Maga, Basher of Faces

Posted on May 25, 2010

As I write this I'm preparing for a fun five day, six night stay in sunny (or rainy as the case may be) San Juan, Puerto Rico. In case you are unawares the Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour makes a stop in San Juan this weekend and I'm fortunate enough to be on the judge staff! Judging at a professional event can be a lot of fun and is a very rewarding experience and I'm looking forward to the challenge.

It's often helpful to enter an event of that magnitude with certain goals in mind. I have a few and I'd like to share them with you all. The first goal is to continue on the path toward level three. I've been working toward level three for a while now and a large event like this is a fantastic learning opportunity. I love discussing policy and penalties and what better group of people than judges who are all higher level than me?

My next goal is of course to battle! With a group of approximately a million players getting in games all around me it's pretty hard not to want to shuffle up and turn guys sideways. Sure, there are discussions to attend, but that's sort of like EDH methadone, it only gets the job done for so long. In San Juan I fully intend on bringing my favorite two decks to duel with, Progenitus and Maga. I consider Progenitus to be a fantastic multiplayer EDH deck, but have been told recently that Maga kind of goes for the throat for a casual deck. I've been retooling the deck to change that and give it more of a Timmy feel.

There have of course been rampant changes to Progenitus as well including two new planeswalkers and a horde of other changes! Those changes will have to wait until next week however, this week is dedicated to 'Maga, Crusher of Dreams.' I have decided to take the training wheels of Maga so to speak and make some changes that make the deck both more fun and certainly optimal.

As a quick refresher, here is the last MBC list we used:

[cardlist]1 Maga, Traitor to Mortals

1 Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni

1 Helm of Obedience

1 Mindslaver

1 Mind Twist

1 Eternity Vessel

1 Sanguine Bond

1 Beacon of Unrest

1 Mirari

1 Myojin of Night's Reach

1 Mind Shatter

1 Chainer, Dementia Master

1 Puppeteer Clique

1 Promise of Power

1 Undead Gladiator

1 Phyrexian Arena

1 Wound Reflection

1 Scroll Rack

1 Sculpting Steel

1 Whetwheel

1 Grim Discovery

1 Helldozer

1 Syphon Mind

1 Sign in Blood

1 Relic of Progenitus

1 Mind Sludge

1 Tower of Murmurs

1 Mutilate

1 Damnation

1 Hero's Demise

1 Tendrils of Corruption

1 Decree of Pain

1 Duplicant

1 Death Cloud

1 Oblivion Stone

1 Neverinyrral's Disk

1 Bane of the Living

1 Consume Spirit

1 Corrupt

1 Barter in Blood

1 Innocent B lood

1 Reiver Demon

1 Doubling Cube

1 Altar of Shadows

1 Magus of the Coffers

1 Solemn Simulacrum

1 Coalition Relic

1 Extraplanar Lens

1 Gauntlet of Power

1 Sol Ring

1 Mind Stone

1 Coldsteel Heart

1 Liliana Vess

1 Crucible of Worlds

1 Expedition Map

1 Sensei's Divining Top

1 Demonic Tutor

1 Beseech the Queen

1 Diabolic Tutor

1 Demonic Collusion

1 Planar Portal

1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

1 Cabal Coffers

1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse

1 Temple of the False God

1 Vesuva

1 Unholy Grotto

1 Urza's Factory

32 Swamp[/cardlist]

The first changes I made were to add in a few cards that make things just so much more efficient. Sorin Markov is difficult for some decks to remove and just sometimes completely unfair. It's also worth mentioning that even though this is supposed to be an improvement I would highly recommend using Sorin in a defensive way (his second ability). Just taking someone out of the game on turn three or so isn't any fun for anyone. In order to make room for Sorin I removed Reiver Demon. Creatures have such a short shelf life that odds are pretty good there were very few for the demon to really take care of when he hit the battlefield anyway.

My next change was to get rid of Sanguine Bond. I originally had some grandiose dreams of gaining tons of life off of Eternity Vessel and killing entire tables at a time! As it turns out situations like that just don't happen. What makes matters worse is that I simply do not have a large enough stash of life gain effects to have any residual damage. A simple switch is Sanguine Bond for the tutory goodness of Vampiric Tutor. I'm not sure how much I have to say about Vamp Tutor that hasn't already been said. If you are running black and not on a budget then this card should probably make the cut.

Now that we've run through the older changes let's see what Rise of the Eldrazi brings to the table! Rise brings a great new piece of mana accel in the form of Dreamstone Hedron. I like Ancestral Recall. I also like Mindstone. Dreamstone Hedron is as close as we get to having both. Dreamstone Hedron takes the place of Extraplanar Lens which has been problematic at best. There are simply too many ways to destroy artifacts and enchantments for me to sacrifice a land only to have my mana doubled for at most a turn.

There are a ton of fun mill effects in this deck and Rise gives us yet another toy to add to the mix, Keening Stone. Keening Stone makes graveyards fat in a hurry giving us great targets for Beacon of Unrest and of course Chainer, Dementia Master. In order to make room for Keening Stone, Innocent Blood is getting the axe. Innocent Blood is one of the tougher cuts to make, however with the other amounts of mass removal in the deck I feel like one small removal spell can hit the bench. I will certainly revisit the lack of targeting in the future if shroud becomes an issue in my area.

Altar of Shadows costs approximately a million mana and really never got online in practice. Fortunately, Rise has given monoblack an excellent new tool to deal with things, All is Dust. All is Dust replaces Innocent Blood since it requires permanents to be sacrificed meaning regeneration and indestructible effects are nothing for us to worry about. All is Dust also helps rid enchantments, something black is historically weak against. Finally, All is Dust is fantastic against planeswalkers, another big problem area.

The final three non-land cards should not be too much of a surprise, Ulamog, Emrakul, and Kozilek. The three eldrazi titans all have incredible as they're cast abilities and serve double duty by just being monstrous finishers. What better to do with the generous amounts of mana Cabal Coffers generates? Each titan has replaced Bane of the Living, Sculpting Steel, and Wound Reflection respectively. It's also worth noting that with the exception of Kozilek, Butcher of Truth the other eldrazi have pretty awful names. I've changed Ulamog's name to Ulamog, Squid of Justice, and it seems to fit quite a bit better. I haven't decided on a new name for Emrakul yet but I'm sure things will come in time.

The final change I've made is to cut a basic Swamp in favor of Eye of Ugin. Eye is simply too good as a reusable tutor effect and the mana is rarely an issue. More often than not a player at the table (if not me) has an Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth in play, turning the Eye into a swamp anyway. I love being able to tutor up Wrath type effects (All is Dust), or a Vindicate (the squid of justice), or even a Time Walk (Emrakul). Eye simply gives too many toolbox options to be left out.

With that I present for your viewing pleasure the updated list: