The first real, themed deck I built- and the one that put me on the path of the Eternal Casual!

In my last article, I mentioned a bit of criticism that Eternal had taken for being overly simplistic, and crafted a deck that was delightfully intricate as a sort of rebuttal. However, my interest in building these sorts of casual decks well predates the blog, and it all started with the echo mechanic.

Up until that time, having returned to the game for the first time since beta, I had been simply getting accustomed to the card pool by building mono-color decks to run Gauntlets. When I felt comfortable with the game and what it offered, I decided to build a “real deck.”

By “real” I don’t mean competitive, but rather ones that were designed with a focus and purpose rather than just being a “good cards” mix. As a former Magic player, echo just screamed added value, and I wanted to see how far I could push the archetype and still make something that was solid and fun to play. Thus, Echolocation was born.

The earliest iteration of the deck was a sort of Frankenstein’s monster. I had an idea of what I wanted to make, but had to use the parts that were available rather than the ones I’d ideally had preferred. I just didn’t have all the rares and the shiftstone to indulge (this would quickly change once I embraced the Draft format). For instance, I owned zero Clockroaches, but knew the deck demanded them.

I got there eventually.

The deck on offer today is Echolocation in its final form as it was when I left it and moved on to other decks.

The deck’s aims are obvious- take advantage of the echo mechanic to outpace an opponent in card advantage, then take the win through strength of numbers on the ground and/or air.

Here are some of the deck’s key cards.

The mighty Clockroach is one of the deck’s three creatures with echo, and the only one that isn’t simply a vanilla creature with the keyword attached. The idea here is simple- play more Clockroaches, and they get successively bigger.

While you’d expect that to be fairly hard to do with a limit of four cards in a 75-card deck, there are lots of ways to- if not break the mechanic- then certainly to bend it to your will. Second Sight, for instance, lets you draw two cards, but must put one from your hand back atop the library. Make that card one of your Clockroaches and voila! One has once again become two! 7/7’s, 8/8’s, even 9/9’s or so are within reach if you line things up correctly and draw the right cards.

As for the other two, Pteriax Hatchling is a small flier, while Twinbrood Sauropod is a large 5/4 Dinosaur. Enough of any of them and you can just about put the game away.

I only include two copies of the Voice in the deck since her special ability is redundant in multiples and a two-drop 1/2 doesn’t add a lot to the deck. That said, she’s an excellent enabler. All the card advantage in the world avails you little if you don’t have the resources to play them, and by doubling each Power draw the Voice will make sure you continue to reliably hit your drops.

The Voice also has a secondary effect in tandem with the deck’s alternate win condition: Channel the Tempest. By the later stages of the game you may have all the Power you need, and by keeping a hand fairly topped off you can squeeze the most damage from Channel. A full-strength Channel can rock your opponent for 12 points of damage, and having a load of redundant Power bloating your hand you can help ensure a better return (and make your opponent anxious). And with the Elysian Trailblazer in the deck, sometimes you’ll get two goes at the trough!

If there’s one card in the deck that really kicks things into high gear, it’s this one. Like Second Sight, it gives you the chance to put an echo card back on top of your library. If that’s all it did, it might still be useful, but this Dinosaur has a nifty trick- she reduces the cost of the returned card. Not only do you get two more Clockroaches, but now they only cost one Power!

Delightfully, you can use another Nesting Avisaur to take the costs down even more, and flood the board with a stream of discounted beats. I’m hesitant to ever use the ability on non-echo cards, because of the inherent card disadvantage- it’s the equivalent of saying “skip your draw step, gain 2 Power.” But echo turns that vice into a virtue.

The last card to highlight is the Psionic Savant. In a vacuum, this is a terrible card at five Power on the basis of the “vanilla test.” That’s the assessment guideline I’ve picked up from Marshall Sutcliffe of the superlative Magic-based Limited Resources podcast, which encourages you to consider a card’s power and toughness relative to the mana cost, ignoring any special abilities. This establishes a sort of “baseline effectiveness,” and the Savant flunks it hard.

That said, good abilities can overcome the vanilla test, and in this deck the Savant can quickly grow to closer size thanks to the extra cards you’ll be drawing with echo. If I’m already in the midst of an onslaught of echo creatures I’ve found it’s not often worth it to devote a turn to bringing a fresh one of these out, but they’re a long-game-win option that’s worth nurturing when you can. It’s not at all impossible to get this thing up to as high as a 6/6 the turn after it’s played.

General Notes

There are more shenanigans you can employ than are present in this list. One card that I felt had some potential was Twinning Ritual, which I cut early. The rules text of the card specifies “create and draw,” meaning it’s yet another way to squeeze out more Clockroaches.

Cards that didn’t work? I found Find the Way to be far too slow. Same with Ancient Lore. I initially ran Praxis Displacer, but for the most part the deck wasn’t in position to take advantage of that kind of tempo play with any regularity. Finally, Thunderstrike Dragon is a good card, but surplus to requirements. There’s not a lot it can do that isn’t already being done by an army of cheaper echo bodies, and the less-expensive options let me establish a foothold sooner.

For those wanting to try or tinker, here’s the list!

4 Permafrost (Set1 #193)

4 Seek Power (Set1 #408)

4 Second Sight (Set1 #207)

2 Voice of the Speaker (Set1 #78)

4 Clockroach (Set1 #94)

4 Polymorph (Set1 #211)

4 Pteriax Hatchling (Set1 #354)

4 Nesting Avisaur (Set1 #225)

3 Crystallize (Set1 #232)

3 Elysian Trailblazer (Set1 #228)

3 Psionic Savant (Set1 #360)

2 Reliquary Raider (Set1 #110)

2 Twinbrood Sauropod (Set1 #113)

2 Channel the Tempest (Set1 #244)

11 Time Sigil (Set1 #63)

15 Primal Sigil (Set1 #187)

4 Seat of Wisdom (Set0 #63)