Robot Viking

Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Play the Bomb

This weekend, my brother and I hit a nearby Worldwake prerelease. How does the new set perform in a limited environment? I can tell you. Sort of.

The last tournament report I wrote was about how I won at my local Friday Night Magic. I’d been planning to write about the Worldwake prerelease, and really had no intention of making it another “Blah blah blah, I won the tournament” article. But, the thing is…I won the tournament.

Oddly, this actually makes me less qualified to judge the quality of Worldwake in limited play, because my strategy looked a lot like this:

1). Open packs with a bunch of awesome cards.

2). Put awesome cards in a pile.

3). ?

4). Profit!

Of course, in the past I might have overlooked such an obvious path to winning. I would look closely at blue and white, thinking it would be better to play a tricky deck with some counterspells or bounce spells (spells that return a permanent to the owner’s hand). I might try to set up a small combo, or just generally rely on something that seemed “more skilled” than just playing the powerful cards I got. This time, even though I had a Goliath Sphinx and a Sphinx of Jwar Isle, one look at the red and black cards in my pile made it very clear: stop overthinking and play these cards.

Here’s the deck I used — and when I say “used,” I mean “curbstomped people mercilessly with.” I went 5-0, with only one game loss (a game where I couldn’t find a mountain in time to play my handfull of red spells). My final opponent, who was 4-0 like me and ostensibly had a solid deck and excellent Magic skills, went down in eight minutes. I only wish I’d had cards like these at the sealed Pro Tour Qualified I played in a few months ago.

[deck title=Dr. Strangeburn]
[Creatures]
*1 Surrakar Marauder
*1 Ruthless Cullblade
*1 Vampire Nighthawk
*1 Jagwasp Swarm
*1 Heartstabber Mosquito
*1 Guul Draz Specter
*1 Anowon the Ruin Sage
*1 Slavering Nulls
*1 Plated Geopede
*1 Cunning Sparkmage
*1 Grotag Thrasher
*1 Tuktuk Scrapper
*1 Walking Atlas
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
*1 Mind Sludge
*1 Dead Reckoning
*1 Tomb Hex
*1 Disfigure
*1 Hideous End
*1 Burst Lightning
*1 Inferno Trap
*1 Searing Blaze
*1 Adventuring Gear
[/Spells]
[Lands]
*1 Akoum Refuge
*11 Swamp
*6 Mountain
[/Lands]
[/deck]

The only weak choice there was the Walking Atlas. I had thought it would generate a little acceleration, but it never did. It was just a crappy 1/1. I remember at one point, Joe and I were sitting there building our decks and I held up the Mind Sludge. “Is this worth playing even if it’s not a mono-black deck?” He gave me a look that basically said, “What are you, new?” I played the Sludge and Joe was right –  it flat out won me at least three games. The best was when an opponent Sludged away four of my cards. Next turn I topdecked my Sludge and got rid of the rest of his hand.

While Anowon was huge (I won two games on his back) and the Specter was impressive (I actually comboed him with the Sludge for a major beatdown at one point), the all-star was absolutely Cunning Sparkmage. There are so many 2/1 creatures in Zendikar and Worldwake, plus a fair number at 1/1 and 0/1. He singlehandedly killed around ten creatures throughout the day.

Searing Blaze and kicked Burst Lightning served as kill shots a few times, and the Akoum Refuge genuinely helped smooth out the mana curve. It’s easy to underestimate what a single dual land can do in a sealed deck tournament. The Grotag Thrasher is a big advantage in the creature-fights that limited games usually come down to, and even the Tuktuk Scrapper earned his keep, at one point clearing away an artifact creature so the Slavering Nulls could go about their hand-destroying business. And of course, Vampire Nighthawk remains a card that forces you to seriously consider playing black no matter what other cards you have. I won a few games with more than 30 life thanks to the Maynard Vamp.

So my advice to anyone playing in Worldwake drafts or a sealed deck tournament? Uh…get lots of efficient creatures, tons of creature removal spells, and win? I got nothin’. A drunk monkey could have won with the cards I had this weekend.

I guess my real advice would be, “Have fun, and play with the big, fun rares you get and don’t worry about looking clever.”

Related posts:

1. Community Cup Grand Finale
2. Worldwake Delayed in China. You’ll Never Guess Why.
3. Alara Reborn Prerelease Tournament Report
4. Playing Constructed Magic On a Budget: Tournament Report
5. Conflux Pre-Release Report – I Hate You, Magister Sphinx