Welcome, one and all to this week's Budget Brews! Now, I admit not all of my brews are really aimed to dominate the meta or even win games. They are for you to have some fun and do some crazy things. Here at Budget Brews we concentrate more on the 'funsies' side of Magic and if we win, well, it's just an added bonus.
This past week in one of the various Magic Facebook groups I belong to, someone asked the group their favourite win condition. I had sit back and take a moment to think of the way I really like to win games. Sure, winning through creature damage is the norm and how I usually win games, but my real favourite way to win a game? When I go to Friday Night Magic and want to win some games, what's my favourite way to do so? Well, it's easy. It's for me to have such a lock on the game that my opponent throws their hands up and scoops to me.
There's various ways to achieve this in Modern, most notably is Lantern Control. It's the deck that makes us cringe when we see it on coverage and when we play against it we want to pound our head into the wall. Lantern Control, since it's broken out has gotten a little pricey though. So, how do we budget conscious people do it? Pillow Fort!
Ah, I remember being a young child building forts of pillow's in our large living room. We even had one of those big sectional couches where every single cushion came off the couch and I'd be able to build these epic forts. When it was complete, I'd happily hang a “No Girls Allowed” sign on the front, and play with my X-Men action figures in my own little world where I couldn't be bothered by my mother, grandparents, or whatever grown up problems there might be outside of my comfortable zone.
You can do the same thing in Magic. You build a fort and ignore the problems that your opponent tries to bring down on you. Pillow Fort is a white-based enchantment control deck that seeks to lock our opponent out from attacking, and dealing with their creatures in any way possible. The deck is actually pretty well suited for our current meta, since it's all creature based linear aggro strategies that try to race (thanks, Eldrazi!). Burn is no where to be seen, and control is mainly seen as a U/W Tap-Out Midrange control playing few counterspells. There are versions of the deck where it has a win condition through cards like Sigil of the Empty Throne but we're going to go ahead and go for all out submission and forego that way to win.
Warning: This deck will alienate friends and make you an outcast in your play group.
All in all the deck at WizardTower.com comes in at about: $74 CAN or about $61CAN in Tix on MTGO so you can have your opponent pull their hair out over digital cards as well, but really if you can't see the look of frustration on their face as you pin them to mat, then it quite isn't the same.
Upgrades?
Well, obviously some upgrades would be some Flooded Strands and Hallowed Fountains. Remands would be good in the Sideboard as well. Ghostly Prison should be an auto four-of included in the deck, but they've spiked since the Eldrazi has taken over the format, so we opted out of playing those.
What Does Our Deck Fold To?
Well, Control is obviously going to be one of our hardest match-ups. Especially the traditional draw-go style of control. Also the Melira Combo is rough if they can get it all off. Storm might be tricky pre-board, and but I think we have excellent chances post board.
So, let's send our little budget brew out into the wilds and see how we fare (hopefully better than last week).
Affinity - 0/2
The deck is just too fast. They play a Vault Skirge, we play a Pacifism, they dump their hand, equip Cranial Plating and it's GG. Man-lands are the deck's worst enemy since we play at sorcery speed, and Affinity is known to be the format's fastest Infect deck, which just so happened to be how he won game two. Ugh....
R/W Token Aggro 2/0
The deck was kinda weird and kinda cool. It used Genesis Chamber and a Soul Sister along with Impact Tremors and then just dashed in Lightning Berserker each turn to make a token, ping me and make a Myr. First game he was stalled on land so he didn't really get his little combo going, game two my Detention Sphere and Banishing Light was able to take card of everything he needed to get going. How'd I win? He conceded the match after a Sphinx's Revelation recouped the life I had lost and left me with a full grip.
Simic Elves 2/1
Game one we don't have much interaction since our enchantments don't stop mana abilities, and Beck / Call does it's best Glimpse of Nature trick and draws him plenty of cards. I end up scooping and board into my Banishing Lights, and Eidolon of Rhetorics. I keep a six card hand with two Eidolon's and a Nevermore, with lands. I end up having him locked out of the game and he scoops. Game three is a bit trickier since he gets Cloudstone Curio out and is able to keep playing and bouncing Reclamation Sage while he takes chip shots with his Elf army. My Walls and well-placed Banishing Light and Nevermore are able to stop him from doing it and eventually I lock him out. Thank goodness for Elixir of Immortality, it ended up saving me this game.
All in all the deck is a blast to play, and I can almost see going up to maybe 22 lands? But I'm not sure what you'd take out to make room for them. The most underwhelming card was Oppressive Rays, but it seems good early game and it still adds Enchantment count towards Sphere of Safety and taxes their mana a little more when they want to swing in, so I don't know if two is enough. I could also see Wall of Frost getting a couple of Sideboard slots to bring in against non-Abrupt Decay decks.
The Upgrades to this deck might even make the deck playing in a semi-competitive level while we're in the middle of Eldrazi Winter and taxing the Eldrazi mana has proven to be a good strategy. Throw in a couple of Sigil of the Empty Thrones and you might really have something. Early removal and late pressure wins games, but that's only if you're looking for a more serious deck. The deck as is, is exactly what I was going for. Something to troll your way through Friday Night Magic and giggle maniacally as your opponent pulls their hair out trying to fight through your Enchantment locks.
Thanks for joining me while I untap the multiverse, and I look forward to brewing up something for next week!
Have an idea for something you'd like me to brew up? Give me a shout in the comments!
You can also follow me on Twitter @maibuddha, Reddit /u/maibuddha, or you can join my Facebook group!
