Class-Wars Contest - Purple Ribbon Awards

[Cashew]

Welcome, welcome to the first set of awards presented to contestants in the
Class-Wars Contest. Over the next few days you'll see three distinct sets of awards come out in areas of the site from the Forums to the Blogs to the coveted Main Page itself.

Purple Ribbon Awards
Overall Runner-Up Awards
Best in Contest Awards

Before I go into the actual decks presented here, I'd like to congratulate all participants, there were very few decks that just wouldn't work, and most were strong in several areas, but fell short in others. Decks were judged on the mana base, tempo, recoverability, power level, theme, and creativity. A good deck possessed all these things and more. Today however, we will look at the decks that fell short for major reasons, and try to give some general impressions of what could have been differently to make it a stronger deck.

I wouldn't say these decks are necessarily bad, they just had a major flaw which in many cases today was the lack of a finish. In no particular order:

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Luthervamplord - Elf Druid

The Druidic Brotherhood
Lands (20) 10 Forest 4 Gilt-Leaf Palace 4 Overgrown Tomb 2 Wirewood Lodge Creatures (20) 4 Elvish Harbinger 4 Llanowar Elves 3 Argothian Elder 3 Elvish Branchbender 3 Priest of Titania 3 Silhana Starfletcher	Spells (20) 3 Elvish Promenade 3 Eyeblight's Ending 3 Gilt-Leaf Ambush 3 Hunting Triad 3 Prowess of the Fair 3 Wirewood Pride 2 Exploration

This deck plays very fast and puts out mass tokens, but it has no recoverability. A simple Pyroclasm or Wrath of God stops this deck in it's tracks and the chances of recovering are near impossible. There is no doubt this deck will play out it's hand extremely fast and rush before the other deck can drop down much more than a single creature. However, it easily gets shut down easily and lacks any sense of a finisher.

A better draw engine and a few finishers that make use of the excessive Druid mana would have made this a much stronger competitor. As is there was too much reliance as "Number of Elves in play" cards which was not the deck's strength, but more it's weakness. A similiar deck in the same class tribe took a high ranking prize to show just how much potential this deck has with the proper card choice.

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Thunderhog - Bird Wizard

Wizards Above the Coast
Lands (24) 9 Island 4 Flooded Strand 4 Plains 3 Hallowed Fountain 2 Breeding Pool 2 Temple Garden Creatures (20) 4 Aven Augur 4 Aven Mindcensor 3 Keeper of the Nine Gales 3 Sage Aven 2 Crookclaw Elder 2 Kangee, Aerie Keeper 1 Aven Fateshaper	Spells (17) 4 Condemn 4 Counterspell 4 Mind Stone 3 Absorb 2 New Frontiers

This deck suffered from poor card choice, there is a heavy reliance on Kangee even shuffling in New Frontiers to make the tribe viable. However, there are only two NF's and two Kangee making me question why we are relying on him. With the average Casting Cost being very close to 4, there needs to be more to do in the crucial first three turns of Tribal. This is where the mana acceleration should have been.

I think some better control like Chain of Vapor over Absorb would haved helped with the speed as well. Another route might have been to use Mirari's Wake and [Card]Wrath of God[C/ard] to punish fast decks that out tempo this slow controlling one. Definite area of improvement will be the mana base including a little more green and dropping the creature count to up the control count - as control decks need as many spells as possible and for every creature to count. A great card that matched the theme was Wing Shards.

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Streetz #1 - Human Assassin

Assassins' Tower
Lands (23) 16 Swamp 4 Polluted Delta 1 Lake of the Dead 1 Phyrexian Tower 1 Volrath's Stronghold Creatures (16) 4 Abyssal Hunter 4 Garza's Assassin 4 King's Assassin 4 Royal Assassin	Spells (21) 4 Dark Ritual 4 Duress 4 Icy Maniuplator 3 Bonesplitter 2 Chainer's Edict 2 Corrupt 2 Soul Feast

Assasins is nothing new to me, playing lots of Tribal in MTGO I see them every once and awhile. Sadly, for all that they are and as dominating as they should ben, never seem to win. Granted I've maybe only played against them a handful of times and I like to say "I usually win, anyway," but still the tribe isn't that impressive as a whole. They're too slow and too gimmicky to really contend against power tribes, but a power spell selection improves their odds of working. One of the largest assets to the tribe that should always be included is a couple copies of Cabal Coffersto up the mana count.

Even with all that creature kill, I find the main way to take control with Assassins is to wipe the board then play the assassins or to have the dreaded first turn Dark Ritual + Royal Assassin stick. Nekrataal for all it's simplicity is in my experience the most effective assassin, giving you an instant kill and a 2/1 First Strike is the star blocker of the Assassin tribe. And Streetz come on - where is the Abyssal - Scythe of the Wretched combo!

