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Some of my favorite Magic articles were written by Jay Moldenhauer-Salazar during his stint at magicthegathering.com as the Building on a Budget guy. Of that body of work, the pieces I always looked forward to the most were his "Preconstructing" series. If you aren't familiar with the concept, JMS would take a preconstructed deck from the most recent set and, over the course of a few weeks, tune it into a deck good enough for an FNM or maybe some wins in the tournament practice room.
He could never make the deck a real contender, however, partly because he was purposefully going in an interesting new direction from the known tournament decks, but mostly because he worked under a strict budget. I always had a sizeable collection (mostly due to sharing cards with a team, a practice I definitely recommend), so I would often Wonder what those decks would look like fully loaded.
Which brings us to today. In honor of the greatest BoaB writer ever (Sorry, Jacob Van Lunen!), I'm going to try my hand at crafting a serviceable tournament deck out of the pile of the junk they sell to kids for 12.99 a pop. I'm not going to work with a budget per se, but I'm not rich, so I'm going to work mostly with what I have in my collection or can trade for easily. Luckily, I have most Standard staples already.
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Perhaps you're wondering, "Gee Brad, if I have Jaces and Primeval Titan already, what would I be interested in building a deck out of a precon? I'll just copy the winning decklists I find online!"
Well Steve (all imaginary people are Steves to me), the purpose of this article, unlike Jay's, is not to show you how to turn your 12.99 plus two weeks of milk money into a kitchen table masterpiece. It's about taking Inspiration from an unlikely source and exploring the themes of a new set (okay, not so new anymore). It's about discovering tournament viable cards by pushing these precons to their limits. It's about the deck building process as a whole. It's about me losing D.I. tix screwing around in 2-man Standard queues with glorified block decks.
That said, if you're still with me, let's take a look at what we're working with.
A quick glance through the decklists for Scars of Mirrodin intro decks shows that we don't have many choices. There's the poison deck, but there's only one real direction to go with that strategy and I think we've all had enough of being poisoned(!!!) by turn three. There's a green-red beatdown deck filled to the brim with artifact removal, which isn't the greatest in the current Standard environment (though adding a set of Liquimetal Coating to the mix could be fun). There's a Myr deck, and while I think it would be fun to work on the Myr Galvinizer-Splinter Twin combo, Van Lunen already beat me to the punch weeks ago.
I actually spent a day tinkering with the Proliferate deck they call Deadspread. I added Jaces, played some games, proliferated my Everflowing Chalice up to 7, and it all worked out pretty well. Of course, before I could share my work with the world, I read a Sam Black article featuring a deck with pretty much all the same cards. Then Conley Woods made a video in which he developed a mono-blue proliferate control deck. I'm no conformist (I listen to the Cure after all), so I'm going to preconstruct a different deck. But because I don't want all that work to go to waste, here's where the list was at when I stopped:
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"Prochoicerate"
That leaves us with only one precon left! It’s called Metalcraft, and its theme is, oddly enough, metalcraft. Take a look:
[cardlist]
12 Island
12 Mountain
1 Argent Sphinx
2 Blade-Tribe Berserkers
3 Chrome Steed
2 Embersmith
1 Etched Champion
2 Iron Myr
2 Lumengrid Drake
2 Memnite
2 Riddlesmith
2 Silver Myr
3 Snapsail Glider
2 Trinket Mage
1 Accorder's Shield
1 Darksteel Axe
1 Disperse
1 Echo Circlet
3 Galvanic Blast
1 Golem Foundry
1 Golem's Heart
2 Rusted Relic
1 Sylvok Lifestaff
[/cardlist]
First things first, let's take our new wheels for a ride. For now, I'll play in the casual room on MTGO. We aren't yet in fighting shape.
Game 1 – White/Blue Allies
I know I'm in trouble when he plays a Hada Freeblade on turn one. My hand is Riddlesmith, Iron Myr, Etched Champion, Blade-Tribe Berserkers, and land; about as good as it gets.
