Brewing MTG with Maralen

This is an article about deckbuilding for Magic: the Gathering. It may be a little advanced for some readers, so if you need to know anything more basic about the game, I recommend that you visit magicthegathering.com to learn that stuff. Otherwise, I will assume that you understand the basics such as how much land to use versus creatures or mana values as well as concepts such as sorcery-speed vs. instant-speed. This article also assumes that you understand more advanced applications of rules such as details about keywords, phases, and steps.

For some background, I have been playing Magic since 1995, but I have collected the cards since late 1993. I have an extensive collection, played in a few high-level tournaments, but mostly I play casually. I found that I was (and still am) an excellent deck builder, but not so great at tournament play, so I focus my efforts on brewing. Another thing that I have noticed is that I "bring up" or bolster the play of those around me, so I hope to impart some that "shine" to my readers and get your games to be much more challenging to opponents. Here, I will be discussing an early example of outside-the-box thinking that was fairly successful.

I have a habit of focusing on a card or a few cards in a new set and trying to exploit it. A characteristic of such cards is that it has an ability that can't be easily replicated, or it gives a huge benefit for a lop-sided cost. Maralen of the Mornsong and Colfenor’s Plans are two just such cards that I happened upon way back in early 2008, the sets at the time in Standard were: Tenth Edition, Coldsnap, Time Spiral, Planar Chaos, Futuresight, Lorwyn, and Morningtide very cool sets that collectively had a metric butt-load of awesome cards, like Tarmogoyf, Mutavault, and Vendilion Clique. I built a deck using both of my new favorite cards for Standard (at the time), here's the deck list:

Creatures

4x Maralen of the Mornsong

2x Magus of the Tabernacle

Sorcery

4x Thoughtseize

4x Damnation

2x Wrath of God

Instant

3x Pollen Lullaby

4x Darkness

3x Dawn Charm

2x Sudden Spoiling

Enchantment

4x Colfenor’s Plans

1x Enduring Renewal

Artifact

3x Claws of Gix

Lands

4x Caves of Koilos

2x Flagstones of Trokair

2x Gemstone Mine

1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

4x Terramorphic Expanse

5x Plains

6x Swamp

Sideboard

4x Oblivion Ring

2x Wrath of God

3x Sudden Death

3x Angel’s Grace

3x Distress

1x Enduring Renewal

I could gain huge card advantage with the Plans and lock down my opponent using Maralen to slowly drain their lives. The Plans had a significant benefit of card advantage, but the drawbacks were skipping my draw step (permanently) and only casting one spell per turn. The draw step skip worked in my favor as Maralen's ability triggered during the draw step - so I didn't lose life (I also didn't get to search for a card, but anyways...). I could cast spells during my turn AND my opponent's turn, so it technically allowed me to cast two spells and play one land per turn. At the time, a few cards helped this by turning into a pseudo-turbo-fog deck: Darkness , Dawn Charm, Pollen Lullaby, and Sudden Spoiling as well as board wipes Damnation and Wrath of God, with Magus of the Tabernacle for tokens. I also had Claws of Gix as a sac outlet for my Plans if things got sticky or someone tried to exile one of my permanents, or I just needed some spot life gain. I was also packing a single copy of Enduring Renewal for some reusable mischief.

Needless to say, this deck was a terror against any form of creature-based decks, especially aggro-types. Certain control builds had advantages, but in that time frame the metagame consisted of Faeries and a bunch of random red, white, and/or black aggro builds, some were mono-colored, some were mixed RB or RW. The counterspells of Faeries gave this deck a lot of trouble, but with a little luck, I could get an early advantage and control the board well enough to get either Maralen or my opponent's Bitterblossom to do my work for me. As for aggro decks, most of the time, they couldn't get a damage foothold fast enough before Maralen hit and stayed (via Enduring Renewal or multiple castings). Planeswalkers had just been introduced in Lorwyn and the main two seen in decks were Liliana Vess and Ajani Goldmane, both in aggro builds.

In any case, the build had issues, but was a sound concept. I saw a few other players try to build from my decks after that and my competition became more difficult as I warped the local metagame. I tried to make it into a three-color deck at one point after Shards of Alara released, adding blue for the Mindlock Orb, I also used Angelsong, Batwing Brume, Cauldron Haze, and Day of Judgment as lesser replacements for Darkness , Dawn Charm, Enduring Renewal, and Damnation/Wrath, respectively. For reference, I played on the military airbase in Misawa, Japan, my play group consisted of four potential (and two actual) Pro-tour competitors with DCI ratings well above 1800 as well as several dedicated brewers who came with interesting concepts (though often unsuccessful) every week. We also occasionally played at a local Japanese store (props to the Tomy store in Hachinohe). The diversity of our group definitely kept me on my toes and made playing fun.

This has been just one example of a weird deck idea that kind of worked. I hope it has helped you, dear reader, to look at "bad" cards, like Maralen of the Mornsong (not so bad anymore, eh?) and Colfenor's Plans (yup, still pretty bad...or is it? You should probably read it again.) in a different way.

I probably sound like a broken record but think of Colfenor's Plans in terms of the larger metagame of Commander, or even Modern. It is a permanent that essentially draws seven cards for four mana. It is a permanent that can be phased out, exiled (and returned to play), bounced, or sacrificed for effect. The cards that it exiles can't be seen if it leaves play, but if you use them before it goes (or they are worthless), who cares? I used it as a throwaway effect in many cases. It exiled my top seven, of which I usually got one land drop at least before my opponent one-for-oned it (giving me a one-card advantage), or I got a spell off as well, then it was essentially a 3-for-1 in my favor. With the prevalence of non-drawing card-advantage cards (such as Anticipate and Sleight of Hand), Maralen is an interesting choice to use against opponents now in Blue-Black lockdown decks, even without Opposition Agent or Hullbreacher which just make it strictly better.

Next week I want to look more closely at some other "janky" cards that players often overlook. I'll eventually get to Standard cards, but Commander is more fun. There are certainly a lot more decks out there. Now that Historic "Brawl" (actually Commander) has been a thing, maybe we'll get some cool builds on Arena?