The Changes

When we left off, the deck looked like this:

"Previously on The Spymaster"

• Creatures (27)
• 1 Lotus Cobra
• 1 Trygon Predator
• 1 Wolfir Silverheart
• 2 Quirion Elves
• 2 River Boa
• 3 Acidic Slime
• 3 Wingcrafter
• 4 Jhessian Infiltrator
• 4 Silhana Ledgewalker
• 2 Meloku the Clouded Mirror
• 4 Edric, Spymaster of Trest

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 1 Garruk Relentless
• 1 Tamiyo, the Moon Sage

• Spells (7)
• 4 Snakeform
• 1 Revenge of the Hunted
• 2 Moonsilver Spear

• Lands (24)
• 3 Island
• 7 Forest
• 1 Vivid Creek
• 2 Vivid Grove
• 3 Soaring Seacliff
• 4 Hinterland Harbor
• 4 Tropical Island

Buy This Deck

As the games I played with the deck started to pile up, I started to realize that the deck just had nothing to find. Drawing extra cards with Edric was great, but it was simply letting me find more small creatures that just weren’t doing enough damage. Wolfir Silverheart and Revenge of the Hunted just weren’t enough to pump up the little guys and make them into finishers. I needed finishers, but I wanted the cheap creatures early to get the card draws. Rather than remove some of the little guys and curve into big beasts, I opted to keep the small creatures and find more ways to pump them. Silverheart and Revenge of the Hunted weren’t bad; they just weren’t showing up often enough. Changes were needed.

−4 Jhessian Infiltrator

+2 Invisible Stalker

I don’t think this needs a whole lot of explanation. When pulling apart another deck, two Invisible Stalkers became available, and I added them to the deck. It’s a creature that is easier to cast, has hexproof, and loses a power and toughness. If I’m going to be targeting my creatures to make them bigger, making it harder for my opponent to remove those creatures just makes sense. The deck will eventually have four Invisible Stalkers when the others come free from other decks. In this deck, they are almost strictly better than Silhana Ledgewalker, so dropping two of those to make room for a full four Stalkers will be easy.

−1 Wingcrafter

−1 Silhana Ledgewalker

I’m still not sure if these moves were the right moves, but I wanted space for the creature-pump spells in the deck, so something had to give. This deck is still weak to flying creatures, so I was reluctant to take even one Wingcrafter out, but since most of my creatures are lousy blockers, holding one back that has evasion seems pointless. I haven’t noticed the missing Ledgewalker with the extra Invisible Stalkers in the deck, so I guess it was the right play. The Ledgewalkers were the workhouses in the earlier versions of the deck, so I was reluctant to see them leave, even when a better creature was replacing it.

−1 Meloku the Clouded Mirror

This was easy. It brings the curve down and eliminates the awkward moment when I draw the second one when the first one is already in play. Adding a pump spell in place of one Meloku just made good sense to the deck as a whole.

−2 Snakeform

+1 Beast Within

+1 Bramblecrush

+1 Confiscate

This is where the bigger changes start. Snakeform is fun, fits the Simic colors, and usually acts as creature removal. I only use it when the creature is attacking and making it into a 1/1 with no abilities will allow me (or someone else!) to block and kill it off. On top of that, it replaces itself with a card-draw, and I like that as well. My problem was that I was too often missing a way to take out other types of permanents. The Trygon Predator and Acidic Slime are great, but there always seemed to be something more that needed to be gone. Beast Within and Bramblecrush deal with those other cards (including pesky planeswalkers).

Confiscate is in the deck mostly because Envy is probably the Deadly Sin I most frequently commit. Everybody else’s stuff always seems so much better than mine! I know that getting rid of the permanent is the best option. I know that a 6-mana Aura is a poor play. I know that by stealing it, I am only risking them taking it right back, but I just want it so badly!

+1 Loxodon Warhammer

+1 Empyrial Plate

+1 Magebane Armor

These are the new pump spells. I have noticed that some players in my metagame are playing cards that remove all copies of a card from the game, so I’ve tried to use one-ofs where I can. It doesn’t hurt that I like variety in my decks, so instead of four copies of one piece of Equipment, there are four different cards.

