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9-02-2001
 No Rares Decks #2, Black, Red and Green
Read the first article from this series - No Rares Decks #1, Artifacts, White, Blue
BLACK
Continuing the exploration of No Rare Decks for Classic (Sixth Edition). Black is considerably changed. Gone are the Erg Raiders, Unholy Strengths and Vampire Bats of the old NRD. Erg Raiders were the epitome of fast beatdown. A Vampire Bat with a couple of Unholy Strengths on it usually meant a quick victory as most decks could not mount a serious defense fast enough. Some people didn't like the Bats because they felt that they would interfere with the other spells you want to cast, but nothing forces you to cast the Bats first. If you do play out the rest of your hand first often you do need something later with evasion to sneak across the last points of damage, and the Bats are ideal for that. Used properly they were a lot better than most people think.
The use of Dry Spell to disrupt the opponent's mana and small creatures would be an interesting tactic against a lot of multicoloured decks.
The key thing that Black is missing is the raw speed out of the starting blocks. The closest to that is Hidden Horror. If we cast a first turn Blood Pet, then a second turn Hidden Horror would be possible. It involves the same kind of card disadvantage implicit with an Erg Raider and Unholy Strength put out with a Dark Ritual, ie the expenditure of three cards to get a 4/4 creature. The Horror is better later, but you could have put the Unholy Strength on things other than the Erg Raider, especially things with evasion.
Kjeldoran Dead is the most powerful (3/1) 1 casting cost creature, and it even regenerates. Sadly its drawback prevents it from being a first turn drop, but after that it is basically a way to turn a 1/1 into a 3/1, which is not quite as good as the Unholy Strength gambit.
Scathe Zombies doesn't look very good, and you don't need to look far for the reason why. For a mono black deck Python has exactly the same casting cost, but has one more power.
With Hidden Horror, Kjeldoran Dead and your opponent all trying to shove your creatures into your graveyard, it might be worth considering putting in the Gravedigger, or Strands of Night. If you do include the Strands, then the four point life swing that Syphon Soul provides might prove useful.
Pestilence will no doubt be an MVP because it is one of the few non-rare mass removal spells. It is massively powerful, but you may need to include some Drudge Skeletons as well as the Kjeldoran Dead. Note that a Gravebane Zombie could keep a Pestilence around if you Pestilenced during your upkeep and then had enough mana to recast the Gavebane Zombie, but that implies so much mana that normally the game would be over by then. It certainly will be over quickly if you start doing large Pestilences.
Bog Imp has to be included, which is ironic because in White the choice between Armoured Pegasus and Mesa Falcon, both of which are clearly superior to the Bog Imp, is hardly inspiring. In Blue there is the Sage Owl which is brilliant library manipulation with a 1/1 flyer thrown in as a bonus, and Storm Crow which is an imitation Armoured Pegasus, but Storm Crow again doesn't necessarily make the cut. In a Black NRD however evasion is critical because with it and a Howl From Beyond you have a dead opponent. Without it, you have to hope that they don't block. For that reason Razortooth Rats or Feral Shadow might be worthy of consideration for inclusion.
The last element to be considered is disruption. With a fast enough start to be the clock followed up by some well timed disruption, you could well get the opponent into Howl range before they find the answers. Coercion and Stupor provide hand disruption, and either would not be a bad third turn followup to a second turn Hidden Horror. Blight can slow down their mana development, and Blight on a Rishadan Port would be particularly funny. Oops, my 50c card took out your $40 card, so sorry. Disruption also comes in the form of Terror and Fatal Wound, eachh of which can deal with problems the other can't, though neither of them helps against Blastoderm.
In fact, this is what underlies the fun of playing a No Rares Deck; picking up a pile of random near worthless commons and going toe to toe with Mr Suitcases and sometimes beating them.
In the higher casting cost section there is the now famous Evil Eye of Orms-by-Gore. Anything that can block Blastoderm is rapidly achieving notoriety. It also has improved Fear. Combined with Drudge Skeletons, Kjeldoran Dead and Pestilence, that makes quite a lot of Blastoderm hate. There is also Abyssal Specter which will usually draw out some kind of removal, hopefully at two for one, one way or another.
