Core-poral Punishment: My Take on the Bad Guys

So, here's this deck, see...:

Magi:

Evil Evu

Agram

Morag

Creatures:

1 Chaos Plith

3 Corathan

1 Dark Furok

1 Darkbreed’s Minion

2 Gorath

3 Gragling

3 Gumph

1 Rabid Wasperine

1 Shryque

3 Wudge

3 Zungg

(22)

Relics:

3 Agram’s Plaything

1 Chaos Sphere

2 Grim Goblet

1 Rayje’s Belt

1 Robes of the Ages

1 Shroud of the Master

(9)

Spells:

1 Beam of Light

2 Corrupt

1 Crushing Darkness

1 Dream Rift

1 Entomb

1 Morag’s ‘Gift’

1 Spirit of the Core

1 Vaporize

(9)

Total = 40

This deck is not my idea. The, ahem, core of the deck (Agram, 3 Plaything, 3 Wudge) comes from an old opponent of mine on the gEngine who used to crush me with it. After learning about lackey, I decided to dust off that shell and try to reverse engineer a sweet Core deck from it, and I think I succeeded. This deck is very in-your-face aggro, draws lots of cards quickly, and pretty much doesn’t mess around. Despite a serious slant towards aggro, however, the deck can play an attrition game by repeatedly possessing opposing Creatures with Corathan’s ability or using some dirty tricks (and busted cards) to gain lots of free energy, as well as a control game by utilizing some of its sub-themes to punish enemy players for doing what players normally want to do: playing Creatures (Wudge, Corrupt, Morag’s ‘Gift’, etc.); attacking you (Gumph, Rabid Wasperine); having good or costly Relics in play (Vaporize, Morag); leaning too heavily on one particular Spell or Power/Effect (Entomb, Rayje’s Belt); or drawing lots of cards (the singleton Darkbreed’s Minion).

Of course, the many of the specific card choices for a deck are peculiar to the individual who designed it. Deck builders have their own preferences, pet cards or cards they think are terrible. I’d like to mention a few of the more idiosyncratic options included here.

Darkbreed’s Minion. I haven’t ever seen anyone run this guy, and IRL I totally understand why. It practically doesn’t exist. Online though, imagine playing this thing early against a Bograth set-up Magi like Baa or Eryss. How good does casting Tradewinds look with one of these on the opposing team? Yeah, that’s what I thought. A lot of games you won’t see him early enough to be useful, but in those situations where you do, this card has the potential to generate free wins. And I love me some free wins.

·      Gragling. Again, IRL this little guy doesn’t actually exist. Fine. But seriously, look at this thing. Not only is this a weenie (see a future post for why I love 0-3 energy-cost Creatures so much) that gets bigger for no extra investment (just like Wudge, the most useful Core card ever), but it also makes your deck much more resilient against Cald, d’Resh, Thunderquake, and anyone with Crushing Spells (so everyone). At the very least they have to kill this guy before they kill the thing they actually want to kill, and if you have multiples out, it’s hard not to generate incidental value from the opponent casting Spells to kill your guys.

·      Gumph. This card does approximately one metric ton of damage. It’s pretty self-evident, and sometimes he bites you in the britches instead of doing anything useful, but still many opponents tend to be surprised by how much energy they lose to just one of these boogers. It helps that this deck has a lot of ways to trigger him on your own turn (Agram’s Possess, offensive Spells, you know … attacking). This card is one of the reasons I get to play super offensively without using up three full card slots on Warrior’s Boots.

·     Shryque. Not much to say here except these five words: Energy Cost: Two. Starting: Morag. Many people like Shryque in many Core decks. This is not one of those decks. This is a 2 Energy guy with no text, and that’s honestly enough sometimes.

·   Agram’s Plaything. The secret sauce. The whole enchilada. The thing that makes this deck’s world go ‘round. A full playset of this card is what allows Agram to pressure opponents even when his Energize rate is the pits for the first several turns he sees play (Note that I almost NEVER have Agram survive to come back again and still end up using him for the majority of my game time). This is a free 3 Energy guy, sometimes for multiple turns in a row. It can attack, it can possess, basically do everything you want other than trigger Wudge.

·   Grim Goblet. Unless they have Relic removal that turn, this is better than Tradewinds. If they have Relic removal that turn, this is gg. As Corey Matthews once stated, “Risk, Risk, Risk? Reward, Reward, Reward!” Seriously though, my local metagame is reasonably light on Relic destruction, and if you play in an environment where that kind of card runs rampant, it’s probably best to switch these out for something a little less dangerous. Secrets of the Book is decent. Doubling up on some of the other one-ofs, or just running all 3 Shryque, because without this thing, you might actually trigger him.

·     Shroud of the Master. Yeah, this card is broken. I know that’s why it costs 3 to play, which I grant you is a lot. But when this thing is in play, I’m gaining on average something like 8-12 total energy a turn before anything else. The card discard is essentially a cost of 0, since you draw more than you can possibly play in one turn anyway. This is another reason Agram can put such huge pressure on opponents with much higher numbers.

·       Morag’s ‘Gift’. I like this card. I like this card a lot when combined with Corrupt. I feel dirty when I cast this card by bouncing my Agram’s Plaything and then immediately re-play my Agram’s Plaything and do whatever I was going to do with it anyway.

·     Chaos Sphere. Listen, this card is probably not really worth it. It takes an average of five turns to do anything. An AVERAGE of five turns. Sometimes a lot more. It’s bad. But sometimes it takes three turns and you just auto-win. All it costs is the slot it takes up, and did I mention pet cards and free wins? Yus!

Anyway, I think this deck is just about the best thing a mono-Core deck can be doing in Magi-Nation, and I would challenge any of those loose Dark Twins deck that I’ve seen posted out there any day of the week (but not on Sunday, because the bad guys don’t get to gloat on Sunday). Haters, I encourage you to play with the deck first before you hate. Anyone else, whether the deck concept is new to you, or whether you’ve seen it all before, please comment with thoughts/suggestions/criticism/praise/debate. That’s what I’m doing this for.