Proteus Belcher is all about control, with Proteus Staff setting up big hits from Goblin Charbelcher . It runs slow, and relies on various countering spells to protect its fragile engine. DSC provides an alternate win condition to charbelcher. A u/w list is provided. Some builds are mono-blue.
Also, some builds will run without any creatures (i.e., no Darksteel Colossus ). This guarantees that they can stack their entire deck using Proteus Staff . Then they simply Belch on the next turn for the win.
The Basics: Astral slide is a particular control-aggro deck. Its colours are above all Green&White, than Red,Black&Blue, as you prefer. In 2004 the world champion used a G/W Astral slide, which was great against the few control decks and the numerous Affinity and Tooth and nail decks of that period. The tactics consist in playing cards with cycle and let Astral slide trigger to remove opponent’s creatures, or our creatures in play morphed (to put them into play face up after the astral effect ends) or with an ability which triggers when they come into play. The most used creature which has a perfect synergy with Astral slide is Eternal witness : cycle a card, remove the witness and than her is putted again into play let you bring a card back (maybe the same cycled card) from your graveyard. Another good card is Loxodon Hierarch , with which you can gain really much life points… The third most used colour for this deck is Red thanks to: Lightning Rift , which works perfectly with his fellow Astral slide . To win??? Hit with creatures and Lightning Rift . Here’s an example of G/W/R Astral slide deck.
Other Notes:Life from the Loam is perfect to use again the cycled lands or to have them into your hand to put them into play. Also: remember to not cycle immediately your cycle lands: at the beginning of the game put them into play, you need mana to start! Cycle the next cycle-lands you draw. Gilded light , Orim’s chant & True believer are the perfect cards against combo deck and against who targets you too much (like deck with many red-shoot cards). Orim’s chant , Wrath of god , Starstorm (also Wing shards * is another good card), Lightning Rift and also Astral slide are perfect against opponent’s creatures (and remember: you can play Wrath of god after cycling 1 or more cards and targeting 1 or more of your creatures with astral slide to save them against your own wrath…Eternal witness will help you really much in such situations…. Loaming shaman & Tormod’s crypt are perfect cards to remove problems which come from the opponent’s graveyard, like flashback cards, dredge cards, Ichorid (you’ll be strong against friggorid-decks…, creatures which could be reanimated, Genesis , cards which the opponent likes to bring back into his hands or simply likes to play again from his graveyard, etc... Pithing needle & Blinkmoth Well are perfect against card like Isochron scepter ; remember that Pithing needle is strong against any cards with activated abilities and that Blinkmoth Well can be taken from the sideboard with Living wish . Also Krosan grip is perfect against Isochron scepter , and not only against it… Isochron scepter + Orim's Chant is a really used combination but you can avoid them not only in those ways I’ve shown you, but also with Gilded light !!! You can use any cycle cards you like (a good one is Solar Blast ) and any other creatures (like Elvish Aberration ), preferably with cycle or an ability which triggers when they come into play (to use the Astral ability on them).
Mono Green Aggro (MGA) by Vedislav (edited by AjaxUD)
The Basics: MGA. Mono Green Aggro. Mono Green. However it’s known, this deck has been around... well, forever. The specifics of the deck have changed over the years, but the basic gist remains the same: Get guys out quickly. Beat things up. Smash your opponent into the ground. Win. MGA contains such sub-archetypes as Beacon Green, Snakes, and Trinity Green. In its broadest form, the term Mono Green Aggro can refer to *any* green deck that focuses on getting out creatures as quickly as possible. Slower, bigger versions of MGA are often called Mono-Green Beats (MGB). MGA is a very popular deck in the casual setting, because of the ease with which one can build it; it's also been relatively popular deck (at times) in the T2 tournament scene. Now, of course some people may be looking at this going “But what about Extended? or even T1.5/1?” Now, in all of those formants, decks fitting the name “MGA” may crop up. But they are usually decks that cannot compete with the breakneck speed of the eternal formats, and fall behind on popularity in Extended. In the eternal formats, the spot of MGA has been taken over by it’s near cousin, Stompy. While both decks share the same philosophy of playing, (smash the most face as possible) The best distinction I can make is that Stompy uses the sligh approach. The cheapest and the most efficient being the best. MGA takes a slightly slower approach, accelerating the mana, building up either hordes of creatures or just plays large fatties, and then beats face. Stompy is basically a cleverly disguised weenie deck. MGA on the other hand is the classic "accelerate mana and cast big angry things" type of deal. Vadislav's take: In casual settings I’ve seen more variations on this deck than any other deck. Personally I run Singleton Fat featuring both Tooth and Nail and Defense of the Heart . One of my friends runs Beacon of Creation and tops out his mana curve with a Force of nature . On the other hand, I try to run the most breakneck Mana accell possible and hopefully tutor our a creature along the way, my mana curve ending on a Krosan Cloudscraper .
The Decklists: Casual:"Vadislav's Singleton Fat variant:"Show
This is a deck that I use currently. As you can see it has an apt name “singleton Fat” since I only run a single copy of all my “silver bullet” creatures.
