Woohoo!

This week starts the two weeks before Prerelease time, and for all Magic players around the world, it’s time to start looking at the new prerelease cards. Since I write this a week ahead of it’s column date, I won’t have any cool rares to work with from Saviors of Kamigawa until perhaps next week, and then I’ll see what I can do. Remember everyone, your local Saviors of Kamigawa prerelease is a great place to get started in competitive Magic. It’s a small step above playing Magic at home with friends and your local Friday Night Magics, if you go. It’s on May 22-23, and even if you don’t want to participate in the main event, most tournament hosts will have dealers on site for buying and selling, and will be running side events, so there is plenty to do. Grab some dollar rares, have a good time, trade for that playset of Possessed Aven, whatever floats your boat, A prerelease is great fun. Plus, since we’re talking about a Kamigawa Prerelease, you’ll be able to pick up four copies of this week’s dollar rares, or even copies of other Raiding The Dollar Bins decks. Remember my last three articles? That’s four decks to work on, so there’ll be plenty of work to do to get the rares. But, I digress.

Back in the good old days, before I knew anything about Magic, my friends and I loved Righteousness. The card was great! I mean, you could just play it on a creature and get +7/+7 forever! Until I learned the rules. Sigh. But, Righteousness ties into this weeks dollar rare, which happens to be a great combat trick rare, if a bit narrow. Champions of Kamigawa’s Hold the Line is this weeks dollar bin rare, along with the legendary “Chuck” from the Core Set, otherwise known as Bloodshot Cyclops.

How do they work together? It’s really simple. You play out some small creatures and build up your mana. Equip them up with some Bonesplitters and Mask of Memories (to draw out the combo), and get to attacking. Your early turns are going to be used to whittle down your opponent’s life while you ramp your mana to be able to play Hold the Line and Fling, or have Bloodshot Cyclops on the field. Your little guys will do some blocking, and a little attacking, until you can get out either 6 mana for Bloodshot Cyclops or 5 mana. After you get enough out, just sit back. When your opponent attacks, block with all your creatures, and play Hold the Line. This will make all your guys a +7/+7 stronger. After that, use “Chuck” to “chuck” your big creatures at your opponent’s head. I’ve also added Fling for this combo as well, so there is not short on throwing stuff. Let’s take a look at the deck list.

 

When I first got the email saying I should try Quicksilver Fountain or Hold the Line, I had to smile. That week I’d already had the decks built, and what do you know? Quicksilver Fountain was a lockdown card for my Chisei Wussy deck. (The email also mentioned using Swirl the Mists somehow.... ugh. I’m working on it though...) A suggestion of Hold the Line to deal lots of damage some how.... interesting. And so I kept on thinking, about it, and finally came to the conclusion that if you block your opponent’s creatures with every creature you have, and then play Hold the Line, they all get +7/+7 till the end of the turn, which makes most of them pretty big. So, how do I get that damage to go across? Trample from you creatures doesn’t work when you’re blocking, so that’s out. Then I found it: Bloodshot Cyclops.

Bloodshot Cyclops is a great card with Hold the Line, because you can literally chuck your creatures at your opponent. Looking at a card list for similar cards, I also found Fling and Grab the Reins. I haven’t played Grab the Reins in this deck because the combo is pretty mana intense, and sometimes you don’t have 4 mana lying about to use with you Hold the Line. It’s difficult to do anything with it, and in the first playtesting games, I found that it would just sit in my hand and do nothing. So, it came out so that I could put in 4 Wayfarer’s Bauble, which really works well in this deck.

I’ve picked Bonesplitter because of it’s +2/+0, and it lets you reign the beats down on your opponent early, making them find an answer to your creature, or just take the damage. Suntail Hawk is a great weenie choice simply because it lets you bring down 3 flying damage turn 2. Genju of the Spires is a debated pick simply because it’s way too mana intensive. But, for 3R you can get 6 damage for it, and if you block with it, you pay 4RWW for 13, and hopefully lethal damage. The Genju would be the first card to go, but change it out for what card? Perhaps Pyrite Spellbomb would be a nice choice because it allows you a way to deal with your opponent’s early creatures or draw a card if you need it.

