To kick things off, some amusing background. Back when Game Universe first announced, I looked around for a deck to build, and settled upon MaskNought. The inspiration for playing the deck, as well as a bit of the deck itself, came from Thorme, though he probably has no idea. Back at GenCon ’03 T1 Championship, I played Ankh-Sligh. After sweeping some poor sap playing Clinton-era ProsBloom, I sat down across from my second opponent, none other than the famed Paragon of Vintage Thorme. His deck, (what I think was called) Suicide Mask, ran a Suicide disruption strategy with a lot of tutoring and the MaskNought kill. After a tense pair of games, the last game came down to a pivotal play. He had a lot of mana and a Mask out, I had 4 Mountains and 5 cards in hand, including a pair of my secret tech [card]Pulverize[/card]s. Instead of laying waste to his board, I contented myself to wait a turn and let him drop the Dreadnoughts before laying in. This bad call was answered by his playing Hymn to Tourach. Two random cards which inevitably had to be my pair of Pulverizes. I lost soon after that. With my temper assuaged by a humerous 7th round victory over none other than the Random-Miser (later inflamed again when I discovered in round 8 that Ankh doesn’t stop Dragon from going off if he does it during my bloody upkeep) I was happy and would remember that day ever since then.
After settling on Masknought, my build began to take form. Based on a strategy of powering out a quick win under cover of discard, it lacked extensive testing and a good sideboard. Through a lot of hard playing and more than a bit of the surprise factor, I won. The original report can be found
here. The original list was:
Team DD presents: MaskNought!
4x Illusionary Mask
4x Phyrexian Dreadnought
4x Berserk
1x Demonic Consultation
2x Tainted Pact
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Yawgmoth's Will
1x Time Walk
3x Unmask
4x Duress
4x Phyrexian Negator
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Timetwister
1x Necropotence
1x Black Lotus
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Mox Jet
3x Bloodstained Mire
1x Polluted Delta
4x Bayou
4x Underground Sea
1x Sol Ring
1x Mana Crypt
3x Wasteland
1x Strip Mine
1x Swamp
1x Snow-covered Swamp
4x Dark Ritual
Sideboard:
4x Xantid Swarm
4x Gilded Drake
3x Crumble
3x Contagion
1x Living Wish
As you can see, it was rough and reflected not only poor testing, but several missed spots do to 5-proxy restriction and my just not having a couple cards. The sideboard, other than the Swarms, was utterly useless. After that, I modified the deck a bit, and took it too the next tournament. I ended up 3-2, missing the Top 8. I found out later that I made a rulings error and would’ve won. Oops. I ended up abandoning the deck for a while, and settled on Draw-7, a deck which I heavily enjoyed. I ended up running it in the next tournament, complete with a random transformational (to MaskNought of course) sideboard, and lost in the quarterfinals to a hate-filled 7/10 build.
Since I had to miss the next couple tournaments, I spent the time away from magic, then a regrettably long time working Salvagers.dec.
**Note** It is my final determination that this deck is never going to be more than Tier 2. I still like it, and think its good, but it just never will be great. Let the matter rest.After losing the Planet X tourney with Draw-7, I decided that the unpredictability of the deck was just too high for me to have consistent success with it, and abandoned that, too. What else could I go back too, but MaskNought? Working on some stuff, I stumbled over a list I’d written up for a MaskNought deck, similar to my original list, that had a transformational board. I remembered how fun it was, and started using it during my Apprentice playing. There, I discovered some startling revelations.
A: The deck has probably the best matchup against Keeper I’ve ever seen. The number of 2-0’s I had was just absurd.
B: No one expects the spanish inquisition (er, I mean a transformational board)!
C: Coffin Purge, though a bit outdated (it was in for Dragon, which was insanely popular at the time), wrecks Welder.
D: With so much disruption post-board, the deck is absolutely sick against Control Slaver, which happens to be winning a ton of big tourneys now.
That was enough to settle it. So, I decided to play the deck in the Game Universe tourney. After a bunch of consultation, I just used the list I had made, card for card. The report can be found
here. While I bombed out in the quarterfinals (story of my life, folks), I still went undefeated in Swiss and had the top record.
