h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This is the first in what I hope will be a series of entries describing my progress through the Torment Arena. For those not initiated into the arcane practices associated with Magic: the Gathering I will explain. Whenever a new series is released each member buys a preconstructed deck and plays with it at one club meeting. They then go away and change fifteen cards and plays the next week with the slightly modified deck. They continue modifying fifteen cards for the next three weeks. After that time the player with the most wins wins.
The last arena I took part in (indeed the last arena) was the Odyssey arena. It was my first, so I wanted to make sure I didn't completely muck it up. I visited the appropriate Internet sights to discover the contents of the various decks. I studied my own card collection in minute detail to see what deck I could best improve. It was to be Green/Red. For sure. Flashbacking 6/6 creatures, damage and boost spells and land acceleration. Just the job. I said to several friends 'Green/Red is by far the best preconstructed deck'.

And then I went and bought Blue/White.

The Red/Green players constantly beat me. After a while so did the Black/Red players. The deck I ended up with wasn't actually that bad (its still around somewhere, its a Cephalid/Megrim combination) but loosing so badly once my opponent got any creatures down was painful.

This time I went for Black/Red. I thought about getting the Green/Black deck for it's madness creatures then thought 'So, Greens got cheep big creatures, eh?' and decided not to. I've been using a Black/Red creature-free deck against friends lately, and it works fairly well. I was pleasantly astonished. Here’s the deck list:

9 Mountain
12 Swamp
2 Tainted Peak

2 Firebolt
2 Rancid Earth
1 Demolish
2 Pyromania
1 Malevolent Awakening
1 Shade's Form
1 Caustic Tar
2 Flame Burst
1 Flaming Gambit
2 Temporary Insanity

1 Enslaved Dwarf
3 Mesmeric Fiend
3 Barbarian Outcast
1 Gravegouger
1 Slithery Stalker
2 Pardic Collaborator
3 Petravark
3 Faceless Butcher
3 Soul Scourge
1 CHAINER, DEMENTIA MASTER!!!!!!
1 Petradon

O.K., who's idea was it to put CHAINER in a preconstructed deck? Everyone else in the club thought Red/Black was rather good to, and the other decks went rather quickly. Also popular was Green/Black and, for those with Desolation Angel sitting at home with nothing to annihilate, White/Black. Black/Blue was not popular.

In brief, I played four games. The first, against a Blue/Black deck, resulted in a victory for me. My opponent got nothing. Almost did badly enough to make me feel sorry for them. My next three games were against other Black/Red players. Won one, lost two. Well. I learnt that land destruction is the key, and that you need something to destroy the creatures 'nightmareing' your cards. Especially Swamps. Loosing Barbarian Outcast by having no swamps is very irritating (especially if you had no swamps when you played it. Oh well...).

For next week, a few more destruction spells are called for (can you say Terminate?). More ordered land destruction, and possibly a Nightscape Familiar or three. I think Petradon has to come out (you never get enough mana) along with the Pyromania, Dwarf and a few of the less useful spells. Be seeing you.