With Scars of Mirrodin Block being the Constructed format for Pro Tour: Nagoya, I’ve decided it’s time for me to take a look at it. Most Pro Tours are dominated by two to three deck types, but I’ll be taking a look at several different ones here. I started by making a Block version of the Red control deck from my last column:

[cardlist]

[Creatures]

4 Kuldotha Phoenix

[/Creatures]

[Planeswalkers]

4 Koth of the Hammer

[/Planeswalkers]

[Spells]

4 Galvanic Blast

4 Volt Charge

3 Chimeric Mass

4 Contagion Clasp

4 Shrine of Burning Rage

4 Sphere of the Suns

4 Tumble Magnet

[/Spells]

[Lands]

25 Mountain

[/Lands]

[/cardlist]

It was easy to swap Galvanic Blast in place of Lightning Bolt; much of the time, the Blast will be even better than Bolt in this deck. The card I miss the most is Everflowing Chalice. By taking out the Tectonic Edges and adding five more Mountains, I suspect the deck will have enough mana, but it’s obviously slower and less explosive without the Chalices. In the three remaining spots, I’ve added Chimeric Masses. It’s another finishing threat and it benefits from the deck’s Proliferate elements: Volt Charge and Contagion Clasp. After sideboarding, the deck can have access to loads of artifact removal and Slagstorm, which should shore up several matchups.

Another Red deck that should be good in Block is a Kuldotha Rebirth swarm deck:

[cardlist]

[Creatures]

4 Goblin Wardriver

4 Hero of Oxid Ridge

4 Myr Sire

4 Perilous Myr

4 Signal Pest

[/Creatures]

[Spells]

4 Artillerize

4 Kuldotha Rebirth

4 Ichor Wellspring

4 Panic Spellbomb

[/Spells]

[Lands]

16 Mountain

4 Contested War Zone

4 Inkmoth Nexus

[/Lands]

[/cardlist]

Obviously, the deck has a huge gap at 3 in the mana curve, but the hope is to play a 1 and a 2 at 3 mana, in hopes of overwhelming your opponent early. Like most good decks, this one is about combining good cards with lots of tight synergies.

Artillerize – In a swarm deck like this, 5 damage for 4 mana makes for a great finisher. If you draw two of them, it makes it very hard for any opponent to stabilize in time against your early rush. It also helps that few of your opponents will be running creatures that can’t be killed by 5 damage. Yes, it has a drawback, but the deck has sixteen cards that I’m happy to sacrifice, and if it will be lethal, that total jumps to thirty-two.

Kuldotha Rebirth – The early-game sacrifice effect in this deck. This card is a cornerstone to this deck because it’s the best way for the deck to power up its Battle Cry creatures.

Signal Pest, Goblin Wardriver, and Hero of Oxid Ridge – The Myr and the Goblin tokens in this deck are powered up by these twelve creatures’ Battle Cry.

Panic Spellbomb, Ichor Wellspring, Myr Sire, and Perilous Myr – These are the sixteen cards I’m happiest to sacrifice to Kuldotha Rebirth and Artillerize. Playing a Myr Sire on turn three and then sacrificing it to Rebirth sets up a great turn-four Hero. I also love playing Wellspring and immediately turning it into Goblins. Sacrificing Perilous Myr to Artillerize creates 7 points of damage that makes for incredible finishing power.

The other obvious creature swarm deck uses Tempered Steel:

[cardlist]

[Creatures]

4 Hex Parasite

4 Memnite

4 Porcelain Legionnaire

4 Signal Pest

4 Vault Skirge

[/Creatures]

[Spells]

4 Dispatch

4 Tempered Steel

4 Chimeric Mass

4 Glint Hawk Idol

[/Spells]

[Lands]

16 Plains

4 Contested War Zone

4 Inkmoth Nexus

[/Lands]

[/cardlist]

The main problem with this deck is that it can be pretty weak if you don’t draw Tempered Steel, especially if your opponent is playing with a card like Slagstorm. With luck, cards like Glint Hawk Idol and Chimeric Mass will give you some resiliency in those situations. Signal Pest and Contested War Zone help give your swarm some potency if you don’t draw Tempered Steel, but the power difference in the two scenarios is pretty dramatic.

Porcelain Legionnaire – 3 power of First Strike that you can play on turn two is already a big early threat. With cards like Signal Pest, Tempered Steel, and Contested War Zone, it becomes almost impossible to block effectively.