The Warhammer is pretty obvious. Pump and life-gain are wonderful things, especially on creatures that already have some evasion. The trample is practically a bonus. The Banshee's Blade is slow to start, but that is often a good thing in multiplayer games. I don’t want to do 7 or more damage in the first few turns, and the Blade is pretty unremarkable early on. Empyrial Plate can be ugly immediately, but with this deck, my hand size is generally not too big in the early game, since everything is cheap and can be played out right away. With Edric out there, this card should ramp up the damage very quickly. I find that most of the time, this is just a magnet for artifact removal, but for now, it is staying in. I opted for the Magebane Armor since many of my smaller creatures are susceptible to burn spells. And I haven’t had a chance to put it in a deck yet! It is still a recent addition to the deck, and it will probably get the boot (into my Doran deck), but for now, I want to see it in action and how my opponents react.

This leaves the deck looking like this:

"Spy Report, Self-Destructing in 60…59…"

• Creatures (22)
• 1 Lotus Cobra
• 1 Trygon Predator
• 1 Wolfir Silverheart
• 2 Invisible Stalker
• 2 Quirion Elves
• 2 River Boa
• 2 Wingcrafter
• 3 Acidic Slime
• 3 Silhana Ledgewalker
• 1 Meloku the Clouded Mirror
• 4 Edric, Spymaster of Trest

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 1 Garruk Relentless
• 1 Tamiyo, the Moon Sage

• Spells (12)
• 1 Beast Within
• 2 Snakeform
• 1 Bramblecrush
• 1 Revenge of the Hunted
• 1 Confiscate
• 1 Banshee's Blade
• 1 Empyrial Plate
• 1 Loxodon Warhammer
• 1 Magebane Armor
• 2 Moonsilver Spear

• Lands (24)
• 3 Island
• 7 Forest
• 1 Vivid Creek
• 2 Vivid Grove
• 3 Soaring Seacliff
• 4 Hinterland Harbor
• 4 Tropical Island

Buy This Deck

New Stuff!

Gatecrash brought us the Simic guild and a supply of green and blue cards that may fit in the deck. I’m hardly going to list every card and why it would or would not make the deck, but I’ve included a few that at least initially caught my eye.

Master Biomancer – At 4 mana, this is starting to get expensive, but his upside is just amazing. Even if the Biomancer stays as a 2/4 creature, giving my small, evasive creatures +2/+2 permanently is huge. The Silverheart and the Magebane Armor could easily be replaced with two Master Biomancers.

Rapid Hybridization – I like the cost a lot better than Snakeform, but I won’t be replacing the Snakeform with this any time soon. My deck can easily kill off the 1/1 token made with Snakeform, but the 3/3 is a completely different story. Beast Within also makes a 3/3 Beast to replace what is destroyed, but Beast Within can hit every permanent. I’ll deal with a 3/3 for that benefit.

Simic Charm – Bounce, hexproof, or Giant Growth? Every one of those options is useful in this deck. The Charm will find a place in this deck, probably bumping the Quirion Elves. The mana base is solid with plenty of lands producing both colors, so the Elves are a little redundant for this deck.

Stolen Identity – This deck is built to push small creatures through for little points of damage to draw cards. This would allow me to use Stolen Identity repeatedly. I expect this will replace Confiscate in the deck. Then I can have all the things!

Wasteland Viper – I love deathtouch creatures in multiplayer. No matter how small, they can sit on defense and stop so many attacks. Players are simply not willing to give up even a 3/3 creature to get rid of the deathtouch creature when it can live and attack elsewhere. The problem for this deck is that Edric is supposed to encourage people to attack elsewhere, so the Viper’s defensive aspect would be wasted here. The bloodrush isn’t all that great either. Most of my creatures already have some kind of evasion, so adding deathtouch does little to nothing. In the end, the Viper offers a small power bump to a single attacking creature for one turn. This just isn’t going to be enough.

I will come back to this deck in the future (probably some time after Dragon’s Maze) and follow its continuing evolution. I hope to start seeing the wins increase; otherwise, major changes—or a clean slate—may be required. Any suggestions for future changes to the deck are always appreciated!

Bruce Richard