Wednesday 4 January 2012

The counterpart to the "Exception" deck in MTG

Some time ago I wrote about the "Exception" deck in Magic: The Gathering (MTG) - being the War of Attrition event deck. I forgot to mention that event decks come in pairs, and this article is about the counterpart to it - the Rot From Within event deck. The decklist for the Rot From Within deck is available on-line.
Rot from Within event deckRot from Within event deckRot from Within event deckRot from Within event deck

I have not had much experience playing with this deck, as I do not really enjoy playing mono-green decks. I have always equated with green items like creatures with trample, creatures that produce mana, and tutors that fetch lands (to produce more mana). I do not mind having green in my decks, but not as the sole colour in them.

From memory, this deck is enjoyable to play due to the fact it does not damage the opponent or their creatures in normal ways, but deals its damage in the form of infect - dealing damage in poison counters to opponents or in -1/-1 counters to opponent's creatures. If any player has more than 10 poison counters, then they loose the game - regardless of life total. -1/-1 counters on creatures can accumulate on creatures between turns, and while you may not be able to dispose of a creature this turn, you may be able to damage or destroy a weakened version of it next turn. This deck lacks the main mechanic to accelerate the demise of an opponent - proliferate. With proliferate (it does appears on some of the cards in the deck) you can add additional counters onto cards you choose to - including poison counters on your opponents, -1/-1 counters on your opponent's creatures, +1/+1 counters on your creatures, loyalty counters on your planeswalkers, and, in general, counters you choose.

While powerful, I do not enjoy using those mechanics. Therefore, I have used this deck the least. My only suggestion to improve this deck is to incorporate black into it, and hence more creatures that also have the infect mechanic. Head to head against its counterpart deck, War of Attrition, I would put the War of Attrition deck in front, due to the fact it is a much faster deck, and has a lot of responses for this deck. They are roughly balanced in the end.

When it comes to enjoyment, I would prefer using the Innistrad event decks. I would put the Hold the Line deck ahead of all others in terms of speed and efficiency for a win, and the Deathfed deck being more fun to play. I hope my fellow card floppers see my views as valid in my comparisons on event decks.

No comments:

Post a Comment