He follows up the Freeblade with a Halimar Excavator, while I draw Silver Myr and play it. He plays a Jwari Shapeshifter, which becomes another Excavator and mills me for six. I play Riddlesmith and the other Myr, but I'm not drawing anything to slow my opponent down. His next few turns are Umara Raptor, Join the Ranks, Ondu Cleric, which is enough to mill me out.
Etched Champion was pretty good for me this game. I equipped it with Accorder's Shield and threatened 2 unblockable damage every turn, plus it blocked his best guy every turn. Riddlesmith also proved his worth, as I suspected. I'm worried that the deck doesn't have enough ways to interact with the opponent, while also not doing anything unfair enough to justify that Weakness. We'll see.
Game 2 – Vampires
I mulligan into Island, Mountain, Memnite, Darksteel Axe, Silver Myr, Rusted Relic. Nice! But my opponent is on the play and has a Blade of the Bloodchief – bad news for my deck with little removal. I play Memnite and the Axe, and he spends his turn two Duressing away my Relic. I'm worried about Disfigure (I don't want to get timewalked by Equipping the Axe), so I simply attack for one and play Silver Myr.
He plays a Bloodghast but doesn't have a third land to pay the Blades equip cost. Our draw is a good one: Blade-Tribe Berserkers. We play it and attack for 7, which he can't block. He plays a Vampire Lacerator, equips Bloodghast with the Blade, and passes the turn without playing a land again.
I decide to play a Snapsail Glider instead of equipping the Axe, and simply attack for three with the Berserkers. He chumps with Lacerator, making his Bloodghast a 4/3. One his turn, he plays Viscera Seer and equips it with the Blade. He also attacks for four, which I take.
My plan was to equip the Axe to Memnite and attack with that, Berserkers, and the Glider, but drawing an Etched Champion changes all that. Champion seems incredibly good here, so I simply attack with the 3/3 and the Flyer. He blocks the ground creature, Sacrifice Bloodghast to Scry and pump the Seer to 3/3, and we trade men. I play Champion post-combat.
On his turn, he casts Duress, seeing Snapsail Glider, and concedes.
Once again Champion is better than anticipated, and I also got to see what an explosive start looks like out of our deck. The Blade-Tribe Berserkers were surprisingly good as well. Obviously, Snapsail Glider was underwhelming.
Game 3 – Blue/White Control
My opening hand is Memnite, Iron Myr, Rusted Relic, Riddlesmith, Embersmith, Island, Mountain. Snap keep! Our opponent plays a Wall of Omens and some blue/white dual lands, while we slowroll our Memnite in order to gain some value from our ‘smiths. Riddlesmith keeps us comfortably at fours lands and all relevant spells, while Embersmith chips away at his life total. Still, Wall of Omens is keeping him comfortable, and two Deprive keep us off metalcraft for a turn, so our Relic remains rusty. The following turn I stick a Sylvok Lifestaff and our golem comes to life. He chump blocks the 5/5 with his wall, so I suspect a Day of Judgment the following turn.
He starts tapping mana, and I start complaining silently to myself about competitive decks in the casual room (an unbreakable habit of mine, I'm Sorry). Then he plays Halimar Excavator. Then he plays Rite of Replication on my Golem (he doesn't have metalcraft). Then he says, "lol, gg" and concedes. Hm, didn't see that series of events happening.
I was happy to see my ‘smiths active and effective, as they were what drew me to the deck the most. Riddlesmith was particularly important, as I got to discard my Golem's Heart and Golem Foundries and get to the good stuff faster. I'm a huge fan of bears (even with small butts) that have good abilities. Plus, if all goes according to plan, I'll be able to name the deck The Smiths. I am human, and I need to be loved.
At this point in my testing, the servers went down for maintenance. It never fails: every time I set aside a few hours to play, the MTGO gremlins decide to pull the rug out from under me. Oh, and it doesn't help that scheduled maintenance occurs on my only day off.
The deck is performing pretty well, although we are only .500 against Halimar Excavator. Let's make some upgrades and see if we can't improve that average.
Upgrades!
