(This article was written four days before the Grand Prix began.  However, I did not end up participating in the Main Event.  I decided it would be a better use of my time to explore every facet of the Prix.)

It is that time of year, time for the Magic Grand Prix Event and Duelists across the globe are aflutter.  This year the Grand Prix happens to be in Seattle (or more accurately Tacoma), and since yours truly is a local product I am preparing to attend.  That is the issue at hand, preparing.  How does one simply walk into the very hallowed halls of MTG and throw down?  What are the steps a person takes to ready themselves for combat.  Especially what could be twelve hours of combat!  Many simply look up something from a recent Top 8, and throw together what they can with a few favored cards as 'tweaks'.  Play test it a few times with friends and head out the door.  I am not wired that way.  Call me Jesse James, or call me stupid, but I'm a outlaw planeswalker.  I can't compete with a deck someone else created and piloted better than I ever could.  Why am I telling you this?  Because I am not alone, and we are not alone.  There are rebels among us.  However different we are from our contemporaries, the same steps need be taken to prepare for battle.

IDENTIFY THE PROBLEM

Or should it be problems.  Plural, because that will be what us renegade deck builders need to keep in mind when we build our deck. The advantage here being we can pretty much guess the types of decks we'll be facing.  There will be Turbo-Milling aided by Jace Beleren and Sanity Grinding, some Five-Color Control, but mostly we are guaranteed a massive number of aggro decks.  Windbrisk Heights has become nearly as popular as Mutavault in the latter's prime.  If we're planning on making out of the first round we need to prepare for these creature rushes.  Turbo Fog is a creative milling deck with an anti-aggro theme right in the title.  Too bad this idea has gone main stream recently and would hardly qualify as renegade.

FIND THE SOLUTION

With most if not all of the threats calculated, creating a perfect counter should be easy.  Well, not exactly.  If MTG were that simple then . . . um . . . it's not.  In fact 90% of the challenge of competitive Dueling involves creating a deck build that can beat what currently dominates.  Keeping that in mind we can still try to create something unique that bests many more popular builds.  Let's start with anti-control/milling.  Luckily unearth has been given to us by WotC seemingly to intentionally break the choke hold control decks had during Lorwyn.  Packing countermagic?  We're going to swarm you.  Board sweepers?  See you next turn.  With Jace/Howling Mine drawing us extra cards we never need to worry about running out.  Especially if our opponent puts a few in the graveyard for us.  The second issue is more pressing.  Creature/token rush.  The most popular archetype in Standard right now.  Not too good on defense so our unearthed army should do the trick, but we'd be long dead without a little defense of our own.  Hmmm, we'll need to think about that one.

CREATE THE DECK

[caption id="attachment_2581" align="alignright" width="216" caption="our new best friend"][/caption]

We want access to the best unearth creatures, and some great mass removal.  That is the base and the reason I choose black and red for the 'rebel yell' deck.  Just about any cheap unearth creatures will fit the bill, but we need a few key members on the team.  Hellspark Elemental,  Hell's Thunder and Shambling Remains for fast damage and Anathemancer for more direct damage.  Late game against any control deck, unearthing one of these should just about finish the job every time.  If we're looking to spend a little money Demigod of Revenge is also a perfect fit here.  In addition to unearth, the Shards of Alara block has given another gift.  Actually Infest and Volcanic Fallout might be considered two gifts, but who is counting?  If our opponent is tapped out and committed to the board we can hit them with Infest, if not Volcanic Fallout offers a less preventable solution.  Best of all we have eight mass removal effects in our deck.  Whenever our opponent rebuilds we can hit them again.  To deal with larger threats we can include four copies of Terminate and four copies of Incinerate for a quick finish.  To prevent being overrun ourselves we add Relic of Progenitus to our sideboard to counter-act any Reveillark madness.  Rain of Tears is a pretty solid side-board option as well against so many builds relying on Windbrisk Heights. (Ed Note: see the full deck list below)

THE TEST

[caption id="attachment_2585" align="alignleft" width="218" caption="getting ready to rumble"][/caption]

We have our deck.  twenty-something unearth creatures, eight board sweepers and some spot removal/direct damage.  Now we need to test it to make sure we're ready for anything the Grand Prix has in store.  MTGO tournament practice room here we come!

First Match, Bant Exalted - We both start fast, trading blows so I hold off on any board sweepers.  My over-confidant opponent taps out to play Rafiq of the Many and a second Jhessian Infiltrator.  I terminate Rafiq and play Volcanic Fallout.  Next turn I unearth Shambling Remains and play Anathemancer.  Good game.  No sideboarding and I am ready to go.  The second game plays out similarly to the first except my foe misses his third and fourth land drops.  1-0.

Second Match, Faeries - Actually this might be the best match-up for the deck.  Fae countermagic is hosed and Bitterblossom does enough damage on it's own to make my job easy.  It also didn't hurt to draw three Anathemancers in my opening hand.  The last was worth seven damage on it's own.  My opponent quit before the second game realizing this was a very poor match-up for them.  2-0.

Third Match, Windbrisk Tokens - First game the tokens were too fast, and too many.  It didn't hurt my foe activated three Heights!  Ouch.  Sideboarding in all four copies of Rain of Tears.  That move payed dividends early when I smashed his only Heights.  After a few terminated blockers I swung in for enough damage to tie the match.  For the final game I kept my deck unchanged.  The match basically came down to a blunder on my part.  I unearthed a Hell's Thunder instead of destroying their single Windbrisk.  Bad idea as it hid their second Overrun that game.  Killing me with an Incinerate in hand and my opponent at 2 life.  Playing RoT could have bought me enough time to unearth and Incinerate the next turn.  Damn! 2-1.

Either way, it looks like the deck is ready for it's big arrival on Saturday.  Hopefully some fellow rebels are able to attend as well and we can shake things up together.  Please let me know how it goes and I will do the same for you.

Until then, good luck to all!

[deck title=Unearthed!]

[Lands]*4 Savage Lands

*4 Crumbling Necropolis

*6 Swamp

*6 Mountain

[/Lands]

[Creatures]

*4 Anathemancer

*4 Shambling Remains

*3 Dregscape Zombie

*4 Hellspark Elemental

*4 Demigod of Revenge

*3 Hells Thunder

[/Creatures]

[Spells]

*4 Volcanic Fallout

*4 Incinerate

*4 Terminate

*4 Infest

[/Spells]

[Artifacts]

*2 Veinfire Borderpost

[/Artifacts]

[Sideboard]

*1 Ashenmoor Liege

*4 Blightning

*2 Viscera Dragger

*3 Relic of Progenitus

*4 Rain of Tears

[/Sideboard]

[/deck]