Look Ma, no hand!

[jorael]

Did you know there is a blue card with Hellbent?

It's Veiled Crocodile. And to a certain extend, you could say that Illusionary Pet has Hellbent too.

Now I wanted to make a deck that uses these cheap fatties and create a blue beatdown deck. After a B/U deck that used Dark Suspicions and tried to empty your hand asap, I wanted a different approach. Limited proposed Bottled Cloister . I slapped myself when he mentioned that card. Why didn't I include it? It's perfect!

So anyway, here the deck, which lost the Dark Suspicions:

Triple X
11 Swamps
9 Island
4 Salt Marsh

2 Infest
3 Eradicate
4 O-Naginata
4 Bottles Cloister
3 Veiled Crocodile

3 Illusionary Pet
4 Riptide Mangler
4 Ticking Gnomes
4 Urborg Emissary
3 Undead Gladiator
2 Dimir Doppleganger

Since Bottled Cloister removes your hand, I included sorcery speed removal. Eradicate can be quite nasty and Infest clears the board of the small creatures (most of the creatures in this deck survive Infest).

Swinging with a Veiled Crocodile equipped with O-Naginata means a lot of pain. Due to the equipment I have only included creatures with power 3 or greater (or ways to increase their power).

Ticking Gnomes and Urborg Emissary give you additional benefits besides being able to hold an O-Naginata. A cute trick (I hope) is to make Riptide Mangler's power big enough to be equipped. When O-Naginata is attached you can permanently boost it's power with 3 for only two mana. If it only would have trample.... Oh wait...



What do you think? Should I include Dark Suspicions? Have I missed an interesting creature to equip?

 

[Limited]

I got a couple of questions:

• Why only three Veiled Crocodiles? Isn't it a key card?
• Why did you put a couple of Undead Gladiators in there?
• Isn't Dimir Doppelganger better suited for a deck that has some real reanimation targets?
• Why is the deck called "Triple X"?

 

[jorael]

Hehe,

Veiled crocodile depends on Bottled Cloister to become a creature. Perhaps 4 isn't a problem (maybe enough times I will have a cloister, or another player emptied his/her hand). I'll test.

Undead gladiator gives your creature base some continuity: discard a useless card to get a 3/1 creature back that can take up the O-Naginata and swing for 6. Two of them might be sufficient.

The dopplegangers were an afterthought: they may not fit the theme perfectly, but during multiplayer games it gives you plenty options I predict. I have 2, never played with them and it looks like a fun card.

Triple X: three power is the theme and I included 3 card 3 times. So to conclude: a silly name with no real reason...

 

[jorael]

After playing with the deck I made the following changes:

-1 Undead Gladiator
-2 Dimir Doppleganger

+1 Veiled Crocodile
+2 Mindless Automaton

Mindless Automaton gives you another way to empty your hand, while making it bigger. Looks like a good card for the deck.

 

[Limited]

What happened when you played this deck? Did it perform as expected or did it wither and die?

 

[jorael]

An opponent used Dimir Aqueduct in turn 2, forcing himself to discard Mindleech Mass, which he animated on turn 3 with Dance of the Dead. I had played a Riptide Mangler so on turn 3 I could change his power to 7 and make a preemptive strike

In turn I got smashed by the mass and he played Dimir Doppleganger from my hand.
I equipped O-Naginata on the Mangler and went back at him with a 10/3 creature. He retaliated. It was insane! There were 2 more opponents so we agreed to go at them, after we had put each other on 6.

I got my 3rd land in turn 10 or something, just before I was killed. Fun game, but I still have no idea if the deck idea is playable. I wanted to remove Dimir Doppelgangers as this is indeed not an animation deck, and Mindless Automaton is an interesting creature that supports the deck idea. Hence the changes.