One thing I've been happy with is how often we hit metalcraft. I thought it would be a little tougher, as a recent article by but even through Counterspell I've have had no problem getting to three. This tells me the artifact count is roughly correct at 22 (note that the inclusion of cards that need metalcraft earlier, like Mox Opal, would necessitate running more artifacts).
-1 Echo Circlet
-3 Chrome Steed
A Wind Drake just doesn't cut it these days, although it served an important role as an artifact creature. He both helped metalcraft, and carried equipment. We should fill this hole with another robot, if possible.
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Circlet and Heart aren't even good enough for limited. Accorder's Shield was fine, but there's better cheap equipment out there.
The Steed seems worse than Rusted Relic most of the time, and is certainly worse than the card I have in mind for that spot.
+2 Memnite
Memnite is the most efficient way for an aggressive metalcraft deck to power up. The turn sequence of Memnite, Darksteel Axe, equip is pretty strong, so I bumped it up one. Etched Champion took Chrome Steed's place, and I'm really excited to see what I can do with a set of them. Chimeric Mass is great at any point in the game, and can be fetched with Trinket Mage. I also included Basilisk Collar as a bullet for the Mage to find. Wait a minute… we have Collar, the Trinket Mage to find it reliably, and we're red? AND we need a good way to Disrupt the opponent's gameplan? I know just the man for the job.
+1 Trinket Mage
I cut some rather clumsy metalcraft guys. If I wanted something like Lumengrid Drake, I'd probably just play Aether Adept instead. The Berserkers were good for us, but his lack of trample really hurts his playability. The opponent can simply chump block for a turn, and then all I have is a Hill Giant. Meh.
A couple small things:
-2 Island
-2 Mountain
-1 Disperse
Blast is at its best in this deck, while Disperse is merely average. I do like having an answer to noncreature permanents, but I don't think Disperse is what I'm looking for. The basics-for-Tarns swap seemed like a no-brainer. I may need to reevaluate the 50-50 split in the mana base eventually, but this is fine for now.
There are some other changes I'd like to make, but I'll have patience and see how the new additions affect the deck first. Oh yeah, I can't. Stupid maintenance times!
Here's the list, while we're waiting:
"Mr. and Mrs. Smith v1.0"
- (60)
- 4 Scalding Tarn
- 10 Island
- 10 Mountain
- 1 Argent Sphinx
- 2 Embersmith
- 4 Etched Champion
- 2 Iron Myr
- 4 Memnite
- 2 Riddlesmith
- 2 Silver Myr
- 3 Trinket Mage
- 3 Cunning Sparkmage
- 2 Chimeric Mass
- 1 Basilisk Collar
- 2 Darksteel Axe
- 4 Galvanic Blast
- 1 Golem Foundry
- 2 Rusted Relic
- 1 Sylvok Lifestaff
An hour later, and we're back in business.
Game 4 – Stealy Blue
Embersmith, 2 mana Myr, Golem Foundry, Rusted Relic, and two lands is good enough to keep. His first play is a turn three Palladium Myr, while we set up shop with Embersmith and Golem Foundry.
Then he Domesticates my Embersmith. Then he Volition Reigns my Foundry. Then he plays Roil Elemental and takes my Rusted Relic.
I don't find a Galvanic Blast or a Cunning Sparkmage to go with the Collar I draw, and I soon die to my own cards.
Game 5 – Blue/Black Proliferate Infect
My opening of Iron Myr, Golem Foundry + Basilisk Collar, Silver Myr + Etched Champion + make a Golem is no match for his turn three Corpse Cur (off a Chalice), turn four Thrumming Bird. The Bird pecks away at my poison count, aided by Throne of Geth and Steady Progress. I can barely get damage through, as he has chaining Corpse Cur blocking every turn. I never see a Blast, Sparkmage, or Embersmith, and I eventually lose.
I kept the Foundry in the deck in the hopes that I would get a chance to try it, and I did, two games in a row. As expected, the card is awful. I wouldn't probably wouldn't play a vanilla three mana, 3/3 artifact creature, and waiting at least two turns to get it is even worse. Sure, there's an outside chance that I'll get two or three golems in a long game, but it's not worth including what is essentially a blank in the early turns. Maybe someday there will be a combo deck involving Golem Foundry, Memnite, and a way to bounce Memnite an infinite amount of times to create infinite golems. Until then, I'm closing down the Foundry.
