Battle of Wits: Deep Freeze (Part 2 of 2)

By Ben Bleiweiss

Welcome back to Building on a Budget! Back in July, I started my Battle of Wits experiment. I built a Battle of Wits deck, with the intent to change the deck up with every new set release. The rules? I couldn't play any rares other than Battle of Wits, and I could only have a maximum of forty uncommons in the deck at any given time.

In last week's article, I put together the newest build of the Battle of Wits deck, incorporating several Coldsnap cards into the mix. I chose black and blue as the colors for the deck, because blue is the color of Battle of Wits and card drawing, and black is the color of tutoring (Diabolic Tutor, transmute cards). With the addition of Coldsnap, I also changed the way the deck functions – instead of a ton of redundancy and four-ofs, I approached the deck with a silver bullet strategy – that is, I put in a lot of very situational one-of cards (like Execute and Slay). My belief is that this strategy would work well in a deck that runs 240+ cards. I'm very unlikely to draw one of these cards in any given hand (when they might be dead), but the massive deck size allows me to have them available as tutor targets.

In short, it's like running Cunning Wish, Burning Wish, Living Wish and Golden Wish main deck!

Last time I played my budget Battle of Wits deck, I brought it to a 6-4 record. With the new focus on silver bullets, I expected it to be much improved. Let's take a look at the game logs, shall we?

BoW 3.0

Decklist Stats Sample Hand

Creature (27)

4 Dimir House Guard 4 Dimir Infiltrator 4 Drift of Phantasms 4 Nekrataal 1 Nezumi Graverobber 3 Ninja of the Deep Hours 3 Thieving Magpie 4 Thought Courier

Sorcery (36)

1 Befoul 4 Brainspoil 4 Compulsive Research 4 Consult the Necrosages 4 Counsel of the Soratami 4 Diabolic Tutor 1 Eradicate 4 Ideas Unbound 1 Nightmare Void 4 Sift 4 Sleight of Hand 1 Train of Thought

Instant (30)

1 Boomerang 4 Clutch of the Undercity 3 Dark Banishing 1 Death Denied 1 Execute 1 Hideous Laughter 4 Last Gasp 1 Mnemonic Nexus 4 Muddle the Mixture 1 Quash 4 Rend Flesh 1 Slay 4 Perilous Research

Artifact (36)

4 Dimir Signet 4 Fellwar Stone 4 Golgari Signet 4 Izzet Signet 4 Orzhov Signet 4 Azorius Signet 4 Coldsteel Heart 4 Rakdos Signet 4 Simic Signet

Enchantment (4)

4 Battle of Wits

Land (110)

53 Island 53 Swamp 4 Frost Marsh

243 Cards

Deal Another Hand

Game 1: Ockadox (B/W Orzhov)

Ockadox drops a first-turn Plagued Rusalka, and follows it up with Teysa, Orzhov Scion. I have a relatively weak hand with mostly mana acceleration, plus a Drift of Phantasms. I drop the Drift to stop the beatings and end up drawing nothing but lands the rest of the game. In retrospect, I should have transmuted the Drift to get Execute (to kill Teysa), because either way it would have prevented two damage a turn – but instead, I end up getting run over eventually by Skeletal Vampire and a whole bunch of Orzhov creatures.

After the game, Ockadox revealed two Mortify he had been holding in his hand. This game would have been an uphill battle, even if I had drawn a way to get Battle of Wits onto the table. I made a note to myself to add a second discard outlet (outside of Nightmare Void) to the deck as a transmute target.

Record: 0-1

Game 2: Kiddsmoke99 (R/W Boros)

I drop Coldsteel Heart turn two, play THREE signets on turn 3, transmute for Battle of Wits on turn 4, and cast the enchantment on turn 5 for the win.

Record: 1-1

Just as a side note, you're going to see a lot of “I cast Battle of Wits and won.” That's the reward you get for playing a deck that's four to five times the size of a regular deck – you get to play with a card that says “cast me and you win.”

Game 3: Sanhedrin (U/G Allosaurus Rider/Ninja)

Sanhedrin was running a pretty nifty deck revolving around drawing extra cards through creatures (Carven Caryatid, Civic Wayfinder, Ninja of the Deep Hours) and then pitching some of them to cast Allosaurus Rider. I have an early Thought Courier this game, but I keep drawing into lands. He drops double Allosaurus Rider, and the best I can do is transmute Muddle the Mixture for a Boomerang. This only prolongs the agony for a turn, and I end up getting run over by his elves on dinosaurs.

Record: 1-2

Game 4: A_State_of_Disipation (B/G Natural Affinity/Eradicate)

This game starts slowly, and once again I draw too many lands and signets and not enough spells. He starts going after my signets with Putrefy, but I just keep on drawing lands. Once he reaches seven mana, he casts Natural Affinity and attempts to Eradicate my Swamp.

