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Main » Articles » Magic the Classroom – Idol/Idle Inspirations

Magic the Classroom – Idol/Idle Inspirations

Dan Eckstein
Posted on August 13, 2010
 Reddit

Let me begin today's class with an apology. I made some typos last week. My fault. I actually made the article a day or two later than normal so I didn't do my normal Proofreading system. My normal plan of action is to write the article mid week then let it simmer for a day or two. Next I go back and reread the piece. It's amazing how often I just can't type as fast as I can think. Whole words and letters just get skipped. On the reread I catch these things and fix them. So last week these things slipped. The "Idol Hands" thing would have probably slipped anyway.

With that past us I would like to introduce today's concept: Where do you get your inspirations? Of course we all have different things that inspire us in life but I want to talk about decks. As a writer who targets the casual player as his audience I feel it is important for me to introduce new deck ideas on a semi regular basis. Therefore, I need new deck ideas and I need them often. I refuse to write article after article about how three or four Tier One decks perform. Instead I try to make something fresh and interesting for my readers to play with. To keep up with my own level of demand I need to find multiple sources of inspiration. Today I'll share some of these with you and show you what I got from my new source.

Source One

The first and probably the most common source for all deck builders is Limited. Whether it be Draft, Sealed, Pack Wars, or any other format you like Limited forces you to play with a homemade deck. Hopefully in that deck there are cards that share some synergy. From these seedling ideas we can form a Rule of Nine style deck. If that works out we can refine the numbers make the deck even tighter. The hardest part is sorting the numerous of seeds and deciding which one to plant.

Some of my recent ones have been:

Which one will I plant? I don't think any of these make the cut personally but maybe later I'll change my mind.

Source Two

My number two source is just that. Number two. Many of you may not appreciate it now, but a man in his Forties spends a lot of time in the bathroom. When I was a kid I never understood my dad taking so long in "the Library". Some call it "the Throne room" or "the Fortress of Solitude". I find myself taking advantage of these moments to search for ideas. For years now I've bought a Fat Pack in every expansion. In each Fat Pack is a Player's Guide which shows every card in the set. When I go to sit and read I'll randomly pick a page. From that page I try to pick a card and design around it. Mostly the lists that come from these sessions get flushed.

The ironic thing is last Friday I opened up to page 44 in the M11 guide. On that page is a card that sparked my interest. This one stayed with me for quite some time. Then later that day I found the same card being used in an inspiration source I had never used before. I even had a couple of real life hints reminding me about the card including a very mysterious fortune cookie.

I will tip my hat to Wizards on M11. Every page that I've hit so far has been able to stir my creative juices. There are sets that I couldn't say that about but M11 seems to have a lot of meat for deck builders. Either that or they were smart about naming them so that the Alpha list spreads the fun cards out.

Source Three

I try to never go to this source but I know many writers that do it exclusively. It's shameful to admit but some of my ideas come from the internet. I know, I know. No one uses the Internet for deck ideas. We all read other players work politely and then move on and do our own thing. Sure maybe there is an occasion where our list is "similar" to theirs but the two or three cards that we have different make it our own. Right?

Sarcasm aside there are quite a large number of deckbuilders who post their ideas and lists on various forums. Their ideas are often diamonds in the rough and they never get the credit they deserve. Some of these go into such detail with their posts and defense of their ideas they should have made their own article out of it. I can actually remember reading a Forum post called "fun in Jund" where a player made a near perfect Jund list but thought it was strictly casual. LOL right? He also posted others like "Can't stop Bant" and "Esper's Whisper". The idea is that with enough research you can find some really cool stuff.

When I use the net as a source I like to think of myself as a filter. By my reading hundreds of post and then giving you the list with the most potential I've saved my readers from wasting time doing the same. At least that's how I like to justify it. It's not like I'm cut/copy/pasting it. But in an honest moment it's really laziness. I've been writing for many different sites for about 5 years now and I've never used this source for any Mananation.com article I've written. (Mostly because my school blocked forums so I can't read them while students are taking their tests anymore.)

