Saturday, June 29, 2013

I see a red room and I want to paint it black

I've been experimenting with various flavors of Under Pressure. I'm going to share my current Most Favored Version and how I'm tweaking it around.

Under Pressure, Rainbow Celebration Variant
Base Cards
10 Guild Gates
4 Maze's End
4 Gatecreeper Vine

Other Land (usually around 10)
3 Temple Garden
2 Hallowed Fountain
3 Stomping Ground
2 Overgrown Tomb

Creatures
3 Centaur Healer
4 Saruli Gatekeepers

Creature Removal/Clearers
4 Supreme Verdict
3 Far // Away
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Ground Assault
4 Dreadbore
4 Warleader's Helix

Accelerants
4 Urban Evolution
1 Door to Nothingness  // This is both a hedge against losing a land and SHEER HILARITY

Color Distribution
12 white (inc 4x double white spells)
11 blue
9 black
10 red
16 green

Sources
9 White (4 gates + 3 Temple + 2 Hallowed)
6 Blue
6 Black
7 Red
12 Green

The think is as follows
Foremost, one of the overlooked powers of the Gate/Maze's End is that by turn 5 I am almost guaranteed to pull a dual land of my choice (corollary: I am sad if I pull neither ME or Gatecreeper). This gives me the freedom to go five color for solid giggles. Odds are I have the mana for three of the colors in the opening hand, I then just go digging for the missing two with my first guildgate.

I liked adding red because of the surprising synergies: Warleader's Helix is a slick removal and lifegainer card, Dreadbore solves my planeswalker problem as well as baller removal, and Ground Assault works nicely early and late if I'm throwing land down like whoa.

The biggest question is how do I adapt my removal spells.

Sacrifice: Excellent late game (after a board clear) and gets around annoying hexproof creatures (a real bane of this deck). Crappy against decks with mana dorks and so-so against aggro (one 3/2 creature is much like another 3/2) There are three sacrifice spells worth looking at: Devour Flesh (sac one for two mana), Tribute to Hunger (sac one for three mana but I get the life), barter in blood (sac two for four mana)

Devour Flesh Tribute to Hunger Barter in Blood

Targeted Death: Works nicely against everything except hexproof. Absolute epitome of the deck's willingness to trade card for card for time to power up the Maze

Board Clearing: Obviously the preferred solution, just not that much of it available (probably on purpose the dastards) Supreme Judgment with some Aetherize in the sideboard for token decks.

My creatures: Solve the hexproof problem but that's about it. Oh and the silly life gain. <3 Saruli.


Also, if I win a game at a tournament with the door, I assume I just retire, right?

Door to Nothingness

1 comment:

  1. straight to retirement indeed. basically i imagine your back would be in shambles after the dance you do on top of the tournament table.

    at a minimum the judge announces the win to the room over the loudspeaker.

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