Hey, all...

I was recently on vacation in the beautiful town of Bandon, which islocated on the scenic Oregon coast.  Now as beautiful as Bandon is therereally isn't a lot to do there.  Its a town about the size of my ass soplaying a pickup game with the locals was out of the question and the oceanwas cold and windy so swimming and building sand castles was out of thequestion too.  What was a magical card playing guy like myself to do....butdesign a new deck!

Good thing I brought my card binder and the newest issue of the Duelist,because I was up for a day of Magic deck designing.  There is nothingbetter than spending the day pouring over the card listings of DuelistMagazine and trying to put my school deprived brain to work.  After muchthinking I came up with a few conclusions on my new dream deck:

1.) I want to build a red deck that is not a weenie and burnSligh/Lackey/Geeba/whatever kind of deck.

2.) The deck I have in mind will utilize a lot of the powerful, butsomewhat costly red spells of Type II.

3.) I really like these red power cards and want them to work together:Covetous Dragon, Shivan Hellkite and Wildfire.

After thinking a bit more I came up with the rough sketch of a deck thatutilizes big bad flyers, can clear the board with Wildfire, and can run alot of other control like land, artifact and creature destruction.

Meet a Type II red/artifact deck I call Junk Dragon:
4x Covetous Dragon (pure beat down)
4x Shivan Hellkite (pure beat down + creature control)
4x Wildfire (reset button, clears board of land/creatures and allows easybeat down with dragons)
3x Arc Lightning (creature control, possibly 2 or 3 for the price of one)
2x Steam Blast (creature control, possibly many for the price of one)
4x Grim Monolith (speeds up casting of critical cards like dragons andwildfire)
4x Worn Powerstone (same as monolith)
3x Voltaic Key (strong)
4x Cursed Scroll (obvious, can kill pro-reds)
2x Powder Keg (kills weenies especially pro-reds)
18x Mountain (strongest)
4x Ghitu Encampment (early defense or beat down)
4x Crystal Vein (speed)

Sideboard
4x Pillage (must have for red decks, dispatches Masticore, all around good)
2x Powder Keg (for more pro-red weenies)
4x Wasteland (just great against death)
1x Steam Blast (whatever the occasion calls for)
4x Boil (wins against blue, out go kegs and blasts)

How the deck plays must seem pretty obvious to most of you, but I'llexplain for those of you who hate thinking (I know, I hate it too).  Thefirst two or three turns should be spent playing mana artifacts and landsso you will have a good mana base to work with in the next few turns.  Evenif you don't immediately draw into the mana artifacts you can still keepyourself from perishing early from weenies by casting the many "one formore" creature destruction spells (Arc Lightnings, Steam Blasts and PowderKegs).  Later in the game you will be able to control the board with CursedScrolls, Powder Kegs and the ever powerful Wildfire.  After you have builtup enough mana to cast a dragon or two, go ahead and do it, because thiswould be the time.  After you have cast some choice flying beat down, castWildfire.  This will most likely leave your opponent without creatures andlands and give you some good time to do a little quality beat down withyour dragons.

Now there are many more variations of this deck.  Some variations of JunkDragon could lean towards land destruction.  This type of Junk Dragon wouldrun main deck Pillages, Stone Rains, Razes and maybe even RumblingCrescendos along with key cards like Wildfire and the big bad flyers above. Some variations could lean towards more artifacts and include the almightyMetalworker and Masticore.  Blaze would be simply amazing as a finishingcard with all the mana artifacts, Voltaic Keys, and Metalworkers in thisdeck.  There are a couple cards that should be considered either now orwhen the Rath Cycle rotates out of Type II and they would be Hammer ofBogarden and the brand new Masticore.

The Hammer would be an obvious choice for this deck.  One, the deck hasenough mana to successfully be casting the Hammer during mid game.  Andtwo, after the Rath Cycle rotates out of Type II people will be franticallysearching for a card that can do turn after turn damage.  That leads us tothe next card to watch...

My best bet for the Scrolls replacement would have to be Masticore.  In adeck that can generate generous amounts of mana, Masticore would be farbetter than the Scroll.  It would also act as a beat down beast, a greatblocker and an answer to green regenerators.  This is seriously a card to watch.

As you may have already noticed, this deck is not unstoppable.  I see it ashaving many problems against Stompy's speed and regenerators, WhiteWeenie's protection from red guys, and any new combo decks that rely onenchantments (Yawgmoth's Bargain, perhaps?).  These are all problems thatcould very well plague the life of this type of deck in Type II Magic.

I hope this article may have helped you on your quest for the modern Magicdeck.  Anyway, if you have any comments, suggestions or constructivecriticism go ahead and email them to me at jimmymc@cvc.net.

Thanks for the read,

Jimmy McPherson
jimmymc@cvc.net
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