#just kidding its easy its voltron. at least i was well equipped for this

[marcmorrigan]

i think the temperature of phog's face went up a few degrees

fun little xenoblade commission for my bestie 💕 hawthorne (he/him) belongs to @cteranodon!

[inventors-fair]

Club Decks: What We Play

Fifteen decks, fifteen archetypes, fifteen strategies. For my students, not everyone can make a good deck, and/or they don’t necessarily have the resources to make what they’d like. Commander and stuff is the most difficult, but they enjoy Oathbreaker with the inexpensive and more or less accessible planeswalkers, and they don’t usually worry about Standard, Modern, or Pioneer. 

Club decks have a number of cards of different rarities that I use to model them off of my first starter decks, back in Alara. There’s a fair amount of repeats and a good chunk of power, and they’re easy enough to model so that students can make their own.

Depending on the year (2020-21 being pretty disruptive), there are different criteria for “leveling up,” which means beating a number of students and then beating me to get a booster pack and a level in my ledger. There’s no limit, except you can’t level up more than once a week. Hey, I make enough to make kids happy, but not enough to give them a zillion packs.

Below the cut are my club decks, some notable cards, and why I made them the way that I did. Enjoy this little slice of Magic! If you’re looking to start similar programs or you’d like details as to how things are run, let me know and I can provide extended decklists and explanations.

1. White Equipment Voltron

Notable cards include:

Healer’s Hawk

Taj-Nar Swordsmith

Strata Scythe

Little things turn into big things. With a little bit of destruction and a whole lotta keywords, this deck is all about building up to a single aggressive Voltron creature that wrecks shop. It’s good about teaching different card types and keyword interactions, and hey, it feels good to swing with an 11/11 creature that started off as a 1/1, right?

2. Blue Tempo Control

Notable cards include:

Pestermite

Everdream

Tidespout Tyrant

This is the deck for advanced players. The big blue comes out with a lot of disruption, and this is the deck that often gets described as either “unfun” or “my favorite deck.” Bounce it, counter it, bounce my land to cycle, return your threat, disrupt, and so on and so forth. Not every deck has a difficulty curve like this, but it’s satisfying to say the least.

3. Black Sacrifice Everything

Notable cards include:

Butcher Ghoul

Whisper, Blood Liturgist

Priest of Forgotten Gods

“Synergistic” is an understatement. The number of death triggers and sacrifice triggers can easily win someone a game if they know how to interact properly. Forcing decisions upon your opponent and exploiting some awesome stuff from your side of the field makes this deck easy to play if you want to have things die and VERY easy if you know how to manipulate the board.

4. Red Discard into Madness

Notable cards include:

Spinehorn Minotaur

Dragon Mage

Glint-Horn Buccaneer

I’ll admit, this deck is a bit of a pet project and one of my favorites. Ditching cards to draw cards feels great to me! I love madness, I love looting, and I love throwing a bunch of stuff away to make big things before getting it all back later. As much tuning as it needs, this deck is another advanced joy for people that love to make niche ideas work to the best of their ability.

5. Green Lands & Boys

Notable cards include:

Timbermaw Larva

Howl of the Night Pack

Kalonian Twingrove

Sometimes you just want an easy ramp deck. The small end of this gets lands and has some landfall, and the big end just wrecks shop with the big and powerful creatures that we all know and love from green. It’s easy to play and it’s easy to win with and sometimes, stomping is all you need to do. A great card for the Tim-Tams of the world.

6. UW Fliers Beatdown

Notable cards include:

Squadron Hawk

Watcher of the Spheres

Windreader Sphinx

I recently got my butt handed to me with this deck, and it’s not to be trifled with. Each deck has its own kind of evasion and whatnot, but this deck has got the early-game down and the late-game? Unstoppable. It’s designed to massacre you in the air and that’s what it does. Pumps, beats, and more. One of the first decks the kids loved.

