Art by Svetlin Velinov
“Only a madman would create such a door. Only an imbecile would open it.”
– Flavor text from [mtg_card]Door to Nothingness[/mtg_card]
“Wow, that’s me all day long! Sign me up!”
– me
So in spite of the notion that I can give advice on Limited Magic, the truth of the matter is, I kind of suck at it. I can latch on to a color combination or a neat card trick way too easily and mess up my curve, miss a key bit of information from my pod, or just build a crappy deck. The last time I tried to draft at my closest gaming store, I tried to draft something like my Safety Dance deck. It didn’t turn out well.
Side note: this was my closest gaming store, not what I consider my ‘home’ friendly local gaming store (FLGS). I will still trek all the way up to Doylestown to actually hang out with like-minded Magic players, while going to the closest place when I need an FNM fix. Speaking of which…
I’m not sure how well Safety Dance will work at the nearby store. I will more than likely be taking my Grixis Superfiends deck to FNM tomorrow night. I know there are at least a couple people who run similar decks, and many others who built decks using some variation on the [mtg_card]Thragtusk[/mtg_card]/[mtg_card]Restoration Angel[/mtg_card] combination. I’ve never been one to strictly adhere to trends, but I can’t deny that Thragtusk is kind of ridiculous in terms of value. I was wondering how someone would utilize the card in a unique way while poking around on Something Awful, when someone mentioned “OMNIDOOR THRAGFIRE”. My curiosity was piqued.
Thanks to Travis Woo I have absolutely no reason to ever say another bad word about decks I find on the Internet.
[mtg_deck title=”OMNIDOOR THRAGFIRE!!!!!”]
Land
2 Glacial Fortress
3 Hallowed Fountain
4 Sunpetal Grove
4 Temple Garden
2 Overgrown Tomb
4 Hinterland Harbor
1 Steam Vents
1 Plains
1 Island
1 Forest
1 Alchemist’s Refuge
1 Kessig Wolf Run
Spells
2 Fog
4 Farseek
4 Increasing Ambition
4 Ranger’s Path
4 Supreme Verdict
2 Terminus
2 Sphinx’s Revelation
2 Temporal Mastery
1 Omniscience
Artifacts
3 Chromatic Lantern
1 Door to Nothingness
2 Gilded Lotus
Creatures
1 Thragtusk
1 Angel of Serenity
1 Griselbrand
Planeswalker
1 Nicol Bolas, planeswalker
Sideboard
4 Centaur Healer
1 Thoughtflare
3 Thragtusk
1 Planar Cleansing
2 Terminus
1 Temporal Mastery
1 Worldfire
2 Sphinx’s Revelation
[/mtg_deck]
Let’s turn it over to Travis to explain how the deck works in practice. Mr Woo?
The deck stalls with [mtg_card]Fog[/mtg_card], [mtg_card]Supreme Verdict[/mtg_card], [mtg_card]Thragtusk[/mtg_card], and [mtg_card]Terminus[/mtg_card]. It ramps hard with [mtg_card]Farseek[/mtg_card], [mtg_card]Chromatic Lantern[/mtg_card], [mtg_card]Ranger’s Path[/mtg_card], and [mtg_card]Gilded Lotus[/mtg_card]. It refuels with [mtg_card]Sphinx’s Revelation[/mtg_card]. It finds the missing pieces with [mtg_card]Increasing Ambition[/mtg_card]. And then … all hell breaks loose.
[mtg_card]Omniscience[/mtg_card] hits play. Nicol Bolas hits play. [mtg_card]Griselbrand[/mtg_card] hits play. Cards are drawn. [mtg_card]Increasing Ambition[/mtg_card] finds [mtg_card]Temporal Mastery[/mtg_card]. An extra turn begins. A massive [mtg_card]Griselbrand[/mtg_card] swings with a [mtg_card]Kessig Wolf Run[/mtg_card] pump. [mtg_card]Increasing Ambition[/mtg_card] is flashed back to find another [mtg_card]Temporal Mastery[/mtg_card] and a [mtg_card]Door to Nothingness[/mtg_card]. Another extra turn begins. Nicol Bolas ultimates. “Really?” The opponent asks. “Really?”
Yes.
YES!
And then we shut the door in our opponent’s face.
It’s this sort of unexpected weapon that really appeals to me. There’s a certain mad finesse to pulling off this win. I like finesse, especially in Magic. It’s why I lean towards using Blue as a primary color, other than the obvious branding tie-in. I may run mono-red in Legacy but that’s because [mtg_card]Force of Will[/mtg_card] is prohibitively expensive. I would need to pick up a few cards to make OMNIDOOR THRAGFIRE! work, but it may be worth doing, just to see the looks I’d get as soon as [mtg_card]Omniscience[/mtg_card] hits the table. What I love about a deck like this is its apparent impracticality. You simply do not expect a deck that runs only one copy of a particular combo to get there on a consistent basis, but from the looks of things, this deck has the chops to do it. We shall see!
I will favor you all with an after-action report on the latest FNM early next week. I’m curious to see how Niv-Mizzet and Rakdos work together in an actual competition!
