Dark Design

Saturday 15 January 2011

Master Forgery



Over the course of the last few weeks I have been tinkering with a few cards. I’m sure it will come as no surprise to my astute readers that I have a penchant for a few in particular. And anyone who has played with The Tardis, The Dark Design and Big Blue Boom Button will know that hidden in the depths of these decks there are a few awesome combos. I’ve been meaning to post the results of my experiments for a while, but there were other decks to build first and this one is similar enough to the three I mentioned to  call for some distance. Basically this is stripped down version of my grand architect deck without all the smoke and mirrors and it is, to be quite frank, the NUTZ…

Ladies and gentle men this is potentially the new Archetype, because Mirrodin Besieged can go one of two ways now…

If it goes down the big artifact route then this could be the new rock and roll… If it doesn’t then you ‘ll probably never hear about it… I’m hoping for the former… I know there’s one spell in this set that combo’s off like a rocket in this deck but we’ll get to that later. 

I call it

Master Forgery

You Will Need

Either… now this is important because how you start the deck is dependent on your preference….
4 Kraken Hatchling (defensive play - good against elves & Aggro)
4 Cosi’s Trickster (Aggro play – good against Control of nay kind)
4 Enclave Cryptologist  (cautious play  for blue players trying to shy away from putting mind sculptors in every deck they possess regardless of colour)

In my version I play hatchlings (because for me they tend to survive longer)
So here we go…

4 Trinket Mage (yes this deck needs them)
4 Kuldotha Forgemaster (It wouldn't surprise me if they banned this card)
Land wise you can go anywhere you like with this deck… there is an argument for fetch lands and Eldrazi temples, but we are a budget blog… so I’ve gone simply for 16 islands, 4 tectonic edges and 4 dread statuary – a must in this deck…   

So how does it work? Well its partly combo based, but it’s a very simple and achievable combo… All you want to do is stay alive long enough to play a kuldotha forgemaster and have it survive a turn… if you can do that then there is a real chance you’re going to win… 

There are of course secondary agendas and the most important of them is to get a Voltaic key imprinted on a prototype portal if you can achieve this with mana to spare and a forgemaster in play there is only one deck in the meta that can survive more a few turns…

Ok it all sounds a bit pricey, surely it’ll just get mana leaked out of the water?… Of course like all decks you will have to play with caution against the likes of control. But if you can resolve an architect with even a couple of blue creatures in play then you’ll have mana and mana spare for the likes of Mana leak.  And there only a few cards in today’s game that can deal with the fat bottomed forgemaster… Doom Blade will be your worst threat but if you gat get him out for just one turn like I said they are going to really suffer… How?What?Why?

Well the forgemaster is a tutor extraordinaire, there are few cards in the game that can tutor cards into your hand at instant speed, let alone into play.  Of course if you’re not in any immediate threat of dying and he’s been round the table once the first thing you want to get is a prototype portal. So unless you already have this in place sac everything (except him) to go get one… You should have a voltaic key in hand… You know when you played that trinket mage earlier? So go sac everything activate the lands if you need to or that Whispersilk cloak or your everflowing chalice… EVERYTHING… because if you can do this… You are going to win and there are only a couple of cards in the world that can stop you…  For a start counters spells are no longer going to affect you as everything you want will be tutored into straight into play. So you have a couple of blue critters… a forgemaster and a keep on the portal…  what can you do? Well the simple answer is anything…

Ok here’s some scenarios… you are on 6 life, you’ve taken a beating , Valakut is about to go off and your opponent swings with Primeval Titan… he also has a khalni heart expedition on the field with a couple of counters… So he swings and gets a couple of mountains…  What can you do? Well first you wait.. He can see then end is in sight (and has a safety net in the heart  ) so he directs all the damage to you… In response you can tap the portal and generate some token keys (if you don’t already have some) and sac them to the forgemaster to instantly tutor the Platinum Emperion into play (now your life can’t change) now your opponent is not an idiot.. so he uses the extra lands to crack the shrine and goes and gets more mountains and targets the Emperion… But you were ready for this too so using one mana and a key you can un-tap the forgemaster and tap and sac the Emperion and the key and any other artifact to go get another one... (this actually happened to me once during a game…)   In my turn I made some keys went and got mindslaver taped and sacked it and killed him with his own deck…   

‘Oh but he’d target the forgemaster’ I hear you say! (and smart players are starting to realize this is the best play… )

So he targets the forgemater, in response you can make keys and tap and sac them to get the emperion then un-tap the forgemaster with another key and tap sac it and the forgemaster and another key to go get another forgemaster…All at instant speed (still think I was mad saying it could be banned?) 

Where am I getting all these keys? Well as you have one on a prototype portal (which is an artifact) and it only cost one to make a key and the keys ability is to un-tap an artifact… you simply use all of your mana to keep tapping and un-tapping the portal to make keys… With a Grand Architect in and a couple of his buddies in play you should be able to make 8/9/10, possibly more keys a turn.

