 blue mana and use 1 of them to play Ancestral recall (Storm 3; 6 cards in your hand; 2 blue mana in your mana pool); - play either Lotus petal (which would be better in this case, as you’ll see) or Mox jet to add 1 black mana and play 1Dark ritual (Storm 5; 4 cards in your hand; 2 blue mana and 3 black mana in pool); - play Yawgmoth’s will (if you have 1 tutor and/or 1 drawer you’ll make a bigger storm… with the 3 black mana, than play back again all the other cards that you’ve in your graveyard: 1 Black lotus (sacrificed again for 3 black mana), 1 Duress , 1 Dark ritual & 1 Ancestral recall (Storm 10; 6 cards in your hand; 4 black mana and 1 blue mana in your mana pool); NOTE: with Lotus petal you’ll have 1 Storm more and 1 more mana of any colour to your mana pool. - now you can play whatever you want (if you want): you need only 2 black mana and 2 mana of any colour to play your Tendrils of Agony to…kill your opponent!
If you play directly it, following the counting we were doing, you’ll have: Storm 10[+ tendrils itself]; 5 cards in your hand; 1 blue mana in your mana pool = 22 life point lost by your opponent and 22 life point gained by you at the first 1 TURN!!! And you can do better!!! Note: with this counting you’ve never had less than 3 cards in your hand: so that you could have had always 1 Force of Will and 1 blue card in your hand to play it without paying its mana cost. Demonic Tutor , Mox Ruby &/or Lotus Petal , other Dark Ritual s, Burning Wish and 1 Tendrils of Agony into the Sideboard are other things that’ll help you to make your First turn kill or, however, to close quickly or at least in a devastating way!
Remember: TPS’ opponents can do really many thing, also to stop it at the first turn when TPS start for first. But TPS is always great, also in the further turns.
Here’s a sample of the deck, let your fantasy work and enjoy TPS! "The Decklist(s):"Show
The end (but you can discover more other things playing it or looking other cards and maybe playing also other cards between main and side). Have fun with magic.
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