Rebuilding Five Color II: Electric Boogaloo

OK! When last we spoke I was rebuilding my five color reveillark deck. If you haven't, go back and read it. Seriously, I'm not going to waste the better part of a blog post describing the deck again.

Let's talk decks. In particular order:

Snakeblink!

From that list at the end of the previous post, take note of Venser, Shaper Savant and Mystic Snake. If I add Spellstutter Sprite I've got three creatures that act as counterspells. Add in Momentary Blink to allow you to reset those counterspells and you've got the basis for a worrysome aggro-control deck. Load up with some more countermagic, some instant speed card drawing and you can hopefully play counterslivers. Keep them off balance by countering everything they do, with the added benefit that some of your counterspells kill them over time. The trouble with this idea though, is that I really don't want to make a counterslivers deck. I want to play my deck, and I don't want to annoy my opponents so much that they don't want to play against it anymore. Also, the entire deck has to operate at instant speed. What do I need reveillark for? I guess to momentary blink to bring back a mystic snake if it died, but that's sort of not going to happen. In the end the deck doesn't need Reveillark, or Redcap, or Mulldrifter or Kitchen Finks, which means it wouldn't at all like the deck I'm trying to rebuild.

Here's another idea: land destruction. Use Avalance Riders and Fulminator Mage to blow up their land, use Reveillark to get them back and keep blowing up lands. You know what's not fun though? Land destruction. Seriously there's very little that's worse to play against than a well built working land destruction deck. Skip this idea.

Next up: the Blown Mind:

4 Sakura-tribe Elder
4 Wall of Omens
3 Mulldrifter
4 Reveillark
4 Gifts Ungiven
1 each of:
Crypt Champion
Saffi Eriksdotter
Soul Warden
Body Double
Murderous Redcap
Reveillark
Greater Gargadon suspended
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
Pestermite
Eternal Witness

Ok? Read the text on Gifts Ungiven. Turn four you can play it and search up Reveillark, Eternal Witness Kiki-Jiki and Pestermite. Any way they split the pile you can get your combo going. If they put both combo pieces in the yard you can get them back with the 'lark or the witness. Or you can go for one of the other combos. Now suppose you've got Saffi in hand and you want to get the Project X combo going. What do you search up in a gifts pile? You have to plan it so they react to what they think you are doing and therefore give you the pieces for what you're actually doing. It's a mind bender, let me tell you.

This one was suggested by my brother Caleb. We talk about Magic all the time. I mentioned to him that I was thinking about building an extended Reveillark deck and this is what he came back with. Insofar as I remember. I'm strongly tempted to build the deck this way. For one thing, it sounds fun to play. (I'm the sort of guy who thinks calculus is fun, so a string of chess puzzles as a deck doesn't exactly turn me away.) Also, I've got most of the cards, all I'd need to scrape up is a Saffi and a Kiki Jiki. Oh, and the walls of Omens, but those aren't essential. It's a combo deck though. Generally combo decks get boring because really well built combos are designed to do exactly one thing over and over again, without variance. Only in this case you've got any one of three combos you could be going for. It's more than a three fold increase, since the ability to switch horses mid stream allows you more relevant decisions to make.

Still, It's a combo deck, and I think I prefer the traditional Midrange build I had originally. So let's try to make something that approximates that.

3 Kitchen Finks
4 Murderous Redcap
4 Mulldrifter
2 Reveillark

Only three Finks, one got lifted to be put in Gibralter. I might fish it back out, but probably I'm going to leave it, 3 finks should be good for now. At least it'll cut down on the number of times that I feel compelled to use the "Another fink coming" pun. Which I am sad to say is above zero.

To that I'm going to add 4 Momentary Blink, because honestly it does exactly what I want it to do and then I get to do it again. I'm shooting for 25 lands, so 60-25-17 gets me 18 cards left to put in. Gonna include a package of 8 removal/utility spells; 4 Path to Exile 2 Oblivion Ring 1 Wrath of God 1 Damnation. Why the split there? partly because I only have one of each of those spells and partly because the even split is pretty awesome thematically.

10 creatures left. I need some stuff lower on the curve, right now I've got Finks and Evoke Mulldrifter. The first one to two turns will probably be taken up by taplands tapping. But if they aren't, I don't have much to do there except accelerate someone into their game with Path to Exile. I think I'm going to include Stingscourger. I mean, I include Stingscourger in pretty much every deck where I can but at least I should rationalize it. It comes down early, slows down their game plan to where my relentless grinding machine of card advantage can take over, and in the late game I can bring it back with Reveillark to punch a hole in their defenses or deal with a troublesome utility creature.

I want at least one Ninja of the Deep Hours. In general the Ninja works best when you've got cheap creatures to replay and lay more ninja with. Here I'm using it mostly to reset my comes into play triggers, or to bounce a reveillark without actually killing it. And honestly, every blue deck should have one Ninja in it, to remind people that they never know when a ninja is about to strike. Oh, and I'd really like to include my one Testigo Eterna in the deck. That leaves me room for one more playset. Lemme look at the curve momentarily

2: 4 Stingscourger,
3: 3 Finks, 1 Witness, 4 Mulldrifter Evoke,
4: 4 Murderous Redcap,
5: 2 Reveillark, 4 Mulldrifter

Those are just the creatures. I'm not putting the utility spells or the occasional ninja on the list because they fit in wherever they can. It's harder to predict exactly when you'll need to blink something, or remove a pesky creature from game. It looks like I can fit in another four drop or two, and then probably have to counterbalance it with lower costing creatures.

