

Don't judge my level of Spike based solely on this article! If someone gets plastered at a party it doesn't make them an alcoholic!

Excelsior oh faithful PureMTGO.com article readers. Something slightly different today. Something Heinous.

Every archetype of Magic player— Johnny, Timmy, Spike and even Vorthos, has a little of the other types within them. They bleed into each other. No true Johnny can say he doesn't have ounces of Spike and Timmy in him. I keep my inner Spike locked in a Barl's Cage but occasionally he lets himself out. As Johnny and partial Timmy I love the social aspect of Magic but this deck makes you no friends. Sometimes, though, you just want to pull off a heinous combo or seven.

This deck came about in a rather weird way for me, harkening me back to the days where I primarily played Classic/Vintage/Standard/Modern (I have since moved on to playing, fairly exclusively, Commander 1v1, Multiplayer Commander, Rainbow Stairwell, Classic Tribal Wars, and a modicum of Prismatic, though it's not like I never dust off some old classic staples of mine.) When I primarily played the main three formats that could use more than one copy of a card, I would begin deck building by finding some hair-brained Johnny combo and building around said combo. With Commander, 90% of the time I am still building around a combo— but that combo is based off of the Commander I've chose to exploit.

That's not the case here. In this deck, I found a crazy freakin' combo that had nothing to do with any one particular Commander choice. I decided to build around a three card combo which is always devastating when it goes off. I partially figured out this combo while throwing together a monoblue fatties Commander deck for Colossal Week.

In my Colossal deck I had both Omniscience and Dream Halls held within the tome of spells in order to cheat blue fatties into play, and during one play-test game, I actually used the halls to cast that big ol' enchantment. It got me thinking, if the halls could cast that huge beefy spell for the mere cost of throwing away a Ponder it could be used to cast Enter the Infinite. After casting Infinite, you can cast Omniscience after drawing it by chucking a Preordain or some other blue spell you just drew, and then you can get to work cast all but one card of your deck for free in one turn.

These three cards are all blue, so the only requirement of the deck's Commander is that it needs to have blue in its casting cost.

What Commander did I chose?

That's right, Sen Triplets.

At the beginning of your upkeep, choose target opponent. This turn, that player can't cast spells or activate abilities and plays with his or her hand revealed. You may play cards from that player's hand this turn.

I chose the triplets because, if you can get them out and keep them out, having them out before you blow up the game with your combo will ensure your hard work is not Counterspelled or Fogged. They are also heinous, and foretell that you are playing a heinous deck.

This gave me the added options of Black and White alongside the Blue. Black has tutoring and removal, White has spells like Silence & Orim's Chant in case the triplets are MIA, and it has the best selection of Commander-hosing cards (Oblation, Banishing Stroke, etc) as well as tutors that target enchantments, and two of our three cards in the combo are just that.

So once I had the initial three-card combo (which can really be trimmed to two cards, depending— as in, Dream Halls could cast most of your hand through discard if someone Jester's Capped your Omniscience, etc), I knew this deck was going to be heinous and that I had to fill it with spikey combos and tons of answers, card-draw and deck-sifting to really get it going.

Before I get into all of that, I want to point out a few more combos this deck has:

This combo, the epitome of heinous, is available to you. If you have out the crawler and manage to cast your Enter the Infinite, it's usually game.

I almost didn't include this one, but all the other components were here and it was just a matter of cutting one of my oh-so-numerous removal spells/answers to make room for the Maniac. Cast Enter the Infinite, however you can— probably with Dream Halls. Then, cast the Maniac. You have all but one card in your hand already. Now cast your Brainstorm and bingo-bango you just won the game.

So this deck by and large is a combo deck. Combo decks love cards that draw more cards, sift through your deck, or tutor— all in an attempt to locate that coveted final piece of your combo puzzle. Maralen is a repeated-tutor with the impediment of making you skip not just your draw phase, but drawing entirely(!) and also allowing your, ewwww, opponents to tutor. To offset their tutoring capabilities: the uber-heinous Aven Mindcensor.

We've offset the opponents-also-can-haz-tutorz with the Mindcensor, but how to offset not being able to draw any cards? Read Necropotence's wording. It is a loophole that allows more cards to appear in your hand after Maralen is hanging out on the battlefield.

Here is one of my favorite ways to win, if we are playing 1 v. 1. If playing multiplayer, this trick can at least take out one opponent. You have your deck minus one unneeded card in your hand. You drop the Omniscience, or even just have out the Dream Halls. First, cast the sphinx. Now Mr. (or Ms.) Opponent has 10 life. Drop Kokusho, then drop the twin copying Kokusho. Under the new legendary rules, Keep the Twin/copied version of Kokusho and let the other die. Your opponent is at 5. Activate Evil Twin targeting itself (I checked numerous rulings resources that say this is absolutely allowable), and bingobango, jingojango you've just won, or eliminated one person (and if you are in multiplayer, besides killing someone, you gained a crap-ton of life and damaged everyone else for ten.)

Note : Also in this Deck?: Clone & Phyrexian Metamorph: Playing Multiplayer and want to REALLY MAIM everyone?: Drop Kokusho. Then Clone. Then Metamorph. Then Evil Twin. Activate Evil Twin. You've done 20 to everyone else and gained either 40 or 60 or more.

This is an oldie, but goodie: Activate Mangara- when that is on the stack, Flash in Resty: Mangara does the Oklahoma Flicker Shuffle and comes back in a brand new version of himself, able to remove a second permanent.

