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Main » Articles » Under Preconstruction: Precon Recon

Under Preconstruction: Precon Recon

Brad Wojceshonek
Posted on February 14, 2011
 Reddit

Sometimes, the second set in a block comes out, and it's like the groundhog that sees his shadow. We're doomed to three more months of the same old Standard format.

Luckily, judging by the deck lists coming out of Pro Tour: Paris, Mirrodin Besieged is not one of those rodents. It's doing exactly what you want a small set to do: add new dimensions to existing archetypes (Caw-Go, Valakut), make fringe decks more playable (Kuldotha Rebirth), and create brand new, powerful strategies (Tezzeret control). It's a good time to be a deck builder. It's also a good time to be Under Preconstruction.

If you're unfamiliar with this randomly occurring series, I take a preconstructed deck (you may know them as Intro Packs), and do my best to tune it into a Standard metagame Wrecking Ball. When that fails, I just make a deck that's fun to play and wins a good amount of games. It's the same kind of thing Jay Moldenhauer-Salazar used to do on Building on a Budget back in the day, ya know?

Anyway, the Mirrodin Besieged Online Prerelease events start this Thursday, which means I won't be able to get my digital hands on the new precons until at least next week. That makes today the perfect time to start planning my next move.

I'm going to go over the four intro decks, and talk about possible directions I could go in with each of them. Then, YOU are going to vote on which one I should tackle in a couple weeks. Got it?

"Battle Cries"

As an artifact-based, red-white swarm strategy ala Glint Eastwood, the obvious tweaks I could make are a little too obvious. If this deck is chosen, I would do my best to avoid a generic Boros aggro deck.

So, where does that leave us? There's a Myr subtheme, with 2 Iron Myr, 1 Gold Myr, 1 Myrsmith, 3 Master's Call, and 2 Origin Spellbomb, so I could add Myr Galvinizer and a few of the new rare Myrs and see what happens. Mirrorworks would be a cute addition, making it easier to assemble two Galvinizers and generate infinite mana. That means infinite Cat tokens with White Sun's Zenith!

We could stay away from infinite mana and instead use all the mana Myr to play a quick Kuldotha Forgemaster, sacrificing spellbombs and little artifact dudes to find an end-of-turn Blightsteel Colossus. Myr Welder could play backup in case the Forgemaster bites the dust.

Or I could max out the Origin Spellbombs and see if a competitive Furnace Celebration deck is possible. Again, the Myr are key, making sure I have the mana to shock multiple times in a turn. Mortarpod could make an appearance, along with various other sacrifice effects and cards that love being put in the graveyard (Spine of Ish Sah, Ichor Wellspring, Myr Sire).

Unfortunately, Victory's Herald isn't an easy creature to build around. Baneslayer Angel is just about always better, and the aggressive decks that would make the Herald's abilities more powerful tend to shy away from six drops. I can't imagine a scenario in which the limited bomb doesn't get cut from our precon.

White Sun's Zenith, on the other hand… CRAZY CAT DECK!

"Paws-itively Fur-ocious"

That one was for all you Standard Tribal Wars players out there*. Pretty relevant format, I know.

*Except for the puns. Those . . . were for me.

"Mirromancy"

Hm. Having a hard time figuring out what's going on here. I guess it's a red/blue tempo deck, that plays some evasive guys and uses burn and sleep to get through.

Actually, looking closer, I'm kind of intrigued. I've been meaning to play with Neurok Commando, and there's some redundancy in Standard with Scroll Thief and Surrakar Spellblade. Throw in plenty of Bolts and AEther Adepts to make sure you get through, some Spell Pierce and Mana Leak to keep your opponent off of his game, and we may actually have a deck. I'd have to try Distortion Strike, as well. Interesting!

Another option is straight-up Counter-Burn. Get rid of the creatures, add in some Slagstorms and Planeswalkers, go heavy on the hard counters. Blue Sun's Zenith would be perfect in such a deck, and the already-included Red Sun's Zenith makes a fine addition to take care of Bloodghast and Vengevine. It's not amazingly innovative or fun, but I'm curious whether or not such a deck could be a contender in the current Standard environment.

