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Main » Articles » Top 10 Casual Archetypes, Part 2

Top 10 Casual Archetypes, Part 2

Abe Sargent
Posted on March 16, 2014
 Reddit

Welcome back! Take a look at your favorite kitchen-table deck. Whether sixty, one hundred, or 2,850 cards, your deck is probably part of an archetype. No matter what cards you have in that deck or how modern it is, most modern causal archetypes began in the first years of Magic.

What I decided to do was count down the Top 10 Casual Deck Archetypes and give you an example of that deck from long ago—as well as modern update to it that you can build today. That means I’ve built ten decklists for you today, so get ready for deck overload!

Today, we count down the Top 5 archetypes. The first five were:

  1. Tokenspew – The making and production of tokens to win the game

  2. Game-Winning Combo – Breaking the game open and winning immediately via combo

  3. White Weenie – And also other fast, synergetic aggro decks

  4. Sligh – The fast, red aggro deck that created the concept of the mana curve

  5. Reanimator – Cheating big stuff into play since 1993!

What archetypes will make today’s list? Let’s find out!

5. Milling

While the cards were not really as advanced, people loved Millstone and associated cards from the very beginning. It was quite common to have a defensive control deck use Millstone as a win condition. And if needed, you could deck the opponent with Braingeyser, Prosperity, Wheel of Fortune, or Stroke of Genius for the win. However, we certainly had some decks with a more dedicated milling strategy.

Let’s look at one such deck built during Mirage block:

"First Milling Deck"

And this was not unusual for its time at all. Milling was popular even when it wasn’t good. So Wizards obviously figured out to print good milling cards, and it exploded in popularity.

"Next Milling Deck"

Here, we have a mildly updated deck for your consideration. It has creatures that can mill as part of their thing. That’s great! Plus, you have a few spells that can really mill al lot of cards rather quickly. They are one-shot spells that are a lot nastier than Millstone. Then, mix in a little removal and protection, and you have a deck that’s much better and uses powerful cards.

And again, if you don’t have the expensive cards such as Glimpse the Unthinkable, just run something else. There are dozens of great milling spells that have been printed. You can easily find some that are cheaper on the wallet.

4. W/U Control

One of the singularly dominant tournaments decks of the early era was called The Deck. It was an Esper-colored deck that just ran the best of the best. Its influence was felt as far away as the back-room table at my local gaming store in West Virginia. You would find decks that emulated parts of The Deck quite regularly. It used a lot of concepts to control, and then win, including this idea of card advantage. Let’s take a look!

"Early W/U Control"

This deck is legal from the first set. None of these cards come from a single expansion set. Those would add things like Moat, Maze of Ith, and many other tools to the deck. I am using the modern restricted list in order to be nice, and I’m staying away from Power Nine intentionally. Imagine this deck with Mox Pearl, Mox Sapphire, Ancestral Recall, and Time Walk!

You can see the sheer power of cards from just Alpha in this deck. It’s a nasty, nasty, nasty little deck. And this control deck has resonated down through the years. Even modern control decks in Commander use strategies and ideas from this archetype. Modern control decks look quite similar to his decklist.

I’ll show you:

"Later W/U Control"

Can you see how this deck is just a modern take on the original? Trace the threads of Jayemdae Tome through modern options like Staff of Nin. Serra Angel becomes strong flyers, such as Adarkar Valkyrie. Fated Retribution and Day of Judgment also sweep the board. Ancestral Recall and Braingeyser have become Blue Sun's Zenith and Fact or Fiction.

This is how most control decks operate. We have the best pinpoint removal, counters, or discard you can find (making useful one-for-one trades). We have a few powerful, mid- to late-late game creatures. We have some method of gaining mass card advantage via drawing cards. We have ways of gaining virtual card advantage via cards like Wrath of God, Damnation, and Magmaquake. This is how we build a control deck today, and that’s exactly how you built one with the cards from Alpha back then. Very few concepts from the earliest days of Magic have stayed with us as clearly as these.

3. Light Combo

Casual players play a lot of combo decks, but they tend to not be the sorts of decks that play two or three cards and just win the game. From the very beginning, you saw combo decks. You had a deck built around Hurricane and Circle of Protection: Green. You had a deck that used a lot of artifacts that deal damage to everyone along with Circle of Protection: Artifacts and Reverse Polarity. Don’t forget the Megrim discard deck. You saw a lot of synergetic, light, combo decks. And even today, that’s the majority of combo decks at the table.

One of my favorite versions of this deck combined two popular combos of the day into one deck.

