Type 1.5

Here we have it, the long awaited (mentioned back in Testing a New Deck) Island of Pain. I built this deck based on a question in one of the magic books I bought, "What will the deck do against nasty environmental spells like Blood Moon and Energy Flux?" I could answer the question in theory, but I couldn't test my answers unless I had a good deck with one or both of those cards in it. Lightning Sprites was an attempt at a decent deck with Blood Moon, but that deck really doesn't have much in the way of staying power or consistency. So I built this deck originally to test other decks against, but it's so much fun to play (if a bit self-destructive) that I think it'll stick around as more than just a deck development tool.

This is a very aggressive deck. It will generally attack every turn that it has any creatures out. The creatures in this deck are very hard to block. Of the four different creatures in the deck, three of them fly, and the last has mountainwalk. The creatures are also fairly fast, Two of them only cost 1, the others cost 3 and 4. The deck also has considerable and versatile direct damage in the form of Lightning Bolts, Psionic Blasts and Fireballs. The low cost, high damage and fast-effect nature of all this damage capacity means that once the opponent's life is down in the single digits they can often be finished off instantly.

Since I knew from the start the deck would be using Blood Moon I found cards that would work well in that environment. Some were intentional; use Blood Moon to make sure they have a Mountain and Goblin of the Flarg can't be blocked. Others were by trial and error; when you have a Serendib Djinn in play having just a Mountain rather than a Volcanic Island can save your life.

Now if you've looked at the deck you may have a question about the mana distribution, namely, "Why are you playing so many freakin' land when you only have 3 cards that require more than 3 mana?" Honestly, I never intended to play 24 land in a relatively simple two color deck with a single primary* color (*color with spells requiring more than one mana of that color to cast). It was simply trial and error, playtesting, not pulling enough mana and adding some more.

Ok, so I side-stepped the question of why I'm playing so much land in this deck, but now the question becomes, "Why does this deck need so much land?" It's got Counterspells, but it's hardly a counterspell deck. I guess the easiest way to make sense of it is to look at the number of mana sources in most of the decks that I build. I usually play 20 land and then one or two fast-mana spells such as Birds of Paradise, Dark Ritual or Mana Vault. That's 24 to 28 (40-47%) mana sources. I play with that much mana because I require my decks to be both fast and consistent. It also helps out against land destruction and other anti-mana environs. With less mana it's true that later in the game you'll pull more spells, but if the deck doesn't consistently have working opening hands the deck won't survive until later game. Better to find some late game use for extra mana (in this case Fireballs and Serendib Djinns) than to stall out and not be able to play through your opening hand.

Earlier versions of this deck had Black Vise and Ball Lightning instead of all the Serendibs. While these cards made it quite brutal against your average deck that ships with this game, against a quality Type I or Type 1.5 deck they weren't as effective. Also, playtesting against the various deck types the deck was fizzling against fast large creature and burn decks. Now, as with most good decks, Island of Pain contains aspects of a variety of the deck archetypes or categories. In fact, of the 6 types (counterspell, land destruction, fast large creature, fast small creature, burn, environment/lock) the only one it doesn't have is land destruction. Anybody want to try swapping out some of the direct damage spells for some Strip Mines?

posted by Nils T. Devine  # Sunday, June 26, 2005 0 Comments Links to this post

Type 1.5

This deck is designed to be used by the computer to playtest decks against. It is very slow but very powerful, especially when it utilizes the Triskelion + Diamond Valley bug that Hoovey pointed out, giving the computer an extra 100 or so life.

The deck's strategy is simple. It sits back and gathers mana resources, putting out nothing to protect itself. Once it has gathered enough mana it plays something very large and very powerful, like a Mahamotti Djinn, Shivan Dragon, or the above cheat combo. Oh, and I finally found a deck to put my Two-Headed Giants in :-).

I built this deck for the explicit purpose of testing decks against it, giving the computer an edge with a nasty bug in the system so that it can become obscenely powerful if given the chance to develop. The goal then, in playtesting against this deck, is to see whether your deck develops quickly enough to defeat it before it gets out the broken combo. Enjoy.

posted by Nils T. Devine  # Wednesday, June 22, 2005 0 Comments Links to this post

Technical Instructions

Find the \Playdeck folder in your MtG installation. Locate the .dck file for your deck and open it in a text editor (such as Notepad). Follow the Post a Comment link on this page, and Copy&Paste the contents of the .dck file into the comment.