The combo I mentioned up above, which is all about dropping this sphinx and then kokusho-ing the hell out your opponent is sorta heinous in multiplayer in that you totally murder-death-kill one opponent and the others are just maimed. By Flashing Resty and Flickering Sphinxy you can at least murder two people.

I Love this! If you rock the main combo out but don't think you can win that turn and are afraid of being decked, you can use Dream Halls exclusively to cast your spells, using Leng's discard to the top of your deck ability to stay in the game.

Honorable Mention:

These two lands are both in the deck. This is NOT a heinous combo. This is a true Johnny combo. Ghost Quarter your own Flagstones and score double Plains!

Let me explain this section for those of you unfamiliar with this category: Batman is the greatest superhero of all time and is penultimately prepared for most every situation with his utility belt of gadgets. From thermal to lockpicks to gas pellets, he has a solution for everything.

Many spells go into a Magic deck, but not all of them are there as backbones to a combo— but as answers to common threats. These answers— these spells, are your Batman's Utility Belt.



Creatures:

Academy Rector - enchantment tutor.

Thassa, God of the Sea - Scry = deck-sifting.

Eternal Dragon - Mana-ramp.

Solemn Simulacrum - Mana-ramp.

Baleful Strix - Card-draw/Chump-blocker. (Some say the best chump-blocker).

Mulldrifter - Card-draw/Chump-blocker.

Angel of Finality - Graveyard hate.

Duplicant - MurderDeathKill.

Cryptic Annelid - Deck-sifting

Mangara of Corondor - MurderDeathKill.

Ashen Rider - Permanent hosing.

Noncreature:

Demonic Tutor, Imperial Seal, Enlightened Tutor, Idyllic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor - Tutors.

Necropotence, Ponder, Preordain, Serum Visions, Brainstorm, Sensei's Divining Top, Phyrexian Arena - Card-draw/Deck-sifting.

Sol Ring, Liliana of the Dark Realms, Tithe - Mana-ramp.

Bribery - Tell me when this isn't useful!

Oblivion Ring, Mortify, Hero's Downfall, Go for the Throat, Vindicate, Spin into Myth Banishing Stroke Oblation - Removal.

Wrath of God, Damnation, Merciless Eviction, Austere Command - Mass removal.

The rest of 'em

Orim's Chant, Silence: In case you don't have your triplets online when going through you draw/cast everything combo, you are going to want to cast one of these to ensure your opponents don't interrupt (no pun intended, but it made me chuckle during my proof-read) your shenanigans.

Arcane Denial, Rewind: Much like the other two spells, these two counters are in here to make sure your combo goes off without a hitch. If you manage to cast Enter the Infinite without it being countered, you should draw these to help offset opponents trying to squelch your plans to win.

Render Silent: This amazing counter (for this deck) not only shuts down whatever spell was trying to disrupt your chicanery, but it also prevents future spells from being cast.

Akroma's Memorial: If you can't win with Psychosis Crawler, or the Maniac, or the Kokusho tromping, then this is your fourth win-condition. When you are dropping spells for free during your combo, drop the memorial and all of your black, white and blue creatures you just dropped also have haste. Attack and kill them.

Medomai the Ageless: This inclusion may be seemingly random, but I assure you it's not. First, it draws a lot of hate and can be used as a red-herring if you will. It isn't required to win the game, but it can be fun. When you drop your memorial in your grand combo, Medomai has haste and can grab you an extra turn to finish off the job of murdering all your opponents with combat damage.







I playtested this deck originally and extensively, though not solely, with Aspiring Magician, real name Mark. A lot of negativity can be found in random opponents online, but I started playing against mark in a random game in 2009 and we have been friends since. We have never met in person but we talk on the phone more than once a week, and have very close birthdays, thus buying each other MTGO bday gifts each year. We consider each other amazing friends and we met through this marvelous game online. I digress, but anywho:

The first time I played this deck against anyone I won on turn three. I had Enter the Infinite in my opening draw, Turn one, I dropped an Island and a Sol Ring. Turn two I dropped an Arcane Sanctum, and cast Phyrexian Metamorph copying the ring (for 3 and 2 life), and drew into Dream Halls on my draw. Turn three I cast the halls, and cast the infinite, and then drew into everything, casting Omniscience. I dropped the memorial and a bunch of creatures and just attacked.

In one game, on Turn five I cast Dream Halls, and then followed it up by casting Enter the Infinite. My opponent had five lands. I cast Ashen Rider then Damnation. I cast Vindicate and then Mangara/Restoration to exile four of his lands and destroy the last, rendering it impossible to stop me. As you should know I have oft exclaimed my hatred of LD; However this deck, though rooted in Johnny, brings out the heinous Spike in you. Luckily, since this happened in a playtest with Aspiring Magician, my opponent took it in stride.

While I did not win the game with the combo shown lauded in this article, I did get to cast Medomai on Turn four thanks to Sol Ring and on turn five I cast Bribery, targeting Aurelia, the Warleader, which netted me two extra turns to clean house.

Some things to remember:

Thanks for reading! Have fun being Horrible!



(Adam E. Clayton)

adam_the_mentat - puremtgo.com

atomicboosh - MTGO client

http://www.registerstar.com

theADROCK.deviantart.com

http://booshmtghodgepodge.tumblr.com/

atomicboosh.tumblr.com