Old School MTG: Colorless Colossus Tron Shops

Robot Factory!

My plan is to build and play six different (but similar) decks this year. Near the end of last year, I traded a bunch of cards to get some Mishra's Workshops. I've been pulling cards from my collection early this year to build up more trades, but we'll see how that goes. At this point, I have 3x Mishra's Workshop. One more to go!

For the first deck of the year, I wanted to revisit the colorless deck with Colossus at the top end of the curve. So far, I've only gotten to play one game with it. But! It was an actual Old School game against Ben's Erhnamgeddon deck.

Ben facing down the last few points of damage.

I won, but just barely. It ended up coming down to dodging both Armageddon AND Disenchant for multiple turns so that I could swap life totals with Ben using the Mirror Universe and then shoot him down with Triskelion. If at any point he was a able to disenchant the Mirror before I made the swap, I would not have won that game. I used a combination of Mazes, Icys, and Coffins to keep the Angels and Djinns from killing me, but let just enough damage through to get my life total low enough for a profitable swap with the Mirror. It was a fun game!

A couple of notes on the deck:

1) If I had another Mishra's Workshop, I would run it. The same goes for Black Lotus, of course. Both cards are bonkers.

2) The Time Vault is questionable. I have used it in decks like this before where there is no "trick" to untap it. Skipping a turn early to be able to take two super-effective turns later is a powerful gamble. When this deck gets rolling on Howling Mines and tons of mana, two later turns in a row are almost always game-winning. With that said, this slot should probably just be a main-deck City in a Bottle.

3) Su-Chi is good, but risky with Mana Burn. This comes up over and over. Yes, there are situations where when it dies, you can put the mana into your Mishra's Factory or Tome. But there are plenty of times that it's just eating four damage on top of losing a creature. This slot could be Juggernaut. There are other trade-offs with that creature, though.

4) The Library of Alexandria is sometimes a trap. There are plenty of early hands that want to be played out quickly, but where the Library will naturally make you hold back to draw more cards. This feels especially bad when you are punished by an opposing Mind Twist. With that said, there are plenty of mid-game situations where a Wheel or Timetwister will refill your hand and tapping a single land to rip another card off the top is that-much-better. It does allow me to keep borderline opening hands knowing that I will get a redraw.

Old School MTG: 2019 Wrap Up and Lessons Learned

Robots 2019!

The goal for this year was to build and play a new Old School deck every month. Let's see how I did.

January - UW Prison
February - Red Atog Robot Tron
March - BG Nether Shadow
April - White Prison
May - UB Time Bots
June - Blue Tron
July - Red Atog Robots
August - Colorless Robot Tron
September - Blue Copy Robot Aggro
October - Black Yawgmoth Reanimator
November - Maui Green Untamed Colossus
December - Colorless Robot Tron

Over the course of the year, I used most of the cards in my collection. I put together a few other decks along the way, mostly to have a deck to test against: Reanimator, Troll Disco, the Deck. A theme emerged: I like playing robots. There are a lot of different ways to play a robots-themed deck. It's cool to see what each color brings to the table and how the stance of the deck changes with those other cards included.

Lessons Learned

What lessons did I learn this year?

The primary lesson I learned is that I like robots. Beyond that, I learned that no one I know likes to play against prison, land destruction, discard, or hard control strategies in casual games. There isn't anything wrong with those strategies, but if I'm just playing for fun around the kitchen table it's important to consider that if my opponent isn't having fun, I might get to play less Magic overall.

I thought I would have more opportunities to play Old School, but outside of casual games at home with my family I only went to meet ups twice. I was looking for an experience like I had back when Commander was taking off. I went every weekend to the local gaming store and found a dozen players ready to rumble. Old School, at least in my area, isn't like that. Maybe webcam games are the answer, but I haven't gone down that road yet.

The format is fragmented. Between SWE, ATL, EC, and now PAC, there are subtly different ways to build, test, and collect. Unless you show up to events hellbent on winning, this isn't a huge deal. Where it becomes a problem is trying to sort out who has what deck if you do end up somewhere for casual games (in person or online). Plus, there is an element of argument and superiority about which format is better when the reality is that I believe these different groups of players are looking for different things.

I light up when I see colorless decks in any format, including Old School. Yes, there are iconic cards in all colors and I appreciate seeing how these decks come together. Stasis is cool. Mono-Black control is cool. Beating down with Orggs is cool. But just because I appreciate that those decks exist doesn't mean that I want to play all of those decks. I'm happy to play against those decks. Essentially, the age old advice to simply play what you like applies here. I like colorless decks.