"Hypothesized Venomous Enchantress"

This deck just uses cards printed up through The Dark. One of the most popular combos was to run Lure and Regeneration on a Thicket Basilisk. Then, you attack and destroy all non-Walls blocking the Basilisk, you regenerate it to keep going! That was a lot of fun right there. Then, there was the popular Verduran Enchantress deck that played a lot of enchantments on a Rabid Wombat and drew a bunch of cards. So why not combine this mono-green, enchantment-heavy engine with this other engine? And you see this other deck as a result. It’s not the ideal set of cards, I’m sure. I just slapped it together to demonstrate how the deck works. Both the Wombat and the Basilisk want to wear pants.

While this deck is a lot of fun to play, it has a few weaknesses. Auras are weak to removal and potential issues, and the concept is a bit weak today. So let’s strengthen it:

"Refreshed Venomous Enchantress"

Because the Sylvan Basilisk kills blockers as soon and they block, no damage is ever dealt, so you don’t even need Regeneration. We also have the cheaper Hero of Leina Tower, which is sort of like a Rabid Wombat, but you can add a few mana to dole out counters. And it comes out early, so as not to compete with later stuff. We have more targets, and Boon Satyr can play either role rather well. But the best addition is another set of triggers off the Presence.

There are a lot of lighter combos like this that see constant play in Magicdom.

2. Elfball

We have used ramping strategies for a long time. From the first, we had cards like Mana Flare used to fuel a giant Fireball or a Rock Hydra. But it really took a while for green to fully enter the picture. It wasn’t until Legends gave us Untamed Wilds that we thought about green as a color that could put a land into play from its deck. And Nature's Lore, in Ice Age a year later, really solidified that idea. But it wouldn’t be until Rampant Growth and Harrow that the cards were actually good.

Therefore, the modern concept of a “ramp” strategy combining green with another color took some time to congeal. One of the best, earliest ways of doing so was a deck called Elfball that has a tournament pedigree, but it also was a huge hit with casual audiences. Its legacy has endured, and it can be seen in countless decks and formats today.

"Potential Elfball Deck"

It wasn’t until Urza’s block that we really began to see green spewing out mana. This Standard-legal deck (at the time) uses mana elves, fueled by Priest of Titania and Rofellos, as well as Gaea's Cradle, to fuel a giant Fireball effect and blow someone out of the water. Elfball was such an enduring deck that its legacy lives on, with Elfball decks fueling Chord of Calling or blue card-draw (such as Blue Sun's Zenith). And the concept still works today, with very few changes needed:

"Updated Elfball Deck"

And there you are! Again, feel free to put something in if you don’t have the expensive Cradles. They are nice, but they aren’t essential elements of the deck. Like the original version, we have eight Fireball effects and a creature with x in its cost. We have many of the same creatures under the hood. Here, we see the seeds of modern ramp strategies.

And we all know just how prolific ramp strategies are in casual circles. There are scores of Elfball decks without the Elves, just with Cultivate and other effects that turn into big, stompy creatures and effects. Ramp is still among the most dominant archetypes today. But it’s not number one. What is?

1. Tribal

And yes, tribal decks are still the most enduring legacy from the first years. From the first set onward, we have Goblin, Zombie, and Merfolk decks. I can still remember the celebration every time a new set was released with a Goblin, Merfolk, or Zombie in it. Goblin Artisans is in Antiquities! Merfolk Assassin is in The Dark! And then we had a tribal set with Fallen Empires, and everyone suddenly had tribes. Go, Thrulls and Soldiers! Go, Thallids and random crab-things.

Tribe decks have always been everywhere. People love them. They are some of the most popular decks in other games, too. We identify with a group of people, we hold their banners high!

So, let’s take a look at an early tribe, legal as of The Dark, and see what you could do.

"Proffered Tribal"

In fact, many people forget that The Dark was essentially a Goblin tribal set. Goblins were awesome! Everybody loved them. Fallen Empires would add tools such as Goblin Grenade, Goblin Chirurgeon, and the potent Goblin Warrens.

For this entry, I will switch up my tribe. Let’s look at a recent version of another early tribe.

"Fish Sandwish"

Who doesn’t like a side of fish!

So, from Slivers to Zombies, and everything in between, tribal decks have been all of the rage from then until now. And they always will be. We all love ’em!



What archetypes do you really love? Do you disagree with the rankings? What would have made the cut that I left out? Let me know what you think!

See you next week,

Abe Sargent

Order the Born of the Gods Event Deck from CoolStuffInc.com!

TAGS articles, strategy, casual, archetypes, deck lists, decks, abe sargent

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