Skittles

[Nomad]

Since Phil and I generally try to talk at least one person at each Waterbury into playing our favourite "Skittles" format, and I'm running a local tournament for it this weekend, I've done a quick webpage with a description of it.  This is a 5 colour highlander style format, with no broken cards.  Except maybe Orim's Thunder.

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/swcooper/skittles.html

PM me if you want to come down to Jersey to play on Saturday...I doubt it'll be quite as good as going to Samite Healer's tournament, so go there first.

[Jacob Orlove]

You left out the "equal # of cards of each color" part.

[Philatio]

     Simply put, this format is awesome.  In my opinion, it has really helped me hone my deckbuilding, since the deckbuilding requirements are so rigid.  Building a good sideboard is also difficult - since your post sideboarded deck has to be skittles legal, it isn't always as simple as pulling out one card and putting in another, especially if the card you want to swap in/out is multicolor.

Here's another decklist for people to look over to get an idea of what's possible.  It's a Honden based control deck.  Simon, you can add it to the website if you like.

Gold:
Sterling Grove (G/W)
Ordered Migration (U/W)
Spite/Malice (U/B)
Terminate (B/R)
Savage Twister (R/G)

Red:
Honden of Infinite Rage
Slice and Dice (used to be pyroclasm, but damn you Portal for making it rare)
Flametongue Kavu
Lightning Bolt
Seal of Fire

White:
Honden of Cleansing Fire
Orim's Thunder
Monk Idealist
Auramancer
Seal of Cleansing

Blue:
Honden of Seeing Winds
Allied Strategies
Standstill
Impulse
Condescend

Black:
Honden of Night's Reach
Engineered Plague
Seal of Doom
Skeletal Scrying
Rend Flesh

Green:
Honden of Life's Web
Sakura Tribe Elder
Kodama's Reach
Explosive Vegitation
Naturalize

Artifact:
Crystal Chimes
Etched Oracle
Ticking Gnomes
Wayfarer's Bauble
Infused Arrows
Fellwar Stone

Land:
Mishra's Factory
Fairie Conclave
Ghitu Encampment
Treetop Villiage
Forbidding Watchtower
Spawning Pool
Nantuko Monastery
Gemstone Mine
Mirrodin's Core
Krosan Verge
3xForest
2xSwamp
2xIsland
2xMountain
2xPlains
Maze of Ith
Shivan Oasis
Elfhame Palace

[Matt]

I find it hard to believe that Skullclamp isn't broken in this format. My first deck would be Clamp, Trinket Mage, Enlightened Tutor, Steelshaper's Gift, and go from there.

[Jacob Orlove]

Well, Enlightened Tutor is banned.

Also, 6 artifacts in every deck means artifact destruction should be in every deck as well.

With that said, I'm definitely building five color aggro control with Clamp.

[Philatio]

I find it hard to believe that Skullclamp isn't broken in this format. My first deck would be Clamp, Trinket Mage, Enlightened Tutor, Steelshaper's Gift, and go from there.

     Did you see the storm combo deck build on Simon's site?  The entire premise of the deck *is* skullclamp.

     The deck is 1 skullclamp, 6 ways to get it, 6 ways to get it back if it is destroyed, every bad ritual effect in existence and a shit-ton of clamp fodder.  Oh and Tendrils+Brain Freeze for the win (though I have won games with Genesis Chamber tokens).

Well, Enlightened Tutor is banned.

Also, 6 artifacts in every deck means artifact destruction should be in every deck as well.

With that said, I'm definitely building five color aggro control with Clamp.

     I've got an aggro deck that's pretty darn good, I think, with clamp in it.  Although clamp isn't the focus.  It's more of a 5/3 style deck 4 and 5 power creatures for 4 or less mana.  I think something like Sligh is too difficult to build because you can't reliably get red mana first turn for a jackal pup or green mana for ghazban ogre - your opening mana doesn't always match your opening beats.

     My very first skittles deck did play clamp, Steelshaper's Gift, Taj-Nar Swordsmith et al.  It wasn't so great, but I was new to the format at the time.

But as far as clamp goes, any good list is playing instant speed spot removal for creatures and for artifacts.  I don't think in an aggro deck clamp is fundamentally broken.  Carrion Feeder is my personal favorite cheap combo critter with it, though.