I'm not competitive, but I am looking for a 3-2 deck. There are people at the table who are there to win. I'm not one of those people. But at the same time, I'm not there to lose. I'm there to have a fun and interactive game of Magic. I want to create situations where I am one draw away from winning. I want to wade into complicated board states and work out a solution. And I want that same experience for my opponent. In five rounds, I want the chance to break even in close games. If you look at some of the decks on TCDecks.com, you'll see that the community has honed in on optimal piles of cards. The same few decks show up in the top 8 of most tournaments with small variations. In a limited card pool, this is bound to happen. Again, there's nothing wrong with that. It's just not what I'm looking for in my Old School experience.

This year, I played quite a few games of Magic with my family. They play super-casual decks built out of cards from recent sets. It blows me away how "fair" even the broken Old School cards are against modern decks. Between the more efficient modern creatures and stronger synergies, I lose more often than I win despite having power cards. Ramping with moxes into a turn 2 Triskelion is fun, but not game-ending. There were so many times this year I was completely shut down by a creature with deathtouch, for example. With that said, Swords is still Swords and Lightning Bolt is still Lightning Bolt. It makes for some good and surprisingly balanced games.

Deckbuilding for 2020

Based on my experiences this year, I decided to make some massive trades. This resulted in getting several copies of Mishra's Workshop. In my mind, this is the defining card of casting robots and pushes that strategy up to a 3-2 deck. My goal this year is to build a total of 6 different decks, all of which are based on getting robots onto the battlefield. I want to get maximum value out of those Workshops!

Why 6 decks? It will be one deck of each color and a colorless deck. I want to explore what each color brings to the Shops deck. The key is to figure out how to use each color to support the Shops strategy without taking over with superior cards. Each color has to fit into a deck that cares about artifacts. Each deck needs an identity, a different approach based on the color that is splashed in.

White - Argivian Archaeologist, Removal
Blue - Sage of Lat-Nam, Twiddle, Copy Artifact
Red - Atog, Orcish Mechanics, Burn
Black - Priest of Yawgmoth, Animate Dead
Green - Titania's Song, Sylvan Library
Colorless - Tron, Sword of the Ages, Tawnos' Coffin

Magical Christmas Presents

For Christmas this year, I made custom theme boosters for three of my friends. They play Commander decks with clear themes focused on different creature types, so I selected cards that would fit those themes.

The fun part of the process (for me), was going through all of the cards to find the right 15 to put in the booster. I made a spreadsheet and winnowed each theme down to a list with a good mix of card types.

The boosters are wrapped in normal printer paper, carefully glued along the edges and along the fold in the back (like a genuine booster). The ends are "crimped" using a couple of forks. The cards inside were in clear sleeves to make sure the glue wouldn't get on them, but I used a glue-stick so it really wasn't a problem. I used a pen to freehand the labels on the front.

Here is the YouTube video tutorial I watched:

https://youtu.be/mr_lLeQDxIs

Have fun making your own booster packs!

MagicFest Portland 2019: Trading for Mishra's Workshop

Karyn and Ben with the bounty collected - Liliana looks on in interest.

I didn't get a chance to play in any events at MagicFest Portland 2019, but I did get a chance to make a whole bunch of trades for some Old School goodness.

Trading cards is emotionally demanding for me. I've had a lot of these cards for 20+ years, so it's difficult to be objective to make a trade happen. My wife generously stepped in to broker deals for me. My friend Ben joined in on the fun. I lurked nervously in the distance taking selfies with planeswalkers.

I spent the last year building a bunch of different Old School decks, but a pattern clearly emerged. I'll have more about this in my year-end wrap up, but suffice to say that artifacts (Robots!) are my jam. So, I decided to trade my dual lands for Mishra's Workshops. I ended up with 3x 'Shops and a Beta Sol Ring for my pile of dual lands.

Trading with dealers in person was way quicker than selling online (or trading online). There were about 8 dealers at the festival. Karyn and Ben visited each one and had to go between 3 or 4 of them to make the deal work out. Thank you!

Old School MTG: Colorless Robots - Big Boys (Sometimes Cry)

It's December! That makes it 12 months of Old School MTG decks on this blog. My deck for this month includes robots, of course. It's based on a deck by Anne J called "Big Boys (Don't Cry)."

Here's a few links to the deck:
Tappedout (Decklist) - http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/old-school-9394-big-boys-dont-cry/
Timmy Gameplay 1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4lWcYvWPSw
Timmy Gameplay 2 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0txHoBsK-FE

My version is missing a few cards that Anne J has, but the swaps don't hurt me too bad. I'd argue that Anne J should find a way to include Fellwar Stone in the deck.

This deck does all the things that I want to do. It's colorless. It ramps. It tops out with a 9/9 trampler. There's shooty robots and flyie robots. It draws hella cards. It does tricks with the Coffin. It has a sweet Sword. And is looks cool!

In the few games I've played with it this month so far, I've won with the Sword once, untapped a Colossus after damage with a Maze, killed small creatures with my Deserts, and had multiple Howling Mines on the field. Good times.

Against certain decks, feeding your opponent cards is not a great plan. The deck lacks a "come from behind" option. A theoretical sideboard would have Black Vise, Disk, and Relic Barrier.

Anne J's version of the deck uses Candelabra. It's a sweet card. I would certainly run at least one copy if I had it. There's all kinds of tricks, including double-Maze activations, double-pumping your Factories, ramping like crazy with Tron out, and more!

Almost 20 years ago, I used to play a 75-card singleton 5-color deck. We would get these crazy 10+ person group games going at my college. My goal was to be as defensive as possible. My deck didn't really do anything, but it played all the cards I liked including a signed Candelabra. I later traded this card away, but one memory I have of playing with it was in a group game where the opponent to the left of me cast a spell that allowed him to look at my top card and put it back. He looked at the card and said, "Oh, I know what you're up to." I had to wait for it to come around to my turn to find out which card was on top. It was the Candelabra. To the day, I don't know what he thought I was up to. I just used it to fix my janky 5c mana base. As with many cards I've traded away over the years, I wish I still had it.

Old School MTG: Maui Green Untamed Colossus

Maui Green Untamed Colossus

For November, I decided to go green.

I wanted to explore the interaction of Sylvan Library and Untamed Wilds while ramping into big robots. I tried a couple of different configurations, ultimately ending on the one pictured above. Nothing worked the way that I wanted. These decks are for casual games, so I'm not looking for anything spectacular. But I am looking for something interesting. This isn't it.

And yes, I did use four dual lands in place of four basic forests. I didn't have legal basic forests for those slots, so I used G/x duals instead. First world problems.

I considered using Titania's Song to turn my other artifacts into robots. That could be a fun way to use a lot of different artifact cards and still have a way to win in the end. But I think a deck like that wants to be a prison deck and that's something I am trying to avoid for casual games.

For the record, I did use Reinarnation on a Llanowar Elves to bring out a Colossus of Sardia. I also had a game where I landed Instill Energy on a Colossus. I had a game or two where I had Sylvan+Millstone working. It didn't feel as powerful as I imagined it would, but I think it's because the rest of the deck isn't that powerful. What I'm saying is that the deck worked. It did what it was supposed to do. I just wasn't feeling it.

A deck that aggressively tries to pitch big robots and use Reincarnation to get them back might be fun, but then again it may only seem like fun because I like reanimator. Black and even white are probably both better color options for this strategy anyway. A deck that splashes white for COP:Green to go with Force of Nature might be fun, but I'm also trying to avoid splashing a color this year. And, if I was going to do that, I'd use COP: Black and Lord of the Pit because it's a demon!

Old School MTG: Mono-Black Yawgmoth Reanimator

It's Rocktober! Let's reanimate some robot corpses.

I'm playing this deck all month, just for casual games. It's quite fun!

It's heavy on mana sources, probably too heavy. Basalt Monolith is good with Priest of Yawgmoth for ramping to 6 mana to cast the robots. It even gets to 9 mana with relative ease for Colossus of Sardia, although untapping it is a challenge. Still, getting in there with one big attack isn't bad and then saccing the Colossus to the Priest to cast a huge Drain Life is a neat trick.

Going up to 4x Animate Dead is probably right, more right than running Skull of Orm in that slot. But the skull is so cool! Another little book is probably also right, shaving a monolith. Otherwise, the play pattern seems fine. Drawing cards is an issue, but that's true of most non-blue decks. The pair of Howling Mines is symmetrical, but this deck wants to tap out with threats every turn so they work better than big books. Against a competitive deck, they would be a liability.

I tried running Su-Chi in an earlier build of this deck thinking that saccing it to the Priest would be neat. It would produce 4 black mana from the Priest's ability plus another 4 colorless mana from the Su-Chi's ability. But more often than not, the Su-Chi would die at an inopportune time and I would take mana burn. There's probably an even more over-the-top version of this deck that maxes out Priests and Colossus. Colossusi? Colossuses? Colossuses. We'll go with that.

Running Yawgmoth Demon is a powerful one-of in this deck. There are usually plenty of artifacts on the board to sac. If the skies are clear, a 6/6 flying first-striker can make quick work of the opponent. If the skies are not clear, the demon can make quick work of almost anything in the way up there and blocks angels and djinn like a champ.

As you might expect, sticking an Abyss and playing a critical mass of artifact creatures will eventually grind out any opponent that doesn't have a way to stop it. That's not exactly what I was going for here, but it's won me a couple of games I had no business winning otherwise.