Saturday, February 9, 2013

Brewing Tibalt

I'm in a bad place right now, readers.

A dark metaphorical hellhole from which there is no escape. A midnight black quagmire of despair and woe that threatens to consume my very sanity and leave me but a wretched husk of what I once was.

I want to brew a Tibalt deck.

I don't know why. Maybe it's because he's a Planeswalker that is cheap, affordable and easily acquirable because no one wants any. Maybe its exactly because no one wants any and some Magic players latch onto things that are unique and unappreciated. Maybe I want to satiate myself on someone's tears when I beat them with a deck built around the worst Planeswalker printed to date. Maybe I've fallen off my meds and you'd best call the police before I hurt someone.

Whatever the reason, I've had Tibalt on my mind a lot lately, and I'd like to share with you some ideas I've had.

First of all, I am in no way saying that Tibalt is good, merely that he is playable. That his downside is one that can be built around.

There are two ways that I can tell to build around that wretched line "discard at random".

Firstly, make sure that your deck is highly redundant. Have lots of cards in your deck that accomplish nigh identical functions. If you pitch a burn spell you want to have lots of other burn spells of similar scope to replace it with. Same with creatures, token makers, draw spells. Whatever you're filling your deck with.

Secondly, ideally, you want most anything Tibalt pitches to be something you would want to pitch. Things with madness that you cheat out with Tibalt. Things that you want in the graveyard in the firstplace like Unearthers, Flashbackers, reanimation targets, etc. Things that you can bring back with recursion outlets.

Or if you can manage, both.

Here's a list I came up with yesterday.

4 Stomping Ground
4 Rootbound Crag
2 Kessig Wolf Run
6 Mountain
6 Forest

4 Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded

4 Wasteland Viper
4 Boneyard Wurm
4 Dawntreader Elk
4 Lightning Mauler
4 Splinterfright
4 Slaughterhorn
4 Ghor-Clan Rampager
4 Zhur-Taa Swine
3 Kessig Cagebreakers
1 Ghoultree
You see the battleplan, yes?
I get a Boneyard Wurm or Splinterfright, or if the game lasts long enough, a Cagebreakers into play, and go to town! The whole deck is creatures and most of them have ways of getting into the yard whether by saccing themselves, or being bloodrushed, or by way of Tibalt.
Then I bash face my my graveyard fueled monsters.

I have yet to test this and there's probably ways to optimize.
A green-based creature deck in standard usually wants to run Rancors.
This many creatures, maybe Domri is worth including.
That many things in the yard, Garruk Relentless' ultimate would be handy.
Faithless Looting or Mulch to help fill the yard?

I'm not sure, but I look forward to finding out.

1 comment:

  1. Don't feel bad for wanting to brew with tibalt! I've been sniping that guy in trades for aaages. I'm thinking about a ludicrous list running him and volatile rig as some type of controlling red deck? I've no idea, but I know there ain't no shame in being inspired by tibalts terrible.

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