[Jacob Orlove]

I'd probably start testing something like this:

Skullclamp
Etched Oracle
Isochron Scepter
Aether Vial
Chromatic Sphere
Wayfarer's Bauble

Eternal Witness
Sakura-Tribe Elder
Thornscape Battlemage
Wild Mongrel
Civic Wayfinder
River Boa

Trinket Mage
Impulse
Telling Time
Ninja of the Deep Hours
Deep Analysis
Evasive Action

Swords to Plowshares
Seal of Cleansing
Orim's Thunder
Raise the Alarm
Soltari Trooper
Mother of Runes

Flametongue Kavu
Hearth Kami
Fireslinger
Fire/Ice
Magma Jet
Imperial Recruiter (so savage)

Nezumi Graverobber
Okiba-Gang Shinobi
Night's Whisper
Diabolic Edict
Duress
Dauthi Horror

Wasteland
Mishra's Factory
22 other lands

[Philatio]

I'd probably start testing something like this:

Skullclamp
Etched Oracle
Isochron Scepter
Aether Vial
Chromatic Sphere
Wayfarer's Bauble

Eternal Witness
Sakura-Tribe Elder
Thornscape Battlemage
Wild Mongrel
Civic Wayfinder
River Boa

Trinket Mage
Impulse
Telling Time
Ninja of the Deep Hours
Deep Analysis
Evasive Action

Swords to Plowshares
Seal of Cleansing
Orim's Thunder
Raise the Alarm
Soltari Trooper
Mother of Runes

Flametongue Kavu
Hearth Kami
Fireslinger
Fire/Ice
Magma Jet
Imperial Recruiter (so savage)

Nezumi Graverobber
Okiba-Gang Shinobi
Night's Whisper
Diabolic Edict
Duress
Dauthi Horror

Wasteland
Mishra's Factory
22 other lands

Thornscape Battlemage is like freaking Ancestral Recall - I love him.  With as many CIP creatures as you have, Crystal Shard is a really good artifact, and at times can be disruptive if the other player is tapping out, or only leaving 1 mana open.  Fire/Ice though counts as half a red and half a blue, so if you wanted to play this, you would need some other gold cards to balance out your colors.  If you tried the Red Battlemage instead, that would be more shard synergy - while the green one is the best, the red battlemage is often awesome.  Nezumi Graverobber seemed good when he came out, but because of the mana base, you are unlikely to make multiple black for repeated activations in the early game.  By the time you do, the other player has enough cards in his graveyard to make the flip tough.  Granted, I was trying him in a reanimator deck (crash of rhinos - rrraaaaaarrr!!!!) and I WANTED him to flip, but maybe you just want him for cheap 2 power beats + graveyard disruption.

[Jacob Orlove]

Oh, I thought the color system was like Prismatic or 5-color, where gold/split cards counted as whichever color you wanted. I'll revise my list. I've run Crystal Shard before in heavy CIP decks, but I wasn't a fan of how little it did on its own.

Note: mana curve starts at two so I can run all the invasion CIP tapped duals. My mana is awful, but I get to run such awesome cards!

Anyway, revised list:

Skullclamp
Etched Oracle
Isochron Scepter
Aether Vial
Chromatic Sphere
Wayfarer's Bauble

Eternal Witness
Sakura-Tribe Elder
Thornscape Battlemage
Civic Wayfinder
River Boa

Trinket Mage
Impulse
Telling Time
Ninja of the Deep Hours
Deep Analysis

Swords to Plowshares
Orim's Thunder
Raise the Alarm
Soltari Trooper

Flametongue Kavu
Thunderscape Battlemage
Magma Jet
Imperial Recruiter (so savage)

Nezumi Graverobber
Okiba-Gang Shinobi
Night's Whisper
Duress
Dauthi Horror

Fire/Ice
Terminate
Moroii or Dimir Guildmage
Lightning Helix
Boros Guildmage
Watchwolf
Selesnya Guildmage

Wasteland
Mishra's Factory
Vitu-Ghazi, the City Tree
Gemstone Mine
Coastal Tower
Elfhame Palace
Salt Marsh
Shivan Oasis
Urborg Volcano
Mirrodin's Core
Krosan Verge
3 Forest
3 Plains
3 Mountain
2 Swamp
2 Island

[Philatio]

     No Gemstone Mine?!  It's sooooo good.  I know you question it because it goes away, but I never ever regret seeing one.

