Brawl for All: Trip Report : The jerk Deck
So yesterday I posted the deck I would be running for “Brawl Wednesday” which was basically, how many awful get punched in real life effects could I jam into a deck for the Lord’s favorite format (Deut 5:4).
Okay so first thing I do is check my quests
Attack with 30 creatures? I intended to attack with zero creatures so that is a pain. So I reset that nonsense
Sweeeeeeet Nectar.
Building the Deck
I was missing a lot of the hatewalkers but luckily in Brawl (unlike Standard) it is a “singleton format” so you only have to blow one wildcard per card you want as opposed to needing a playset, so it makes things a lot more versatile. It turns out most of the horrible static ability walkers are at uncommon (WAR draft must have felt abysmal a lot of the time). This combined with the fact that Omniscience draft was last weekend and I drafted around say, 13 Act of Treasons I was swimming in uncommon wildcards.
After adding in all the hate cards I realized I had almost no room for anything else. Like you know, card draw. I guess this horribly unfair deck was going to be very fair when it came to drawing cards, which made me feel a little less bad. In addition to the Brady Darlings mentioned in the last article I also slotted in.
Dovin, Hand of Control
Davriel, Rogue Shadowmage
Kasmina, Enigmatic Mentor
The Wanderer
Kaya, Bane of the Dead
OB-NIXILIS-THE-HATE-TWISTED
Gideon Blackblade (solely because Dakkon rules)
I realized after this that I had about oh say, 5 slots for other stuff. One slot is wasted for Manifold Key which literally has only one job, untapping Wishclaw Talisman. I also keep thinking God-Pharaoh’s statue is a “good card” even though by the time I usually cast it the tax doesn’t matter that much.
Bake into a Pie and Mortify ended up being my sole removal spells, Bake had the added bonus of making a food token which could then be turned into another Wishclaw talisman. Also threw in Glass Casket for some early game stuff and again to be another talisman.
A lot of the typical soul salvage recursion loops I usually mess with in blue/black just weren’t there because I barely had any creatures.
Also since this is a blue deck I shoved in Midnight Clock, because why wouldn’t you.
Oh also Meteor Golem because why not.
My possible talisman targets were still pretty grim, but running three colors I was putting in all three lockets as well.
SPICY LANDS
I mentioned Blast Zone before, that is almost entirely to live the dream of killing tokens with Soul Diviner.
Emergence Zone, being able to flash something out on the opponent’s turn to get around Deafening Silence/Rule of Law could be useful.
Mobilized District — I am pretending this is Landstill. In this deck it is a strictly better Mishra’s Factory
So what we had was a terrible pile of extremely mana hungry cards that would basically be dead to a Krenko deck, lessee how it goes.
Nobody Remembers Ashiok’s static ability
My first test of this deck was getting out a turn 3 Ashiok. Opponent cracks a fabled passage, realizes, and concedes. So basically the deck did exactly what it set out to do.
This also came up when I used the Wishclaw Talisman in the one game that I drew it with her out. I dunno how I missed it but screw Karn, old Ashes to Ashes (my pet name for her not the black card that exiles creatures, way to go council of the colors) has the added bonus that if the opponent punts and activates talisman with her it comes right back to you and you can tutor again (this did indeed happen). I mean unless they kill her.
Boring Gamelogs/Self Feels/Brags
I only got about 6 games in before my oldman brain was like ok enough time for bed. Of these I got steamrolled by aggro when I kept hands that didnt have all the mana symbols I needed for my greedy cards. One game could have gone somewhere but then Arena crashed, which I know is a rare occurence. And then like 3 highly “skill intensive” games. Which I would manage to win.
Who Knew? Planeswalkers are game warping cards
I wasn’t totally truthful when I said I was packing 2 removal spells and zero card draw, since out of the 100 Bradywalkers I was running a lot of them had abilities that would you know, draw cards or kill creatures. The amount of effective life you gain because somebody is busy killing your planeswalkers every turn instead of going face like they probably should allowed me to survive too many turns and get things really going. When they can only do one thing per turn and you can do 5 it is rather “not fair” or “not in the spirit of the game” well buddy I don’t recall Brawl having a “social contract”. We were doing battlecruiser magic but my battlecruiser was just more absurd.