Game 6 – Monowhite Control
My hand is Galvanic Blast (woohoo!), Iron Myr, Etched Champion, Basilisk Collar, and 3 land. I keep. My opponent starts the ball rolling with Luminarch Ascension, while we draw Cunning Sparkmage (woohoo!). Our start is Collar, Myr, Etched Champion and Darksteel Axe. This is when our opponent drops a Day of Judgment.
Okay, that's bad for us, but between Sparkmage, Blast, and the Trinket Mage we just drew (to get Chimeric Idol), the Luminarch Ascension should never get to four.
Then he plays Contagion Clasp. Nice!
He also has Wall of Omens and Sun Titan to provide defense and offense, respectively. Sparkmage-Collar comes online, but my opponent already has three angels. Good game.
Game 7 – Blue/Green Ramp
I mulligan the old all land/no land into a five card hand of Island, Mountain, both ‘smiths, and Darksteel Axe. By the time I draw a land or a spell I can cast, my opponent has six lands and an Oracle of Mul Daya in play. I'm waiting for the Primeval Titan that will do me in, and instead, all of his Explore and Preordain and Treasure Hunt lead to… Garruk's Packleader? And then another one? There's got to be a reason he's leaving three Terramorphic Expanse uncracked, and I just hope I can find a Collar to go with my Cunning Sparkmage before I find out what it is.
I don't. Turns out, it's Rampaging Baloths. He makes five Beasts that turn and draws twelve cards. Awesome!
Alright, four losses in a row is enough. Time for some serious changes.
The problem this time around isn't just that we're playing some bad cards. The problem is that our deck is unfocused. How do I actually plan on winning the game? Is it by equipping Memnite on turn two and bashing until Galvanic Blast can finish it? Is it by playing control with Sparkmage-Collar, while fetching silver bullets with Trinket Mage? Both are viable directions to take the deck, and we simply need to decide which way to go.
I have some ideas for the aggro version, but for now, let's look at a controlling build.
"The Smiths v1.0"
That's more like it! The equipment, Memnite, and Myr have been replaced by Prophetic Prism, Everflowing Chalice, and a Brittle Effigy. I liked the Collar and Embersmith interaction, but Riddlesmith just seemed more important as a card selection engine, allowing us to find what we need, when we need it. Kuldotha Phoenix is a fine finisher and also serves as a great Planeswalker assassin. The triple red could be difficult to assemble, but we have Prisms helping out. If red mana is a problem, the Tectonic Edge might have to go. Our Blasts and Sparkmages are now accompanied by a suite of Counterspell so we can answer non-creature problems as well. Wurmcoil Engine is just good. Just all-around good.
I don't feel comfortable playing Counterspell and the Sparkmage combo in the casual room, so I took it to Tournament Practice for this round of testing.
Game One – Jerkface
My opponent, who I will lovingly refer to as Jerkface, is playing Pyromancer's Ascension. Now, that deck isn't the greatest to test against pre-sideboard, as it basically just goldfishes like your deck doesn't exist. Still, that's not why Jerkface made me mad.
He spends turn one Preordaining for four minutes. Yeah, four. I play a land and pass. He plays See Beyond and this time it's only a minute (that's still a long time). On my turn, I play Prophetic Prism, and my opponent concedes on the spot.
Come on! I just waited five minutes for you to just quit when you see a nonconventional card? Argh!
Game Two – Red Deck Wins
My hand is Mountain, Tectonic Edge, Tectonic Edge, Everflowing Chalice, Everflowing Chalice, Etched Champion, Cunning Sparkmage. Questionable, but I keep. I open on a turn two Chalice, and my opponent plays Ember Hauler. I play my second Chalice and the Etched Champion, which is apparently awesome against red decks.
His plays a Geopede, but I have the Sparkmage to kill it on my turn. He immediately Bolts the Sparkmage, and on his turn he plays Koth. He animates a Mountain, but still has no good attacks.