Finally, I could build around Galvanoth. As a vulnerable 3/3, he doesn't seem like the kind of creature that can hold up a serious deck, but I would certainly have a lot of fun with him. The deck builds itself: ridiculous spells and ways to put them on top of your library. I foresee Crystal Ball in this deck, along with Halimar Depths and Preordain. If I keep it casual, I'll exclude Jace, the Mind Sculptor, but he's obviously the best card for this role.

For a deck that initially perplexed me, it certainly is a well of inspiration.

"Doom Inevitable"

I started typing, "A grinding, proliferating, Infect deck," before realizing that there isn't a single Infect creature in the deck. In fact, the designer of this precon opted for Mind Control over the more obvious and flavorful Corrupted Conscience, which means this is a proliferate deck with no hope of winning via poison.

So the first obvious tweak would be to add some Infect critters. I have some experience with blue Proliferate decks, so I know Necropede is a fine man for giving that first drop of oil while remaining a formidable defender. Inkmoth Nexus would be another easy way to get the ball rolling without the deck becoming "an infect deck". Virulent Wound is another decent choice, and, when you're desperate to get a poison counter, could be coupled with Go For the Throat if your opponent doesn't have weenies. Contagion Clasp would be bumped to a full set, and Throne of Geth would probably play a role as well. The goal is to poke the opponent with a dirty Phyrexian needle, then race to 10 poison while holding off the opponent with counters and counters (that is, -1/-1s and Stoic Rebuttal).

Then there's good old blue-black infect beat down. I Imagine this mostly being a black deck with a blue splash for Counterspells, just in case the opponent wants to Wrath away our team. Distortion Strike, again, could make an appearance.

I could also build around Psychosis Crawler. One idea is to cycle through 0-cost artifacts with Riddlesmith to drain the opponent as fast as possible. Ichor Wellspring seems fine in such a deck, and Phyrexian Rager is as solid as ever. Blue Sun's Zenith is a nice Fireball for the endgame. I'm thinking Cryptoplasm could be interesting as a Crawler or Riddlesmith copy-cat.

Finally, I could use Bonehoard as inspiration. Maybe Hedron Crab to make a giant Mortivore? Much of the deck could remain intact: Phyrexian Rager, Oculus, Vivisection are all fine in a deck that just wants to stay alive and put creatures in the graveyard. Once Bonehoard gets up to +9/+9, we stick it on an Inkmoth Nexus for the one-shot kill. Suh-weet.

"Path of Blight"

Pretty cool that they paired green with white for this infect deck. That leaves us with a midrange, stall-the-board kind of deck with Tangle Anglers to force the issue later on.

None of the white cards in this deck seem Constructed-worthy (except maybe Choking Fumes out of the sideboard), but white does offer Stoneforge Mystic. That allows you to suit up your pseudo-double strikers with whatever weapon you need most and go to town. I'm picturing a super-aggressive, green-based infect deck with Mystics to make sure you get your Piston Sledge or Adventuring Gear on time. We could also play some more situationally powerful 1-ofs like Sword of Feast and Famine. Finally, Journey to Nowhere would make sure no blockers get in the way. If only Elspeth, Knight-Errant were legal!

Actually, come to think of it, Oust would be pretty incredible in such a deck. The life is irrelevant, and it allows you to get rid of a blocker and play other spells in the same turn. It's possible that card alone justifies the white splash (though Stoneforge Mystic is still an auto-include). Mighty Leap might get to stay as well.

If the white ends up hurting us more than helping, I could always fall back on a mono-green strategy. Phyrexian Hydra deserves his own deck, and pairing him with Canopy Cover could be spicy. Overwhelming Stampede seems pretty brutal in a deck with a whole bunch of infect creatures (Carrion Call?). Speaking of stampedes, I would love to get the chance to try Lead the Stampede in this deck.

Try as I might, I can't figure out a way to break Decimator Web. Can you?

You're Up!

So, you've seen some of my ideas. Which ones seemed promising? Which ones would be entertaining to read about? There can only be one!

[poll id="3"]

Feel free to defend your choice in the comments, and post any ideas I may have missed. Next week, I'll be talking about something else (Besieged won't be available for sale in time for me to write an article), so watch this space in two weeks to find out which deck won.

As always, thanks for reading,

Brad Wojceshonek

bradwoj at gmail dot com

BJWOJ on Twitter

TAGS articles, standard, budget, casual, building on a budget, preconstructed deck

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