Dispatch – If you have Metalcraft, it’s actually the best creature-removal card in Magic. (Compare to Swords to Plowshares, long considered the gold standard in removal cards.)

Hex Parasite – 1-drop artifact creatures are obviously a fine fit in a Tempered Steel deck, but this is also a card I selected for the deck with an eye for the metagame. They are so many good cards in the environment that use counters that there will probably be lots of cool opportunities to use this ability. Even ignoring your opponent’s deck for the moment, it can combo well with Chimeric Mass in this deck. If your opponent is waiting for you to activate your giant Mass for them to use creature removal on it, you can still use the Mass’s counters on the Parasite when he kills the Mass.

The other monocolored deck that I’m excited about is mono-Black:

[cardlist]

[Creatures]

4 Entomber Exarch

4 Fume Spitter

4 Phyrexian Obliterator

4 Phyrexian Rager

4 Leaden Myr

[/Creatures]

[Spells]

4 Geth's Verdict

4 Lashwrithe

4 Ratchet Bomb

4 Sphere of the Suns

[/Spells]

[Lands]

24 Swamp

[/Lands]

[/cardlist]

As usual, Black has many cards that are much better if you’re playing a monocolored deck: Lashwrithe, Phyrexian Obliterator, and Geth's Verdict. Ideally, I can use Fume Spitters and Ratchet Bombs to make my Geth's Verdicts most effective. The main weakness of Black in this block is the bloat in the mana curve at 4. I’m not even main-decking Skinrenders, and I still ended up with twelve 4-drops. By playing with Sphere of the Suns, Leaden Myr, and Phyrexian Ragers, I hope I’ll quickly get to 4 mana and it won’t usually be too much of an issue. The deck uses Obliterators and Lashwrithes as pressure/finishers and Ragers, Exarchs, and Ratchet Bombs for card advantage. The Lashwrithes are especially cool in this deck, because I can play one and immediately equip it to a Spitter or a Leaden Myr for the win.

Perhaps the coolest card to build a deck around in block is Birthing Pod:

[cardlist]

[Creatures]

1 Acid Web Spider

1 Brutalizer Exarch

1 Entomber Exarch

1 Massacre Wurm

2 Phyrexian Rager

2 Skinrender

2 Viridian Corrupter

4 Viridian Emissary

1 Molten-Tail Masticore

1 Peace Strider

1 Precursor Golem

2 Myr Sire

4 Perilous Myr

1 Glissa, the Traitor

1 Sheoldred, Whispering One

1 Thrun, the Last Troll

[/Creatures]

[Spells]

4 Birthing Pod

4 Mimic Vat

[/Spells]

[Lands]

13 Forest

13 Swamp

[/Lands]

[/cardlist]

The key to abusing the Pod is playing with some cheap creatures that do something cool on their way to the graveyard and then a bunch of more expensive creatures that do something cool when they come into play. It’s also important to have cool creatures at every point in the curve. In this deck, I have ten creatures at 2 that do something useful when I sacrifice them to Birthing Pod. I have five 3-drops, six 4-drops, two 5-drops, two 6-drops, and one 7-drop. Of these sixteen creatures, twelve of them have ETB effects. I’ve tried to cover a variety of scenarios with my creatures. I can destroy artifacts, gain life, kill a creature, kill multiple creatures, draw a card, do direct damage, fetch land etc.

In addition, a deck like this is perfect for some one-of Legendary creatures. It helps that Black and Green have some pretty cool Legendary creatures for me to put into this deck: Glissa, the Traitor, Thrun, the Last Troll, and Sheoldred, Whispering One. Legends are usually at their best when you can only ever draw one copy, but you can search for that one copy if you want it. Birthing Pod gives you this flexibility.

Mimic Vat seems like a perfect pairing with Birthing Pod. Every time I sacrifice a creature to Birthing Pod, I have the option of putting it into my Mimic Vat. In the case of my twelve 187 creatures, that is especially powerful. Using a Mimic Vat to create an Entomber Exarch or a Precursor Golem every turn can be absurdly powerful.

These decks obviously don’t cover every single potentially viable deck in Scars Block Constructed. At the very least, I expect people to also try Infect, equipment, Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas, and graveyard-based strategies. Just be sure that if you’re making your own Block deck, you’re ready for Koth decks, swarm decks, artifact decks, and Birthing Pod decks, because they’re sure to be out there.