Project X Redux

There was an old extended deck (and every time I talk about that format and the fact that it's been defunct for more than 5 years makes me feel old) that abused a combo with Crypt Champion and Saffi Eriksdotter.

Crypter Champion would come into play, return Saffi to play, the sacrifice trigger of the champion being on the stack, you'd sacrifice Saffi and Crypt Champion would return to play, creating an infinite loop.  All you need is something to abuse it.  The deck would use creatures like Essence Warden to gain infinite life as you would keep gaining 2 life for the creatures entering the battlefield.

Infinite life is decent, but there are some decks in modern that don't care about your life total (Infect, mill strategies) and a fair amount that play Eldrazi and can subsequently never deck out.  So why not kill your opponent instead?

Project X new

4 Crypt Champion
4 Saffi Eriksdotter
4 Essence Warden
4 Impact Tremors
4 Altar of the Brood
4 Commune with the Gods
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Heartless Summoning
4 Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker
24 lands

Again, I'm not sharing my manabase because it's embarrassing and mostly consists of lands that ETB/CIP tapped.  Yeah.

So the combo can gain infinite life with Essence Warden, mill with altar of the brood and do infinite damage with Impact Tremors.  Having options is nice.

One of the things I really hate is just losing to a card.  Stain the Mind, Cranial Extraction, etc.  If all 4 Crypt Champions get exiled somehow, it feels like you can't win.

That's what the other part of the deck is for.  Shirei + Heartless Summoning + Elvish Visionary means that the elves will come into play, immediately die and you can mill or ping your opponent.  If you have Heartless Out, your Saffis and Crypt Champions are also 1/1s and you can just start doing some crazy stuff.  I was able to draw nine cards in a single turn and found the components I was looking for to win.

The deck has some downsides though.  Being a graveyard deck, there's some pretty obvious hate against it.  And the deck can be very frustrating to play online.  You have to click about a million times to pul the combo off and you have to stack your triggers very carefully.

So with some tuning, this is something I actually could see myself playing in the real world.  Maybe some Glittering Wishes here or there, who knows.

Pauper Wizards

Woahhhhh has it been a long time since we've updated the blog.  5 weeks!  Sorry!  Time can kind of slip away from you.

I haven't battled much lately, I went 3-1 in FNM and 0-2d ( =/ ) in a pptq with a standard monored deck.  Nothing too exciting.

But I play pauper on mtgo from time to time.  I really like to brew, but there are certain constraints that most constructed formats pose.  Anyway I thought I would try this out:

4 Stream of Unconsciousness
1 Void Snare
1 Negate
2 Deprive
2 Muddle the Mixture
1 Repeal

4 Lavamancer's Skill

1 Sidisi's Faithful
4 Information Dealer
4 Minamo Scrollkeeper
1 Omenspeaker
4 Thought Courier
1 Sea Gate Oracle
4 Neurok Invisimancer
3 Archeomancer

4 Evolving Wilds
2 Mountain
16 Islands

The idea is to counter early aggression with guys with big butts (Scrollkeeper and company) and eventually lock up the board with a Lavamancer's Skill on a wizard.  Wow, is this card oppressive!  You just start murdering stuff.

The counterspell suite needs improvement,but you get the idea.  I weather the early storm, start moping up the board with a Lavamancer'd wizard and counter all of their spells from that point on.  It becomes surprisingly easy to swarm with little 1/1s once all of your opponent's creatures are dead.  The Invisimancer can be good as times, but hasn't been the best so far.

Information Dealer has been MVP, choosing to draw from five cards is amazing.
Anyway, I'm currently 12-1 with the deck so I really recommend giving it a go-round.

-t.