Alela, Actually Usefulteur
At the time I wrote yesterday I felt like I didn’t have too many cards that would give me faeries, but I was thinking with a 99 card brain instead of a 57 card brain so between the lockets, rando artifacts, and hatechantments I was getting enough faeries to keep my Planesbradies alive when it actually mattered. And in one game i ACTUALLY ATTACKED WITH CREATURES so that was an added bonus.
Flash is Stupid
Being able to cast a planeswalker on their end step to get around Deafening Silence was just something that ended up being very difficult to recover from. Between the blue leyline and Jerk Teferi I was able to really keep things going hardcore while they could not.
I donked myself a few times flashing in single combat on their turn though. While it was a nice blowout I forgot that I could not recover from it on my turn but things would be fine and dandy for their next turn.
Horrible Screenshot Brag Everybody is Sick of Seeing From Everyone, Ban self feel screenshots
I could keep blowing up oppo’s stuff while allowing the god eternal to live. them getting to draw cards off Ob-Nix wasn’t too great when they could only play one spell per turn at sorcery speed that cost 2 extra. Also Golos was his general which Ashiok realllly blanks. I had skipped my attack step so many times that I didn’t even think to do math for probably a solid minute and was then like, oh wait I can just win, so I did.
I did get smoked hard a few times too though so it wasn’t all daisies and pretty lilypads, I do not pretend to be a king of magic (just a king of Brawl).
The absurd final match
This ended up being an Alela mirror, except they were doing a more traditional expected esper flier build while I was running well, jbl.dec . This was a 45 minute slog where I would barely stay stable and had probably 6 pws die at least, but that kept them from attacking me which ended up being DOWNFALL.
At one point they hit me with that stupid blue black flier dude that steals one of your cards from the top 3 in your deck, I promptly forgot. Later on they play the white leyline which blanked a lot of my stupid stuff and I saw as a “serious problem”. Boom I play Teferi like a million turns later. I think long and harrrrd about what to bounce, between legitimate threats and the stupid leyline. They had no cards in hand so I’m like BAM, IMA BOUNCE THAT DUMB LEYLINE AND THEN HAVE THEM DISCARD IT WITH DAVRIEL. So I bounce the leyline
…and it goes into my hand. I am very confused, oohhhhhhhh thats what they stooooole. So then I played it to keep the jerkiness going. This was also the game with the aforementioned wishclaw punt so I was quite happy.
So this game just goes onnn, and onnn, and onnnnnn, Deafening Silence out forever, both of us saccing lockets to draw cards, attrition of Operation Overlord levels.
While I thought of Ashiok as the deck’s all-star, I barely used her actual ability. Then at one point I’m finally like, oh wait, I could mill them out. So between her and Ob-nix we finally empty out oppo’s library and win the game. Afterwards I am like, ok Brawl nothing gonna beat that TIME FOR BED.
Props:
Ashiok Obviously: she did all the heavy lifting and was a huge punt causer for the bropponent.
God-Pharoah’s Statue: This ended up being wayyyy more useful than expected. The tax actually tended to matter even with them only playing one spell per turn. And considering how the games were going the damage was actually mattering. There was one time that I you know, turned all my artifacts into statues forgetting it was legendary, blowing up like 5 of my things. Also I picked the wrong one to keep so it turned back into a locket at the end of my turn.
Kasmina: Making Tokens and looting ended up being super what I needed. Also she was seen as an IMPORTANT TARGET for whatever reason.
The opponents: While I wasn’t going around just like laughing to myself imagining them raging, that is very stupid and is not very Zen trolling, I only received maybe two emotes the entire time. I was being a tool but they were fine with it. Thank you magic communidad.
Slops:
Manifold Key: In my infinite wisdom I forgot I would need two key activations to actually make this matter with talisman. Easy cut.
Soul Diviner: This sat in my hand every game without ever seeing blast zone, While I think Blast Zone may still serve a purpose considering how long the games were going the token killing dream just didn’t happen. Easy cut.
Not putting in that stupid land that makes two mana to cast Bradies: I forgot to.
IN DUMBATION
I cannot recommend playing this deck, I should not be playing this deck. What’s that? Take it apart? I mean, who knows maybe I’ll have some esper quests on a Wednesday I better just keep it together. I won’t actualllly play it but I mean, when push comes to shove sometimes you do what you gotta do right? I can quit anytime!
Hope to see you on the Brawl Pitch, I swear I won’t be running this.
