"The Hater" or you can just say "The Bad and Naughty Scrub"

[mr_x]

Well, I'd like to introduce to an old deck that I've had for a very long time but didn't pull it out until this past weekend at the tournament. But I'd like to give you a brief intro how the deck came to me. Well you know that the combo of Illusionary Mask and Phyrexian Dreadnaught has been around for ever but no one has played it. Well, I've had my masks since it was still legal in legacy. But once it rotated out of legacy, I was stuck with these masks that I had no use for. Well, I decided to build a deck with it. So I was like, "These cards are terrible, what other terrible cards can I play with them?" I then remember that my friend has some scrublands and badlands that we had no use for. So I gathered them up from my friends and looked for cards to build a vintage deck around these "bad" cards. I was gonna try to prove a point that "good" decks don't always need blue. Not really, but I just thought it would be funny to beat people down with bad cards. Watching the faces of people as they get the beatdown by supposed "bad" cards is pretty funny. But to try to stop the power for "blue" decks, I decided that their power starts from their card drawing so why don't I find a card that would make them think twice about drawing cards. This is where Chains of Mephistopheles came it. I play alot of stax so I remembered when they were using Chains in the welderless stax deck. This is the beginning of how I wanted this "bad" deck to evolve. Since I can slow down control with the Chains and Mask gets around "control" decks philosophy of denial, it was now on to graveyard hate. Thinking of how there are so may ways to eat the graveyard up, what would be a good efficient way to do it and also have walking body for beats and wretch pops up. Withered Wretch destroys so many graveyard decks it's not even funny. The key advantage for this deck did not arrive until ravinica. So, I was stuck with no efficient way to grab more cards until this card came out. It gets around Chains and has legs. And if you don't know what card this is, it's the Dark "Bob" Confidant. Well, this was a little history of how this deck came to be for me. But here's the decklist.

"The Hater" or "The Bad and Naughty Scrub"
created by mr_x

Artifact

4x Illusionary Mask
4x Phyrexian Dreadnought

Black

4x Duress
4x Dark Ritual
4x Dark Confidant
4x Withered Wretch
3x Chains of Mephistopheles
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Darkblast

White

1x Balance
2x Swords to Plowshare

Gold

4x Vindicate

Land/Mana

4x Badland
4x Scrubland
4x Bloodstained Mire
2x Swamp
1x Strip Mine
7x Solo Moxen

Sideboard

4x Rack and Ruin
3x Seal of Cleansing
2x Maze of Ith
4x Pyrostatic Pillar
2x Tormod's Crypt

Well, I'll give you my reasoning for certain cards and why I didn't include other.

Illusionary Mask: Control hates this card because it goes against their  strategy of denial. If control can't stop it, you can drop your creatures without worrying that it will be countered. Also, it's the key to MaskNaught.

Chains of Mephistopheles: Hates on mages who loves drawing. Makes them think about casting that blue "stunted growth".

Withered Wretch: Randomly wrecks graveyard decks. *chomp*

Dark Confidant: Gets your extra cards and works around Chains.

Swords to Plowshare: Gets rid of indestructable guy or just some random creature.

Darkblast: Welders best friend. Or not.

Balance/Mindtwist: Balance is broken. Mindtwist is random. But they are both a kick in the knuts.

Dark Rituals: Helps speed you up. Allows first turn MaskNaught easier. Help the mana light.

Duress: Just overall awesome. 'nuff said.

Vindicate: This is the questionable slot. Clunky but can nuke almost anything. Nuking almost anything wins out for me. hehehehe. 

One's that didn't make it.

Necropotence: I died too many times to this and it's terrible when you can't do anything else and you can't get rid of it and you need the next draw. This is where confidant comes in.

Mana Crypt: Will kill you in the long game. I like it but I don't at the same time. I can live without it. There's enough accelerant. It doesn't help when confidant is doing the damage also.

Mana Vault: I like this better then the Crypt. I just didn't have this in the deck.

The sideboard:

Well, this needs work. I just pulled it out and played the deck this weekend. SO, this would be more likely what I would have had.

3x Red Elemental Blast
3x Pyrostatic Pillar
3x Seal of Cleansing
2x Rack and Ruin
2x Maze of Ith
2x Tormod's Crypt

REB's: A little more blue hate is never that bad.

