Magic Memories: Squandered Resources

[Oversoul]

I believe that the very first time I saw a Magic card, it was Teremko Griffin from Mirage, at some point in early 1997. I was visiting a small game store a mile and a half from my house, looking for figures for Warhammer Quest. Martin McKenna's art drew me in, but it was the layout of the cards themselves and their sheer variety that intrigued me. I didn't learn much about the game in that visit, and I didn't buy any cards, but it served as a kind of entry point. Later that year, my mother, seeing my interest, my mother learned that a set meant for beginners, Portal, was scheduled to release soon. She asked if I'd be interested and got me a starter set. Unbeknownst to me, just as I was getting my first taste of the game, professional players were discovering the broken potential of a card from the most recent mainline Magic expansion: Squandered Resources.

Mark Rosewater has noted that some professional players at the time insisted that R&D must have deliberately inserted cards into Visions in order to make the Prosperous Bloom deck possible. They felt that it seemed engineered, a claim that WotC themselves have always denied. For my part, I never doubted that the confluence of card designs were organic and that WotC were being forthright about this. But I can kind of see why a player at the time might have thought the interactions seemed deliberately tailored to enable the Prosperous Bloom deck.

A lot of information has come out about behind-the-scenes set design surrounding the story of how WotC had a planned expansion called "Menagerie." Although they never completed this set, it was used to create Mirage and Visions. This was a kind of precursor to the block system, so there wasn't very much thought put into which cards would go into the large set and which ones would go into the small set. It mostly feels like Mirage/Visions is just one super-expansion. But to savvy players at the time, it must have seemed like Visions conveniently provided all of the tools to unlock the potential of combo gameplay in Type 2. And while several cards came together to make this engine work, the card that started it all was Squandered Resources.

Combo decks had been done in the past, but they were generally fueled by broken cards from the original core set like the Power 9. Also, DCI card bans made some of these decks short-lived. Most such decks were what I called "Pattern A" in the Comboist Manifesto. "A" is for "aggregate." These decks relied on assembling certain, highly specific card interactions with low functionality taken separately. The most iconic was Channel + Fireball, which got Channel restricted in Type 1 in 1994 and banned in Type 2 in 1995. Other examples include Time Vault + Animate Artifact + Instill Energy and Lich + Mirror Universe. But Type 2 was policed so effectively that no combo decks really emerged. The Standard format had no Black Lotus, no Wheel of Fortune, no Regrowth, no Power Artifact, etc.

Squandered Resources allows players to sacrifice lands for a burst of mana. By itself, this is potentially powerful, but somewhat limited in terms of scope, given the other tools available in Standard. The presence of Natural Balance in Mirage amplified this into a rapid mana production engine and enabled easy access to mana of any color. This burst of mana could allow a deck to get ahead of the aggro decks available at the time. Squandered Resources on turn 2 could, with no missed land drops, lead to six mana on turn 3, which Natural Balance could then turn into up to 12 mana. With Infernal Contract from Mirage and both Vampiric Tutor and Impulse from Visions, the deck could then resolve Cadaverous Bloom from Mirage and use it with the blue mana provided by Squandered Resources to fuel increasing X-values of Prosperity from Visions, which could generate copious mana for Drain Life, reprinted in Mirage. Under the rules at the time, this enabled players to go all the way to 0 life with Infernal Contract, but go back to a positive life total with Drain Life for the win. This whole thing is more like what I have called "Pattern C" in the Comboist Manifesto. "C" is for "chains." Spells and abilities from different cards interact for powerful synergies. The aggregate of Cadaverous Bloom + Prosperity is what draws so many cards and makes so much mana, but it only gets there because it was supported along the way by things like Infernal Contract, Three Wishes, Vampiric Tutor, Impulse, and Elven Cache. But it's Squandered Resources that enables all of this to move quickly enough to outrace beatdown. When WotC created the Block Constructed format, Squandered Resources was banned in order to stop the ProsBloom deck from dominating the format.

