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Enter the Dungeon #6 – Flipping Out

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Welcome back to the dungeon. Today, we explore the realm of insanity, where your mind becomes a chaotic mess of jumbled nonsense and your very thoughts betray you. If you are brave enough to venture through these dark and twisted halls, you may find power the likes of which you have never imagined.

Krark's Thumb is a fun little artifact that makes cards that are normally very random slightly less random. It can work wonders when combined with just about anything that involves flipping coins. Unfortunately, the fact that it's Legendary means that you can only have one in play at a time. Unless of course you have a Mirror Gallery. Then, you can have two or even three at a time, making it nearly impossible for you to lose a flip. But what to do with all that coin flipping?

Chance Encounter is a wacky win condition that's surprisingly easy to obtain online. Winning ten flips isn't as difficult as it might seem, especially with Krark's Thumb helping you out. Frenetic Efreet will bypass all that building up of counters entirely. You can activate its ability any number of times, and even though it will leave the battlefield after the first copy resolves, the others will still allow you to flip a coin each time. Use the ability forty times or so, and you're almost guaranteed to win the game during your next upkeep.

Goblin Bomb is another win condition. Although it won't work quite as well in multiplayer, it can sometimes be a bit faster, especially if you're low on mana. Game of Chaos is a third way to win the game, but it's somewhat less reliable than the others.

Fiery Gambit is a risky spell, but with a Krark's Thumb or two out, it can become very dangerous. Stitch in Time is similar, but you only have to win one flip to make it pay off. Taking an extra turn is valuable in any deck, but in this one, it can allow win the game with Chance Encounter without giving your opponents a chance to destroy it.

Karplusan Minotaur can very quickly give you a lot of coin flips for Chance Encounter, while killing off a few small creatures along the way. Even if your opponent does win some flips, his only targets will often be you or the Minotaur.

Creepy Doll continues the coin-flipping madness, while also making an excellent blocker. A single Doll can often ward off an entire army through the power of fear.

Although Crazed Firecat will never be anything more than a big creature, it does allow you to keep flipping coins until you lose with no ill effects, and it often leaves you with a creature big enough to take down anything on the board.

Fabricate is the final piece of the deck, allowing you to search for both Krark's Thumb and Mirror Gallery. It helps to make the deck a bit more consistent despite all the coin flipping.

Here's what the deck looks like all put together:

[cardlist]

[Creatures]

1 Crazed Firecat

3 Frenetic Efreet

3 Karplusan Minotaur

3 Creepy Doll

[/Creatures]

[Spells]

2 Fiery Gambit

3 Stitch in Time

4 Fabricate

4 Game of Chaos

4 Chance Encounter

4 Goblin Bomb

1 Mirror Gallery

4 Krark's Thumb

[/Spells]

[Lands]

12 Mountain

4 Caldera Lake

4 Izzet Boilerworks

4 Shivan Reef

[/Lands]

[/cardlist]

 


Sarkhan the Mad is an often-underrated planeswalker who can become very powerful in the right deck. Although being able to draw cards is nice, and his last ability can certainly win games, it's the second ability that has real potential. A 5/5 Dragon for 5 mana is nothing spectacular, but the ability to make two more for free if your planeswalker survives is pretty ridiculous. Of course, the catch is that you have to sacrifice a few creatures, but then again, there are some creatures that love being sacrificed.

Reassembling Skeleton is happy to be sacrificed over and over again for the low price of 2 mana each time. Entering the battlefield tapped is no drawback when it's going right back to the graveyard.

Nether Traitor needs another creature to work, but once you have one, it will come back over and over again for only 1 mana each time. If you happen to draw two Traitors, you can sacrifice them back and forth with abandon.

Myr Retriever and Junk Diver aren't quite as efficient as the other creatures, but once you have two of either, you can sacrifice them back and forth just like Nether Traitor—albeit at a steeper price.

Bloodghast doesn't require any mana to return from the graveyard, but the fact that its ability is tied to playing lands means that you won't always be able to bring it back whenever you want.

Grave Pact can wipe out every opposing creature when you start sacrificing a guy or two every turn, and Innocent Blood can clean up anything that's left. Although this form of removal is slightly weaker against token strategies, it does remove creatures that are Indestructible, have Shroud, or have Hexproof, making it very difficult to get around.

Attrition can do a lot of work against opponents with several creatures, picking off the ones you actually care about and leaving your opponent to slowly sacrifice the rest.

Infernal Tribute lets you sacrifice creatures to draw cards, making sure you can find your win condition and any removal you might need. It can also be used to sacrifice Sarkhan when he's about to die, whether from opposing creatures or by activating his 0 ability when he only has 1 counter left.

Goblin Bombardment serves as a backup win condition if Dragons aren't doing the job, and in a pinch, it can be used to wipe out opposing creatures. Once all your opponent's creatures have died to your various forms of removal, you can ping him to death a few points at a time.

Once you've added in some lands, the list should look something like this:

[cardlist]

[Creatures]

2 Bloodghast

4 Nether Traitor

4 Reassembling Skeleton

4 Junk Diver

4 Myr Retriever

[/Creatures]

[Planeswalkers]

4 Sarkhan the Mad

[/Planeswalkers]

[Spells]

4 Innocent Blood

2 Attrition

2 Infernal Tribute

3 Goblin Bombardment

3 Grave Pact

[/Spells]

[Lands]

12 Swamp

4 Dragonskull Summit

4 Sulfurous Springs

4 Tainted Peak

[/Lands]

[/cardlist]

I hope you enjoyed this journey into madness. If you managed to somehow maintain your sanity, be sure to come back in two weeks, when more terrible dangers and magnificent powers will be explored.

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