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"It Swings!"

Common sense told me not to do it. The Spike in me said it was suicide. My rogue tendencies dared me to make it a reality. The product of a twisted mind I give you... IT SWINGS!

Back before the state championships in 2004 I built "It Swings!". For quite a while this deck was a contender amongst the few I was considering running on the day. In the end I didn't run it because I knew it didn't have the cards it needed. What the deck needed was some raw power in the late game and possibly a change in strategy.

How it all began

Lava Spike! The new Lightning Bolt! (that can only hit players at sorcery speed)	Spark Elemental! Its a Ball Lightning in a can! (that can hit for 3 on turn one and do little else)

Players as a whole avoid both these cards in constructed. Lava Spike is narrow and unweildy, Spark Elemental is only good early game. No one in their right mind would run these in a constructed deck with so many better cards around. Problem is I'm not in my right mind...

That filled 8 slots. What I needed was the rest of the deck. I started thinking "What if every creature in the deck had Haste?" I took out my Type 2 play folder and started pulling out every red creature I could find that had the word "Haste" printed on it.

Hmmm... Slith Firewalker is an insane haste creature, he's in. That new red guy Ronin Houndmaster looks cool, he can be the big guy at 3 mana...

I went on for a while, even rescuing 4 Goblin Strikers from the Iron Man pile, saving them from certain destruction. I looked at my motley bunch of creatures and put aside all the expensive ones of four cost or more. With cheap efficient cards like Lava Spike and Spark Elemental I didn't need stuff like Vulshok Berserkers slowing me down! Some utility was needed so I added in Magma Jet, Shock and Shrapnel Blast.

I started laying the cards out by casting cost... a column for 1 mana, 2 mana, 3 mana. 4 Chrome moxes in a column on their own with 4 Great Furnaces, 4 Darksteel Citadels and some Mountains. I started played with the mix - trying to run few 3 cost cards, a lot of 2 cost cards and some 1 cost cards. After a while I had a deck.

The Life and Death of "It Swings!"

The next time my regular playtesters came around for States practice I took out the deck and played a game.

Spark Elemental... it swings! Goblin Striker... it swings! Raging Goblin... it swings! Zo-Zu, The Punish--
What's that Zo-Zu, The Punisher crap? He doesn't have haste!

In a way he does. If I drop him out early enough my opponent will most likely be needing to keep playing land. Instead of swinging for 2 damage they take 2 damage for playing a land instead.

Everyone loved the deck but it didn't win a game. I would knock people down to around 5 life then they would take control of the game. My tiny haste creatures were no match for late game bombs like Kokusho, The Evening Star and Arkie the Wonder Slog.

The deck was very fun to play and I could see its potential. One of the guys even suggested I call the deck "It Swings" because thats what it did.

In the end, I found 2 big problems with this deck - 1) Small haste creatures are great early game but terrible late game and 2) All the bigger haste creatures cost too much to run in a deck like this.

What I needed was either better creatures or more support for the small creatures.

After further playtesting over the next couple of weeks I decided to go with The Dead Man for the States (click to read) and It Swings! was shelved. I even traded off my playset of 4 Zo-Zu, The Punisher...

Resurrecting the Dead

I had found a creature that filled the need for bigger creatures - Viashino Sandstalker. When I realised this little speed demon was available in 8th Edition I almost slapped myself for not thinking of it originally. A 4/2 haste creature for only RR1, the only disadvantage being its bounced to your hand at end of turn. But is it a disadvantage? While my other hasters are getting blown away with board sweeping sorceries, Sandstalker sits safe in my hand to swing again. Wrath of God’s worst nightmare and pure gravy in a deck like mine. I sought out a playset and eventually aquired one...

I started buying and selling cards on eBay and I managed to pick up 2 copies of Zo-Zu, The Punisher for the paltry sum of $7.50 including postage. I saw this as a sign and traded for another one. I am currently awaiting my fourth Zo-Zu in the mail...

I attended the pre-release for Betrayers of Kamigawa and I found an interesting card - Ronin Warclub. I had originally tried Bonesplitter and Grafted Wargear in It Swings! but this card seemed a lot better. It could equip to a haster for free and if it was shattered then the creature wouldn't be effected. Then I started thinking about 6/3 Sandstalkers and 5/2 Spark Elementals...

I took out the cards I thought would be useful and went through the same method I used to build the deck before - 3 columns for 1 cost, 2 cost and 3 cost cards. I goldfish tested the deck to see how it ran and tweaked a few times further as I saw problems arise or cards didn't work as I expected them to. I ended up with 20 mana producers/land, 8x 1 cost spells, 17x 2 cost spells, 15x 3 cost spells...

Well, thats the story of how 'It Swings!' came to be. Hopefully I'll be trying it out at a type 2 tournament soon.

Until then may I joyfully shout 'It Swings!' until my throat is dry and raw.

Joe Tobin (Aytakk2).

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