The deck I played there was:
Team DD presents: DDT Masque
4 Underground Sea
3 Bayou
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Polluted Delta
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Black Lotus
4 Dark Ritual
1 Necropotence
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
2 Tainted Pact
4 Brainstorm
2 Phyrexian Negator
3 Unmask
4 Duress
4 Berserk
4 Illusionary Mask
4 Phyrexian Dreadnought
The Spanish Inquisition!
4 Coffin Purge
3 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Quirion Dryad
At popular request, I’m opening discussion on the deck, and possible paths it can and will take. Since I haven’t had much fun writing primers and such, I’m going to go through all the card choices and matchups based on my testing and tournament experience.
First of all, the combo.[card]Illusionary Mask[/card] plus [card]Phyrexian Dreadnought[/card] equals a 12/12 trampling beatstick for a mere 3 mana commitment. In terms of shear power, Dreadnought is the biggest creature in the format, rivaled only by the indomitable Darksteel Colossus. While Colossus is the better all-around creature, as it is nice and Indestructible, the main method of getting it out, Tinker, is restricted. Though some decks pack Swords to Plowshares, Oxidize, and the like, there is little else that can stop Dreadnought once it hits play.
[card]Berserk[/card] is as much a part of the combo as anything else, so I’ll explain most of it here. When you play Dreadnought, it’s a pretty fast clock. 2 turns is not a lot of time for them to react. Some decks may be able to answer it, and often will try to tutor up an answer, and take a hit in order to kill it the next turn. Berserk says no. Berserk says that they die, and they die immediately. No second chances for them. That is why Berserk is good. Also, as a single mana green instant, it’s easy to slip through and rarely expected.
The most important chunk of the deck, other than the combo, is the disruption.[card]Duress[/card] and [card]Unmask[/card] are the MVPs of this deck, no holds barred. They call Force of Will the glue that holds Type one together. Well these are the glue for my deck. Knowing exactly what your opponent has, how much they have up it, and then tearing a chunk out of it is as sure a recipe for success as any. As much as I can, I make sure my opponent has been adequately stripped of answers before I drop the combo. Whether they’re taking creatures killers or just raping your opponents countermagic, there’s nothing I’d rather have in their place. Not even Force of Will. While Duress is generally agreed as the better all around card, Unmask earns a special mention for both its free-casting (which makes it effectively the black Force of Will) which allows me to dump extra utility in order to go combo on the same turn and it’s taking creatures ability, which makes it a threat at any time, as it can take win conditions in addition to spells.
The [card]Wasteland[/card]s and [card]Strip Mine[/card] I’ll include here, as they’re this more than they are mana. Though many may wonder what these are doing in an ostensibly combo deck, they’re vital to the strategy of knocking opponents off balance before my angry Phyrexians go for the throat. Just like in any other deck, they serve to slow down opponents and knock their mana development off kilter. The difference here is that your opponent often will not live long enough to regain their momentum.
And then, of course, you have the tutors, utility, and just plain brokenness.I’ll start here with [card]Berserk[/card], as it serves as jank utility often enough. When most people think of this card, they associate it with insta-kills and really big creatures. No Dreadnought and it’s dead, right? Wrong. Most people overlook the fact that the creature dies at end of turn, and there’s no restriction on playing it on your opponents creatures, other than a bit of extra pain. Welders and other threatening creatures can ruin your plan, should an artifact happen to pop into your graveyard. When you hold back, they tend to put their creatures to good use and pop a couple points to the dome. Berserk says no more Welder. One green mana and an extra life to knock out a Welder. A good trade. Berserk is also nice for when you’re stalled out and waiting for threats. Though it make cost you a decent chunk of life, shooting down an Angel or Wurm immediately is often preferable to waiting and dying within a few turns. At very least, it’s highly unexpected, and is a welcome crimp in the plans of many a winning player.
[card]Phyrexian Negator[/card] is the ultimate in ultility beatstick. While he doesn’t make a great defense past scaring away an Ophidian or two, Negator is good here for the same reasons it was good in Suicide. In a format light on creatures and direct damage, Negator is a 4-turn clock, drawing all that wonderful creature removal and countermagic hated so much by your Illusionary Masks. In a way, Negators are your extra Duresses, being a card your opponent must answer or risk losing the momentum and ability to stabilize the game. If anything, they’re your alternative win condition. The million little bits of utility they provide, ranging from the hilarious double-berserk play to confusing opponents under Mask, is a perfect piece in a great puzzle of a deck.