Pyrostatic Pillar: Combo, the worst macthup. Glad I didn't play against that this weekend.

Seal of Cleansing: Nukes lots of things

Rack and Ruin: Back up for Seal and totally devistates stax.

Maze of Ith: Oath

Tormod's Crypt: A little more graveyard hate is never bad.

I bet you all are wondering why I'm posting such a terrible deck. Well, It's "bad" enough to top 4 at a Black Lotus tournamant so it must not be too bad. ehheheeh...  :lol:... Anyways, I didn't take notes so let me recap what I can remember.

Match 1 against Mean Deck Ichorid

Wretch owns games 1 & 2

1-0 (2-0)

Match 2 Against SS

Surprise MaskNaugt on both games with early chains

2-0 (4-0)

Match 3 against 5cStax

Early Masknaught goes the for game 1
Lots of draw and go because we both have 2 seal of cleansings out. Balance cleared the board because I only have 1 land. He has a bazaar out. I know he's waiting for a mask to seal it. I fetch for a WW, just incase he gets a welder. WW beats, He drops a 3sphere. in response use vamp to get a R&R. Kill his two mana sources. WW for the win.

3-0 (6-0)

Match 4 against SS (again)

I get crushed first game because I get my lands wasted and then stripped. no land came up.
Game two, smashed him down with masknaught.
Game three, more of the same.

4-0 (8-1)

The next two round, I just drew in. It was ICBM Oath and Spooky Stax...

Record after Swiss 4-0-2

Top 8

Another SS deck, but piloted by TK

Game One: Duress-mask-naught
Game Two: He had a first turn Old Man... took a little pounding for a bit... until I could drop a mask with two face down creatures. Attempts to steal on with Old man. Flipping over naught. Which got edicted. Next turn, go for 12 and another 12 after that.

Top 4

Another SS deck, piloted by I@n

Game One was the nuts for me. First turn, swamp, Duress, mox, sol ring, mask. He duressed me to see a land and a naught. Game from there on.

Game two: I got hasty. I had a masknaught on first turn. Shoulda baited, but went for it. Lost this one.

Game Three: Couldn't play crap. Got locked.

Oh well, it was a good run for it's first tournament. I almost didn't play this deck, but my friend "gustoh" told me to play it. It was fun just to see people get beat down by "bad" cards. Well, this is something too look at. Hopefully you guy like it and if you have any questions, please reply here. Any suggestions would be helpful. Thanks.

sNoOp

[Implacable]

So, in your Game 1 vs. fast combo, you just bend over and hope that your sideboard is good enough?

[mr_x]

Well, yeah... combo is aggros worst match up anywayz... I refuse to put blue into the deck just for counter. I doesn't help the deck enough. I tried the blue in the deck before and I didnt like it. Duress and pyrostatic pillar is going to have to do it. If not, oh well. Is there anything you can think of that I may need in the deck, besides rule of law?

[[supa_t(im)]]

Would cabal therapy be good for the vindicate spot?  Yes, Vindicate nukes anything, but cabal therapy can be really good against combo, and can get rid of dangerous bobs.  Doesn't Chains hurt combo as well?  I mean, if they are using draw7s it really makes them go a different route.  It makes bargain not as useful, which can be incredibly good at times.

I really like the deck.

[mr_x]

yeah, that sounds pretty good, but do you think that it would be better off the side or in the main. Therapy that is.

[Pave]

I'd prefer Chalice of the Void v. Combo.  (Then again I'd probably run Chalice main.)

[TopSecret]

     If you are still looking for suggestions, I would take out the Vindicates, because it costs three.
I would then suggest adding Hide//Seek in the Vindicate slot.
They are soo good when you play with both Badlands and Scrub Lands.
Also, if you ever find room, Pyrostatic Pillars might be very worthwhile maindeck,
especially with Hide//Seek.

     I also do not think Balance is great when playing so many creatures,
but if you have to deal with SS and friends all day, I can understand.

     Good luck, and thanks for posting such a cool deck!
     I love bad cards!

[Whatever Works]

So, in your Game 1 vs. fast combo, you just bend over and hope that your sideboard is good enough?