     I guess you run magma jet over bolt because of the possible isochron synergy?

     I have not yet had a chance to try and work any Ravnica cards into any skittles lists.  Morii seems like a perfect fit for my beatdown deck - but he has to compete with Tog, and well....  Tog's fucking phenomial.  Lightning helix is a maybe, but I had speculated in the past that some of the guildmages might be playable.  Once the whole block is out, playing 10 grizzly bears with late game abilities could be very good, since the guild mana makes them more likely to be castable.

     Also Watchwolf maybe gives me an excuse to switch my gold cards around to fit fires of yavimaya in my beatdown deck - charging troll was only myeh with that configuration.

     CIP duals are really good in this format.  It's glacial in relative to other formats, so CIP tempo loss isn't as important as the tempo lost by color screw.  Don't forget the CIP fetchlands, which are better if you are playing a lot of domain cards.

[Jacob Orlove]

Gemstone Mine was definitely an oversight on my part.

Jet offers Isochron synergy and some potential mana/card fixing, which seems like it should be worth 1 mana, especially given how many 2-toughness guys I see in all these lists.

I had Fires in my list, but then I realized I could switch things around to fit in more guild cards, which I like better here. If you're playing with guys that cost more than Fires does, it's good, but with a bunch of 2 drops I like Boros Guildmage better.

I considered the CIP fetchlands (I run them in a different casual deck), and I might cut a couple basics for them if I'm not running into trouble from the CIP tapped lands. Remember, I'm working off just theory here--I technically don't even have all the cards needed for that list, although Lightning Helix is the only one that'd be hard to get.

What's really nice about Ravnica is that especially once we have the whole block, it'll be possible to do really weird things with the color counts. It might even be possible to play a deck with no black cards, just by using split cards, guild cards, morphs (especially Zombie Cutthroat) and maybe one or two cycling spells. Would that be against the spirit of the format?

[Philatio]

Gemstone Mine was definitely an oversight on my part.

Jet offers Isochron synergy and some potential mana/card fixing, which seems like it should be worth 1 mana, especially given how many 2-toughness guys I see in all these lists.

I had Fires in my list, but then I realized I could switch things around to fit in more guild cards, which I like better here. If you're playing with guys that cost more than Fires does, it's good, but with a bunch of 2 drops I like Boros Guildmage better.

I considered the CIP fetchlands (I run them in a different casual deck), and I might cut a couple basics for them if I'm not running into trouble from the CIP tapped lands. Remember, I'm working off just theory here--I technically don't even have all the cards needed for that list, although Lightning Helix is the only one that'd be hard to get.

What's really nice about Ravnica is that especially once we have the whole block, it'll be possible to do really weird things with the color counts. It might even be possible to play a deck with no black cards, just by using split cards, guild cards, morphs (especially Zombie Cutthroat) and maybe one or two cycling spells. Would that be against the spirit of the format?

Well, it isn't against the spirit of the format.  But a few notes:

I once tried out an "all black" deck that used a ton of split or gold cards such that the deck actually had something like 12 spells with black in them - with each other color dedicating two of its slots to a black split card.  This left me with something really dumb like 10 cards with black in them.  I think the motivation was the torment "tainted" lands, consume spirit+drain life and the off color creatures with the shade pump ability.  It wasn't good, but it isn't forbidden or anything, either.  You can't squeeze in more cards of a single color because there isn't a way to split your artifact count into black the way you can with other colors using gold cards.

I often play decks with 61 or even 63 cards.  In normal deckbuilding, this is inferior, but in skittles, not so.  The extra few cards are land.  I think the Honden deck mentioned above actually has something like 2-3 more lands than what is listed.  This lets you run a correct "control" manabase, while keeping to the correct color ratios.  Face it, 24 land isn't right for every deck, especially if one of them is Maze of Ith and another Ice Floe.

Really, as long as you have an equal number of cards of each color (and keep in mind the ratio of color is judged by the cost - a dragon charm nets you 1/3, 1/3 and 1/3), it doesn't matter.  Yeah, you could build a deck with 4 X/B guildmages, cycling cards and black-cost-less black morphs, but I'm not sure if it would be good.  I guess it gives you more mana stability, but probably at the cost of playing good cards.