[card]Demonic Tutor[/card], [card]Vampiric Tutor[/card], and [card]Demonic Consultation[/card] need little explanation. They’re tutors. They get me what I need, when I need it. In a deck with so much redundancy, Consultation is highly effective.
[card]Tainted Pact[/card] is an interesting choice, dating back to the days of Tainted Mask. Were I to cut something, these would no doubt end up near the top of the list, but for now I like them a lot. While their tutoring power is limited, the fact that they put the card into your hand is what makes them superior in my mind to cards like Lim Dul’s Vault. They’re really filler in the deck, but I mean that in a good way. They let you, at your convenience, dig a few cards down for something you can use. For such a simple card, it’s pretty damn nice when you need it.
[card]Brainstorm[/card] and [card]Ancestral Recall[/card] are the generic draw. The original deck had too much tutoring and not much else. These provide me with a good topdeck that can almost never fail to net me something useful. If anything, they’re extra blue cards to support Force of Will. Ancestral Recall, also, is of course broken, which rarely hurts.
[card]Time Walk[/card] is, well, Time Walk. It’s just a great piece of utility that, without being vital, is always a great card to have. Whether it’s being Berserk #5 or just cantriping, it’s never wasted.
[card]Necropotence[/card] and [card]Yawgmoth’s Will[/card] are just the obligatory ‘I win’ cards. Resolving Necropotence in this deck is an auto-win easily 90% of the time. In addition to the whole obscene card advantage thing, it effectively negates Swords to Plowshares, one of the most annoying cards against this deck. Yawgmoth’s Will is just broken. It’s brokenness in the deck is only compounded by the presence of Dark Ritual. The only strike against it is that you cannot replay Dreadnoughts from the yard.
Obligatory mana, etc.[card]Underground Sea[/card]s, [card]Bayou[/card]s, and they Fetchlands need little explanation. They’re just the basic mana. In case you’re wondering about the fetches, they both do the same thing and are split to optimize Tainted Pact. Rarely matters, but never hurts.
The SoLoCryptMoxen are also pretty obvious. Crypt is an auto-inclusion because of Mask, and I don’t play the off-color Moxen because the deck is too mana-intensive to offset the small tempo-boost.
[card]Dark Ritual[/card]s are a classic, providing first turn Mask-Nought plays when they’re not fodder for Unmasks. The mana advantage is just necessary.
Last but not least, the sideboard.The sideboard plan is where this deck really shines. The basic idea is to ship in a load of cards that makes the second game virtually unwinnable for your opponent. Most decks pack artifact hate. Artifact hate in pretty much any form owns Dreadnought hard. Luckily, artifact hate doesn’t really touch Quirion Dryad. With them packing cards that are suddenly dead, they suddenly have to go up against a revamped strategy armed with an obcene 14 answers. Dryads suddenly become big when 20% of your deck is free spells.
The Coffin Purges are the ace in the hole for many matchups. While they’ve faded in popularity lately, a survey of leading decks reveals that they help against almost everything. Against Dragon in it’s many forms they’re simply fatal. Unless they can attack with a Xantid Swarm, then get Dragon into the graveyard, then Animate, Coffin Purge is a death sentence. Crucible is quickly becoming one of the most popular cards throughout Type 1, mostly by replaying Strip effects or fetchlands. Coffin Purge neuters that strategy pretty quickly. Welder got you down? Not anymore. A couple black mana takes out a good chunk of their threats. Against storm combo it can shoot their Lotus and Tendrils to neuter Will and at very least thin out their win conditions while they go off. Heck, even against Tog it takes out Accumulated Knowledge and Deep Analysis.
Now that we’ve got that unfortunate business out of the way, on to the matchup analysis.Instead of jogging my memory, I just copy/pasted the SCG Vintage decks to beat list.
4C Control: This is just disgusting. Through dozens of test matches, backed up by my tournament performance, I have found that this match is in my favor significantly. Not just that, I win this match 2-0 between two thirds and three quarters of the matches. It’s just a matter of running them out of threats. The pivotal thing for the first game, is that my discard cards are free or 1 mana. On the flip side, Keeper has Forces, but Mana Drain requires double blue. Wastelands can cripple them, leaving 3 extra ways to pull the critical Swords or Wish. It’s easy to edge them out this way. You also have the Berserks to answer Angels and Monkeys. Post board, with dead spots where they traded Wishes for artifact hate, Keeper just doesn’t have much of a chance to win when faced with 14 disruption spells.