Is Feast of the Unicorn worth including? This is a very difficult question. It is very slow, which means that it is never going to replace Unholy Strength. Perhaps a better comparison would be with Howl From Beyond, which often provided the knockout punch with the old NRD. Howl has the advantage of being an instant, but with enough evasion creatures that would not be so important. The Feast is fractionally more cost effective than a mid range Howl, tremendously much more so if you can get a second hit in. There are enough regenerating creatures that it might even have a chance to hang around long enough to be used twice.
Toss in some cheap creatures for sacrifice to the Kjeldoran Dead or toss out to the Hidden Horror such as Bog Rats, or Ornithopter, which would be a way to get a first turn Kjeldoran Dead. Summary of shortlist: Blood Pet c Bog Rats c Kjeldoran Dead c Drudge Skeletons c Bog Imp c Python c Hidden Horror u Gravedigger c Abyssal Specter u Evil Eye of Orms-by-Gore u Howl From Beyond c Pestilence c Sprinkle to taste with: Strands of Night u Coercion c Stupor u Blight u Terror c Raise Dead cRED Along with Black, Red No Rares Decks suffered tremendously in the transition to Classic (Sixth Edition). The loss of Incinerate is widely regretted, but losing Bird Maiden, with that rarest of red qualities, cheap evasion, and Bloodlust, which would have been a Blastoderm killer, really hurts Red. What can I say without sounding too negative about the Red commons and uncommons? Goblin Recruiter has a very nice ability for instance, but guaranteeing a limitless supply of 1/1 creatures is not going to shift the environment. Compare that to token generators like The Hive which no-one plays with. Goblin Recruiter prevents you from drawing, whereas The Hive only hoovers up all available mana. There just doesn't seem to be a good way to abuse the Goblin Recruiter (two Death Pit Offerings and a Kavu Lair?), and that's a shame. Maybe stick him into little Timmy's Lord of The Pit deck or something. Or provide a steady amount of cannon fodder for the Skull Catapult, or combine them with Dragon Mask, goblins at least being reasonably cheap to recast. Volcanic Geyser has the redeeming feature that it is a Red X damage that is actually an instant, so it should definitely go into any No Rares Deck. Blaze is cheaper by 1, but is only a sorcery. Firebreathing worked very well on creatures with evasion, which is another reason to lament the loss of the Bird Maiden, but even then it usually played second fiddle to the amazing Bloodlust/Attack/Fling combo. Wall of Fire with its built in Firebreathing is tragically just short of safely blocking a Blastoderm. Given enough mana though, it could certainly take old Blasty with it. It is good for blocking things like Chimeric Idols and other random 3/3s, and so might force an opponent playing Saproling Burst to play it differently for instance, allowing you to chump block a single token with something else. In any case it offers cheap fast defense, and it's beginning to look like a Red No Rares Deck might have to set up some good D since it doesn't have any cheap good O. Fire Elemental can trade with Blastoderms. Hulking Cyclops can't, but you'd hope that they would choose to block the Cyclops with a Blasty. Giant Strength is one of the best creature enchantments available, it is cheap and nasty, in all the right ways. Red looks like it needs some serious mana acceleration, so lots of lands and Fire Diamonds would do well. As for cheap creatures with evasion, none is cheaper than our friend the Ornithopter. Add Giant Strength or Firebreathing and you have a source of flying *colourless* damage. First turn Ornithopter plus Firebreathing could do 2,3,4,5,6 (thats 20 exactly) colourless damage. Add a Giant Strength turn 2 and its 2,5,6,7 for 20 on turn 5 so long as you don't miss a land drop. And it's a 4 toughness critter at that point which will make it hard to remove, except for White. So we need to look at mid range creatures other than the afore mentioned Goblin Recruiter and the worse than useless Goblin Elite Infantry. Incredibly Red has no other two casting cost creatures. In the three casting cost range of course there is the Wall of Fire and Orcish Artillery, which is great for board control but begs for a Spirit Link. There is Python, oops I mean Balduvian Barbarians. Sabretooth Tiger and Goblin Hero are both 2R, the Tiger has first strike, but the Hero is a goblin. Wow, I am inspired. *Not*. Once we get to four casting cost we start to see some more interesting creatures, eg Spitting Drake which has evasion and a mini Firebreathing. The Anaba Shaman has a ping ability which is ok. But it is still mostly a mix of Shock bait and medium bad creatures. For four or five mana the creature should provide some kind of game winning ability, and these don't. In disruption there is lots of land destruction with the old faithfuls Stone Rain and Pillage. Conquer is interesting because it provides a mana swing