By now I've drawn Galvanic Blast, which takes out Koth (I knew there was a reason I played Blast over Bolt!). He has a Spikeshot Elder, but I rip another Blast. How lucky.
I have a couple Counterspell sitting dead in my hand while my deck refuses to cough up Island. Luckily, I draw a Chimeric Mass and play it for five, which prompts the concession from my opponent. It remains to be seen whether or not my deck can actually win a game by means other than rage quit.
Game Three – Blue/Green Mill
This was a wacky one. My opponent leads with Hedron Crab, which I Galvanic Blast. I play Riddlesmith, and he answers with another Crab, plus a Terramorphic to mill me for six. In those six cards, plus the five that he Tome Scour me for next turn, all three of my remaining Blasts get milled. Ruh-Roh.
For nearly the entire game the board is as such: I have Riddlesmith, Etched Oracle, and Cunning Sparkmage. He has Hedron Crab and Wall of Tanglecord. I can't draw artifacts to turn on the two Kuldotha Phoenixes in my ‘yard, I can't draw Trinket Mage for Basilisk Collar, and I can't draw another Sparkmage to shoot the Crab dead. It would be frustrating if it weren't so infuriating.
Instead, I'm drawing counters. I Mana Leak two Traumatize, and then Stoic Rebuttal the third that he Call to Mind for. I get in for three, he mills for six. I get in for three, he mills for six.
I go down to three cards in my deck, and he's at four. My draw step yields… a Stoic Rebuttal. I put him to one, but I'm dead if he draws any land.
He draws Tome Scour and preemptively types out the GG's. "GG indeed," I quip, and slam (metaphorically) the Rebuttal. He dies to a ping on my upkeep.
Game Four, Five, Six – Valakut Ramp
I wasn't having any luck finding opponents for a single game, so I decided to play a whole match. I play Riddlesmith on turn two, followed by an Everflowing Chalice and a Galvanic Blast for his turn three Oracle of Mul Daya. He quickly ramps into Wurmcoil Engine, but I have Trinket Mage to find a Brittle Effigy and take care of it. He also plays a pair of Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle, but I've been holding on to two Tectonic Edge for just such an occasion.
My Riddlesmith allows me to dig for Counterspell as he begins unloading his Primeval Titan. I'm able to Stoic Rebuttal two of them, and my two-power guys plus Cunning Sparkmage have him on a pretty short clock. I know all of the contents of his hand thanks to another Oracle of Mul Daya, save for one card, which he's been saving. Turns out it's an Avenger of Zendikar, and I'm fresh out of counters.
Still, I have a Cunning Sparkmage that can put him to six at the end of his turn. I draw Kuldotha Phoenix, which, combined with the Sparkmage, can put him at one. I die next turn to a swarm of angry plants.
Game two starts off terribly, as I mulligan to five. I'm just going through the motions, ready to start the next match, when I realize that not only did he mulligan to five, he's stuck on one land as well! I draw land after land until I get to five, and then rip a Phoenix, while he's sitting on a full hand and two Mountain. After the Phoenix hits him twice he concedes in frustration.
The third game is another close one, as I have answers for each of his first three threats. At the same time, however, he's been casting Pyroclasm and Lightning Bolt to keep me with no board. I'm praying for Kuldotha Phoenix, but I never draw one. Eventually he draws Valakut, and I haven't seen a Tectonic Edge. He's able to drop lands until I'm dead.
Even though I lost, I was impressed with the deck in what I felt was a bad matchup. Most of all, I fell in love with Kuldotha Phoenix. I think that guy has potential. I felt like, with the right sideboard, I could have won this one.
So I set to work on a sideboard…
Whoops, out of time!
Next week, I'll put the finishing touches on The Smiths (including a sideboard), and try out a more aggressive take on the Metalcraft deck. If you liked/hated this article, and would like to see/couldn't stand any more Under Preconstructions (perhaps when Mirrodin Besieged comes out), please let me know in the comments.
Brad Wojceshonek
BradWoj at Gmail dot com
BJWoj on Twitter