7/10 Split: This one can get messy, depending on which build you face. With maindeck answers for Dreadnought, you must aim to win as fast as possible. Postboard is where you can heat it up a notch. Laying a minefield of answers, you can trip them up into running into Coffin Purges, and eventually a fat Dryad.
Affinity: This one is a bit of a race. Basically, they play so little disruption, that it’s a question of getting out a Dreadnought before they set up too many creatures. The simple fact is, Dreadnought, especially when Berserked, is fatal. However, they can build up a lot of threats fast. It’s just a matter of winning first. Post board? I’m not sure. I need to test this more. It’s a tough one. They have a lot of threats.
Bazaar Madness: Not tested enough to say. See U/G Madness.
Belcher: Pre-board it’s difficult. Once you can get a Duress or 2 off, you can often take them, but if they win fast enough, there’s little you can do. Post board it’s a massacre. Fighting a Belcher in through Force of Will, Duress, Unmask, and Daze is pretty hard.
Control Slavery: This one is brutal. It plays out similiarly to 7/10, except they play a lot less answers to Dreadnought. Duress and Unmask are more painful in this one, and the same things that hurt Keeper in this matchup hurt Slaver. Post board is discusting. Coffin Purge means no Welding. You have as many counters, and Duress effects are icing on the cake. I won’t even get into Wastelands.
Dragon: First game, it’s all about Duress and Wasteland, for Animates and Bazaars. It’s pretty simple, and keeping them down long enough to smash their face in. Post board makes baby Jesus want to cry. Coffin Purge is some good, amirite? Not to mention the whole 14 disruption thing.
Food Chain Goblins: Uh, didn’t test. I dunno, I guess just win before they do. If they play hate things can get messy.
GAT: A mess, plain and simple. Pre-board its about racing them with a quick Dreadnought. Once you get that, its pretty easy to overwhelm even a beefy Dryad, since all they have are a couple Wishes to answer. Post-board is rough. Dryad vs. Dryad can can pretty dirty. Your secret weapon here is Berserk. Catch them hitting early before it gets out of hand, and they’re gone.
Hulk Smash: Despite the whole ‘Tog is dead’ thing, there is still quite a bit of this around here. This one is about running against and baiting their counters as fast as possible. If you can sneak through a Mask you’ve pretty much won. Post board you can outmanuever them, and if you go all out you must attack them at all the places. Coffin Purge becomes vital as a weapon for sniping their cardraw in Deep Analysis and Accumulated Knowledge.
Long Death: Pre-board is just a luck thing for both sides. If they go fast enough, theres nothing you can do. If you can Duress and Waste enough, it’s yours. Post-board, it’s a slaughter. 14 disruption cards is some good. Coffin Purge is the star in this, as you can just shut them down if you aim right, neutering the needed Will.
Mono Blue: Haven’t tested enough to analyze for sure. More on this to come.
Stacker: Haven’t testing this much either. Just another artifact matchup. Disrupt them then smash their face in. Berserking Welders in fun, too. Coffin Purge on the board is nice.
Tools 'n Tubbies: See Stacker.
TPS: Harder than pure Storm combo, but often winnable if you play aggressively. Being able to win survive Tinker for Colossus is nice.
Trinistax: See Stacker. This one is harder, though.
U/G Madness: A simple game of hit and run. Make sure you keep your life up enough to survive, then smash them with Dreadnought. They can’t stop it. Postboard watch out for Null Rod, though.
U/R Fish: This is just a bad matchup. They keep you off balance, then knock you over and kick you in the nuts. Try to capitalize on the second game, where they have dead cards, but watch out for Lavamancer and Fire/Ice when dropping Dryads. Maindeck Null Rod is evil. Berserk is beautiful here, especially for those curious little fish.
I’ll add more info to this later on request, and I still need to write about what I left out, so stay tuned for updates. I will address the Tinker-Colossus thing as well as new directions soon enough.
Basically, heres the deck. Discuss! Whether you want to question my choices or just insult me as a person, go ahead. This isn't Salvagers discussion. Here are my tournament results. Here are my testing results. I've learned my lesson, let the games begin.
-Dan
PS: Sorry if its a bit incomprehensible, I was in a hurry