Source Four

You got to have Friends. When players who are creative meet and openly discuss cards ideas just flow. My local shop has some very creative players who love building and tinkering. Ask me what the expected meta is and I'd have to say I don't know. It honestly changes every week. There are maybe 2 "net decks" in the store on any given Friday. We also have very open dialogs about our decks, even mid game. There have been times that a player has had me look through his deck before our FNM began. Realizing that I would then have an advantage if we where to face off that night and not caring. It's all about the decks, not the prizes. Limited nights can be cutthroat but Constructed are always fun first competition second.

I only wish I could get everyone to go for the next level.

The New Source

Last week while trying to make page 44 happen I found a new source that blended numbers 3 and 4. As I mentioned a few weeks ago I've started playing Magic Online. I have to say that I'm addicted. Casual games available whenever I have nothing better to do. Problem is I love Magic so much there is almost never something better to do. I actually blame my MTGO addiction for my typos last week.

So last Friday when a fan pointed out my Idle vs Idol mistake it was just another moment for me to break down and build a deck made for Jinxed Idol. That morning it was on Page 44, at lunch my Fortune cooking read "Through sacrifice you will achieve your goals", the fan pointed out my errors, and then I play Adonis2k online. There it was the first turns I would expect out of a Jinxed Idol deck. I immediately hit the chat to tell him how cool it was.

I skipped my normal chat that "pimps" Mananation.com and went straight to the gravy about what's in his list. We spent more time talking than playing. I was playing the life gain deck I wrote about 2 weeks ago so once I got a couple of Wardens/Attendants online I was able to gain more than the Idol took. But I really feel that his deck is playable.

A couple of emails back and forth and I got him to send me his list and permission to use it. The players name is Morton Kring Nielsen and he is a newer player from Denmark. From across the world the game translates. Here is a part of his email. I did massage the words a little.

"Idol deck"

I really like Viscera Seer and Reassembling Skeleton together.. scry away. ;)

This was a very hard deck to build.

I'm not sure about the number of each card yet.. I still got some other ideas for it but did not have the time to test it yet. Cards I need to test: Garruk Wildspeaker, Vampire Nighthawk and Awakening Zone .. in the metagame you will often have a lot of tokens in play and sometimes it can be hard to break the defense of your opponent. Therefore Garruk or Nighthawk would be a strong cards in the metagame. With Nighthawk you can boost to a huge creature with Blade. Garruk can give all your spawns +3+3 and trample.

So what do you think?.. Do you have any ideas how to improve it? It still needs some work.

What do you think of the removal count being so low? Maybe doom blade?? Just hate having doom blade in my hand when I'm playing against Jund or Mono Black

Sideboard

Naturalize for Pyromancer Ascension

Vampire Hexmage for control decks

Sadistic Sacrament for control decks

Doom Blade for mono red.

I do really like this list. In my random thoughts before facing his deck I never considered the Catch 22 an active Bloodchief Ascension and a Jinxed Idol made. If you sac you lose 2 if you don't you lose two. That's a dilemma. The Reassembling Skeleton along with a sac outlet can be crazy.

My deck list would have been very similar to his. I would use Consuming Vapors as well but I want to point out that you need to be careful with it. IF your opponent has a sac outlet (like Jinxed Idol) then they can respond to your Vapors by sacing the target. Vapors and its Rebound ability would fizzle making it a simple one for one with no life gain.

I would increase the removal count and have something like a Shrivel in the sideboard in case someone uses Spawns to out critter me. Also I am not a fan of 2 Ancient Stirrings. I've found this is an all or nothing card. But I've also found that a 22 land deck with 4 Stirrings plays like a 24.4 land deck (approximately). So really by going 4 of you are only taking 2 slots from the Rule of Nine basic build.

"Eckstein's Idol"

I haven't played or even tested this deck yet. Most of the time I will play a deck out a few times before I'll write about it. This time I wanted to get Morton the credit as soon as possible. This is a fun little combo deck that I would recommend.

That’s the class for today. If you have an idea that might need planted you can always email it to me. daneckstein@hotmail.com.

Class Dismissed.

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