![]() Global effects like Howling Mine and Dictate of Kruphix fundamentally alter the nature of what is happening in the game. ![]() While a Reveillark deck might not have normally cared if you suppressed their creatures, there was simply so much nullification from Turbo Fog that even if it was temporary Reveillark couldn’t begin to fight it.īuilding your deck to maximize this kind of effect is important. An overwhelming number of Fogs cuts your opponent off from an entire path of victory.Ĭertain very powerful decks like Reveillark simply could not fight this fight because by the time they could martial any real path to victory, Howling Mines would be set up with a large amount of countermagic available to prevent the very few cards that mattered. usually with Jace Beleren’s ultimate ability and occasionally from the simple effect of Howling Mine and Font of Mythos, each of which can collectively contribute to an incremental decking of the opponent (since they are affected first). While they may kill with Tezzeret the Seeker, they plan on primarily winning via decking. I wrote about how these decks function a few years ago in “The Killing Fog: A Different Take On Standard U/W”: The top end of the curve is all potent cards that either fuel the engine of the deck (Tezzeret the Seeker, Font of Mythos, Jace Beleren) or can negate whole elements of what the opponent does (Wrath of God, Cryptic Command). Tony qualified for the Masters with it in the Gateway, and I later played it in PTQs, losing in the finals of one due to a play error against Miracle Grow. They chickened out a bit and put in Morphling, but they needed to play what they were comfortable with. I updated the deck and made some changes that I thought were pretty radical, and then I gave it to Tony Dobson and Gary Wise for the New York Masters, one of the most prestigious events of the year. Even without a Howling Mine effect, take the example of the so-called “Norwegian Stasis” (debuted at Pro Tour Chicago 1999), which ran no Howling Mine but ran Gush and Thwart to power itself. With an effect like Dictate of Kruphix, you need to respect what it means to be choked for mana. Florida Orb is full of the kind of cheap spells that mean you will be able to accomplish what you like on any turn, and Force of Will (plus Arcane Denial) will stop whatever rare card someone might play to nix your plans. The plan was just to run the opponent out of cards using Feldon’s Cane to replenish your own library and Enlightened Tutor and Mystical Tutor to set up this absurd combination:Įspecially with how timing worked back then (there was an "interrupt window" after which if a spell wasn’t countered, other effects could be done but that spell was happening), Balance plus Zuran Orb was insane.Įven more than Turbo Stasis, Florida Orb was a deck that really broadcasts what can be scary about a Howling Mine deck-giving your opponent as many cards as they like, but having nearly all of those cards be useless because they won’t have time to use them all and won’t be able to do enough on any turn for you to care. ![]() The only actual kill card in the maindeck was Howling Mine itself. It was only at the very end of the format that people began to be able to beat it.īut look at what the deck is doing just by examining the mana curve ("m" are cards that produce mana, and "k" are key elements to the deck’s function): He started with a 0-1 record and a game loss, was paired against the player who had been awarded a round 2 bye, and went on to win the whole event, not losing a game. I still remember one PTQ in Indianapolis where Chris Czuba showed up late and talked his way into the tournament at the very beginning of round 2. Team ACD, the group of people playing it (a long-defunct Magic team from Chicago/Madison) broke it, and they ran the tables. You need to remember that at the time decklists were not widely disseminated, so other people didn’t exactly know what was in it. Originally designed by Pete Leiher, it was modified (primarily by Bob Maher and Andrew Nishioka) to be such a powerhouse that it literally won every PTQ it was played in for almost two months. During the Pro Tour Paris qualifying season, this deck was the best deck in Type 2 (what we called Standard back then).
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