[Nomad]

I find it hard to believe that Skullclamp isn't broken in this format. My first deck would be Clamp, Trinket Mage, Enlightened Tutor, Steelshaper's Gift, and go from there.

That's exactly what Phil played to begin with.  But really you want to play better quality creatures than simple skullclamp food (Raise the Alarm was good though).  And look at the amount of targetted removal around.

I'm still pretty stoked that there's real discussion going on, even if it is mostly Phil + Jacob. 

Jacob - I might build your deck for someone to try out.  It's not much fun playing against my own spare decks, knowing full well I've got the probable best one.  I even have a foil Helix.  Foiling decks in pauper format is really pimp.

[Jacob Orlove]

I'll see if I can get the cards for it together this weekend, so if anyone else going to Samite's tournament wants to play some skittles on the side, bring a deck and we can play!

Raise the Alarm is hot with both Clamp and Scepter, and I have a couple other token generators to feed Clamp with as well, if need be.

Also, note that Ravnica actually gives good enough cards that you can cut, say, a white and a green card to add Watchwolf and Selesnya Guildmage, without unbalancing your colors. Likewise, the guilds make it especially easy to shortcut a 5-card set of gold cards into a 4-card set. For example, if you're running five allied color cards (U/W W/G G/R R/B B/U) you could turn that into U/W W/R R/B B/U and a green card. This was possible before, but Ravnica adds a whole lot of genuinely playable nonrare multicolor cards.

[Nomad]

I'll see if I can get the cards for it together this weekend, so if anyone else going to Samite's tournament wants to play some skittles on the side, bring a deck and we can play!

I'm running a small (skittles this week) tournament down in Princeton and so won't be going all the way to Mass.  Next time...

[Nomad]

You left out the "equal # of cards of each color" part.

I missed what you meant until re-reading the page this evening.  Fixed and added more decklists and a link to here too.

[Nomad]

Anyway, revised list:

Jacob, I built pretty close to this for John (Ultima) to play, and besides getting his ass kicked out the room by me, he did fairly well.  I think it needs a little more mana fixing.  Harriet, who drew with him (and they split 2nd place) with Slivers, says he got good use out of Skullclamp and Soltari Trooper - that's great with ninjas.

I played my nearly all foil deck in this configuration:

Artifact
Ticking Gnomes - bigger than just about anything else seen that early
Sun Droplet - really holds up aggro.
Fellwar Stone
Crystal Shard   - this thing is plain abusive.
Etched Oracle - and this.
Infused Arrows

Black
Smother
Terror
Twisted Abomination

Blue
Condescend
Impulse
Exclude - this really feels like one of the best cards.

Green
River Boa
Eternal Witness
Sakura Tribe Elder
Kodama's Reach

Red
Lightning Bolt
Flametongue Kavu
Thunderscape Battlemage
Avalanche Riders

White
Mother of Runes
Kami of Ancient Law
Swords to Ploughshares
Orim's Thunder

Gold
Crosis's Charm           )
Darigaaz's Charm       )  Because of the colour matching
Dromar's Charm         ) these are an all or none play.
Rith's Charm             )  But they're very flexible, the price is
Treva's Charm          )  the high coloured mana cost

Psychatog
Aura Shards
Hull Breach
Terminate
Galina's Knight
Spite/Malice
Dimir Guildmage  - Quite impressed on his first outing.

Land
Forbidding Watchtower
Ghitu Encampment
Faerie Conclave
Treetop Village
Spawning Pool

Waterveil Cavern          )
Cloudcrest Lake           )
Tranquil Garden            )  These all look really pretty.
Lantern Lit Graveyard    )   And don't come in tapped
Pinecrest Ridge            )

Mishra's Factory
Maze of Ith
Gemstone Mine           - Wish I'd kept hold of the one at GenCon
Dromar's Cavern          ) Synergy with depletion lands + Gemstone
Rith's Grove                )
Krosan Verge
Mirrodin's Core

SB:
Naturalize
Harrow
Selesnia Guildmage
Chastise
Allay
Ghostly Prison
Steam Blast
Engineered Plague
Trench Wurm
Planar Void
Darksteel Brute
Wayfarer's Bauble
Recoil
Willbender
Standstill

We had 10 players, which was pretty good for an odd format when Phil was off inspecting trees or something, and a number of other regulars were missing.

