Under Preconstruction: Psycho Crawler

Posted on March 21, 2011

Change is afoot.

As I write this, my son is laughing like a maniac as he makes his way down the hallway towards my desk. We're talking hands and knees here, none of the half-hearted scooting or shimmying he was doing a week ago. Last night I crept into his room, careful not to wake him - and found him standing up in the crib, wide awake, trying to jump up and down on his mattress. It seems like only yesterday he could barely sit up.

And it's not just the mobilization of infants. If you live in New England, you've undoubtedly noticed the temperature jumping from fifteen degrees to sixty and back again as nature takes those first hesitant steps into Spring. To sum up: babies get older and seasons change. Shocking.

So, given that nothing is permanent, it's no surprise that Under Preconstruction, the series in which I turn Intro decks into competitive powerhouses FNM contenders, is undergoing a little face lift of its own.

First, a confession: with Mirromancy, I had a clear direction in mind before I even played a game with the deck. I've wanted to play with Kiln Fiend and Surrakar Marauder and Sleep and Into the Roil for some time now. Some cards never had a chance to prove themselves, as I ruthlessly cut twenty-seven cards in the first round of changes. This practice undermines three of my four primary objectives:

Find inspiration in the precon's themes.

Discover underused and interesting cards.

Teach, by example, fundamental deckbuilding skills.

(The fourth is to end up with an FNM-worthy Standard deck that won't break the bank. I think I succeeded in that regard.)

In order to better reach those goals, I'll take it a little slower, and let the playtesting dictate which cards and strategies are worth pursuing. Our specimen this week came in second in the voting a month ago.

"Doom Inevitable"

Lands (25)
13 Island
12 Swamp

This one certainly appears more powerful than Mirromancy. Bonehoard is a proven tournament staple, while Phyrexian Rager and Skinrender are limited giants with obvious constructed potential. The combination of Oculus and Vivisection has won me at least one triple-MBS draft. Plus, you can't go wrong with solid removal like Doom Blade and Contagion Clasp.

Let's hit the casual room and see if my hypothesis is correct.

Game One

I keep a hand with three Swamps, three black spells, and the Flayer Husk I play turn one. I proceed to draw four blue spells in a row, while my opponent uses Stoneforge Mystic to find Sword of Feast and Famine, then lands a Lotus Cobra to equip it to. My Trigon of Corruption is too late to kill the mana maker, and the Fauna Shaman and Vengevine he plays overwhelm me before I draw an Island. To be fair, the Vivisection and double Oculus stranded in my hand probably wouldn't have made the difference.

0-1

Game Two

I play turn two Oculus, turn three Vedalken Anatomist, and my opponent's first play is a Grasp of Darkness on the tapper. My Pierce Strider gets devoured by a Skinrender, and my Phyrexian Rager is trumped by a Guul Draz Assassin. The Vampire ends up being a serious problem… for my opponent, as I play a Mind Control and get to level it up. He foolishly runs out a Carnifex Demon, which I can snipe with the Assassin. It looks like I have the game well in-hand, as I play a Pierce Strider and have four creatures to his zero. I attack for what I think will be lethal.

He Doom Blades the artifact and plays Consume the Meek to wipe the board! I reload with a Phyrexian Rager and a Disentomb for the Pierce Strider, but he hangs in there at four life with another Doom Blade and a Royal Assassin. Just as he is on the verge of stabilizing, I draw the best possible card in this situation: Caustic Hound. He can't kill it or he'll lose to the life drain, so he's forced to chump block until he runs out of guys. Never thought I'd win a game with that card!

1-1

Game Three

I keep a slow hand and I'm punished for it when my opponent plays turn two Goblin Piker, turn three Goblin Chieftain. My Skinrender takes care of the lord before eating a Lightning Bolt, and my opponent runs out a Manic Vandal to keep up the pressure. I play a Phyrexian Rager and an Oculus to block and fill up my hand, and my opponent attacks right into them. I happily trade, and he plays a pair of Squadron Hawks.

I drop Skinwing to block the 1/1s, but my opponent has another Bolt. I'm reluctant to use the Mind Control, Doom Blade, and Spread the Sickness in my hand on the flyers, so I take the damage for a couple turns. When my opponent refuses to play any more spells, I'm forced to use my Blade. I draw Flayer Husk and load it up with the Skinwing, and my opponent starts tapping all of his lands. Then he untaps them. Then he taps them again. This can only mean one card: Fireball.