 

[Force of Will Smith]

i think the deck idea is interesting..

although using cloister just for a 4/4 to a 7/4 attacker doesnt seem like a good trade at all.. why not just a 3/3 flier?
infernal kirin could work, even a flier, pump it up, equip,etc. even hand of cruelty.


try using cards that will hurt your opponent and help you. It doesnt always have to be you that has no cards..

supress hurts your opponent, sickening dreams could help you kill them in a single crock attack.

you might also want to punish your opponent for you having no cards with brink of madness.


one thing that might make this deck insane is exploiting stackable "during your upkeep if you have no cards" and easy draw if you do.

mindstorm crown costs 3 and will fetch an extra card.
fools tome will nab you an extra card.

you might want to also trap an opponent by playing multiple standstills and then dumping your hand with any of the above or even *gasp* one with nothingness and possibly megrim.

urborg emissary i kind of see as a waste.. it will basically be a ball lightning you waited 2-3 turns to play and attack with.

riptide is pretty fun, but not sure if he wouldnt just like a bonesplitter better..


also infest is great, but too few mass killing spells.
i'd consider running sudden spoil, infest, and possibly even pestilence alongside sickening dreams for repeated global kill.

with that you could run lurking skirge or lurking jackals for low life.

listen to me remaking your deck


to the point.
cloister is good. with ensnaring bridge you'd murder.
imaginary pet is too situational.
id drop to 2 consider replacing him with mind maggots
undead glad is too costly, you lose tempo every time you use him
mindless automaton isnt worth the mana you'd spend into it for

decks to fear:
bounce
edict decks
artifact/enchant kill.

 

[jorael]

Good feedback, FoWS.

The idea of the deck is to make a use of Veiled Crocodile and Illusionary Pet. Not the best of cards, but I never try to make best decks, just good decks with bad cards.

Mindslicer and Bottled Cloister make for an excellent combo. Add Dimir Houseguard and someway to sac creatures during an opponents turn (say, during the draw phase) and you start having an intersting deck. I had such a deck, so I want to avoid Mindslicer with this deck idea.

Mindstorm Crown will offer additional cards, but 4 Cloisters seems enough for me. I'm quite a fan of Urborg Emissary. It gives you bounce and a creature, which can be equipped. Bonesplitter doesn't give trample and all creature can yield the O-Naginata (giving Riptide Manger a power of at least 3 usually isn't a problem. Undead Gladiator gives you a perpetual creature: just dump excessive lands or useless spells to return it after it died.

The Lurking creatures are indeed interesting. hmm... I could try them, or I might create a new deck with those cards! The deck doesn't have much removal, true. If need be I'll have to find room for more spells. I'll play with the deck a few times and see what it does (when I don't get stuck on 2-3 land).

 

[Limited]

...Add Dimir Houseguard and someway to sac creatures during an opponents turn...

Like ... Dimir House Guard?

 

[Force of Will Smith]

thx. and i too much prefer using bad cards in good ways to make peoples head spin..

mindslicer with cloister is insane!!
i must have missed that if it was in your decklist.

i had a deck that used a heap of lurking creatures numerous pestilent effects..

theyre ideal if you can clear the board and have everyones life low while you sneak in to do 10 in a turn for the BB you spent

 

[jorael]

Like ... Dimir House Guard?

True, and something extra like Miren, the Moaning Well doesn't hurt the deck.


Mindslicer isn't in the decklist presented above. As I did that already, I wanted to avoid that bad boy this time.

 

[WalkerofAeons]

Hey folks. New guy here from PA. Anyone know of any place to play magic near Harrisburg?

Anyway, fun deck! If you're looking for mass removal, try Hideous Laughter. Its instant speed, gets the weenies with Pro-Black out of your way, Houseguard can go and find it with Transmute...and your 3+ fatties don't die to it!

What's not to like?

Anyway, kudos on finding a way to use your Imaginary Pets and actually keep them in play. Have you thought about Time Spiral's new 2/1 for 1 Blue? He has an upkeep cost, but he's quick.

And there is also Vexing Sphinx. Rare, but pretty inexpensive. And he keeps your hand empty. If you need a place to get singles online, just let me know, I have a couple good suggestions.

Good fun deck! Good luck with it.

 

[jorael]

Thanks and welcome to CPA!

Instead of Hideous Laughter I added Infest. Because Bottled Cloister removes your hand I chose for the sorcery speed version. It saves a mana which can be crucial versus fast decks.

The 2/1 creature you mention couldn't yield the O-Naginata, so I don't think it is a good addition. Vexing Sphinx is a good suggestion. Apparantly I have some testing to do