[Jacob Orlove]

Well, I didn't manage to actually get the deck built over here, but when I do, I'll definitely try a few Mirage fetches too. Another intriguing possibility is the CIP Tapped and bounce a land commons from Ravnica that tap for both guild colors. They could potentially be really good for fixing, and they let you get more mana out of your lands (a two land hand that produces three mana on turn 3 is pretty sweet).

[Jacob Orlove]

Okay, now that I know what your control list looks like, I can develop a decent SB strategy for it. Also, I'm tired of reposting a decklist that's 90% the same, so here's the additions to my latest list:

Infused Arrows
Dismantling Blow
Avalanche Riders
Reanimate
Gravedigger
Phyrexian Reclamation
Putrefy

I threw together a (semi-proxied) list, so now I can finally start testing the manabase.

[Philatio]

Here's my standard 5/3 beatdown deck if you are interested, too, Jacob.  I am too lazy to build a sideboard.  I usually grab some playables out of my skittles pile of cards on my way to whatever skittles tourney.

Like I said, I might move crap around with Ravnica cards in such a way to include Fires.  Ordered Migration is the iffiest of the gold cards. 

But this deck beats really hard.

Gold:
Psychatog (U/B)
Ordered Migration (U/W)
Flowstone Hellion (R/W)
Vicious Kavu  (R/B)

Black:
Flesh Reaver
Buried Alive <-- the shit
Filth <-- Broken
Carrion Feeder
Skeletal Scrying

Red:
Lightning Bolt
Flametongue Kavu
Avalanche Riders
Red-scape Battlemage (or whatever he is called)
Anger

Green:
Kodama's Reach
Sakura Tribe Elder
Harrow
Phantom Centaur <--soooo goooood
Thunderscape Battlemage
Krosan Tusker

White:
Swords
Disenchant
Devout Witness
Orim's Thunder
Nagao, Bound by Honor

Blue:
Wonder
Allied Strategies
Brainstorm
Deep Analysis
Impulse

Artifact:
Juggernaught
Crystal Shard (used to be Lox Warhammer - damn you 9th Ed)
Wayfarer's Bauble
Skullclamp
Etched Oracle
Lightning Greaves

Land:
Mishra's Factory
Fairie Concalve
Ghitu Encampment
Treetop Villiage
Forbidden Watchtower
Spawning Pool
Nantuko Monastery
Gemstone Mine
Mirrodin's Core
Terminal Moraine
Krosan Verge
Rocky Tar Pit
Mountain Valley
Wasteland
2x each basic land
1 extra forest

[Tons of Fun]

What is the policy on Artifact Lands? Do they count toward your Artifacts, or are they treated like other Lands?

[Philatio]

    Artifact lands don't count towards your artifact count.  So yeah, you can try to go up to 12 artifacts if you want to run stuff like thirst or cranial plating.  I tried it out, and you usually can't get enough out to support something like the affinity mechanic, but why not have a go?

[Tons of Fun]

I was just thinking more along the lines of Trinket Mage fixing my mana if I already have Clamp.

The folks in Kentucky will definitely give this format a try. I'll let you guys know how it turns out.

[Tin_Mox5831]

Here's my deck. It's got a lot of the standard stuff, but I thought I'd put it up anyway.

(Attention Jacob: I think I fixed it. I edited my first post to save space. Please let me know if this is now legal or not. Thanks again.)

Gemstone Mine x 1
Mirrodin's Core x 1
Dimir Aqueduct x 1 (This cycle has a cool synergy with Gemstone Mine.)
Golgari Rot Farm x 1
Wasteland x 1
Mishra's Factory x 1
Vitu-Ghazi, The City Tree x 1
Tree Of Tales x 1
Ancient Den x 1
Seat Of The Synod x 1
Vault Of Whispers x 1
Sunhome, Fortress Of The Legion x 1
Ancient Tomb x 1 (It's colorless, but a turn 1 Scepter can be ridiculous.)
Maze Of Ith x 1
Snow-Covered Swamp x 1
Snow-Covered Island x 1
Snow-Covered Plains x 1
Snow-Covered Mountain x 1
Snow-Covered Forest x 1

Gold/Split/Guild:
Fire/Ice x 1
Spite/Malice x 1
Terminate x 1
Lightning Helix x 1
Plague Spores x 1
Watchwolf x 1
Putrefy x 1


