[Premium Article] The Arcborn Virus

[sampling_percus]

Does anyone have anymore match up info for this deck yet?

or at least some more neat tricks/less obvious plays to help out?

intuition chaining servitors to race a smokestack for example.

[WildWillieWonderboy]

Actually, chaining servitors is the main engine here; with skullclamp you ancestral yourself every turn and with ravager you start winning. The important part of this chain, obviously is to start it with black lotus if you have two artifacts you can discard in hand.

I highly doubt there will be a definitive version of this deck. Not that there are variable metagame slots perse, but a lot of the card numbers can be switched around to suit the metagame. For example, if you are afraid of an abundance of anti-combo technology, it would be wise to play four ravager and four disciple just to keep it simple.

As far as this deck compared to Ironworks, the two are quite dissimilar. Ironworks is much more of a combo deck that is balls out playing draw7s and the like. It does a lot of broken things, but the weakness is that it needs several specific cards to win. Virus obviously performs best when you get a hand with a ton of mana, AI, and some artifacts. But it's not necessary. If you end up just saccing things to ravager and hitting the opponent with disciple while you're at it, that wins too.

It seems like a common tendency of Magic players is to come up with arbitrary numbers for how often they will theoretically win a matchup. If that's over 50% then they "win" that matchup. Sorry, but you can still get your ass kicked by a deck you beat any percent of the time. Some decks have 3 Null Rods. This one has many more than 3 creatures. Oh but wait, Null Rod is such a bigger bomb. It, like, totally shuts you down. The solution? Grow some balls. So there are a few cards that are terrible for you. Every deck has that problem.

While we're on the topic of Null Rod, let's discuss the matchup it appears in: namely fish. Virus is the beatdown in this matchup, so they're creatures aren't really considered problems. They have generally 3-7 problem cards depending (3 rod, 4 chalice, 7 of both (?)). This is what Steve was getting at when he was talking about degree.

[forests failed you]

We have tested Steve's list and it is a lot of fun, and quite broken when it is in pseudo goldfish situations. The only problem is that it seems particularly fragile to anything that resembles hate.  The fact that it can draw a lot of cards and completely overwhelm and opponent's defenses is pretty swell, but aside from a few plays its only defense against control is its speed.

But c'mon it plays Myr Servitor, how can you not love this deck?  That guy is a threat, he is like a 20 turn clock!

[Smmenen]

The deck has alot of flexibility though.  I talk about that in the article.

YOu can run 3 xantids and 4 Gorilla SHaman maindeck if you want to. 

[TheOrangePet]

Congrats on revamping an old gem Steve.

I haven't read the article so take my opinions w/a grain of salt.

I've tested quite a few matches w/this thing, both on MWS and w/in my circle. My feeling right now is that the deck is pretty solid, but now isn't the right time to try and take home some P9 w/it. I've been smashed by so many different Stax hate cards from the maindeck that I can't even keep track of them all.

Null Rod is a pain to say the least as it shuts down my primary draw engine, turns off a large portion of my acceleration, and makes my "Aggro-Ravager" plan seem like a pile. R+R is a burden as well, but I've played through more than 1 on several occasions. IMHO, for this to be a contender right now, you need a way around all the hate that Stax is bringing w/it. Xantid and Shaman are both viable choices, but I'm just not sure if it's enough to keep you at the top tables.