The Uyo Challenge

By Adrian Sullivan

It's been about two months since the last card Challenge and about seven months since the very first Challenge. As a whole, it's been a very popular aspect of the column and I'm glad that you've enjoyed participating. Back in that first Challenge, I asked what everyone thought of it, and there was a pretty strong positive reaction. Judging from the number of decks that I've been sent, I'd have to guess that you still think so.

Maybe it was the influence of Combo Week. Maybe not. Many of you must have been wracking your brains to come up with the best combo to take the Challenge with. Even though it wasn't necessary to build a combo deck, very nearly every submission was a combo, but given the card you had to work with that shouldn't come as too much of a surprise. It was especially hard this time around to decide which of the decks I thought really had a clear advantage over the other submissions. I used the same criteria that I've used in the past:

Decks that focus on doing something and do it well
Decks that have that little extra creativity or innovation
And, in a pinch, whichever person gets me the e-mail first

So, without further ado, let's get to it!

Honorable Mention – Wishing Prophet

Matthew K-H came in with his multi-faceted submission. I might have given him a higher placing purely off of being an interesting submission, but his deck is trying to do so many things at once, I am going to have to split the difference and award it the Honorable Mention prize.

Wishing Prophet

Decklist Stats Sample Hand

Creature (9)

3 Azusa, Lost but Seeking 3 Eternal Witness 3 Uyo, Silent Prophet

Sorcery (18)

4 Living Wish 4 Burning Wish 2 Call of the Herd 3 Journey of Discovery 1 Nostalgic Dreams 3 Browbeat 1 Time Warp

Instant (3)

3 Shrapnel Blast

Artifact (4)

4 Horn of Greed

Enchantment (2)

2 Seismic Assault

Land (24)

7 Forest 2 Great Furnace 4 Island 3 Karplusan Forest 5 Mountain 2 Tree of Tales 1 Yavimaya Coast

60 Cards

Sideboard (15)

1 Azusa, Lost but Seeking 1 Eternal Witness 1 Uyo, Silent Prophet 1 Nostalgic Dreams 1 Browbeat 2 Time Warp 1 Dosan the Falling Leaf 1 Meloku the Clouded Mirror 1 Nantuko Cultivator 1 Waterfront Bouncer 1 Book Burning 1 Fireball 1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All 1 Dust Bowl

Deal Another Hand

Okay, wow is there a lot going on here. He has “Turbo-land” going with 3 Azusa and 4 Living Wish to find Azusa and combo with Horn of Greed. He can copy Shrapnel Blast for the kill. He has a versatile controlling deck which can use Wishes to find the appropriate card to finish things off. Aside from all of that he also uses Seismic Assault.

What this deck needs to decide is what it wants to do. Does it want to focus on combo? Which combo? As an honorable mention, I use this deck because much of its ideas are present in the other three decks I'm going to feature – they however focus more on what they are trying to accomplish. This deck looks like it probably has a lot going for it, but it just needs to be nudged more clearly in one direction or another.

Third Place – Seismic Uyo

Michael Howell's deck is built using one of the ideas I showcased in the original article, Seismic Assault.

Seismic Uyo

Decklist Stats Sample Hand

Creature (18)

4 Budoka Gardener 4 Sakura-Tribe Elder 3 Uyo, Silent Prophet 3 Azusa, Lost but Seeking 4 Birds of Paradise

Sorcery (7)

4 Kodama's Reach 3 Journey of Discovery

Instant (4)

4 Naturalize

Enchantment (8)

4 Seismic Assault 4 Ghostly Prison

Land (23)

2 Plains 4 Mountain 3 Island 14 Forest

60 Cards

Deal Another Hand

The deck only runs 23 lands, but it more than adds on the mana with 4 Birds and 11 land-searching spells. That is a lot of mana. Michael has this to say about the deck:

You should be able to search out the 2 Islands and 3 Mountains you need pretty quickly with all the land searching. You can use the Budoka Gardener to put the additional land from Kodama's Reach into play, or use it if you need to after using Uyo's ability (Gardener is not meant to be flipped in this deck). You can search out a plains and cast Ghostly Prison as control against aggressive builds - maybe this shouldn't be main deck, but I was trying to consider the metagame. Ghostly Prison works well with Seismic Assault - once they have committed their mana to attacking and not casting a spell, you can discard a land from your hand to take out their creature.

The kill card is Journey of Discovery once you have 7 mana open, and Seismic Assault and Uyo are in play. Cast Journey of Discovery for 3 (putting 2 lands into your hand) and copy it twice. You'll put 6 lands in your hand from the spells, plus 4 from the board, giving you the 10 you need for the kill.

A pretty straightforward plan.

Overall, I think the first thing that needs to happen is the removal of Naturalize. As it is, this is a Standard deck, and the deck really just needs to spend some time surviving while it gets the combo off. A great potential choice here is Magma Jet. Not only does Magma Jet kill creatures, but it also helps you find more of the combo. If you feel like you need to run something to keep a permanent off the table, consider Echoing Truth.

Ghostly Prison is a fine choice to slow down an attacker. For another option, consider Beacon of Creation. The Beacon keeps you in a single color and can make an army of blockers with all of the mana production you have. Copying a Beacon is reasonably snazzy too.

Overall though, this deck does its job in a quite straightforward manner. Good work, Michael.

The Finalist – Controlling Combo

Controlling combo decks have always been a favorite of mine since the good old High Tide days. Greg Jacob has presented a controlling combo deck that uses Cunning Wishes to go for the kill. Here's what he has to say about the deck:

It's a simple combo deck. The combo is an infinite mana engine using Uyo, Silent Prophet, Heartbeat of Spring and Journey of Discovery. I've added a bunch of Extended legal support cards but the combo is in Standard so it could be done in Standard. I'm sure the combo is fairly obvious but, here goes. With Uyo and Heartbeat of Spring in play you cast Journey of Discovery to put two lands into play, then tap two lands for 4 mana and return them to hand to copy, netting 2 mana, resolve the copy, tap the lands put into play to make a copy and return them to hand, gaining 2 mana. Repeat as needed. When you have enough mana you Cunning Wish for another Cunning Wish a few hundred times and cast Brain Freeze or Hunting Pack to finish.

Uyo's Journey

Decklist Stats Sample Hand

Creature (8)

4 Birds of Paradise 4 Uyo, Silent Prophet

Sorcery (4)

4 Journey of Discovery

Instant (20)

4 Brainstorm 4 Cunning Wish 3 Intuition 3 Counterspell 3 Accumulated Knowledge 3 Mana Leak

Enchantment (4)

4 Heartbeat of Spring