Magic Deck Vortex: Alternate Vortex

As the visitors to the Magic Deck Vortex chose which Alternate Vortex to visit next, there came a booming voice from out of nowhere.

That’s right, the results of the poll resulted in the selection of Sliver Queen.

One side note before I continue on: After playtesting the Greven Vanguard, it appears I underestimated the importance of a hit to the hand size. Even a minor hit effects your game, especially how you mulligan. When building a vanguard deck, look at the hand size and make sure your deck does not need a bigger hand size. Some decks actually use a vanguard solely for its hand size. But that’s for another article.

When looking over the ability, you would think of a normal sliver deck, or maybe something infinite. As stated by Streetz in the forums, “Mana Echoes?” But what fun would an infinite deck be with this. And anyways, someone can throw a Wrath of God at you once you make your “infinite” creatures.

One disadvantage of going infinite is that if you get a piece of your combo, your opponent can disrupt one part and boom. No more combo. Without the combo, you can end up failing miserably. That’s why I am not doing an infinite deck.

[EDITOR'S COMMENTS: Awwww, man! I might have to fix that later. Who knows. ... ... [EVIL GRIN] ~Streetz~]

Instead, I am going a route that is still rather close. Incidently, this will make the deck have no color. Artifacts, artifacts, and more artifacts!

Blinkmoth Urn and Doubling Cube are key part’s of your mana acceleration. Since two-third of the deck is artifacts, Blinkmoth Urn can get pretty deadly. As pointed out by Death_By_Beebles in his first RTDB article, the urn is symmetrical. If you happen to be playing against an affinity deck, feel free to not tell them this. If they announce combat, they might as well be dead. Well, feel free not to tell ANYONE that fact. Unfortunately, most people don’t make the mistake of not using the mana twice.

The only cards in the deck that do NOT make mana are Hair-Strung Koto and Howling Mine. Koto was one way to win in “Shirei’s Pit” by Erik Nordstrom, which was submitted into the “In the Spirit of Squirrels and Saprolings” contest in RTDB. (Wow, I’m bringing RTDB into this article a lot. :P) It allows you to tap an untapped creature you control to mill your opponent for one.

It is rather fun to say “Okay, so that is… 138 mana, and I will use that to make 44 slivers. Oh ya, and I will use the last six mana to play Hair-Strung Koto. Slivers playing a guitar, eh? Well, at least I mill you for 44. Good Game?” The Mine helps thin your opponents deck while helping you get the Koto.

Suggestions for the deck

1. Add tutors. A lot of the winning is usually just swarming with a sliver deck, since there is no way to tutor up the Koto. I have to say, though, the Howling Mines do get you the Kotos quite quickly.

2. Add flying defense. After playing against a spike deck with Jugan in it, I have to say it is VERY vulnerable to flying. A Spidersilk Armor would fit the bill nicely, or chuck in a Silkslash Spider, since you are creating so much mana.

3. Add Slivers. You could make a nice sliver deck with this vanguard. Muscle Slivers fit the bill. Looks like there’s a large bill. You can click here to see the list of silver cards that exist.

4. Add color. My idea for the deck was to have no color, since the ability only needs colorless mana. The deck could go many different directions if color was added. Heck, you could go T1 and add Tolarian Academy. I could see a lot more going with blue on the table.

...but what about...

Yes, the “winner” of the poll was Sliver Queen. As hinted earlier, though, a reader challenge may be in order. However, some of you may have thought, “Oh, he means either one of the 2 who don’t win is the challenge. Well, there was a chance that might happen. After several calculations, however, the contest will be dubbed thus:

Dark Pools 'Contest' - Updated 8/28/05

Thanks to www.cabalcity.com for the image.

This competition will use the Ink-Eyes Vanguard (above). (get it? Dark Pools? Ink-Eyes? Credit goes to my buddy Discord from OCTGN. You go dude!)

"Dark Pools"
Deckbuilding Competition

GOAL: Create a deck that will work well with the Ink-Eyes Vanguard card pictured above based on the criteria below.

I am using Death_By_Beebles (man, that’s the third time!) scoring method, and this what he said.

I will judge all submissions, graded on a scale of 30, with modifiers changing the final total score. In addition to the modifiers mentioned above, any participant who is given a perfect in any category will be given a +1 modifier for each perfect score. Any participant who receives a 0 in any category will receive a -1 modifier for each failing score.

Focus: 6/6
Cohesivity: 6/6
Balance: 6/6
Creativity: 6/6
Overall-Playability: 6/6

In addition to that, I will be adding these modifiers:

The deck limits are at least 60 cards and no more than 100 cards. 15 card sideboards are allowed. The contest will be Invasion up (which I believe is Post-Rotation Extended).
A title is MANDATORY, as well as a short description (1 to 2 paragraphs). I need to know how they work! Any deck that does not have these will be disqualified automatically. Anyone who has a catchy title that deals with Ink-Eyes will get a +1 modifier.
The main reason I'm updating this contest was to encourage those of you out there to NOT go with a discard theme. Yes, it does help the Vanguard, but it doesn’t help with your creativity factor. I would rather be giving 5’s and 6’s in creativity rather than 0’s. You will get a nice +1 modifier for going non-discard.
Anyone who uses a combo that works well with Ink-Eyes will get a +1 modifier for each combo. Anyone who does an infinite combo will get another +1. However, anyone who uses an infinite life combo will not get the infinite combo bonus. I will allow it, but I highly recommend not using one, for it makes it seem too easy to use the vanguard (it was used by Bennie Smith on magicthegathering.com in his articles).
The contest will end in ONE WEEKS TIME from this update (Sunday, September 4th), so send em on in! You can email them to this email address.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: I have to give you at least one more deck using Mana Echoes before Yusuke closes... It wouldn't be right if I didn't...and for the record - Yusuke doesn't approve of this.. but I am the "almighty" webmaster guy.]

And that is that. Have fun with the decks, I do hope you get crazy with combos, after seeing past contests I believe you are all great deck builders. Send your finished decks or any comments to panda.yususke@gmail.com, and you can comment on this thread.

~Yusuke~

[EDITOR'S NOTE: To view Yusuke's first Alternate Vortex, please click here. ~Streetz~]