Basically the fastest way to win is to tutor in an Emperion and then a whipersilk cloak on the next turn… If you can achieve this unmolested then only Day of Judgment can save them… and it won’t really save them it will only reset the board… Sure there are other long and convoluted multiple card combos that can help, but remember they now have 3 turns max in the game… Jace will help hear you cry! What Jace? You just took him out with an unblockable 8/8 and he couldn’t help any way as the Emperion has shroud.. (Platinum Emperion is a very under-rated card… and you can get them for $5 trust me this is a good investment)


Other fun plays….

They bring in a ratchet bomb to take out your portal… in  response make some keys and tutor one up yourself… then use the keys to tap and un-tap to get it to two counters and set it off before they can do anything with it… I’ve had upwards of 50 keys in play at times and once that’s happens imagine what you can do with the Lux Canon…

This deck is so flexible it’s ridiculous… As long as the forgemaster gets through a single turn…
They can’t… bounce it
                       Exile it
                       Destroy it
                       Steal it
                       Make you sac it…
                       Because you can sac it in response… Ok for the last one you’d have to get the Mindslaver, Ratchet bomb or Canon instead but is that really so bad?

Ok I play this deck a lot and I can tell you that it’s strong against every deck… I ‘ve beaten every single tier one deck with it and I’m not going to say its unbeatable , but I will say it’s a tough deck to beat…
God hand Mox goblins can give it trouble… and Big red can be a pain.. It should walk over
Valakut.. Its strong against elves and vamps (although be careful of domblades and gatekeepers…) It eats blue white control and Mono green Eldrazi, but this deck’s nemesis is Blue Black control… A clever player can steal the combo pieces from your hand and the forgemaster will die to a doom blade….

Of course you could go blue black yourself and beat them at their own game with duress’s and inquisition… Blue black is the sole reason I run two elixirs as taking one from your opening hand (which can often be the only target has the unfortunate side effect of ruining this deck…)

Anyway the reason I am publishing this list now is there may well be two card in the next set that either make or break this deck… If there is, as I suspect there may be, a ‘destroy all artifacts’ card, then this deck won’t work or will need silly counterspell cover… BUT…Spoiler Alert…. Spoiler Alert….Spoiler Alert….

There is a destroy all artifacts card... but there's some good news too... 1.. its double green and 2. the only artifacts that seem to have folks worried are the indestructible colossus and the split in two wurmcoil engine... So until some one invents a Tezz infect deck (which is unfortunately likely) then there's no real reason to panic

There you have it the first combo of Besieged and you heard it here first… Of course this may all be nonsense, but hey its only a game…





Update Jan 19th... Well as if this deck needed any more help.... Here's sme more resons to get building...


In one game recently I had  over 300 voltaic keys in play... Add throne of geth  and some Tezzs and that my firend is game set and match...


Need a way to secure the mindslaver/ portal  lock? 'Et voila..'.

If 3 turns is too long to wait for a kill... Then why not add the Brightsteel Colossus ?  in theory with a really good hand, you can actually have this swinging and equipped with a Whispersilk Cloak by turn 4...

Fog anyone? because thats pretty much the only way your opponent is going to see turn 5



5 comments:

  1. Just played a best of 3 against this online (with you behind it) :D
    VERY solid deck, it has so many options and it reaches them very quickly.
    Fun to watch too! It gets really technical which isn't really something I see in standard decks any more.
    Overall it seems like a really clever and fun deck, that really wouldn't hurt your wallet as much as any deck of a similar quality.
    I'm really looking forward to seeing this get even crazier when besieged is released!

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  2. Thanks for the kind words Gaz... and be siure to send in that vengevime trick... I've not seen that before and oeople need to know..

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  3. I don't normally like your decks, even though I like making budget decks of my own, but this one seems to have some merit, I think I'm going to try and test it. I think it has a lot of potential.

    Have you tried Myr Battlesphere? With it anywhere in your deck, you tutor it out onto the field, and you immediately have more gas for the next sac, meaning if you have a Voltaic Key out, you can immediately pay one and get another artifact, effectively having your Battlesphere for one mana. Seems good?

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  4. Well... fair enough I guess... it's tough making a new deck every week, but if you want to submit one of your own feel free... We are always open to new deck ideas....

    And yes I did try Myr Battlesphere... and it works ok but if you do indeed build this deck you will find out why it's not in the deck... The Emperion / cloak lock is just about instant win..

    And rumour has it there's an 11/11 in the new set... Of its an artifact... that's dead by dawn.. in my book...

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  5. Yeah, after some testing, Battlespheres were decidedly meh, although they kill planeswalkers quite nicely.

    Blightsteel Colossus...

    Yeah.... I think this deck just got a whole lot more awesome.

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