Thulsa Doom: Marsh Viper/Viridian Longbow Poisen 1.5 Deck

[LotusHead]

If you know who/what Thulsa Doom is, then props to you.

Now for the decklist (I've been working on this bad boy for a year now, purely casual, but I think 1.5 is casual. No slam on 1.5. I LOVE casual.)

Thulsa Doom: Working Poison deck by LotusHead

4 Marsh Viper
4 Sabertooth Cobra
1 Quirion Ranger
4 Horseshoe Crab
1 Fog Bank
3 Soratami Savant
4 Wall of Roots
1 Prodigal Sorcerer

3 Trinisphere
2 Constant Mists
1 Living Plane
1 Sword of Kaldra

3 Viridian Longbow
3 Hermetic Study
4 Pemmin's Aura

2 Forest
12 Island
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Tropical Island

This is a Ping Deck with a Poison alternate kill: Fun

I don't expect this to be the 1.5 Uber Deck, but it does have a lot of game.

Card by card analysis:

Marsh Viper/Sabertooth Cobra: Gives opponents 2 poison conters for each time they do damage. (and not just combat damage)

Viridian Longbow/Hermetic Study: gives your poison creatures a way to deal damage without using the attack step, balancing equipment/reusability and enchantment/hard to removability.

Horseshoe Crab: Untaps for U, excellent with Longbow and Hermetic Study. Board Control.

Quirion Ranger/Fog Bank: The Ranger does its Ranger thing, and the Fog Bank chumps with the best of them, buying you time. Both are invaluable if they hit the board, both could be a 4 of, but I only own 1 Fog Bank, and only one slot is currently alotted for the Ranger.

Prodigal Sorcerer: It pings for 1. The one in the deck is the one I got in my first pack of Unlimited 10 years ago. It is here for synergy and nastalgia.

Wall of Roots: A wall that give you mana on any turn? Cool! This was included in the early "don't die to Onslaught Goblins" time and has been very helpful and welcome in any openning hand. I like 'em. I am willing to go down to 3 however.

Soratami Savant: LOCKDOWN if it resolves. A flying Mana Leak beastick? this is almost as good as my beloved Trinket Mages! It also works very well with Trinisphere!

Trinisphere: This and the Savant are the two newest additions to the deck.  Almost everything in the deck costs 3 or so mana anyways, so the card rarely hurts me.  My opponent, however, HATES paying 3 for a Disiple/Frogmite/Time Of Need/BrainStorm/etc.  If my Trinisphere resolves, at least I won't die next turn (uh...hopefully)

Constant Mists: Fog with Sac A Land for Buyback? Count me in!

Living Plane: This deck used to sport 1 Morphling, but I sold it. Then I traded for Living Plane and eventually replaced it with the "Turn all lands into a 1/1 creature enchantment." It is a bomb. I only own 1. In a Ping deck? Priceless!

Sword of Kaldra: In a casual Ping deck? Priceless! Random, true, but it deals with Colossus! Random ownage.

Viridian Longbow/ Hermetic Study: Turns any creature into a Prodigal Sorceror. Cool, but even cooler with Poison Creatures.  I think I picked the only two poison creatures that can take advantage of skipping combat and go straight to the pinging.

Pemmin's Aura: I...simply...cannot...elabora te...on...how...fun...this... card...is...in...a...ping ...deck...notwithstanding.... the...fact....that...8...of.. .my...creatures...deal....poi son....counters....

Sideboard? This is 1.5! Casual!

Ok, I have a sideboard, but it is not exactly optimized.

There you have it. Thulsa Doom.

For those of you who do NOT know who Thulsa Doom is...

Conan The Barbarian, starring Governor Arnauld Swarzeneeger (no...I do not know how to spell his name) involves THULSA DOOM, played by James Earl Jones, killing Conan's girlfriend with a poisonus snake arrow, much like this deck.

I myself am unable to improve on this deck, in a casual, low budget 1.5 deck.  In reality, I only use 2 Tropical Island, 2 Yavama Coast  and 1 Fetchland, but the list is as optimized as I can get it.

1 Last point: I am thrilled at the Soratami Savant for being the flying Manaleak Guy.  I rarely use disruption in ANY form unless I am playing T1 Magic.  That is the reason why I don't currently maindeck any sort of hate.  I just want to get the poison kill, you know?

Any comments or criticisms are appreciated.

If this post should have been made in casual, I understand.

[Bahza]

If you want a faster kill, Instill Energy is very important. It gives your timmy/snake haste, and it allows it to untap so you can use it again. I'd personally also increase the amount of Quirion Rangers in the deck. Untapping the Timmys to use them multiple times a turn at the cost of your land drop is very good.

[LotusHead]

Pemmin's Aura is in what would be Instil Energy's slot at the moment..  The Pemmin's Aura benefits any creature it enchants(block flyers, pump defence, untargetability), and as I found out a few days ago, KILLS WELDERS!!!! Yeah!

I don't belive that Instil Energy actually grants Haste, just Untap 1 extra time and can attack, but not neccessarily tap to do stuff.

Quirion Ranger has definiately been pulling her share lately.  Will probably put in 1 more.

[Robert the Swordsman]

Just for reference, Instill Energy does indeed grant Haste.

Perhaps it's just me, but Trinisphere seems a bit out of place. I'm not too up-to-date on 1.5, so I'm not sure if this is some kind of format hoser or something, but it seems like it'd come down a bit too late to be really powerful. Perhaps some accelleration could be added... Birds of Paradise, maybe?

Fog Bank is king.

Good luck.

[Palladia-Mors]

I always loved posions decks.  
So I have to suggest the card [card]Apathy[/card]  from Weatherlight.  If you have enough cards in hand you can go lethel.  
This might be a little better than Pemmin's Aura

[Upinthe]

I always loved posions decks.  
So I have to suggest the card [card]Apathy[/card]  from Weatherlight.  If you have enough cards in hand you can go lethel.  
This might be a little better than Pemmin's Aura

Sorry, this doesn't work. Here is the current oracle wording for Apathy:

Current Rules Text:
Enchant Creature
Enchanted creature doesn't untap during its controller's untap step.
At the beginning of the upkeep of enchanted creature's controller, that player may discard a card at random. If he or she does, untap that creature.  

So it only triggers once...

[LotusHead]

Trinisphere was added in only recently (in the last two weeks). It largely doesn't affect me, and usually does affect my opponent's plans. It has been surprisingly effective. With the Soratami Savants, 3sphere is insane! (LOCKDOWN!)

The Wall of Roots so far have been doing a fine job of accelleration. In earlier builds, the Mana Birds just got killed to much. In fact, the Walls and Crabs were part of the deck's "Goblin Proofing" in the days before Mirroden.

The neat thing about this deck is it budgetness. The 5 rares in the deck could easily be different bombs, counterspells and so forth. My real deck has only 2 Tropical Islands, 1 Fetchland and 1 Crappy Mirage Fetchland and 2 Yavamaya Coast and the crappy comes into play tapped version. Uber.

The only core cards to the deck are

4 Marsh Vipers
4 Sabertooth Cobras
5-6 Longbow/Hermetic Study things
4 Pemmin's Aura
4 Horseshoe Crab

The rest is up to you.

Happy pinging!

Edit: Hey, I'm in Casual now!

Without the confines of T1.5, the deck obviously has many ways to be improved.  Sol Ring and any sort of a draw engine. Due to the decks uber budgetness at it's core, I may build a 2nd casual T1 version of it.

Any takers on setting up a nice T1 decklist? (on a semi-budget scale?) or full blown power added? Come on, wouldn't you like to top 8 a tourney somewhere with a stupid Poison deck?