7. UB Surveil Control

Notable cards include:

Notion Rain

Price of Fame

Thief of Sanity

“Really?” Yeah, well, here’s the thing: I built this deck when I didn’t have a whole lot of spare cards sorted, and that’s why I did it. As a block mechanic, though, surveil really is fun, and as a control player, the deck is pretty darn sweet. It’s beefy, powerful, and great flavor for the city. Fun fact: the Thief of Sanity I had is actually a misprint! It’s missing the rare sticker.

8. RB Goblins Snarl Rage Win

Notable cards include:

Goblin Instigator

Fodder Launch

Weirding Shaman

And this is another deck that the kids absolutely love. Fast fun, and furious, Goblins is a great tribal introduction that people go to when they want to show how easy and cheeky it can be. Burn ‘em out, make ‘em attack, turn ‘em sideways. This isn’t necessarily an easy deck, but if all you know is attacking, then you’re golden. Or, you can kill someone only through noncombat damage!

9. RG Monsters of the Jungle

Notable cards include:

Ruination Wurm

Footfall Crater

Mina and Denn, Wildborn

This is, surprisingly, the deck with what I feel is the lowest barrier to entry. You give big things trample. Now, there IS a fair bit of complexity in the number of combat tricks, with some buffs and some bloodrush cards along with it, but everyone knows that big things are big. The difference is in the variety of strategies available to you with access to red mana. 

10. GW Token Swarm

Notable cards include:

Raise the Alarm

Selesnya Guildmage

Growing Ranks

If you can be fast with this deck, then you can run someone over faster than they could ever react. If you can be slow with this deck, you can build up enough life and army power that you literally can’t be beat. There’s a lot to love about this deck and it’s not as easy as it might seem. Tokens are popular with a subset of MTG players, and I’m glad that they have lots of support.

11. BW Ghosts of your Past

Notable cards include:

Pillory of the Sleepless

Vizkopa Guildmage

Ethereal Absolution

Basically, this is in the same vein as the surveil deck, but like the surveil deck, this has been modified so you get the best out of the deck. There’s a little nasty sacrifice, some draining, lots of good stuff. This is a deck for players who want to be mean, but with the option to beat down as well. After all, the best games are one you play in good spirits!

12. GB Elves Reclamation

Notable cards include:

Eyeblight’s Ending

Shaman of the Pack

Immaculate Magistrate

Everyone loves elves. Except for the people that hate elves. You get them out, go wide, or go narrow. Either way, you’re beating in face. This deck can be impossibly fast and I love it, but without breaching the barrier of being overpowered. Heck, I’ve won and lost with all of these decks, but elves put up a struggle, and I love that for them.

13. UG Defenders and Butts

Notable cards include:

Axebane Guardian

Assault Formation

Feed the Pack

I’ve been 100% blown out by this deck before by a student who I underestimated. That’s fantastic. This is the kind of deck that students don’t understand until they see it being played, and that’s honestly great. It’s fantastic to watch them learn and I love watching them pull out all the stops to get the biggest butts possible. Can’t beat seventeen angry wolves!

14. UR Spellslinging Recursion

Notable cards include:

Thermo-Alchemist

Thoughtflare

Call the Skybreaker

Flashback, Jump-Start, and Retrace: people love to cast spells. There’s so much fun stuff that can happen in a stormlike brew, and though it’s definitely not storm, it encourages playing spells, and that’s what makes it fun. It appeals to burn and control players alike and makes them feels skillful to the max. It’s Izzet in everything but perfect flavor.

15. RW Combat Control

Notable cards include:

Thatcher Revolt

Intimidation Bolt

Citadel Siege

I actually let my kids down with this deck before. It was an underpowers Firesong and Sunspeaker deck, and it just wasn’t working. What else can you do? Blow things up and make ‘em big. This deck is a powerhouse of unimaginable proportions and I love playing with it. Smart combat makes for some tricky strategy, and it’s humbling for the reckless opponnent.

That’s all for now! Ask me about questions and I’ll tell you no lies. And hey, if you know any kids, play around with ‘em and see how they engage with MTG. What do they lean to? How can you use that to teach them? It’s an amazing game and I’m glad to be sharing it with you, too.

—Abelzumi