Also, you are welcome to include the following:

1. What type of deck it is. It could by Type 1, Type 1.5, Shalandar, or even just a casual deck.
2. Any special notes about play; card combinations, sequence of play.
3. Anecdotes about where the deck's inspiration came from are invited, though you are under no obligation to ramble on as much as I do.

Deck Contents Guidelines

The primary guideline here is to be sure to follow the rules for the type of deck that you said it was above. Type 1 decks can only have 1 of each restricted card, in Type 1.5 the restricted list is banned. Tournament quality decks are made of 60 cards, no more, no less.

Other than that I really don't have any other guidelines. In fact, it would be really nice to see some more casual decks. The ones I build are for the most part tournament style decks, built only to win. But since they are built to stand up against other decks build in that style they often have many of the same cards in common. It's those whacky "just for fun" decks, such as Old Man Wolf and Blue Skies, that are the most enjoyable to play. And if Josher (evidently sporting a crazy beard these days) hadn't sent me his Castle/Moat deck I never would have build Blue Skies.

posted by Nils T. Devine  # Friday, June 17, 2005 17 Comments Links to this post

& artifact Type 1.5

This deck began with a card and an idea. The card was Transmute Artifact. The idea was that if you cast Transmute Artifact and sacrificed a mana producing artifact, after tapping it for mana, you could put any artifact in your library into play at little to no extra cost. A Mana Vault can pull out an artifact that costs 4 (without sticking around to ping you during your upkeep), and a Basalt Monolith will let you cast an artifact that costs 6. A Su-Chi would let you cast an artifact that costs 8, if you could find an artifact worth sacrificing your 4/4 creature in order to cast (and that you could afford to power with your remaining mana – ruling out Aladdin's Ring).

If any of you have been following along you'll note that this trick is similar to the Yawgmoth combo in the Yawgmoth-Chi deck, only in that deck the combo was used for end-game power, while in this deck it's used for speed.

I tried out a bunch of different artifacts when I was first building this deck. I settled on two, Triskelion and Juggernaut. I've always viewed Triskelions as being over-priced for their size, but their casting cost works perfectly with the Basalt Monoliths, and their direct damage is excellent if you're playing mono-blue. They're just so versatile. A single Triskelion can often kill two or three creatures, and still leave you with a creature of your own. You can then Unsummon it and do it again, or Transmute Artifact it into another one. The Triskelion's ability can be used without summoning sickness is unique, and you can even use it after having attacked, meaning that a Triskelion can potentially do 7 damage to an opponent in a single turn.

This deck can be played as either a fast-large-creature deck, or a card denial deck depending on your opening draw. Cast a Mana Vault your first turn and you can transmute it into a Juggernaut on turn two. That is blazing fast in Type 1.5 and can be a decisive edge. But what can make this deck truly devastating is the 4 Amnesia. Usually this is a late game card for slower decks, cast once you've established an environment where your opponent is holding cards. It is normally very difficult come up with the mana to cast it, both the total cost, 6, and the concentrated amount of blue mana: . But if you're playing straight blue with 20 islands it's not so hard to come up with. Odds are by turn 3, having drawn 9 or 10 cards, you will have enough colored mana to cast it. The Mana Vaults and Basalt Monoliths, each conveniently producing 3 colorless, give you the raw mana count you need to pull it off early in the game when it can be crippling to your opponent. Take for instance this opening sequence (which actually isn't as uncommon as you might think):

Turn 1

Play a Brass Man to hold off the Lions, Apes, and even Knights.

Turn 2

Put out a Mana Vault, and wait until the discard phase of your opponent's turn to Unsummon one of their creatures (earlier if they tap out).

Turn 3

Here's the fun part: cast Amnesia and watch them weep.

Turn 4

Now that you've emptied all those pesky Lightning Bolts and Disenchants from their hand, cast a Juggernaut and barrel on to victory.

