So why did Pramikon, Sky Rampart bring all these great memories back? Attack Right.

Back in "the Day," we played Attack Right exclusively. The games went faster and everyone wanted to get in as many games as possible each night. The rules are pretty straightforward and obvious: you can only attack the person on your right. Everything else still applied. Lightning Bolts could land anywhere. Wrath of God still took out all the creatures. The only difference is that you can only attack the person on your right.

Yes, creatures with Myriad aren't great in this variant and no, that wasn't an issue twenty years ago.

I thought I would go through some of the strategy involved in Attack Right* so those of you building Pramikon have a sense of what to watch for, and those of you playing against Pramikon aren't left trying to work it out on the fly. While it seems relatively straightforward, there are a few surprises you don't really think about until you are into the game.

Combo is King

I am not a big fan of the instant win 2-card combo, but this format really favors all kinds of combo. One of the primary ways to stop the combo player is by having everyone attack them. A group assault can often result in the combo player dead before they can make the combo happen. Attack Right means that it is only one player doing the attacking. This usually means more time for the combo player to go off. For Pramikon players, this means that if you have that Rube Goldberg combo that never seems to work because you never have enough time, this might be the deck for you. This leads directly to the next point.

You Can't Rely on Your Creatures to Do All the Work

With the ability to attack anyone, if your deck is weak on enchantment removal, you can focus your attack on them. Weak spots in your deck-build can be covered by swinging at players who would expose those weaknesses. With Attack Right, that isn't an option. The deck-building for this variant demands a little more balance in the deck. The value of removal climbs even higher. Targeted removal is more important too. The ability to remove all the creatures in the game is still valuable, but most of those creatures weren't hurting us, they were hurting our opponents. Targeted removal means we can take out the best blocking creatures in front of us, or the most vicious attackers from behind. We can also go after those permanents that are affecting everyone that we can't stand, but also can't stop by attacking.

Do We Really Want to Attack?

When most players look at the format, they see it as freeing. Rather than defending against three possible attacks, they only have to defend against one. And there is no risk of offending someone when you attack them; they are your only option! This leads players to charge in full speed, shifting into full on Aggro deck mode.

I love it when this happens, since one of my favorite strategies is to sit back and defend. If we let the player on our right know that we will not attack them, they don't even need to keep blockers back. This allows the two of us to take out the other two opponents. We are foiling all the attacks against us since we aren't wasting resources trying to attack, while the person on our right isn't wasting resources trying to protect themselves!

Obviously, this can only last so long. Once the attacking player gets close to eliminating the other player, they know we are getting ready to come for them, so the whole setup starts to come undone. In the meantime, we have likely stockpiled some ugly threats in hand and probably don't even need to resort to backstabbing. We can let them know that we can't make any more promises and go to town... or we can just backstab them before they realize what happened! Whichever you prefer.

Location

So I know this is going to sound silly, but pick where you sit carefully. You do not want to be sitting on the right of the player in the group who is known to run aggro decks. They will be focused on you right out of the gates and you don't want that. We want that Aggro player sitting on our right. They will be more amenable going with our plan since it agrees with what they want to do anyway.

This is less of a concern if we are attacking one way because of Pramikon, Sky Rampart. Then we just choose the most appropriate direction and go from there! Or perhaps we can take all of this a step further...

Deck-Building

So what do you build for Pramikon? I'm still working on a full-fledged deck, but here are a few basics to consider.

Vigilance. Vigilant creatures are great in free-for-alls, but especially good in Attack Right. There is always someone gunning for you and these creatures do double duty.

Planeswalkers. Only one creature attacking us, so the planeswalkers should be even more protected than normal.

The Monarch. There are two ways to lose the Monarch. One of them is if someone else plays a card that makes them the Monarch, and the other is if we take combat damage. With only one player attacking us, keeping the Monarch should be easier, especially if we are letting someone else do all the attacking around the board!

Protection. Players are going to be watching for the right moment to destroy Pramikon. Perhaps they see another player with the shields down because the player that can attack them only has one creature out. Perhaps they are getting smacked by the Powerhouse Player in the game and they want to give others a chance to hit the PP, or just give the PP the opportunity to go after someone else. Perhaps their deck is just really designed to embrace the free-for-all. For whatever reason, we'll want ways to protect Pramikon, or understand that the Attack Right that we've prepared for, can disappear in the blink of an eye.

Blink. Speaking of blink, this is where things get interesting! We are really going to want this with Pramikon. I've talked about Attack Right being a format where only one player attacks us. With blink effects, suddenly no one is attacking us! Just blink Pramikon and suddenly Attack Right is Attack Left! We can set it up so the strongest player is being attacked by the players on either side while we are never attacked. Be warned though, it won't be long until the other players realize that all of them are getting attacked from both sides and just stop attacking. Then we are going to have to explain why it is still in their best interests to keep attacking while we are never attacked!

Blink effects also means that it is that much harder to destroy Pramikon. Use the blink effects to dodge mass removal and targeted removal. It is also nice to have them when Pramikon isn't out there since you can blink your tapped creatures so they are ready for defense if needed.

Goad. Goading opponents' creatures sounds like a pointless idea for Attack Right. The creatures can only attack one way, so why run goad? It will force their creatures to attack. We can goad the creatures of the player on our right to attack the player on their right. Then on our turn, their defenses are down and we can swing hard. When the player on our left starts their turn, we blink Pramikon and they are swinging away from us. Then the player at the opposite end of the table is also swinging at the currently defenseless player on our right.

Theft. Stealing creatures is a great play in regular games, but here it can be great. We can steal a creature that would be attacking us and sacrifice it after we attack. Suddenly it isn't swinging at us and they can't use it for defense. We can steal a creature from someone that isn't attacking us. We can use it and return it without even killing it, and there is no guilt since they are just going to use it against someone else!

For those who haven't played it, Attack Right doesn't sound like it is all that different. Those players see Pramikon, Sky Rampart as a silly legend with an ability that doesn't do anything. I'll be sharing a decklist with you in the coming weeks, but in the meantime, I recommend you take it out for a spin and surprise them with just how strong this card can be!

Bruce Richard

@manaburned

* I keep referring to it as Attack Right. It can be Attack Left if you want, but Attack Right generally means that each player is attacked by the player immediately after their turn is over. This gives them several turns to consider their course of action, then only have to make changes if the overall board state changes. It is just a faster game that way.