Sure enough, my opponent was struggling with the math on the XY spell, and he messes it up, doing 2 damage to my 3/3 germ. I allow his Hawk to get through, bringing me to six. My opponent has no cards, so I decide to pull the trigger on Mind Controlling the last Bird. I need to start getting damage in before he draws another Fireball.

He draws Lava Axe bringing me to one! I desperately attack and cast Vivisection to find more gas. After I unload my hand of small critters, he plays Pyroclasm, buying him a couple more turns. Luckily, he never sees another burn spell, and I squeak out a win.

2-1

Game Four

My opponent kicks things off with a Sphere of the Suns, followed by Etched Champion, while my first play is Skinwing. He passes the turn with all of his mana up, which of course means my attempted Contagion Clasp gets nailed by Stoic Rebuttal. Then he drops Wurmcoil Engine. Uh-oh.

Still, I have Spread the Sickness to make it more manageable if I could draw a fifth land. I miss for a couple turns, and when I finally get to five, he has the Stoic Rebuttal. The Wurmcoil finishes me off in no time.

2-2

Game Five

I'm overjoyed at my blazing start of Horrifying Revelation, Oculus. My opponent just plays Mountains and Islands, while I beat him down one tiny point at a time. Eventually, when I have enough cards in hand that it will be a 4/4 (out of Bolt range), I drop Psychosis Crawler – he has a Mana Leak.

He plays a Mimic Vat, and I Skinrender my own Oculus in an attempt to get a better board presence and beat the inevitability of the artifact. Skinwing comes down to help the ‘render get past Oculi from the Vat, but Manic Vandal handles that one. I try to Disentomb the Psychosis Crawler as a way to Deal Damage without attacking, but he has a Negate. Skinrender is able to get in here and there for a few point of damage, and he ends up chumping with his Manic Vandal and imprinting it. This means he can't activate the Vat, or else his Vandal will kill it, so I have a couple of turns to get damage in and bring him to 4. Unfortunately, all the land I'm drawing is not helping.

He uses Into the Roil on my Skinrender, so I play a Fume Spitter. He sneaks in for a point, and I need one of my two Pierce Striders to steal the win. Sea Gate Oracle comes down to block and get imprinted on Mimic Vat when I ‘render it. Unfortunately, it finds a Consuming Vapors, which kills my two creatures and boosts him up to 9 life. From here, it's all academic, as Mimic Vat ensures he has plenty of answers and a constant stream of damage. Tough loss.

2-3

The good news is that I enjoy playing with Doom Inevitable a lot. All the two-for-ones are right up my alley, and the games are extremely interactive. The bad news is that the proliferate theme is underperforming. Getting a little extra out of my Skinrenders and Fume Spitters is not a good enough reason to play cards like Steady Progress and Spread the Sickness. If we go the proliferate route, we should add some Infect cards to make adding counters an actual path to victory.

For now, though, I'm simply going to increase the numbers on the cards that are performing well for me, and cut some of the more obvious chaff.

-1 Caustic Hound

-1 Armored Cancrix

-1 Barony Vampire

-1 Flayer Husk

-1 Horrifying Revelation

-1 Steady Progress

-1 Strandwalker

-1 Spread the Sickness

Caustic Hound gets to play the role of Rudy from that football movie, getting on the field for one incredible and unlikely play – and then falling into obscurity and alcoholism (I'm guessing, here). The vanillas (Cancrix, Vampire) are included in these decks for the express reason of getting cut by fledgling deckbuilders, so we'll make manifest that destiny. The living weapons are a little tougher to cut, because they make our subpar creatures like Oculus and Phyrexian Rager into real threats, but I think we can do better than Strandwalker and Flayer Husk. Even if we wind up going Proliferate, we won't want to include Steady Progress and Spread the Sickness.

+3 Skinrender

+1 Oculus

+2 Phyrexian Rager

+1 Psychosis Crawler

+1 Bonehoard

Skinrender is our all-star, so we bump him up to the maximum. Oculus and Rager are key role-players, and I'm always happy to see them in my opening hand. I doubled up on the rares so that I can see them more often and get a feel for how good they are in the deck. Finally, I'll take out two of each basic land for Darkslick Shores, a cheap and reliable dual land. These Scars lands are only going to go up after Zendikar block rotates, so pick them up while they are under two bucks each.

"Doom Inevitable v2.0"

Lands (25)
11 Island
10 Swamp
4 Darkslick Shores

Alright, back to the grind.