 

[Oversoul]

After initially getting into the Pokemon TCG, my friend Nick saw me playing Magic in junior high and started playing the game in 1999, around the release of Mercadian Masques. Nick used variations on "Aloysius the Hun" as callsigns online, and was once a member here at the CPA under the name "Al0ysiusHWWW", which I think stood for "Aloysius the Hun from Walla Walla, Washington." Nick no longer goes by any of those names (including "Nick") anymore, so I'll use "Al0ysius" for clarity and simplicity here.

Something that seems uncanny all these years later is that Aloysius had arguably learned and mastered more concepts in the gameplay and deck construction of Magic: the Gathering between starting out and the release of Nemesis than I had since 1997. It probably shouldn't be that surprising. I was learning by playing test games against myself and by conscripting my young siblings to play with me. Al0ysius learned by playing in an after-school game club against other teenagers. Within a few months, my friend had surpassed me on some of this stuff.

Before Aloysius had even gotten into Magic, I was already gleefully employing the Sliver Queen + Heartstone + Ashnod's Altar combo. And it was around this time that I also started using Necropotence + Zur's Weirding + Ivory Tower. These were not optimized, potent combo decks. But they were combo decks of a sort, and by the time Aloysius was into the game, I was trying to built a Tolarian Academy combo deck, with further designs on a High Tide combo deck, a Dream Halls combo deck, a Fruity Pebbles deck, Channel/Fireball, and Donate + Illusionso of Grandeur. Al0ysius mentioned that I was effectively claiming every combo deck, and so began searching for ones I hadn't. In actuality, this was some time after Aloysius had built a Yawgmoth's Bargain deck based around putting Spirit Link on Serra Avatar, but this was deemed (by Al0ysius) not to count. After some research, Al0ysius settled on ProsBloom. I built a weak version of the deck based on what I could find online for ProsBloom at the time (this was probably 2001). But Al0ysius studied how the deck worked more than I had, and made thoughtful changes.

The version of ProsBloom that Al0ysius ran with for a few years was ultimately stronger than the classic tournament-winning archetype had actually been. This wasn't because Al0ysius was a superior player, but because of our card pool. I talked about this in the Magic Memories thread for Storm Seeker...

When I initially built a ProsBloom deck for Nick, I was a bit constrained, not owning full playsets of some of the key cards. I was trying to copy as closely as possible the successful Standard decklists, although I did substitute a few of the missing cards with cards that weren't in Standard when ProsBloom was played in tournaments. I forget what my list looked like, but I'm almost certain that it was considerably worse than the iconic Standard tournament ProsBloom lists. But when Nick got his hands on the deck, everything changed.

Nick saw that with access to the larger cardpool of anything in casual Magic we could acquire, there were some much better choices for a ProsBloom list. He kept the core of Squandered Resources, Cadaverous Bloom, Natural Balance, and Prosperity. He even left Infernal Contract in the deck. Other than those cards and maybe Vampiric Tutor, he changed everything else. Meditate was just as good as Infernal Contract for acceleration on the combo turn, so that went in. For additional mana acceleration he used Lotus Petal and Lion's Eye Diamond (a card that was still largely obscure, unrealized potential at the time). While I can't recall every detail, I think he moved City of Solitude to the main deck, because it made going off unimpeded much easier. Some of this was stuff that we'd already talked about, so I didn't find it surprising. Drawing from a bigger card pool for better choices just made sense. But I assumed that the kill card would always be Drain Life. Nick demonstrated that Storm Seeker was much, much better for that purpose.

I can't find a decklist right now, although I know we had a few variations on it over the years. Something I didn't mention there, but which I see from an old post that Al0ysius did touch on, is that we added Dark Ritual almost right away and never regretted it. Why didn't the pro players run Dark Ritual? I don't know. They may have been so reliant on Squandered Resources + Natural Balance for mana production that Dark Ritual seemed superfluous. Seems sketchy to me, though.

 

[Oversoul]

Eventually, Al0ysius retired his ProsBloom deck. However, Squandered Resources kept coming back in his other decks, and it's a card I always associate with him. I didn't think to save those decklists, but there was some variety. At first, it was always the Squandered Resources + Natural Balance combo, but then Squandered Resources showed up in other decks with entirely different gameplans, especially with the rise of Crucible of Worlds. Because I archived some content from the defunct "Type Fun" blog here at the CPA, I can present some fragmentary miniature articles here...

