Bad Deck Baz Presents It's A Wonderful Life!

Hello and welcome to the final installment of the Bad Deck Baz series. We've raced a 5/5 flying shrouded sphinx and out-milled a mill deck. Now let's see what we can do with It's A Wonderful Life!

It's a Wonderful Life!

A “Bad Deck Baz” Deck

10 Plains

2 Forest

4 Sunpetal Grove

4 Kabira Crossroads

4 Graypelt Refuge

4 Battlegrace Angel

4 Mycoid Shepherd

4 Grazing Gladehart

2 Sunseed Nurturer

2 Mesa Enchantress

2 Lifelink

1 Landbind Ritual

3 Sylvan Bounty

3 Cradle of Vitality

4 Soul's Grace

2 Celestial Mantle

2 Sunspring Expedition

3 Angel's Mercy

Sideboard 

3 Felidar Sovereign

3 Wall of Reverence

2 Captured Sunlight

4 Solemn Offering

3 Ajani Goldmane 

As you can see here, Baz has definitely taken this lifegain theme to heart, with 73/75 cards gaining life, or having the potential to do so. Let's see how it goes.

Round 1: It's A Wonderful Life for Bant!

He gets Hierarch, Borderland Ranger, Ranger of Eos, Hierarch before I manage my first spell: a Sunseed Nurturer. I drop a Mesa Enchantress and Landbind Ritual, but I've already noticed a problem with this deck: without Wrath effects, the opponent can and will keep scaling up their threats until your lifegain can't keep up. He drops a Scute Mob and a Sphinx, and mows me down.

Game 2 is a near instant replay. Hierarch, Borderland Ranger, Dauntless Escort. I do put up some resistance this game.  My Wall of Reverence meets a Path, my Gladehart has to chump, and my Ajani has no defenders. I get slammed again.

0-1

Round 2: It's A Wonderful Life for Grixis Control!

I drop Gladehart, and Mycoid Shepherd. The latter gets hit by Double Negative. I land a second, and he Quakes for 4. He Cruels me, and I Soul's Grace my last Shepherd in response. My hand and board are decimated, but I'm at 35 life. A Sphinx of Jwar Isle and a Siege-Gang Commander decimate that pretty fast though. I drop a Battlegrace Angel which meets a Terminate. He then kills me.

Game 2 I get stuck on 3 lands. Against a Siege-Gang Commander. I never find land 4. It isn't pretty.

0-2

Round 3: It's A Wondeful Life for Mono-White Lifegain! (no really!)

He gets Knight of the White Orchid, which my Gladehart is able to stem the wounds of. I drop Battlegrace and attack with my 3/3 lifelink Deer of Death. We keep going back and forth with two Knights vs. Battlegrace, and then I drop Cradle of Vitality. It meets Oblivion Ring. I drop another one, to make a 4/4 Gladehart thanks to Landfall. His Knight Trio slams me. (3 Knights of the White Orchid). He then drops an Elspeth and an Ajani. His Knights slay me, despite my 6/6 and growing Gladehart. I actually manage to drop an 11/11 Sunseed Nurturer and crack 60 life, but Elspeth's ultimate ensures my eventual defeat.

Game 2 I come out strong with Sunspring Expeditions. Ajani clashes with the Knight, and he drops Wall of Reverence. I drop Mycoid Shepherd, he drops Oblivion Ring on Ajani. He drops Emeria, the Sky Ruin. I drop Cradle, he names it with Pithing Needle. I Solemn Offering his O-Ring, but Baneslayer re-kills Ajani. I attack with the Shepherd, crack an Expedition, and make a 13/12. He says I can't do that, but I point out that Cradle's ability is triggered, not activated. 

He plays another Wall and starts gaining 10 life a turn. He soon gets Emeria the Sky Ruin active. He gains a lot of life and casts Day of Judgement to kill my creatures which I can't bring back. However, I drop a Cradle of Vitality, Mycoid Shepherd, and Wall of Reverence. This combo allows me to make a very very large Wall, but his guys keep coming back so I can't attack without trample, which the deck does not have. I get 2 500+ P/T creatures and 850 life, but he finds his Felidar Sovereign before I find mine and the game is over.

0-3

Round 4: It's A Wonderful Life for Time Sieve!

Turn 4 I get a Mycoid Shepherd while he gets Kaleidostone and Howling Mine. He's wary of my one trick: gaining life to foil his attack. Therefore when he comboes off he makes sure he hits me for about 20 above my life total, and I fold.