Game 6

Another day, another control deck. My first threat gets countered, my second (Pierce Strider) is nullified by a Tumble Magnet. When I drop a Psychosis Crawler, he wipes my board with Day of Judgment. Then he casts a Blue Sun's Zenith for two, and soon after a White Sun's Zenith for four.

At this point my hand is all creature removal, so I finally start unloading my two Skinrenders and a Doom Blade. I manage to get the board back to parity, each of us with empty hands, but he draws another (the same?) Blue Sun's Zenith and draws seven cards. Normally I wouldn't concede here, but he's taking ten seconds every time he gets priority and it's driving me nuts. With the writing on the wall, I quit.

0-1

Game 7

My opponent has a nice hand with turn one Kuldotha Rebirth, turn two Goblin Bushwhacker, but I get the best opening my deck can manage against aggro: Fume Spitter, double Oculus. The Oculi are key for finding my third land while trading with his threats, and multiple Skinrenders make the game a cakewalk. It's worth noting that Disentomb was pretty good here, bringing back a Skinrender for more shenanigans, and Psychosis Crawler sat in my hand while I played better spells.

1-1

Game 8

My pair of Oculi is no match for his Mirran Crusader, who also makes a mockery out of the Skinrender in my hand. Pierce Strider eventually gives me a solid blocker for the double-striker, but his Knight Exemplar comes down and negates that play. It isn't all bad, though, as my Skinrender finally finds something to kill.

From there, things go belly up. My opponent plays back-to-back Hero of Bladehold, and I have no answer to his enormous army of Soldiers and Knights.

1-2

Game 9

Turn one Kuldotha Rebirth again, thankfully without the Bushwhacker. Oculus is my MVP again, with a nod towards the Contagion Clasp that takes out a troublesome Signal Pest. My turn four Skinrender on his last threat prompts the "Good Game."

2-2

Game 10

His Sign in Bloods and removal spells are competing with my triple Phyrexian Rager, and I feel like I'm way ahead. Psychosis Crawler does some work, attacking as a 5/5 and sneaking in a couple of points on my draw step. Bonehoard is an exciting draw, but it gets nabbed by Duress before I can play it.

On turn six he plays a Skithiryx, and I think I can race, so I decline chump-blocking with a Skinwing. I accumulate eight poison counters, but I'm not worried. After all, I have lethal on the board even if both cards in his hand are removal spells or blockers.

Unfortunately, the two cards in his hand are Black Sun's Zenith to clear the board, and a second Skithiryx to finish me off with Haste on the following turn. Shucks.

2-3

I've noticed a few problems with the deck as it stands. We aren't proactive enough to beat a control deck, even though we have more than enough cards to out-attrition their removal spells. Creeping Tar Pit would help in this regard. We're pretty solid against creature decks, though creatures that survive Skinrender and Fume Spitter (i.e. Skithiryx, Hero of Bladehold) can be trouble. Finally, Psychosis Crawler is just not powerful enough to justify its cost. As fun as it is to play with, I'm going to have to cut it for a better finisher. Fear not, Psycho fans, I'll have a casual deck that uses it as a centerpiece in the coming weeks.

-2 Psychosis Crawler

-2 Fume Spitter

-1 Steel Sabotage

-2 Trigon of Corruption

-1 Vedalken Anatomist

Fume Spitter was fine against Kuldotha Red and pretty awful against everything else. We have more than enough ways to kill an X/1 without it – even after we cut the Trigon of Corruption. I often found myself with a Trigon in my hand, and it was always either too slow to do anything against weenies or worthless against the big threats. I'll put a more effective removal spell in its place. The Anatomist is similar, but even worse because it gets killed by every removal spell before it can do anything. Steel Sabotage is a perfectly acceptable sideboard card for this deck, which has trouble with artifacts, but it is too narrow to make the main.

Now, I need to decide which direction to go in. Frankly, I'm sick of proliferate, as every other opponent in the casual room is running Contagion Clasp and Tumble Magnet. I'd like to stick with the theme of efficient two-for-ones that grind out wins through attrition. I'm enjoying the minor sacrifice theme of Vivisection and Oculus, but I'm not sure I'm ready to go all-out with Mortician Beetles and the like. For now, I'll stick to filling holes in the deck's game plan, and put off making a major thematic decision for the next round of changes.

The first thing I want to add is an aggressive two-drop that can put pressure on the opponent while my support spells do their job. A look through my virtual collection gives me this list:

Bloodghast is the most resilient, and as such the best bet against control. Unfortunately, our deck is quite slow, so the inability to block is a major drawback against aggro. He does support our sacrifice subtheme, so if we go in that direction, he may make the cut in the future.