I have toyed with adding white to increase the deck's removal capacity, but you really can't play very many Plains or you won't be able to cast the Amnesia. I've toyed with using something like 4 Tundra, 2 City of Brass and 2 Plains in order to add 4 Swords to Plowshares and 4 Disenchant, but I think I prefer having the Counterspells and Unsummons, since the Unsummon is so versatile in this deck, and the Counterspells help against one of this deck's weaknesses: Counterspell decks.

There is one thing that I could use some help with if there are any deck builders lurking. You may have noticed that this deck is made of 10 perfect pockets of 4 cards each and 20 land. While this maximizes the consistency of the deck's play, it reduces its versatility. With the Transmute Artifacts even a single copy of an artifact could be pulled out in a pinch. But I'm too close to the deck, unable to "kill my darlings" as writers say. It would be great if somebody could find the room for a few "reset button" type cards, cards that could be pulled to get you out of a pinch. A Nevinyrall's Disk would be great. It should go without saying, but I'll say it anyway, no going over 60 cards.

posted by Nils T. Devine  # Thursday, June 16, 2005 2 Comments Links to this post

Check this out:

Now why is that so cool? Because those were generated by the MagicSymbols font that I found in the program directory. Which means that I can create those symbols in any color at any size I want in Photoshop, so if I ever decide to take the time to design my own template for this site I will have this excellent resource available.

posted by Nils T. Devine  # Monday, June 06, 2005 0 Comments Links to this post

Type 1.5

Here we have it, my Howilng Mine + Relic Barrier deck. I got the idea for it when I was playtesting Howling Giant Wurmies against a land destruction deck. I had played a Howling Mine in the hopes of digging my way out of the lack of mana. But the problem was you can only play one land per turn, and my opponent was pulling enough land destruction to keep pace with the lands I was putting down. I was never able to dig myself out of that hole. So I determined to build a deck with my favorite new card combination that had at least a little land destruction. Once it's rolling and you're drawing 2-1 just two pockets (sets of four) of land destruction becomes like four, and suddenly you can lock down their primary color.

For land destruction I added Strip Mine and Sinkhole. Earlier drafts included a couple Stone Rain, but later they were dropped because of their high cost. A couple Icy Manipulators go with the Howling/Barrier combo, and can also be used to tap mana sources during the opponent's upkeep. I was also surprised how often I would use a Relic Barrier to pin down a Mox until I got a Howling Mine out.

After observing the Giant Wurmies deck struggling to cast all it's high cost spells I knew this deck would need a lot of one-drop spells to operate effectively – what's the use in drawing all those cards with the Howling Mine if you can't cast them? So I went with Lightning Bolt and Paralyze for creature removal and Birds of Paradise for fast mana. Dark rituals didn't make the cut, but without x-damage spells they had little use mid to late game. The Paralyze work particularly well in that they either neutralize the creature (if your land destruction has them locked) or neutralize most of their land, slowing them down. That's what this deck is all about, slowing them down while it is simultaneously speeding up.

Without Hymn to Tourach my old Type 1 deck has never been what it should be in this game. Since this deck's primary color is black (because sinkholes require ) and red/green were playing support I decided to pull out my favorite three creatures: Hypnotic Spectre, Sedge Troll and Kirk Ape. The Spectres work perfectly with the land destruction, Sedge Trolls are a solid answer to opposing Djinns or Juggernauts, and Kird Apes kick White Knights to the curb.

As a first candidate for my new deck testing regimen this deck turned out to be a poor choice. By the time I had established the categories this deck was finely tuned enough that it ran through each category three times without a loss, or even a single close game. That's 18 straight games without a bad draw. Sounds like my old type 1 deck that swept through the double-elimination Black Lotus tournament without losing a match. Guess that shouldn't be too surprising as two thirds of the deck is identical to my old one.

