Troll Tuesday: I Feel a Bad Moon A'risin

Hey guys, Bonkarooni here with another edition of Troll Tuesday.  This time i've got a real winner for you.  And by that, I mean I have what will probably end up being the worst deck i've posted yet, ha.  This deck is so bad that it even has the word Bad in the title.

I present...

Bad Moon A'Risin

4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Goblin Guide
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Grim Lavamancer
2 Figure of Destiny
3 Spark Jolt
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Eidolon of the Great Revel
4 Magma Jet
4 Blood Moon
2 Magus of the Moon
2 Koth of the Hammer
1 Chandra, Pyromancer
4 Arid Mesa
16 Mountains

This deck has one purpose, and one purpose only.  Play a Blood Moon on turn 2/3.  Everything in the deck revolves around this, and if you manage to somehow pull it off, you might just win yourself the game.

The two of these combined are almost as good as Electrolyze..

This deck wants to start off by either looking at your opponents hand or scrying, preferably both.  Playing a probe without blue mana? Sure, why not! We're mono color, so we won't be fetching/shocking ourselves, might as well use that life for something!.  Spark Jolt is a surprisingly under used card as well.  Many players tell you regardless of the deck you play, you always 'bolt the bird'.  Well this bolts the bird with a small upside!.  it also picks off several other creatures in the format.  Dark Confidant, Snapcaster Mage, any fairy...the list goes on (Actually, it probably stops about there, but that's besides the point)

There she is, in all her glory..

If you were watching the GP this previous weekend, you heard the phrase "Got Blood Mooned" being thrown around by the casters a few times.  I'm sure any Melira Pod player can tell you a horror story revolving around this card.  What was the most played deck at the GP? hmm...

Now, i'm not saying this deck is going to win you a GP.  It probably won't even win you a FNM.  Hell, i'd be proud of it if it won you more then a single game.  BUT, can you imagine the look on your Melira Pod opponent's face when you win the dice roll and go Land, Spirit Guide Spirit Guide Blood Moon Pass' and stare them dead in the face as their hopes of doing anything that game crumble.

If your local group is full of players that run expensive decks filled with expensive dual lands, and you want to teach them a lesson? Play this.  If your local group is full of people who like playing the color red?...stay away.  

I didn't bother posting a sideboard for this deck because this is so trolly that I don't think we really need to talk about it.  There are plenty of good red cards you can jam in there, so you might as well just pick whatever counters your local meta game and go with it.

Happy land screwing!

The Sunday Upkeep: We're still kicking

Hey guys! Bonkarooni here.  I just wanted to give you guys a quick update on what's going on here, as we haven't made our daily posts this last week...

I was very sick this week, and actually ended up spending a few days in the hospital.  On top of that, it's finals week and a few of our writers are students.  These two things, combined with the fact that it's just hard to come up with new brews every single week, have made us slow down a bit.  I just wanted to let everybody know that we aren't dead, and we plan to keep bringing you content.  I'm not 100% what our future holds, but I do know that we aren't finished, not by a long shot.

See you guys next week!

The Vascular Awareness: Better Than All pt 2: The Obscure

Last week we looked at the 5 best cards in the format one for each color, this week will be similar but we will be looking at hidden gems.  Again there will 5 but they won't be separated by color.  These will range from the "why is nobody playing this?" to cards that you simply should be looking to fit in as meta calls.

Sometimes your opponent has a guy that isn't worth using a path on but has to go; think birds of Paradise.  This card not only deals with the issue but makes them draw it in the most awkward spot.  With pod decks on the uptick this gets a lot better and there is no way that every non-red control deck only wants 4 paths.  Some of them are almost certainly misbuilt and this is the reason why.

Two cards??? Yeah, I'm only counting this as one entry.  These two serve as a solid way for combo decks to protect themselves against hand disruption.  Hand disruption hasn't been too big lately but it is bound to have an upswing and these cards will let your storm deck or whatever crazy combo brew you have be ready.

Maybe this is cheating a little bit, considering Dave wrote about a deck with this card on this very blog.  However, with a serious downturn in Jund that means a serious downturn in Abrupt Decay.  Which was this card's worst enemy.  This card fits well in any control shell or tempo shell and acts as a serious lock piece which can often be needed for certain matchups.  I wouldn't be surprised to see this card creep into the higher tables in PTQ season or at GP Minneapolis.

I realize the majority of people reading this already know about this card, but recently I've had to tell so many people that this is one of the very best ways to win the fight against UWR control that I figured I'd make the PSA here.  This card isn't fair, Counterspell is absurd, and against UWR this is Counterspell at literally half the cost. 

Kikipod, Melira Pod, Twin and fetchlands are all among the list of things that get hit hard by this card.  If you are running a deck that can skirt of fetchlands, especially a monocolored deck, you may want to either sideboard, or in extreme cases, maindeck this card.  Hate cards this powerful should never fall off your radar and for the modern format it seems this one has been nearly forgotten.

That's going to do us for this week, hopefully next week I'll have a tournament report for you guys, I'll try to get the article done on time, but these past few weeks have been leading into graduation so I appreciate the patience and your continued support.  Feel free to shout out ideas for content you'd like to see and I'll try to make it happen!

Thanks again guys! Mason out.