Black Knight gets through Squadron Hawks, but that isn't so important when the Hawks are carrying Swords and destroying us in the air. Hexmage is a nice way to stick it to all those proliferate deck, while holding off any creature with two toughness. She isn't a powerhouse on the battlefield, though, and she makes a pretty bad top deck compared to our other options.

Nantuko Shade and Coralhelm Commander are quite similar to one another, in that they both require a mana investment to become dangerous. I like that the Commander takes colorless mana in our two-color deck, so I'm going to go with that for now.

+4 Coralhelm Commander

I also want a replacement for the Crawler. We could go in a million directions here, including Abyssal Persecutor, Sphinx of Magosi, and the Titans. I'm going with Sphinx of Lost Truths, because I like that it converts our dead cards into live ones when I play it on turn five. It can make our Bonehoard bigger out of nowhere. Plus, a 3/5 flyer is nothing to sneeze at.

+2 Sphinx of Lost Truths

I'll throw in a couple of Go for the Throats to give us some versatile removal, and, finally, I'll add those Creeping Tar Pits to help against control and make casting Coralhelm a little easier. The land costs about twenty dollars for a play set online (and more in real life), so if you don't have them already, you can go with the cheaper Drowned Catacombs.

"Doom Inevitable v3.0"

Game 11

I made a mistake in deckbuilding and left the Fume Spitters in for this game – which worked out well, as it answered my opponent's Plague Stinger perfectly. Coralhelm Commander came down on turn two and got in for three on the third turn, before dying to a Go For the Throat. My opponent played a Vat Mother, which, combined with the Mind Control in my hand, made me think I could Turn the Tables and poison him out. I cast Skinrender to make the Vat Mother as dangerous to him as it was to me.

He cast a Bonehoard and blocked my Skinrender with his 1/2 Vat Mother. On the following turn he played another Vat Mother, so I pulled the trigger on Mind Control and went all-in on the infect plan. His Ichor Rats helped me out, as he ticked up to three poison. He took four from my Mother, apparently thinking the upkeep trigger would aid his cause, then played a Hand of a Praetor.

My Mother was threatening lethal, so he finally blocked it and killed it with the Bonehoard. I played another Coralhelm and leveled him up to max, while he equipped the ‘hoard on the Praetor and attacked for 12. I had an Oculus hanging around to chump, and the card it yielded was perfect: Contagion Clasp.

From there, I simply had to proliferate a couple of times while chumpblocking, and managed to poison him out.

1-0

Game 12

This was a long, crazy game. He opened on Wall of Omens and Sea Gate Oracle, but my fully-leveled Coralhelm Commander forced the Day of Judgment despite the would-be blockers. My Pierce Strider was met with another Wall of Omens. He countered a pair of Phyrexian Ragers with Mana Leaks, which I was happy about because I was sandbagging a Sphinx of Lost Truths. Before I got the chance to play my Sphinx, he dropped one of his own, this time of the Magosi variety. I was forced to Vivisection my Pierce Strider in an attempt to find a removal spell, to no avail. I simply played a Fume Spitter and passed (still forgot to cut that card).

He attacked me for eight and drew two cards, and I figured it was already over. Another Vivisection and a Phyrexian Rager failed to find the Go For the Throat, but fortunately he accidently skipped his attack phase. He still got to play a Conundrum Sphinx and a Crystal Ball, threatening lethal if I didn't find an answer.

I played my Sphinx unkicked, which finally dug to a Go For the Throat, which I cast on his 7/7 flyer. Now he was drawing two cards a turn thanks to Crystal Ball/Conundrum Sphinx, but at least I wasn't taking any damage. He played a Gideon and forced my team to attack. I played an enormous Bone Hoard, equipped the Sphinx, and took down the Planeswalker. He played Volition Reigns on my Sphinx (if he got the equipment I would have lost then and there), but I had Mind Control to reign him back in. He leaves the Sphinx back to block, and drops Angelic Arbiter. I attack, get chumped, pass. He drops a Stormtide Leviathan that represents lethal (I'm at 7) and chumps my Sphinx with his Arbiter. I play Fume Spitter, shrink the Leviathan, play Disentomb to do it again. With the Leviathan at 6/6, I play a Bonehoard and pass.

He draws Ajani Goldmane and gets me for exactly 7!

1-1

Game 13

My opponent's Grizzly Bears, Fogs, and Brindle Boars nearly overwhelmed me… with giggles. Skinrendered!