Probably my all time favorite casual combo deck is ProsBloom. You don't see it very often, but when you do, it gets attention--not necessarily because it's that great. It is an easy combo to understand the basics of, but it exercises tons of ways to go off. But I'm getting ahead of myself here. The combo itself is very simple. Let's see if you can figure it out.

That's right, 2(remove x cards) + U = 4x. Repeat. Looks great on paper. But there are a few finer points to the whole mess that make it unstable, slow it down, greatly benefit your opponent(s), or just otherwise confuse you. For the most part, running anything else but Prosperity means sacrificing the number of cards you draw.

The largest issue to the combo is that Cadaverous Bloom costs 3BG. It's a black card, so Dark Ritual does make things a little easier, but even that makes it a third turn drop without any other acceleration. Optimally, you'll be wanting to go off in less than four turns, with tutors making things a little tight. You could add a slew of artifact mana or mana-producing creatures, but that's adding extra "unreliable" cards to the fray. Additionally, Dark Ritual doesn't need to be pitched to bloom to get 2 mana net gain out of it. Which doesn't mean much, unless you're casting Prosperity looking for bloom.

Luckily, there was another card released with bloom that is so borderline broken, I'm surprised it's not in anything else. In some emergency circumstances, this card can be used to get the combo going until you can grab your Bloom. Squandered Resources can easily be paired up with any land search spells you can throw at it to not only ensure extra mana regularly, but mana of any color. At the time the deck was big, people generally used Natural Balance, which not only does the job, but does it very, very well.

Another issue is failing to run into another Prosperity after your first Prosperity. It's a scary feeling not knowing for sure what you're drawing into. And while running other blue X-draw spells could work, they generally cost extra mana, meaning the difference between 6 cards and 8.

Again, Luckily, you're playing black which means Tutors. While you could just run Demonic, every single mana is precious and your life doesn't really need to be 20 to go off. Vampiric Tutor does a great job of ensuring that your next draw will be a Prosperity. Or it can find a combo component that you so desperately need.

Sometimes, not even tutors will be enough. What good is a Prosperity if you only have one other card in your hand to remove with Bloom? Well, if it's either of these two, you're in no trouble at all.

Both Meditate and Infernal Contract exploit something that all combo decks should realize. If you're starting to go, you're unlikely to be able to recover if your combo fizzles out. Why not go all out? Skip turns, pay life, dump your library into the graveyard, do whatever you can do to win THIS TURN. Four cards might not seem like a lot, but it can be the difference between whether you run into a Prosperity or not, or more typically in this deck, three mana for eight mana.

Furthermore, you will need to drop something to play that blue mana, and while running artifact mana could help, I'd rather just do something that has synergy with Squandered Resources like Fastbond. It puts the final word on mana when you're finally going off and combines with Resources to say "Do what Bloom does just only with lands and you take a damage every time and with mana of any color."

Without putting up a model decklist, I want to discuss the practical value of this deck. It's a one-track combo deck that uses several methods to go off. After Fluctuator, it's probably one of the best decks for n00bs to combo to play. You get to manage the delicate balance between hand-size and mana, choose whether to keep a kill card or pitch it in hopes of drawing another before you fizzle out, or regret not playing a certain card a turn earlier since it would have made you combo second turn.

The last issue to discuss here is exploiting by-products of the combo for the kill. The traditional method is to use the slew of colored mana you can produce at the very end of your combo. It can be easily black mana, and therefore is perfect for Drain life. You need at least eleven cards (other than drain life) in your hand to do it and it's all in one shot. If you mess up, you lose all your mana, hand, library, turns, life, lands--everything but Cadaverous Bloom and maybe Fastbond with Squandered Resources.

