Friday, February 12, 2010

A Truly Bazaar Deck

Ha ha, get it? Ok.

Check out the decklist here by Zapgaze, and examine it for a moment or two. I know when I first saw it, my eyebrows went up in a "WTF?" sort of way - not a "WOW" sort of way.

But there is a lot more going on in this deck than what is apparent at first glance.

This is because if you read Bazaar Trader, you can use it to give permanents you control to yourself. In other words, you can steal creatures with Mark of Mutiny, and then use Bazaar Trader to give YOURSELF permanent control of that creature you just stole. "You play Baneslayer to oppose my Persecutor? Thank you! Gift!" And there's some chance that the Baneslayer got a little bigger in the transaction.

Maybe that's not totally amazing, but it did clarify what the deck was all about a bit. It probably caught some players off guard anyway.



1) It plays (mostly, kinda) beatdown by attacking with Bloodghasts and Persecutors. If the beatdown plan works, it has a number of ways of getting rid of the Persecutor with Bone Splinters, Trader, or Terminate.
2) The Immortal Coil is probably like, Plan C in the deck. It doesn't seem to be highly relevant. But occasionally, you'll get it out, donate it away, and then Bojuka Bog away their graveyard. Occasionally, it will draw you cards; you don't really need to play the Bog after you give them the Coil; since you can still deal them damage to remove the GY that way.
3) It also plays a somewhat controlling role; it has 10 real removal spells; Persecutor can block at times as well, providing virtual card advantage. Against a Control build, most of the cards in the deck are pretty dead, but against any deck with targettable creatures, this deck can probably deal with them. One way or another.

Do I think this deck is good? Um, I think once you know how it works, the surprise factor just wears off completely. And it's honestly trying to juggle way too many things at once - if Bloodghast blocked, I could see a spark of potential here, but it's trying to beatdown, be kind of controlling, AND be a weird combo deck? I dunno, man.

Against smart players, this deck should not be able to accomplish what it wants to do. Not to mention it looks like it completely scoops to blue-based control decks.

The deck might be able to be improved, however. If you care to try. This preliminary deck is obviously a prototype in need of serious tuning or reworking.

I know one person who arrived at the idea of this deck independently and is taking a different approach entirely, with a stronger Goblin theme. There may be other directions. Go crazy.

I'm not touching this thing. ^_^