2-1

Game 14

My mulligan to five is not helped by his double Inquistion of Kozilek, taking both of my spells. Believe it or not, I'm still in the game, as I chain Phyrexian Ragers and Oculi to keep the spells coming. Unfortunately, he has a removal spell for every single creature I play. I end up drawing eleven lands to his six, and the last card in his hand is the last removal spell he needs to do lethal, when I certainly would have stabilized the next turn. A frustrating game that could have been a miraculous comeback.

2-2

Game 15

I curve out with Oculus, Phyrexian Rager, Skinrender on his Palladium Myr. He doesn't cast any other spells, but even if he had, I was holding Go For the Throat, Doom Blade, and two Sphinx of Lost Truths.

3-2

These games were pretty all-over-the-place. I had two free wins, and one loss that was a result of a double mulligan – but overall, the deck is performing well. Coralhelm is doing exactly what I wanted it to do: filling the role Tarmogoyf often plays as a steady clock that makes all of your support spells relevant. Sphinx of Lost Truths has been great, providing a nice reload in the midgame when I'm low on spells. Bonehoard is a bomb, but only in the late game, so I feel two is the right number. The one Mind Control has never been bad, so I'm okay keeping it in for now.

I like the fact that we aren't a gimmick deck for once, and we just play a fair game with two-for-ones, solid creatures, and removal spells; but we have a few loose ends to clean up:

-2 Myr Sire

-2 Contagion Clasp

-1 Disentomb

-2 Pierce Strider

-2 Skinwing

I've seen nary a Myr Sire in all of these games, but I can't imagine wanting to draw it. The card generated by Oculus will generally be worth more than a vanilla 1/1, and I don't want six of this type of card. Contagion Clasp won me that game against infect, but it's been pretty bad otherwise. Disentomb has proven to be very useful as a one-of, giving me a toolbox of sorts when I have a stocked graveyard late in the game, but it isn't even close to the best Raise Dead effect we could use. Skinwing is simply too expensive to be effective, and if we wanted more equipment, we could do better (Swords would be nice if you have them). Paul Pierce Strider is another fine man that is simply made obsolete by better 4-drops.

The first card I want to try out is Calcite Snapper. He's perfect for beating the removal-heavy control decks I've been playing against, and is obviously a fine defender. I imagine holding off two-drops on turn three, then playing a land and Skinrender to get in for four. He can't wield a Bonehoard, which is unfortunate, but I think he's good enough to make up for it.

Next up is an extra Doom Blade. The 2/2 split with Go For the Throat is a bit of hedging, as black decks and artifact-based decks are about equal in popularity right now. Testing will reveal which is better, or is the split is fine.

Molten-Tail Masticore is the biggest change I'm making this time around. He's going to add some power and reach to the deck, and give us something to do with all of our extra mana in the late game. I usually have plenty of cards in hand, so his drawback doesn't hurt too much. If you're worried about the mythic rarity, you may be surprised to learn that this awesome card can be had for less than four tickets online, and about five bucks a pop in real life. I can't see that number going anywhere but up as Zendikar block rotates (but I'm no John Medina!).

Finally, a one-of Morbid Plunder to double up on the Disentomb goodness, and a third Vivisection. Vivisection is in an interesting position. It's really the only card making Oculus worth playing, and it seems like it may be outclassed by card drawing like Foresee. On the other hand, I want creatures in my ‘yard for Masticore, Morbid Plunder, and Bonehoard; and I've never been unhappy to draw one in testing. I almost always have a Rager sitting around, waiting to get turned into cards. Increasing the number will give me a better idea of whether I want the card in the deck or not. If it turns out that I don't, a major overhaul of the deck will have to happen as I remove the Oculi for another two-drop.

I finally feel like the deck is far enough from the precon to give it a name. I present to you:

"Bonehoard 2: Bone Hoarder"

Normally, by the end of my first part of a Preconstruction project, I have a relatively finished deck, ready to take on the Tournament Practice room. With the slower pace I’ve taken on this time, however, we still have quite a long way to go with this one – almost exactly one article’s worth, conveniently enough. Will we embrace the sacrifice theme? Will we pursue a different source of card advantage? Only testing will tell.

Until next time, thanks for reading,

Brad Wojceshonek

BradWoj at Gmail dot com

BJWOJ on Twitter

TAGS articles, constructed

Under Preconstruction: Psycho Crawler

"Doom Inevitable"

"Doom Inevitable v2.0"

"Doom Inevitable v3.0"

"Bonehoard 2: Bone Hoarder"

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