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Teisho - Elf Druid

Guilt-less Elf Druids
Lands (20) 20 Forest Creatures (24) 4 Boreal Druid 4 Civic Wayfinder 4 Elvish Pioneer 4 Gilt-Leaf Archdruid 4 Heritage Druid 4 Llanowar Elves	Spells (13) 4 Elvish Guidance 3 Instill Energy 3 Slate of Ancestry 3 Wild Pair Planeswalkers (3) 3 Garruk Wildspeaker

This deck plays fast, but to what point? Druids aren't very good aggro and will stall out against the simplest creatures. I kept looking for a power finisher or something to keep the tempo up, but I found nothing. Like Luthervamplord's Elf Druid deck it was found lacking. Now mind you Garruk is very mean, but he's limited by turns. With the amount of mana this deck can generate one should be able to kill with something far faster than old Wildboy. This deck did have a better draw engine than Luther's, but still suffered from that "have to them in play" effect.

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Lawnmower Elf - Cat Soldier

Deck
Lands (18) 15 Plains 3 Flagstones of Trokair Creatures (18) 4 Leonin Den-Guard 4 Leonin Shikari 4 Leonin Squire 4 Taj-Nar Swordsmith 2 Raksha Golden Cub	Spells (24) 4 Bonesplitter 4 Disenchant 4 Swords to Plowshares 4 Urza's Bauble 3 Crusade 2 Shuko 2 Wrath of God 1 Armageddon

This is a variant of a deck I actually run, yet not similar at all. What you have is a deck of equipping soldiers, but you gave them nothing to play with. With the correct equipment Shikari can cause any player a logistical nightmare. Yet I don't see it here - there are Lightning Greaves which ruin any chance of control with Shikari out. I also don't see the Sword of Fire and Ice for draw and spot control and Loxodon Warhammer for dramatic life swings. Even at one counts these items would vastly improve the deck's performace especially if you consider the fact that with Rakkie you double strike generating double the effect. The mana count seems very low though for running Swordsmith and Raksha which are both very mana intensive cards.

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James Mobley - Elf Archer

Deck
Lands (15) 11 Forest 4 Wirewood Lodge Creatures (20) 4 Jagged-Scar Archers 4 Greatbow Doyen 4 Lys Alana Bowmaster 4 Skyshroud Archer 4 Thornweald Archer	Lands (25) 4 Evolution Charm 4 Flying Carpet 4 Hankyu 4 Serrated Arrows 4 Viridian Longbow 3 Hunting Triad 2 Fyndhorn Bow

I have suggestions for most decks, others I have problems with. There are lots of problems with what could have been a very strong tribe in Elf Archer. The first is a horrid mana base. At fifteen land cards I would expect a very low mana curve maybe like 1.5. However, this is a very mana intensive deck requiring it for fairly heavy creature costs, and continual activation of cards to make everything work. The second problem I have is it's like every Archer-ish card was thrown in without regard to deck building. There are almost as many equipment cards as there are Archers and the equipment brings very little to the table besides theme. Some one or two of's would be fine, but there would have to be massive changes to this deck for it to even get off the ground. The other major issue is the deck relies entirely on Flying Carpet to work. If it's not drawn or you can't cast it due to low mana count, it's game over.

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Streetz #4 - Human Advisor

Please Advise
Lands (24) 5 Island 5 Plains 4 Flooded Strand 4 Hallowed Fountain 4 Nimbus Maze 1 Dust Bowl 1 Prahv, Spires of Order Creatures (20) 4 Council of Advisors 3 Aysen Bureaucrats 2 Grand Arbiter Augustin IV 2 Loyal Retainers 2 Minister of Impediments 2 Seasoned Tactician 2 Trusted Advisor 1 Masako the Humorless 1 Michiko Konda, Truth Seeker 1 Tobias Andrion	Spells (16) 4 Negate 4 Propaganda 2 Azorius Signet 2 Door of Destinies 2 Stand // Deliver 2 Whispersilk Cloak

Another weird tribe from Streetz. This time he takes Human Advisrs to the mat trying to make some kind of deck work for them. It's really hard to tell you what Advisors to use, because there aren't that many and most just aren't that good. Arbiter and Konda are all-stars that severely hinder opponents and require removal, obviously though.

This deck if it works will provide a slow and painful win. I really wish the Advisors had something to help them out - some kind of hidden Weapon of Mass Destruction like an Decree of Justice. Deck could also use a little more draw support and some tutoring which would have improved it alot.

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Well that does it for today. If you don't see your deck here, well hey, that means you still have a chance to win it all! See you tomorrow in the blogs.

[Cashew]

Here ye, here ye! The Runner-Up Results are now up in the Blog!

[Your Worst Nightmare]

Yes, I thought Dread or something of the sort was clearly better than Cairn Wanderer, but there was a slight problem - Dread is neither a Faerie nor a Rogue. And those creature types aren't really known for having large creatures, so I had to make due with what was available. :/

And Morsel Theft isn't as great as you make it seem, believe me.