Hello folks!

Are you feeling a little villainous this week? A little dark and gothic? Has the seasonal change inspired your darker nature? Is your antagonistic nature growing and mutating until you cannot put the Contrary Genie back in the bottle???

Excellent! I have the article for you. You seem like you could be a fine Archenemy Apprentice! And like any apprentice, you need to learn the tools of your craft. Thus I have put together this primer to help teach and inspire your darkness.

In order to truly inspire you, I want to show you the very best schemes that previous Archenemies have put in motion. These are the most villainous plots to be performed in The Shard of Twelve Worlds. These are the great aspirations to which your lofty delights can target.

In order to be the best, you need to know the best. Just as any good con artist needs to know the best cons in order to make then her own, the same is true of manipulative plots and vile schemes. How can you best take these schemes and then turn them to your own? How can you give them your own spin?

And thus the primer awaits. Here are the Top Ten Schemes of All Time . . . 

They were once hidden from the eyes of all but the best plotters and villainous collaborators. But you, my dark Apprentice, show much power and potential. These plans and schemes no longer need to be hidden from you.

Hidden? Once!

Until now . . . 

10. Realms Befitting My Majesty

This is a great scheme to include in your decks, Your Evilness. At any time, this effect works as a free double Rampant Growth effect that suits you perfectly no matter when in the game it occurs. Many of the powerful schemes have a board-altering presence, or a card-advantage madhouse. But Realms Befitting My Majesty set you up for bigger plays later on, or mana to cast the many cards you are drawing with those sexy schemes. It’s not rocking the sheer power of some schemes you’ll see later on, but it certainly is one of the Top Ten Schemes of All Time!

9. Ignite the Cloneforge

Forget anything else, Your Rottenness. You know how your targets and opponents often have friends of their own to cope with. Not only are you dealing with the group that was assembled against you, but they will often portal in other Planeswalkers. You can copy a Planeswalker that an opponent controls by opening your Cloneforge. You can use this duplicate immediately for any of the various abilities and dominate the table with your Cloneforged ‘walker! And of course, it’s not just Planeswalkers but anything else! If your opponents have a summon creature, a powerful relic of the past, a mighty weapon, or even a mystical aura, you can Cloneforge it as well. That will help you bring these pretenders to their knees!

8. When Will You Learn?

Yes, Your Vileness. Sometimes you need to set up your foes with their own destruction. The Cloneforge works for that purpose as well. These so-called “heroes” arrive and they think their mere trinkets would match against your vile strength. Their assembled might would be much better utilized in your hands. So why not use their magic and toys against them? Take their best cards, and use them against them, and illustrate the true power you have!

7. Every Hope Shall Vanish

Your Sinfulness, please have a seat. In order to dominate your foes, you need more than just trickery and creatures. You need to attack them from other vantage points. Make them suffer completely. How dare they raise a hand at you! How dare they impugn your name and waste your time with these trifles! You will remove all of their hopes and they will know you at the deepest core of their being and Every Hope Shall Vanish. The ability to force them to reveal the best tricks they had coming, and then to remove them all just shows how powerful and majestic your sinful nature is.

6. My Genius Knows No Bounds //Your Puny Minds Cannot Fathom

You can feel it, can’t you Your Foulness? I know you can too. In order to best these maggots who have dared to profane your name you need to bury them in an avalanche of power. They have libraries to hold their little gasps of knowledge? You know so much that a mere book or physical object cannot contain it! Your Genius Knows No Bounds! None physical. No limitations. And their Puny Mind Cannot Fathom Your Foulness. There are number of schemes that draw raw cards and demonstrate these points to show. Many of them can be on the weaker side, to give your foes a bit of hope, only to snuff it out later. But when you want to bury them in the power of your knowledge, these are two schemes you can set in motion to dominate your erstwhile “foes.”

5. The Dead Shall Serve

Your Cruelness! I know you are the sort of person to always prefer a scheme like The Dead Shall Serve or Dance, Pathetic Marionette to cards that are set on something weaker, like Rotted Ones, Lay Siege or Roots of All Evil. Sure, you might swing and miss and have one person with no creatures in their graveyard. But the times when the result from these is better than three 2/2 Zombies or five 1/1 Saprolings is roughly 90% of the time. The Dead Shall Serve is power potential my potentate. The creatures stay around, they aren’t just animating for one smash and then fading away. That’s pretty cool, I think you’ll admit.

4. No One Will Hear Your Cries

Now look at this next scheme, Your Wrongness. No One Will Hear Your Cries is best at dropping a big board down to a manageable one. Everybody but Your Magnificence now owns just one dork left. You will love following this up with a guy like Fleshbag Marauder. You can even pretend to mock their caring ways. “Whoops! Everyone sacrifices a creature! So sad! I am sorry for your loss. Here let the gentle embrace of my Akroma, Angel of Wrath soothe you to oblivion.” No One WILL Hear Your Cries!!!

3. My Crushing Masterstroke

Your Viciousness is correct! My Crushing Masterstroke resembles Insurrection. Insurrection is an eight-mana sorcery that can win the game in one fell swoop. This is better than Insurrection. It’s free. You steal all of the non-land permanents, and not just creatures. They untap, so you can use those equipment, vehicles, as well as Planeswalkers and more to abuse the these puny meeklings that dare to impugn your Viciousness with various attacks. The value here is considerable!

2. All in Good Time

You know just how good this scheme is by looking at it, Your Filthyness. Getting another turn is always good. You’ll draw another card. Play another land. Untap your stuff. Get another attack. Have twice as many turns to cast spells. The only thing you can’t do is get another scheme going. And that’s fine. All plans work to those who wait, and patience, is rewarded.

1. Behold the Power of Destruction

I agree, Your Noxious-Ness. This is truly the strongest and most powerful scheme you can set in motion. A one-sided Nevinyrral's Disk that targets one of your opponents is just nasty. There always seems to be at least one player out there who is doing better than the others, and out in front. Setting them back all the way to the end of the table is definitely worth the scheme. Boom!

And there you go my Dark Acolyte. No matter how strongly people may try to attack you, there are schemes you can set in motion now to yield powerful results later. Are you ready to defeat those ignorant enough to stand in your way with a power that will both devastate them and send a message to anyone else? I know you are!

Behold the Power of Destruction!