So that's my answer to building a deck around that card combo. I'd still like to see the Two-Headed Giants make their way into a deck. Maybe another week.

posted by Nils T. Devine  # Sunday, June 05, 2005 0 Comments Links to this post

So you've just come up with a cool new idea for a deck and slapped it together, now how do you know if it works? My method of testing to this point has been erratic. I build a deck then run the gauntlet, playing it against a number of random decks until it gets beat, then going back and tweak it. This testing technique has a number of problems. On average does the deck lose because it doesn't function as intended? Did it lose because of a bad draw, or an opponent's good draw? Did it lose because it is vulnerable to a particular strategy? It's hard to do more than make gut decisions without appropriately diversified and documented testing.

What I am working on is a logical testing sequence to subject a deck to. My biggest challenge is decks being vulnerable to certain strategies. Often these are strategies that I don't often employ myself—like a creatureless burn deck. The goal with this first attempt at formalized deck testing is to make sure that a new deck is not vulnerable to a particular deck type.

But this shit is boring as hell! I know, I know, that's why I'm only tackling one problem at a time, and making sure to build in a large variety of opponents. In fact, if this works as I intend you will actually end up playing against a greater variety of decks.

To test a new deck I propose to play it against a series of decks in a variety of categories and keep track of wins and loses. Also, because losing against the computer AI is rare, unless the decks are particularly mismatched or you get a really bad draw, I would also keep track of games that were "close" because had a good human player been running the opposing deck it would most likely have been a loss.

There can't be too many categories so you can run a deck against a random opponent in each without getting bored playing the same deck. But they must also be specific enough to prepare a deck for a good range of strategies. Of course in reality better decks will usually deploy a variety of strategies, but you've gotta prepare for them all, right?

The following are the categories that I'm trying out, with sample decks (mostly my own and Mark's).

Counterspell/Control

• Control
• Type One Counterspell
• The Deck
• Kim
• Four Color Counterspell

Land Destruction

• Type One Land Destruction
• Edge
• Edge of What?
• Land Destruction (type 1.5)
• Landkill T1

Fast Creature (Large)

• Sadomasochistic Djinn
• 5 is good
• Leif Type One
• First-Turn T1
• Juggernaut (type 1.5)

Fast Creature (Small)

• Armies of Light
• Explosion
• Plague Rat
• Lightning Sprites
• Nils' Type One

Burn

• Atog 1
• War Mage
• Crag Hydra
• Dante
• The Flame Thrower (from Master Magic)

Environment/Lock/Combo

• Barbed Apes
• Blue Skies
• Nevinyrall's Wrath
• naf's psychic orb
• Island of Pain (coming soon)

So that's about it. I play a new deck against a random deck in each category. Then I evaluate where the deck's weaknesses are. If it lost to Land Destruction or Fast Creature (Small) then it might not be fast enough. If it lost to Fast Creature (Large) or Burn then it might not have enough staying power. If it got locked down by a nasty environmental enchantment or artifact then it might not have enough non-creature threat removal. Every deck will have it's own means of dealing with these problems, but the first step is finding the weaknesses.

posted by Nils T. Devine  # Sunday, June 05, 2005 2 Comments Links to this post

Before I present my Howling Mine + Relic Barrier deck I've got a couple general deck building updates. Here's one, there is another about my deck testing practices to follow.

For pennies each I bought a couple Magic books published in 1995 and 96: Mastering Magic and Deep Magic. Though the computer game didn't come out until 1997, the card set it uses pre-dates these books, having no Fallen Empires (i.e. Hymn to Tourach). I have been building decks using a restricted (or banned if it's Type 1.5) list cobbled together from my memory. But there are a number of cards that were not restricted until later, or maybe never were, that played a prominent role in the game environment of the time. So I have updated my restricted list, these are the most notable removals:

• Balance
• Black Vice
• Psionic Blast
• Land Tax

Given how many cards just don't work in this game, it seems like a mistake not to fully utilize the ones that do. This will also (and here's where my ulterior motive slips out) enable me to put together a number of the decks in these books that I wouldn't be able to otherwise.

Update Ulterior motive #2: the restricted list is also the banned list if you're playing Type 1.5 and since most of the decks I'm build these days are, this restriction change gives me four completely deck transforming cards that I wouldn't otherwise be playing.

posted by Nils T. Devine  # Thursday, June 02, 2005 0 Comments Links to this post