Now, I have a choice to make. I really don't need any of the rest of the Swamps in my deck, so allowing him to kill that Swamp will potentially give me a free half-a-Mana Severance. I still get to keep the other Swamps I have in play already (and there are a lot of them!) On the other hand, if he hits my Swamps and then my Islands, he'll eventually be able to drop more lands than me, and kill me with Natural Affinity – plus I'll lose the ability to win with Battle of Wits. I decide I don't want to go below 200 cards, and I Last Gasp my own Swamp in response to his Eradicate, countering it.

A couple of turns down the road, I draw into Clutch of the Undercity, and I transmute it into Diabolic Tutor. I hold onto the Tutor for a turn, since I don't want to tap out and die to an alpha strike from Natural Affinitied lands. When I cast Diabolic Tutor, I go for Quash. My reasoning is that he hasn't shown me a win condition outside of Natural Affinity, and so if I get Natural Affinity out of his deck, I should be able to take as long as I wanted to win.

Lo and behold, A_State_of_Disipation goes to cast Natural Affinity again, and this time I'm ready. Quash takes out all of his copies of Natural Affinity, and he's left with a deck filled with Eradicates, Plague Winds, mana acceleration, and ways to get Natural Affinity back… if it's not removed from the game! His hand includes Sins of the Past and Reclaim, but without any way left in his deck to win, he wisely concedes.

Record: 2-2

Game 5: Midashand (G/W Aggro)

I transmute Dimir House Guard into Nekrataal, which I use to kill his early Yavimaya Enchantress. He plays Serra Angel, which I Eradicate. One of the perks of Eradicate is that I get to see his hand and deck, and he's only got two ways to kill an enchantment in his deck (a pair of Naturalize). He uses the one in his hand to take out one of my Signets, and then casts Angel of Mercy.

I transmute for Boomerang, Boomerang my Nekrataal, and recast it, killing his Angel. I then transmute for Death Denied and use it to get back Dimir House Guard and Dimir Infiltrator, allowing me to transmute yet again. This time, I get Diabolic Tutor and Muddle the Mixture, cast Tutor to get Battle of Wits, and drop Battle of Wits with two Islands open for Muddle the Mixture, in case he drew his second Naturalize. He hadn't, and I win.

Record: 3-2

One spectator asked, after the game, why I hadn't just transmuted for Diabolic Tutor/Battle of Wits first thing in the game and gone for the win. My response is that there are a ton of green-white decks in the casual room that main-deck enchantment removal (which was the case in this game as well!). I wanted to maneuver into a position where I could safely drop Battle of Wits and win, as opposed to blindly throwing it out against the two colors that can easily handle it.

With five games under my belt, it's time to make some changes. I have eight two-mana transmute cards, but very few interesting two-mana spells to transmute for. I also keep drawing too many lands and signets every game. I decide to take out four signets (I randomly choose Orzhov Signet – it doesn't matter which I take out, because they are ridiculously redundant) and add in Distress (the discard card I mentioned earlier), Grim Harvest (as a recurring creature-return spell, to complement Death Denied), Soratami Cloudskater (as Thought Courier number five), and a second Boomerang.

Out: 4 Orzhov Signet
In: 1 Distress, 1 Grim Harvest, 1 Soratami Cloudskater, 1 Boomerang

BoW 4.0

Decklist Stats Sample Hand

Creature (28)

4 Dimir House Guard 4 Dimir Infiltrator 4 Drift of Phantasms 4 Nekrataal 1 Nezumi Graverobber 3 Ninja of the Deep Hours 1 Soratami Cloudskater 3 Thieving Magpie 4 Thought Courier

Sorcery (37)

1 Befoul 4 Brainspoil 4 Compulsive Research 4 Consult the Necrosages 4 Counsel of the Soratami 4 Diabolic Tutor 1 Distress 1 Eradicate 4 Ideas Unbound 1 Nightmare Void 4 Sift 4 Sleight of Hand 1 Train of Thought

Instant (32)

2 Boomerang 4 Clutch of the Undercity 3 Dark Banishing 1 Death Denied 1 Execute 1 Hideous Laughter 4 Last Gasp 1 Mnemonic Nexus 4 Muddle the Mixture 1 Quash 4 Rend Flesh 1 Slay 1 Grim Harvest 4 Perilous Research

Artifact (32)

4 Dimir Signet 4 Fellwar Stone 4 Golgari Signet 4 Izzet Signet 4 Azorius Signet 4 Coldsteel Heart 4 Rakdos Signet 4 Simic Signet