not just depriving the opponent of mana but gaining it yourself. At five mana though you would have to be confident in your other disruption. Shock is no replacement for Incinerate, but liberates the environment somewhat, as 3 toughness creatures are now actually being played. Lightning Blast is not cheap, but it does pack a punch. The problem is when you compare Lightning Blast to the Bloodlust/Fling combo you could do 10 points in one go, for the same price as the 4 point Lightning Blast. Fit of Rage and Spitting Earth are both apparently powerful. Fit of Rage would be great as an instant. Without any surprise value it is difficult to see where it could be useful, unless you had access to a few more evasive creatures. It might work well with Raging Goblin or Talrum Minotaur, which both have haste. Spitting Earth can do massive damage, very quickly, but only to creatures that can be targeted, and again only as a sorcery which really limits its uses. While Fit of Rage can remove a blocker without the attacking creature taking damage, with Red you really feel like you should be able to just flatten the creature, and then plow through without being chumped. Red really looks like it has major problems that can only be solved by linking up with a second colour or artifacts, for instance adding Ornithopter and mana acceleration. GREEN The last colour left in the examination of No Rares decks is Green. Green is embarrassing it has so many good cards, but it says a lot about the environment that so few of them get played. Consider Trained Armodon for instance: a 3/3 for 3 mana and no drawbacks. Think about it for a bit. It says a lot that no-one plays with that card. The Good: Cat Warriors: has forest walk. Against Green forest walking is golden, and there is a lot of Green out there right now. Creeping Mold: great removal, a Disenchant and Stone Rain wrapped up in one. Femeref Archers: in most other colours a 2/2 with no special abilities wouldn't be a bad thing, and this one drops flyers like flies. With 6th ed rules its slightly better than when it first came out as well. Fog: such a cheap Timewalk, it's great. Combine it with Thicket Basilisks and its obscene. Giant Growth: the only 1 mana for 3 effect left except Healing Salve. This is great, especially against burn, no creature kill deck should be without it. Llanowar Elves: mana acceleration is very important for a No Rares Deck. Most of the good commons and uncommons are quite expensive, this puts them in range faster, and can turn an overpriced rubbish card into an underpriced piece of fun loving abuse. Rampant Growth: did I mention that mana acceleration was good? Redwood Treefolk: this is no Evil Eye of Orms-by-Gore, but it blocks Blastoderms all day long, and enables you to trade Grizzlies for Blastoderms, which should be a good thing. Batteries not included, mana acceleration required. River Boa: wow. Shanodin Dryads: evasion is good, these are better than they look. They're no Scryb Sprites, which will be sadly missed. Thicket Basilisk: can block Blastoderms. Makes a lot of other not bad cards look quite good. Trained Armodon: remind me again why no-one plays with these? Tranquility: cheap mass removal. No Rares Decks should make as much use of all the mass removal they can get their hands on as they possibly can. It's a good reason not to play with enchantments, but if you're not playing enchantments then you should include Tranquilities. Uktabi Orangutan: great artifact removal. Not necessarily as important in the current environment as enchantment removal. Very cheap way of killing $20 Rares in Extended. :-) Unseen Walker: a bad Dryad that given enough mana can give evasion to other creatures. Green has two things, lots of mana, and creatures that need evasion. This is better than it looks. Untamed Wilds: more mana acceleration. This plus Rampant Growth really begs for effects that depend on you having more land than the opponent. Think of this as reverse land destruction that also thins your deck. Vitalize: Like Fog only better, also works well in combination with mana producing creatures, now if only we could think of a colour with lots of those. :-) Warthog: This is Green's version of Python and Balduvian Barbarians. Unlike those two, this one has an evasion ability. With Cat Warriors, River Boas and Warthogs you have three out of five possible types of landwalking, which means that you will have something in your deck that can land walk most opponents. Wild Growth: mana acceleration. Possibly the weakest of what is available, particularly if you choose to go down the mass enchantment removal path, but it is by far the cheapest, since it can be put on an untapped land and then used the turn it comes into play, unlike the Elves, which compensate by being able to attack for 1. Repeat after me: mana acceleration is good. Wild Growth is free mana acceleration. Worldly Tutor: go get your best creature right now. Survival of the Fittest is great, but this is no Survival. But