The Basics: Surprisingly enough, Solidarity has nothing to do with teh card Solidarity . Solidarity is one of the most intricate, complicated, and (IMHO) fun decks in Legacy. The idea behind solidarity is that you sit around doing, really, nothing at all, letting your opponent have their way with you. Then, pretty much whenever you feel like it (I like to go when my opponent has lethal damage on the stack, just for style points), you go off. Start with a High Tide , play a ton of draw spells, untap things with Reset or Turnabout , play more draw spells, tutor some stuff, draw more spells, play more stuff, Reset some more, do more things, tell a funny joke, play more draw spells, Turnabout again, Wish for something, play more spells, run your Storm count up to about 8 billion, play Words of Wisdom and (with Words on the stack) play Brain Freeze to mill your opponent's library. Words of Wisdom resolves, and your opponent pretty much just dies.
Some decks use other draw spells rather than Words of Wisdom for the kill. And other builds don't use a targeted draw, preferring to save the last three slots for additional draw.
The sideboard has the usual tutor stuff... 4th copies of some draw and Brain Freeze , as well as the usual countermagic.
The deck should have absolutely no trouble going off by about Turn 5 or 6 at the latest.
Solidarity matches up rather well against aggro (barring a ridiculously fast start by Goblin Sligh), and holds it own against Control.
The Basics: San Diego Zoo, or SD Zoo, is a R/G/W aggro deck and a variant of the Zoo archetype. It's a combination of small, efficient burn/removal spells along with many small creatures. Isochron Scepter is a major cornerstone of this deck. Exalted Angel serves as the finisher.
Points of Interest: Some other cards that can be used:
Incinerate - More burn, good on the stick. Blastoderm - Some people use this instead of Exalted Angel. Rancor - A little oomph where it's needed. Chrome Mox - Helps with the mana base.
Ravnica cards: I have not playtested any of these cards in SD Zoo, but two cards in particular look promising in this deck: Watchwolf Lightning Helix
The helix seems it should be an autoinclude in a deck such as this.
Matchups: Control - Mixed - This deck has no way to deal with certain lockdown elements (i.e. Propaganda , Ensnaring Bridge ) - Naturalize could help with that. This deck is similar to sligh in that it runs many small, replacable threats. There is no single win condition, making this deck very robust.
Aggro - Can be a problem. Orim's Chant can help here.
Combo - With no counter/discard, and little noncreature removal, the strategy against combo is to hit them for 20 before they can pull off the win condition.
Worship is concentrated upon combining Worship and Troll Ascetic together for a solid lock. In the variant that I'll be sharing, the deck will create a win condition by using a few powerful equipments and the Troll himself, in addition to a few weenies. It was once a solid deck in the Standard format, but now, it will be played less, now only having room to beath in the extended format. I doubt it will see much play in extended, for there are much better choices as of now. Nevertheless, it is a cool deck, and should be playtested by those of you who would like to try something new.
The deck uses small elements of control, but mostly stays aggro, with early game creatures and powerful equipment to top it. With Worship backing up the powerful aggro, you're likely to succeed quite often when playing this deck.
Added by Ajax Here's a decklist from the old Onlsaught-Mirrodin Standard. Though Worship never was a real powerhouse in T2, it had its fair share of Top 8 finishes. ONS-MIR Standard:Show
The Basics: WW/r is really what its name indicates - your tyipcal White Weenie deck with a touch of blazing fury. It plays just like WW, but splashes red for cards such as Lightning Helix , Shock , and Skyknight Legionnaire .
The Basics: Dredge-A-Tog is a new variant on winning with Dr. Teeth . Life of the Loam makes a big splash in this build, allowing you to mill through your own deck. Combined with one of the cyclelands from Onslaught (Barren Moor , Tranquil Thicket , or Lonely Sandbar ), you can get a pretty insane engine going. The rest of the deck fills out with typical 'Tog control. The other notable inclusion in Dredge-A-Tog is Pernicious Deed as a board-sweeper. Gifts Ungiven is useful for finding pieces to the draw/dredge engine.
Other Info: This build is a little more combolicious than typical 'Tog decks. As such, it's somewhat vulnerable to dedicated control. Some builds run two (or three, if they choose not to go with Gifts) copies of Life from the Loam to increase the odds that they can draw it off the top or find it in some other manner.
The Basics: Good Form is a combo deck that tries to muscle out Enduring Ideal as quickly as possible. The deck is actually named after Form of the Dragon , as its inclusion in 9th Edition made the deck feasable, and Form is the first card one tends to throw into play when Ideal is cast. The deck makes use of enchantments such as Zur's Weirding , Confiscate , and other utility Enchantments in the maindeck and sideboard. The rest of the deck is filled out mainly with mana acceleration, card-draw, and with the ever-useful Dreidel .
The Decklists: "Good Form, 5th, 6th, and 9th at 2005 Norwegian Nationals (MIR-CHK-9TH)"Show
Links/Other Info:This article by Brian David-Marshall gives a good overview of Good Form in the old Standard. The deck runs very similarly in the new Standard in terms of win conditions and strategy; it mostly just runs a different acceleration base.
The Basics: The CAL popped up in Extended not long after the release of Ravnica: City of Guilds. It is another Extended deck that abuses the crap out of Life from the Loam (the L in "CAL") using Solitary Confinement ("C"), Zombie Infestation , and its big winner, Seismic Assault ("A"). It also utilizes the uber-synergistic cycle lands (Tranquil Thicket , Forgotten Cave , and Barren Moor ) to keep the LftL draw engine going when needed. There's really not that much to the deck... get a LftL out, go crazy, drop a win condition, and.... win. Simple, eh?
The Decklist: "The CAL, Makihito Mihara (GP Kitakyuushuu 2005):"Show
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