One of my earliest forays into competitive deck brewing was during Urzas block. Some of you may remember this block as being one of the most broken in Magic: The Gatherings history. During these sets, combo staple cards were banned repeatedly until the experience settled into aggro creature decks.
Following this trend, I worked on building a deck that punished these deck types. It involved the enchantment Repercussion and damaging the opponents creatures which in turn punished them. Lets have a look at the updated budget version and non-budget versions of this creatureless deck.
4x Repercussion
4x Caltrops
4x ther Flash
This is the foundation of the deck. Playing Repercussion is your top priority and a mulligan for the spell is an option. Without it, you will be struggling to play catch up since this deck is a one trick pony. Once Repercussion is in play or better yet, multiple copies of it, your strategy will be laying down as much damage on creatures as you can. Each damage a creature takes results in its controller taking that much as well. With this in mind your burn spells will be used to kill off creatures instead of aiming at your opponent.
Caltrops punishes your opponent for attacking you which is great since it can bottleneck smaller creature aggro decks that use tokens. Also, with Repercussion in play it results in damage.
The ther Flash enchantment damages creatures that come into play. This creates a situation where opponents cant cast smaller creatures and with Repercussion in play will damage the opponent for casting the larger creatures.
4x Faithless Looting
4x Gamble
Since Repercussion is so vital with how this deck runs, youll need ways to draw one or multiple copies. These two spells will help you draw faster while discarding unneeded lands or other chaff.
4x Earthquake
4x Pyroclasm
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Chain Lightning
4x Incinerate
The real key to this deck is knowing when to play the burn spells. Slinging direct damage without rhyme or reason is counterproductive.
Earthquake and Pyroclasm should be used to damage to multiple creatures. These spells do not necessarily need to kill the creatures although it helps. With just one Repercussion in play and four offending creatures, an Earthquake for just four damage deals the opponent 20 lethal damage. With just two Repercussions in play and four opponents creatures a Pyroclasm for two damage deals 16 damage to the opponent. As you can see, managing your opponents creatures is at a premium and as long as the creatures involved arent inflicting serious damage or causing your deck issues its alright to keep a few of them alive for massive Earthquake/Repercussion damage.
Single target burn spells are best for creature control and killing off problematic creatures or finishing off the opponent.
Swing Last,
Aiokii
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