by Ben Plummer

So when I decide to build a deck for casual play the first thing I think about is how I want to win the game. I could attack with 30 tokens, sit on 20 or more creatures and send out an Epic Struggle, or maybe sit behind an impenetrable shield and slowly whittle away at my opponent's life. This line of thought got me thinking about the choices your opponent can make during the game. They can block/kill creatures, destroy enchantments, etc. What is the one thing that a player can't avoid doing 99% of the time? Drawing cards.

With this thought in mind I started building the deck. After I established that this deck would cause the opponent to draw an obscene amount of cards (counterintuitive, I know. Hang in there.) I started thinking about ways to exploit that fact. Being more on the side of control I knew that it would predominantly be spells with only a few defensive creatures. Of the spells, I divided them into three categories: Direct damage, card draw, and utility/removal.

The first category I'll talk about is the core of the deck: the hand filling cards. For this I picked Font of Mythos and Howling Mine. I really don't like keeping hands without one of these in it. It is actually ok to mulligan aggressively with this deck since once you get a Howling Mine or a Font of Mythos in play you fill up your hand very quickly. The next card bridges the gap between direct damage and card drawing: Phyrexian Tyranny. This card forces your opponent (and yourself) to choose between casting more spells and taking damage. Your opponent knows that you could have a direct damage spell in hand so they have to decide whether to stop the damage from Phyrexian Tyranny or play spells to lower their card count, which often forces them into bad plays. You also have to make this decision yourself, which can be tricky and depends a lot on the kind of deck your opponent is playing and how they are dealing with the damage. Against a control deck I would not have any problems taking hits from Phyrexian Tyranny, but against aggro I would at least prevent some of the damage. Furthermore, if my opponent is taking the damage and playing spells, I would much rather prevent myself from taking damage, and hold onto my spells while Phyrexian Tyranny does the work for me.

In terms of direct damage spells, I think it is important for them to be instant speed so you can catch your opponent off guard and have more flexibility as to when you can play them. With Howling Mine and/or Font of Mythos active you are very likely to be able to draw into one of your direct damage spells every turn. This way you force your opponent to have answers on every one of their turns, which is tough if they are spending mana on Phyrexian Tyranny (and if they are not, they are taking damage from that anyway).

The final category of cards in this deck is utility. This includes four counterspells for your opponent's win conditions which you have to watch out for because it is likely that they will draw into them pretty quickly. Aside from the counterspells, this deck also has spot removal for those pesky aggro decks.

In terms of creatures, Wall of Frost is excellent at stopping ground attackers, and Vampire Nighthawk is great defense against air attackers and can also trade with their huge guys like titans. Echo Mage is there to set up possible blowout situations. For instance, they have 3 cards in hand, draw three for the turn (1 Font of Mythos in play), you tap 5, play a Cerebral Vortex and copy it with Echo Mage. Congratulations you just hit them for ten damage. To put that in perspective, you would normally have to tap ten or eleven mana to do 10 damage with a spell like Searing [card]Blaze" href="/p/Magic%3A+The+Gathering/Blaze%22+href%3D%22%2Fp%2FMagic%253A%2BThe%2BGathering%2FSearing%2B%255Bcard%255DBlaze%22%3ESearing+%5Bcard%5DBlaze%3C%2Fa%3E">Blaze" href="/p/Magic%3A+The+Gathering/Searing+%5Bcard%5DBlaze">Searing [card]Blaze or Fireball.

The mana in this deck is relatively simple. It is three colors, so that poses a problem, but with 8 fetches (you can upgrade four of these to Scalding Tarns if you feel like it), and 8 come into play tapped nonbasics finding the right mana should not be a huge problem. The versatility afforded by having three colors in the deck far outweighs the drawbacks of the mana base problem.

If you are feeling adventurous you can even add in Spiteful Visions to augment Phyrexian Arena. Another way to go is to add in a discard aspect to this deck by switching in Megrims and adding cards like Burning Inquiry. Personally, I prefer to keep it dedicated to card draw, but I have not really tested it combined with the discard method yet. There are tons of possibilities to Explore once you decide that you want to take advantage of the amount of cards in your opponent's hand. Even this list is just one way to play out the Sudden Impact type direct damage strategy.

[deck]

[Lands]

4 Evolving Wilds

4 Teramorphic Expanse

4 Crumbling Necropolis

3 Swamp

5 Island

4 Mountain

[/Lands]

[Spells]

3 Runeflare Trap

3 Sudden Impact

3 Cerebral Vortex

3 Font of Mythos

3 Howling Mine

3 Phyrexian Tyranny

4 Counterspell

3 Lightning Bolt

3 Doom Blade

[/Spells]

[Creatures]

3 Wall of Frost

3 Vampire Nighthawk

2 Echo Mage

[/Creatures]

[/deck]