Try to get out a respectable amount of weenies out, but don’t over commit to the board or you may have something like Hideous Laughter come along and ruin your plans. Try to dig through your deck with Mask of Memories. It works great on a Suntail Hawk, and can net you the cards you need to complete your win condition.

The Genjus fall into the number one slot of most likely to get cut, so replacing it with equipment is fine. Remember that you don’t have a lot of creatures, and with the Cyclops out, a Genju becomes: 2R, T, Sacrifice a mountain: deal 6 damage to target creature or player. Not too shabby. However, he gets a little expensive if you want to make your mountain a creature, then Hold the Line, then Fling it. That’s a whopping 8 mana, counting the cost you paid to play the Genju. But think of that 8 mana investment as a recurrable 13 damage to your opponent. That’s gotta smart! (Just watch out for Circle of Protection: Red.)


Things to remember:

1) Make sure to get in that early damage. Chances are your little critters won’t fare well against your opponent’s beefy creatures later on in the game. Making sure you get in those early points of damage so that you can deal your opponent a killing stroke with Fling or Cyclops is crucial to win.

2) Mana has to be open in your opponent’s turn. You have to have the mana for Fling and Hold the Line in your opponent’s turn for this combo to work. That’s 2RWW. It’s an amount that isn’t wise to sneeze at. So, hold off on playing that Mask of Memory and that Suntail Hawk this turn. Chances are you won’t have needed them anyway.

3) Hold the Line is a great board wrecker. When I say this, take a look at my example, and you’ll see what I mean. You’ve got 3 1/1s out on the table. Your opponent has a 4/4 and a 5/6 out, and he’s swinging in for the attack with both. Hold the Line, in that situation, becomes a pretty potent card. You can completely wreck his board position by destroying all the attacking creatures you can block. This can let you use your little men with Bonesplitters to do some major cutting at your opponent’s life next turn.
 

Suggestions for card additions:

Devoted Retainer stands out in my mind as the second most likely card to cut in this deck. I would consider taking him out perhaps for copies of equipment like Banshee’s Blade or Loxodon Warhammer. Circle of Protection: Red, as well as cards that keep that large sum of damage from smacking your opponent’s face with are terrible for this deck, so you might benefit from removing A Genju and the Devoted Retainers for 3 Kami of the Ancient Law. It’s a nice bear for 1W, and can take care of those pesky enchantments that you don’t want hanging around. Another good choice would be Disenchant, simply because of all the artifacts in the past four RTDB decks that have been running rampant. You just can't get rid of them. Artifacts everywhere! Sheesh!

Speaking of artifacts, Kusari-Gama is a nice dollar rare that takes care of hordes of tokens as well. Don’t forget that Kusari-Gama can be attached to your Spikeshot Goblin. When that happens, you can attack, have your opponent’s creature block, and then ping that blocking creature, and STILL get all that damage to all those creatures!

Another idea that may be worth considering is to run some first striking creatures like Goblin Striker or perhaps Kitsune Blademaster, in place of other weenies. These attackers make you able to take care of peskier opposition that would normally get in the way. Double strike does the same for a little more punishment for your mana. Skyhunter Skirmisher fits well with your equipment, and deals a very respectable 6 damage a turn with a Bonesplitter attached to it. (It also draws you 4 cards with Mask of Memory, and puts two counters on a Banshee’s Blade a turn!)

Another good choice for card additions comes in the form of a bloody dollar rare from Masques: Blood Hound. Using Fling on an early turn makes this angry puppy a good piece of damage. The trick to it is let them attack for a large amount of damage, then fling it or “chuck” it back at them. Nothing like a cold cup of freshly squeezed revenge in the morning, is there?

Well, that’s it for me this week. Join me next week for Kavu craziness. Or wait… maybe it’s not Kavus at all….

And remember, casual magic bliss is only a dollar bin away.

~Death_By_Beebles~

If you have a supposed junk or dollar rare that you would like Death_By_Beebles to cover in Raiding the Dollar Bins, contact him at : deathbybeebles@yahoo.com

You can discuss this article in the MDV forums here.

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