Duress & Chains are great vs. Combo. Also Withered Wretch also is great in the matchup. To say that this deck would auto lose to combo game 1 would be a huge overstatement.

I dont really like masknaught decks, because they generally are very easy to play around. With there main strength being speed + suprise factor.

However, the deck could conceivably do well in the metagame that your tournement report revealed.

Kyle L.

[mr_x]

hide // seek sounds great... i'm gonna try that out... thanks

[UR]

My brother took a mono-black version of this deck (which was very, very similar to this one) to a tournament last week and quickly decided that the Illusionary Masks and Phyrexian Dreadnoughts are cuttable for good cards. The best card in the deck is Dark Confidant anyway and nearly all the games will revolve around that guy. More often than not you'll need to severely disrupt the opponent before you are going to win and the Dreadnought is just win-more. Any game where your deck does what it is supposed to do, you can win with the little guys.

[mr_x]

@UR

I know that the MaskNaught combo is cuttable, but that would go against my original reason why I built it. Its where bad cards can win also. Besides that point, I also think that the mask is a house against control. Having creatures come into play without worrying that it's gonna be countered is a great plus to include in a deck. Also, having a Naught to provide the extra pressure of a turn 3 kill after it drops down is an added bonus. Also, hiding the identity of creatures can be a big help also. Your opponent will always be cautious on what they play because they don't know what's hidden. You don't need the mask to win with this deck. It's an added bonus, and the dreadnaught just goes along for the ride. If you play this deck and depend on it, then your not playing it correctly. The combo is just there for an added bonus. And the most enjoyable thing is that when people say that they won't lose to masknaught because it's terrible. And the look on peoples face when the 12/12 smash their face in... PRICELESS

You know what card i actually thought about adding is Grim Lavamancer. It provides DD for the deck. Also, I originally had Mox Monkeys in the deck. Those cards could be on the side and then brought in depending on your meta. There's plenty of options, it's just how you want to play it.

[Mantis]

Every deck runs either mass artifact bounce or artifact hate these days. May it be Welder, Shaman, Hurkyl's Recall/Rebuild or Rack and Ruin, non-indestructible artifact creatures with a cc of 1 with no counter backup and requiring 2 specific cards to go off just aren't going to make it these days. Anyway, that's just me though.

I'm not sure if I can agree on not running Necropotence, if you can't win with 7 cards in your hand each turn you are doing something wrong. It's just too good with Ritual.

You also forgot Demonic Consultation, you only play 4-ofs so it's worth the risk, I think Demonic Consultation is even better than Demonic Tutor in this deck.

I'd put Mox Monkey back in and find some room for Wastelands. Goal of these cards are not to randomly screw your opponent over but to buy tempo. Holding your opponent of mana means you are essentially giving yourself more combat phases and thus have a higher chance of defeating your opponent before he beats you. Shaman is the card I fear the most when playing CS.

Note that Morph also works with Illusionary Mask. Skinthinner and Skirk Marauder are cool for the sideboard. Willbender is probably the best card in this respect, too bad it's blue, although it still works under Mask.
Well, these cards are probably not viable anyway but I just had to post it. Imagine the amount of style points you get when pulling off this trick.

[mr_x]

Yeah, I used to play a playset of wastelands in them maindeck, but kept running into non colored mana problems. I play too many colored spells and can't afford that many non-colored mana sources. I would probably play 2 waste at most because everyone has basics nowadays. I'm debating about mox monkey and hide//seek right now. I actually want to squeeze both of them into the maindeck. I'm just looking at 2x of each at most. I'm sort of leaning towards mox monkey though, because it's easier to cast out and it got legs. I'll have to take a look at that, but I haven't touched my vintage magic decks since the last tournament, and i'm probably gonna miss this weekends also.

Consultation is an awesome card and always worth looking at, but it's just my personal preference to "not" play it. It's the same with Necropotence. These were all cards I originally had in the deck, but decided against it at one point in time to not play them. If you can find the space for them, that's great.

This deck was originally built to own control, but always lost to trinistax. Now that trinisphere is restricted, it gives this deck the breathing room that it never had. Try it out, like i said in an earlier post...

the most enjoyable thing is that when people say that they won't lose to masknaught because it's terrible. And the look on peoples face when the 12/12 smash their face in... PRICELESS