Storm Seeker is, in most circumstances, better than Drain Life in this deck. It's an instant, so you don't have to kill them on your turn (I have no idea why you wouldn't), it doesn't require X mana, or even colored mana for the most part, it wont make you dump your hand or kill your lands, so if it gets countered, just cast another one (hopefully you'll be through your library anyway). And on that note, with two Storm Seekers, your opponent only needs to have 10 cards in hand for you to kill him/ her. Also, Storm Seeker makes multiple kills viable for multiplayer, or if an opponent has a large life total, you can just hit him/her twice.

Finally, if you're trying to modify the combo to include another draw engine besides Prosperity (Yawgmoth's Bargain or Stroke of Genius would be what I'd suggest), or just want to run another kill condition, Tendrils of Agony is an obvious choice. After a few Meditates, Contracts, and Prosperities, not to mention all the late drop enchantments, you'll easily have 10 spells played that turn.

ProsBloom will always be fun. Prone to disruption, it's very delicate, but effective. It proves that even refined combo decks can be casual.

I'm finally back online, and instead of going back and fixing my old posts (I still will), I'm going to make a quick update on a deck that I've been toying with lately.

It's like a combination of a Tendrils of Agony deck and a Cadaverous Bloom deck. In fact, the mana engine and the kill are those specific cards. The main win condition idea is to keep shoveling out spells from your hand that are fueled by Bloom. Obviously, the cost of the spells need to be pretty cheap, maximum of two, to work effectively. The goal is pitch one to play two.

But you need to feed this engine a lot of cards to work. Old ProsBloom used Prosperity, but in case you missed the title of this post, we're going to use the enchantresses. They work well on their own, but when you have multiples out you're running a huge draw engine. For my build I did cut Verduran enchantress in favor of Demonic Tutor. I did this because she costs 1GG for a creature, so on top of being too expensive to pitch a card to drop, she wouldn't even let me draw from playing her.

So what to "fill" the rest of the deck with. Obviously, you'll want to keep the non enchantment skills to a minimum, black or green or both, and you want to keep it to a casting cost of 2 or less. The above three are perfect choices to protect the deck from a lot of problems it can encounter. Grass stops attackers, and since you're comboing off, you wont need to pay it's upkeep too many times. Void isn't the most practical, but it cripples a lot more decks than you'd think. Seal is the most useful, although it might be like trying to put a band-aid on broken bone.

I can already hear you saying, "Wait, Pernicious Deed is an enchantment and it only costs 3. Why play a GB with no card that defines those decks?". Ultimately, this deck runs on 1 and 2 cc permanents and a deed is the worst possible thing to come up against, let alone use. It's self defeating. I could see repurposing an Enchantress deck to use it, but not in a Tendrils Bloom deck.

Green is pretty well regarded as being able to easily produce mana. Wild Growth and Utopia Sprawl fill this idea very well, while fitting into our 1cc enchantment ideal perfectly. Early game they're basically a free drop. Enchant another untapped land, produce equal mana you have just spent.

Bringing in a little more prosbloom, Fastbond and Squandered Resources actually play a larger role in this deck than it's grandfather. It wont replace Bloom completely, but you can definitely use it to drop Tendrils without ever using bloom. Fastbond has a small draw back with multiple copies doing extra damage for each land, but you sidestep that with smart playing. Resources is an overall amazing card. TheStephenation and I have been looking for a long long time to fully break this card, since it's right on the edge. It can empty your hand easily 3rd turn especially since most cards in this deck are 1cc.

Finally, this deck is basically a combo Enchantress deck. It only needs one copy of the kill to win, but it's always good to include alternate wins. Words of Wilding and Helix Pinnacle are perfectly acceptable choices for wins here. Helix might be a little more of a stretch so I included Serra's Sanctum just to be careful. Sanctum also works well with Words. Both would take time to set up, and are slower than the primary kill, but I feel very well repurposed for this deck.

4x Enchantress's Presence
4x Argothian Enchantress
2x Demonic Tutor
1x Helix Pinnacle
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Words of Wilding
2x Cadaverous Bloom
3x Squandered Resources
3x Fastbond
4x Elephant Grass
3x Planar Void
4x Seal of Primordium
4x Utopia Sprawl
4x Wild Growth
4x Bayou
12x Forest
3x Swamp
1x Serra's Sanctum