Artifact:
Isochron Scepter x 1
Aether Vial x 1
Skullclamp x 1
Darksteel Ingot x 1
Sensei's Divining Top x 1
Cranial Plating x 1
Etched Oracle x 1

Green:
Sakura-Tribe Elder x 1
Blastoderm x 1
Hana Kami x 1
Wild Mongrel x 1
Sundering Vitae x 1
Berserk x 1

White:
Orim's Thunder x 1
Raise The Alarm x 1
Seal Of Cleansing x 1
Ethereal Haze x 1
Wing Shards x 1
Swords To Plowshares x 1

Black:
Unearth x 1
Rend Flesh x 1
Hideous Laughter x 1
Soulless Revival x 1
Nezumi Graverobber x 1

Blue:
Mana Leak x 1
Remand x 1
Memory Lapse x 1
Thirst For Knowledge x 1
Impulse x 1
Echoing Truth x 1

Red:
Red Elemental Blast x 1 (Adding a counterspell w/o screwing up the colors is sweet!)
Glacial Ray x 1
Lightning Bolt x 1
Shock x 1
Slice And Dice x 1

I think I got the color counts right. If I miscounted/have an illegal deck, please LMK.

Thanks,
Dave

[Jacob Orlove]

It would be a lot easier to tell if you put the gold cards separately, but I can tell you right off the bat that you have too many artifacts, and you should probably be running more land. I know three of them tap for two mana, but that's no reason to run 18!

Okay, your color counts come out like this:
Artifact: 8
Green: 7
White: 7
Black: 6.5
Blue: 7
Red: 5.5

All those numbers should be the same, but aren't.

[Tin_Mox5831]

Oops, I thought Gold cards counted as 1 and 1, rather than .5 and .5

Thanks Jacob.

Peace,
Dave

[Philatio]

Another quick point is that you can use as many basics as you want.  You don't have to do the whole snow-covered thing, but it is worth style points.

Also, multicolor cards aren't automatically .5

Something like Mystic Snake (*if* it were legal! - it isn't!) would be 1/3 green and 2/3 blue.  Good luck pairing that one up with something to make the color count match up.

[Jacob Orlove]

Oh, I was wondering about that. Now I have to build a deck with Mystic Snake and Firemane Angel. Bad legends await!

[Nomad]

Also, multicolor cards aren't automatically .5

Something like Mystic Snake (*if* it were legal! - it isn't!) would be 1/3 green and 2/3 blue.  Good luck pairing that one up with something to make the color count match up.

I don't think that sensible, a straight half/half for a 2 colour card is good enough, otherwise no-one's ever playing Flamekin Zealot at WRR1.

Ordered Migration is the iffiest of the gold cards. 

Ordered Migration is the only way you managed to pull last week's game out, after Sun Droplet basically completely shut you down.  Well, and recursive Avalanche Riders.

I'm also thinking of dropping my Dragon Lairs for the new Rav. 2 colour bounce lands.  No loss of mana a turn later sounds good to me.

[Philatio]

Also, multicolor cards aren't automatically .5

Something like Mystic Snake (*if* it were legal! - it isn't!) would be 1/3 green and 2/3 blue.  Good luck pairing that one up with something to make the color count match up.

I don't think that sensible, a straight half/half for a 2 colour card is good enough, otherwise no-one's ever playing Flamekin Zealot at WRR1.

Ordered Migration is the iffiest of the gold cards. 

Ordered Migration is the only way you managed to pull last week's game out, after Sun Droplet basically completely shut you down.  Well, and recursive Avalanche Riders.

I'm also thinking of dropping my Dragon Lairs for the new Rav. 2 colour bounce lands.  No loss of mana a turn later sounds good to me.

Bah.  You didn't invent the format.  Scott used to say it was the mana ratios printed on the card.  If you play Flame-kin zealot, you're obviously playing more red than your other colors.

As far as the Ordered Migration goes, I only needed flyers since you had the ground clogged up with blockers.  I took it and some others out and am still trying to figure out what it is that I am going to have be my final configuration, but right now for blue and white slots I've got angel of mercy, and morii.  Both fly, and they don't get popped by your ticking gnomes like my lameass bird tokens did.  Besides, it was filth who did the dirty work and finished you off, not the fliers.