1 Venser, Shaper Savant
1 Glen Elendra Archmage

Those are all I have available right now; I don't want to loot the Venser but this calls for it. Still need something at two or three mana. Wall of Omens? Carven Caryatid? Hmmm... I'm disinclined to include much in the way of Civic Wayfinder type creatures as I don't want many basics in the deck. Just enough to not lose out horribly to an opposing path to exile. There are any number of odd and interesting things I could toss in as a one of. Ok, here we go:

-2 Oblivion Rings
+3 Qasali Pridemage
+1 Lorescale Coatl.

I'd rather that this deck was all creatures for reasons which will come up when I'm building the manabase. O ring still offers more versitility than the Pridemages it's getting replaced by, but they'll make the deck run more smoothly. Here's hoping I won't lack for creature removal. The Coatl I don't want to take out of Snakes on a Plane, but I'd really like to see one in action here. It's something to do on turn three, it grows into a monster pretty easily and it's wrath insurance in the late game. (Reveillark brings back Mulldrifter and Coatl, I draw two cards and I've got six power of creatures on the table.) Not that the deck needs much in the way of Wrath insurance. We'll see how it does.

The list so far:
4 Path to Exile
4 Stingscourger
3 Qasali Pridemage
4 Momentary Blink
1 Lorescale Coatl
1 Eternal Witness
3 Kitchen Finks
4 Murderous Redcap
1 Glen Elendra Archmage
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
1 Ninja of the Deep Hours
1 Wrath of God
1 Damnation
2 Reveillark
4 Mulldrifter
25 lands.

Ok? We want W open whenever possible in case we need to Path, we need a lot of white and green in the early game (Pridemage, Finks, Witness) and some to more blue later on (Mulldrifter, Venser, the Ninja, blink flashbacks). We don't need any black at all except for Damnation or maybe Redcap. Cutting Damnation in favor of Day of Judgment. Hmmm... Red just for Stingscourger and Redcap. Ok. We'll want to go heavy on green white, less so on blue and even less on Red. Let's start the manabase!

4 Ancient Ziggurat

See that? That's why I wanted mostly creatures. It makes all five colors, it doesn't come into play tapped, and the only cards I'll really miss the mana on are the Wrath effects. Which I expect can wait an extra turn; I've got Stingscourgers to slow him down with. A couple activated abilities are going to miss out, but the most expensive is Ninjitsu at 1U, so not much at all. It certainly will work better than when I was trying to run it with Cruel Ultimatum. Oh, and note this because I didn't at first glance. I can't use any of the Shadowmoor/Eventide filter lands because the activation can't be paid by the Ziggurat.

4 Reflecting Pool
3 Vivid Grove
3 Vivid Meadow
3 Vivid Creek

Oddly enough I can't find as many vivids as I thought I had. Or as many Stingscourgers. Unhappy about that. After quite a bit of searching I managed to locate some Stingscourgers in my box of surplus cards. Why oh why did I ever let them get there? But back to the subject at hand.

We've got eight slots for land left in the deck. I want dual lands, and dual lands that don't come into play tapped. Unfortunately, they cost money, and I only have a few of the appropriate kind. But even assuming that they didn't cost money, what kind of lands would I need? My main concern right now is getting RR UU WW or GG by turn four without having to dig too deeply into the vivid counters. As it currently stands to get RR I'd have to have two pools or ziggurats in play. I think I need more red lands. G and W and U do alright because of the default option on the vivids. Still, I think I want to boost G and W some. Looking at the lands I have I'm putting in:

1 Steam Vents
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Yavimaya Coast
2 Brushland
1 Plains
1 Island

Gives me the color mix and Path cards that I might need. One spot left, which I've been saving for a utility land: Oran-Reif, the Vastwood. Take a look at that next to Kitchen Finks. +1/+1 and -1/-1 counters cancel out. Which means that I can keep a kitchen finks alive indefinetly, if they do me the favor of only killing it once per turn. Even if I only get one extra finks iteration out of it, that does a whole lot for me. Enough that I'll include one extra tapland.

So let's put down a final list, see how it all adds up:
4 Path to Exile
4 Stingscourger
3 Qasali Pridemage
4 Momentary Blink
1 Lorescale Coatl
1 Eternal Witness
3 Kitchen Finks
4 Murderous Redcap
1 Glen Elendra Archmage
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
1 Ninja of the Deep Hours
1 Wrath of God
1 Day of Judgement
2 Reveillark
4 Mulldrifter
4 Reflecting Pool
4 Ancient Ziggurat
3 Vivid Grove
3 Vivid Meadow
3 Vivid Creek
1 Steam Vents
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Yavimaya Coast
2 Brushland
1 Island
1 Plains
1 Oran-Reif, the Vastwood

That's sixty cards. Now the only thing to do is to sleeve 'em up and play...

Anyone up for a game?