Game 2 I get a Cradle and a Battlegrace. I also Solemn Offering his Howling Mine. In a long, boring game, he attacks for 13 with a Hulk, and I triple Soul's Grace, hoping he'll deck himself trying to deal 60 damage. Unfortunately, he does not.

0-4

And that ends the Bad Deck Baz series! With my stellar 2-10 record I now depart for greener pastures where I can go 3-1 once again. Join me next time as I explore a concept that is incredibly important to playing Magic competitively: even if you hate me for believing it.

How to Build A Multiplayer Deck

I often play casual Magic after FNM, and often this takes the form of multiplayer. Too often, I find that the deck I'm using, while strong at duels, is terrible with multiplayer. Only my control decks ever manage to be decent at multiplayer. Hence, due to my preference for Jund at the moment, I decided to make myself a cheap, Standard-legal multiplayer deck.

I've never built a multi-player deck, so I started freeforming what I knew about multiplayer that was different from duels.

• A combo deck will make you the threat next game.
• Card draw is very good.
• Howling Mine makes friends. But is it good? Probably not.
• Bombs need to be more impressive
• Unless it's aimed at them, people won't counter spells. Also why card draw is very good.
• Politics is good (but that's not related to deckbuilding. Or is it?)

I immediately knew I wanted to be blue. A good second color might be black (removal), white (removal, gaining life) or green (Lurking Predators!!!)

I decided on white, since I like lifegain in multiplayer (if it's tacked on to something, of course.) I also need some Wrath effects, and Austere Command and Planar Cleansing are good cheap ones.

I headed on Gatherer to come up with a list of Standard-legal potential card drawing machines. I really wish Tidings was in M10.

Potential card draw:

Mind Spring (probably a 4-of, people get to lots of mana in multiplayer)

Mulldrifter

Divination (doubt it)

Cryptic Command (too expensive)

Covenant of Minds (can use it with someone who owes me)

Ponder (not really card draw, but still good)

Potential lifegain:

Kitchen Finks (almost certainly)

Kiss of the Amesha (also draws cards. I love it.)

Soul Warden (a 4-of)

Potential finishers:

Call the Skybreaker (great for excess lands in late-game, and hard to stop permanently)

Gargoyle Castle: Only 1 or 2.

Potential removal:

Oblivion Ring

Path to Exile

Potential misc:

Plumeveil

Wall of Denial

Wall of Frost

1-of rares I happen to have:

Exotic Orchard

Hallowed Burial

Ajani Goldmane

Jace Beleren

Reveillark (but for what?)

Gargoyle Castle

Captain of the Watch

Another Captain of the Watch

So what do we want to have?

4 Mind Spring

4 Mulldrifter

3 Kitchen Finks

1 Hallowed Burial

1 Ajani Goldmane

1 Jace Beleren

2 Captain of the Watch

2-3 Wall of Denial

2-3 Wall of Frost

3-4 Path to Exile

4 Oblivion Ring
4 Soul Warden

That makes 30-32 slots. Adding 24 lands, we have about 6 slots left.

4 Kiss of the Amesha

2 Call the Skybreaker

But we also need Wrath effects.

-2 Kiss of the Amesha

-1 Oblivion Ring
-1 Mulldrifter
-1 Kitchen Finks

+3 Austere Command

+2 Planar Cleansing

Only in multiplayer is it fine to play with 2-3 of's of lots of decent cards you want to use. I'm embracing the casualness of this format as much as my Spike-crazed brain is able.

So the final decklist:

Lands (24)

12 Plains

10 Island

1 Gargoyle Castle

1 Exotic Orchard

Creatures (15)

2 Captain of the Watch

2 Kitchen Finks

3 Mulldrifter
4 Soul Warden

2 Wall of Denial

2 Wall of Frost

Spells (21)

1 Ajani Goldmane

1 Jace Beleren

1 Hallowed Burial

2 Planar Cleansing

2 Kiss of the Amesha

2 Call the Skybreaker

3 Austere Command

3 Oblivion Ring

3 Path to Exile

3 Mind Spring

This is a pretty crappy duelling deck, but in multiplayer, it does well: playing plenty of card draw and lifegain to keep the game going, some removal for the big creature eyeing ya, and a wide array of finishers (Captain, Call the Skybreaker, Ajani's ultimate) plus some Wrath effects to keep things fair.

I'm looking forward to playing it at FNM as soon as I can wrangle up the cards (not too hard, since I own all the expensive ones and most of the rest are commons)

Until next time, may you let your hair down.