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Main » Articles » Sixty-Card Casual Funtime 2

Sixty-Card Casual Funtime 2

Abe Sargent
Posted on December 21, 2015
 Reddit

Hello, and happy latish December. I hope your holidays, if any, have been family- and fun-filled thus far. I was in a random mood today as I sat down and began to write this article. There are a ton of solid cards out there in Magic Land that never see the light of day. I wasn’t sure where to go, so I decided instead to do another random deck-building challenge.

Coercion
Here’s how this thang goes. Head over to Gatherer, and hit random card. Take the first card (other than a basic land) that shows up, and build around it. It’s a good way to force you to build around new cards and to take deck-building risks you may not normally take. I wrote an article about this concept once before. In fact, one of those decks that was built around Coercion was so interesting that I used the base concept for a Commander deck later on (to force discards of great creatures and then reanimate them). It’s good to push yourself to use cards in different ways.

Let’s grab all five cards right now so I can see what I’m working with, okay?

Here are my cards:

Well, that’s an odd group of cards. Imagine if I suddenly told you to build a deck around some card, and it wound up being one of the thousands of common and uncommon creatures out there that are designed more for Limited play than otherwise. That’s sort of how cards like the Rootwalla and the Maaka feel.

Go build a deck around Rootwater Alligator!

It’s not easy. But four of these cards are in the same colors (red and green). Let’s modify this challenge a bit. Here, let’s go.

Lure Them Again ? Casual | Abe Sargent

This is a quick-and-dirty deck that uses mostly deathtouch creatures to force opponents to block and slay them. To my mind, one of the best options available is Grave Titan since it can split its damage six ways and kill of up to six creatures—like casting the Hex spell. That suggested a black and green shell, and I tossed in a lot more deathtouch as well as the Basilisk/Cockatrice stylings you come to love with all things Lure. Just slap a Lure or move a Tempting Licid to the target in question, and then just kill a few foes nicely and neatly while the rest of your team swings on over for a spot of damage.

Lure
So that looks like a solid enough shell for Lure. What else strikes me?

What if we combined Lure with something else on the list?

Could I do Lure plus Seething Song?

All right, I have a little combo for you.

Take a gander at Kusari-Gama. When the equipped creature deals damage to a blocking creature, it also deals that damage to every other creature the defending player controls. So if you block my Kusari-Gama’d 3/3 beater, all of your creatures take 3 damage. Plus, you can pump the Kusari-Gama-equipped creature by spending 2 mana per inflation.

Now, normally, when someone attacks with a Gama, that’s basically a lot of text that’s code for essentially, “This creature cannot be blocked,” because no one wants to block it. So you can force someone to block your creature with Lure. Once you do, you can pump up your creature to ensure his or her whole team is blown out.

So that’s the deck.

Singing of Lures ? Casual | Abe Sargent

Seething Song
First strike just breaks this deck open. If you give the attacker with the Kusari-Gama first strike, any other blockers are killed before they even deal damage back to your squad! I built this deck around a red-centric creature theme so I could use cards like Akki Coalflinger and especially Bloodmark Mentor as ways to give your stuff first strike. And don’t sleep on a powerhouse like Minotaur Aggressor, which is just nasty here. And the Lured dork that swings with the Gama also creates a path for your other guys to smash—or you can hit in a future turn on the opponent’s denuded board. We can give a creature trample with Soulbright Flamekin if needed—if you want to blow out a player rather than hit his or her creatures.

The result is a deck that uses some cheaper creatures, some mana-ramp, and some Seething Song action to get a good result on the Kusari-Gama action. This is a fun deck, right? Right!

Now what if we slipped from this shell to one in which we add in some self-pumpers in green as well? Maybe . . . Rootwalla!

Angry Rootwallas ? Casual | Abe Sargent

Take a look at a card like Nantuko Mentor. You can virtually double the size of a creature. Spend Kusari-Gama mana to pump up your Lured or Licid’d creature. Then, pay 3 mana and your Mentor to double it up and turn it into a real force. Or you can give it +5/+5 with Thriss, Nantuko Primus. Even your Rootwalla will self-pump for 2 mana bigger than it would with one activation of the Gama. I am using Blood Lust to enhance our effect, but you could toss in something like Berserk or Fatal Frenzy if you prefer.

So Rootwalla gives us a fun direction to explore with the shell I’m building. What next?

Of Lizards and Cats ? Casual | Abe Sargent

Rubblebelt Maaka
So we just added in Rubblebelt Maaka. I think you’ll agree that bloodrush is a pretty strong mechanic for this build. We can use bloodrush to replace other pumping effects in the deck, like the previous use of Blood Lust, and thereby increase our creature count. This is an important element of flexibility. I originally had Scorchwalker in here because of how highly it pumped power for just 3 mana on the bloodrush, but then I saw Zhur-Taa Swine, which is even better, with a 5/4 pump for 3 mana rather than 5/1 for it. You can bloodrush all day long or attack with your guys, and we can still make that team first strike occasionally, and as a very special bonus, I kept the Nantuko Mentor and Thriss out there as well. That deck is pure funk.

Now it’s time to hit up one final card: Farrel's Mantle. Could I layer it into this shell? Not really, it’s pretty much a non-combo (a non-bo). You could slap Farrel's Mantle onto a creature not Lured with the Gama. Then, swing, deal no combat damage, and shoot a creature for its power plus 2. But the Gama is sweeping the opponent’s board anyway. The only place this might have value is with a multiplayer game, in which you attack Steve and then shoot Jason’s creature with the Mantle. I don’t see the Kusari-Gama as a partner in crime with the Mantle.

But I still want to combine the Mantle with something . . . 

Alluring Mantles ? Casual | Abe Sargent

The goal of this deck is to Lure up a creature that won’t die in combat, like Cho-Manno, Revolutionary or a Darksteel dork. Then, you swing with impunity and force everyone to block you, and your guy lives. Meanwhile, you slip behind the opponent’s defenses with your other stuff. You can draw cards with Rogue's Gloves, grab a land with the Sword of the Animist, or shoot other creatures with the Farrel's Mantle. All of these effects grant you some strong card advantage in the red zone.

Farrel's Mantle
And I pushed the theme elsewhere as well. You can swing with a different creature and use Yavimaya Hollow to regenerate it instead. You can use Commander Eesha to hold the fort in the sky or to slip behind someone’s defenses for using a Mantle, Gloves, and Sword on herself without bothering with the Lure stuff. She’s a backup reserve plan. And don’t ignore the value of smashing someone with a Blinding Angel to force him or her to skip his or her next combat so he or she can’t hit you after you tapped out to swing at him or her. You can even make a quick little army of Spawnwrithes.

And this is a deck around both Lure and Farrel's Mantle. Intrigued?

The goal was to build a deck around these crazy cards, but I decided to blend them together. By doing so, I went off in odd directions. Before I started this, I’ve never used the Kusari-Gama that much, but it fit perfectly. And if I hadn’t combined these cards into various decks, I would have probably done the whole saboteur thing with the Mantle and combined it with something like Venser, the Sojourner or with shadow folks such as Soltari Visionary. I’d add in some ways to force unblockability. But instead, I went with Lure since it was on the list and created a different spin on the card.

This is where you can go and where the randomness can take you! Which of these decks was your favorite? Grab some random cards from Gatherer, or your own card stock, and then build a deck around it. Take a chance! See what you get! And most of all, have some fun!

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TAGS articles, casual, abe sargent, challenge, random, decklist, brew

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