then, what is? The Bad: Elven Cache: return the best card in your graveyard to your hand, isn't that good? Elven Riders: how important could evasion be for Green anyway? (Hint: see Red above.) Fallow Earth: one way of looking at this is as a Timewalk or mini Plow Under. If Plow Under was good, then shouldn't this be good as well? Fyndhorn Elder: Mana acceleration could be a powerful way for a Green No Rares Deck to get ahead. Giant Spider: this is great defense, but if you need to defend haven't you lost already? Gorilla Chieftain: it's no Blastoderm, but it can block Blastoderms and keep going. Unlike Black's regenerators this one also has a significant amount of toughness. Grizzly Bears: If people aren't playing Trained Armodon, then why on earth would they play this? Lure: this of course is a great way to break a standoff situation. Wonderful with Thicket Basilisk. Removal magnet. Panther Warriors: The good bit is that it's powerful enough to kill a Blastoderm, but also just out of Shock range. The bad bit is that its expensive (see mana acceleration) and has no evasion. With some mana acceleration, and a Lure (on something else) this might be worth considering. 6 Power is a lot of smackdown. Regeneration: this lets anything block Blastoderms and keep going. Like most creature enchantments it wants to go on the Thicket Basilisk, and like all creature enchantments anything you put it on becomes a removal magnet. Scaled Wurm: with enough mana acceleration ... Stalking Tiger: wow! A Trained Armodon with Familiar Ground built in! Two cards no-one plays with. Oh the joy, hold me back. Stream of Life: in a tight spot with sufficient mana this can be quite good, but an answer would be better. Summer Bloom: of course this is amazing when you draw it and 5 land in your starting hand. Anybody that has a good deck that occassionally mana gluts them could put this in just to prove a point I guess. Note that it allows you to play non basic lands, which makes it especially useful with lands that come into play tapped, after all who wants to waste a turn on that kind of land? Begs to be put into a combo deck that draws too many cards or if you have a way to put huge amounts of land into your hand from your Graveyard or something like that, or in decks that get an advantage by having more land in play than the opponent. The Ugly: Familiar Ground: unless you could combine it with creatures that can only be blocked by more than one creature. Fyndhorn Brownie: this would be good with a big fattie. Oh wait, two big fatties would be even better. Of course if you really need to do 8 points of damage to a flyer you could combine it with Femeref Archer. Pradesh Gypsies: see Fyndhorn Brownie, another expensive 1/1 with a bad ability. Radjan Spirit: this would be great if it had flying. Just use Femeref Archers instead. So Green just kicks butt. Even their bad cards are better than most of the good cards available to Red. Gotta love that Giant Strength though, amazing that Red actually has a card (singular) that is better than Giant Growth. Mana acceleration is exactly what most No Rares Decks scream out for, and if they can't get it then they need to substitute in some kind of disruption to try to use bad Timewalks to stall long enough to get into a position to win quickly. Green's Hill Giant costs 3 mana. And the 4 casting cost Hill Giants all have some other ability. Green even has some limited forms of evasion in the form of the landwalkers, and some mass removal. There are enough solutions to a Blastoderm to not just autolose to those kind of decks, and some nice big fatties. It occurs to me that the Panther Warriors and Redwood Treefolk are simply the same card with power/toughness switched. Some of Green's commons and uncommons are good enough to even make it into tier one decks. If you eliminate the uncommons even, you still have about 20 playable cards - like so: 4 Wild Growth 4 Rampant Growth 4 Llanowar Elves 16 Forest 4 Cat Warriors 4 Trained Armodon 4 Gorilla Chieftain 4 Redwood Treefolk 4 Panther Warriors 4 Giant Growth 4 Elven Cache 1 Tranquility 1 Regeneration 1 Vitalise 1 Scaled WurmThe great thing about this all commons kind of deck is that it is a go anywhere, do anything kind of deck. After all, its made up of a bunch of commons. Spill beer on it, take it to the beach, play around young kids, rip up the cards that annoy you, set fire to the ones that go to the graveyard, kick ass and take names. Get opponents that lose to a particular card to sign it. Laugh when you destroy their expensive cards. Keep track of dollar totals, not life totals. How many times have we heard about someone losing their tournament deck packed full of double digit dollar rares? Or some merchant getting a trade binder stolen or whatever. Abandon your paranoia, reach out to your inner common being, go back to your roots and rediscover how fun Magic can be without the armed escort lugging your tech deck around in a hermetically sealed bomb proof container.
Rick |
