Seafood Anyone?

     Last Sunday I played a Simic deck fondly called "Seafood" in the Standard Pauper event:

4 Shambleshark 

Fish and Crab = delicious fun!

3 Battering Krasis

4 Nessian Asp

4 Rumbling Baloth

4 Frilled Oculus

4 Drakewing Krasis

3 Crocanura

4 Cloudfin Raptor
4 Hydroform
4 Bioshift

4 Simic Guildgate

11 Forest

7 Island

     People were amazed at how it functioned.  Shambleshark and Cloudfin Raptor were world-class beaters coming out on turns 1 and 2.  They pressured the control strategies cropping up in large numbers recently.  With Crocanura, Frilled Oculus, and Drakewing Krasis serving to evolve them on successive turns, opponents were overwhelmed with the swarm strategy I employed against them. Rumbling Baloth and Nessian Asp were evolve-enablers as well as being credible threats from mid to late game.

     If the opponent decided to kill my creature with the most number of +1/+1 counters, I could just transfer the counters to another with the flexible and powerful Bioshift.  In fact, one of my favorite tricks was to make

Where's toilet paper when you need it?

the Asp monstrous and then transfer the four counters to a Drakewing Krasis.  Also, if my enemy had a guy with counters i.e. Wingsteed Rider, I could transfer those to somebody else, thus, messing up his combat step.  Then there was Hydroform which could serve as removal but most often inflicted three damage or got sacrificed to Celestial Flare or Devour Flesh.

     Although I won several matches, the deck could stand some improvements.  Battering Krasis was so-so and Crocanura was too defensive for my purposes.  I could replace them with Beetleform Mage and Frostburn Weird.  The Mage is another pump-able creature and the Weird helps my critters evolve.  Countermagic like Negate or bounce spells like Disperse could replace Hydroform to boost the deck's defensive speed against Crypt Incursion and enchantment heavy strategies.

      Going forward I would use something like this:

4 Cloudfin Raptor

4 Shambleshark

4 Frilled Oculus

4 Drakewing Krasis

2 Beetleform Mage

2 Frostburn Weird

4 Rumbling Baloth

3 Nessian Asp

4 Bioshift

2 Dispel

2 Negate

3 Disperse

4 Simic Guildgate

10 Island

8 Forest

Sideboard

2 Dispel

1 Disperse

2 Frostburn Weird

2 Annul

4 Essence Scatter

3 Sensory Deprivation

1 Fleetfeather Sandals

    

Speed Kills

While my pauper Boros was winning and serving as the perfect gauntlet for my other deck ideas, it felt slow and unwieldy. I believed that I could make it go faster by adding a turbo button, namely, this musclebound fellow with the eight-pack abs: 

However, that meant triggering his heroic ability to the max and Boros as I had built it only contained dudes and burn spells.  The solution was to use Martial Glory and for a while I tried it out.

It still didn't feel fast enough.

I needed another one-drop.  More importantly, I had to make sure that it wasn't a dead draw in prolonged games.  I searched Gatherer and came up with this: 

The issue with the card was that I would have to replace awesome creatures like Daring Skyjek, Azorius Arrester, Master of Diversion, and Calvary Pegasus.  On the other hand, the best thing about it was the combo with Akroan Crusader spitting out dudes which would in turn pump it.  Titan's Strength and Madcap Skills were the two primary candidates for triggering heroic and avoiding or surviving blockers.

I continued to look for red creatures on Gatherer.  When I found them, another epiphany hit me.  I would have to lose the white and concentrate solely on small, red creatures and direct damage spells.  In other words, I had to design a Sligh deck, focusing on the mana-curve above all else.  It was 1996 all over again.

After several days of testing and reworking my original ideas, I ended up with this list:

The Return of Sligh
4 Foundry Street Denizen

4 Akroan Crusader

4 Gore-House Chainwalker

4 Deathbellow Raider

4 Goblin Shortcutter

4 Rakdos Shred-Freak

3 Riot Piker

4 Dragon Mantle

4 Madcap Skills

4 Titan's Strength

4 Lightning Strike

17 Mountain

Sideboard

4 Shock

4 Frostburn Weird

4 Act of Treason

3 Rubblebelt Maaka

17 lands were sufficient as two Mountains enabled my deck to operate efficiently.  Gore-House Chainwalker was a 3-power threat for 2-mana.  Deathbellow Raider survived Shock and Pharika's Cure, some of the more common and cheaper answers in the format.  Goblin Shortcutter helped messed up the opponent's combat math.  Rakdos Shred-Freak was sort of Shock on a stick.  Riot Piker's first strike countered Ethereal Armor.

Madcap Skills, Dragon Mantle, and Titan's Strength combined to trigger Akroan Crusader's heroic ability and buffed the other creatures as well.  One of my favorite tactics was to cast Titan's Strength on the Crusader during upkeep to produce a 1/1 red soldier token with haste and to scry 1.  In my main phase, I would then cast Dragon Mantle on the Crusader to get another token (hopefully pumping a Denizen twice in the process) and then draw a card.  Very efficient.  Very deadly.

Lightning Strike was almost always for reach.

As to the sideboard, Shock was additional reach for control strategies and removal in a pinch.  Frostburn Weird defended against mass removal effects like Shrivel or Electrickery and provided a mana-sink.  Act of Treason answered decks with huge threats like Nessian Asp or a creature attached with Ethereal Armor and other auras.  Rubblebelt Maaka was a red Giant Growth to bolster damage capacity as well as deliver the finishing blow.

Last Friday I took down an 8-man tournament with the deck.

The opening round pitted me against Bant Hexproof.  I quickly assembled an army of 1/1's in game one and swarmed my opponent relentlessly.  He kept a questionable hand in the second game and failed to stem the tide of weenies I sent his way.  So far, so good.

Next up was a mono-red concoction centered on Two-Headed Cerberus.  I was familiar with it because I flirted with the concept myself.  In the first game, he wiped out my board by overloading Electrickery and pointing Shock at my Deathbellow Raider but I saved a Crusader with Titan's Strength.  During my turn I enchanted it with Dragon Mantle to rebuild my forces and dig into my library.  My opponent launched a counterattack with Cerberus but I killed it when he was tapped out.  He succumbed eventually to my horde when he didn't draw another Electrickery.  The subsequent game was nerve-wracking because he eliminated the men that I turned loose on him.  Worse, my Riot Pikers were forced to attack and died to a tough blocker in Frostburn Weird.  Out of gas, I defended myself from his mutant dog by topdecking a burn spell each time he cast them.  Frustrated, he swung for thirteen points of damage but since I was still at a healthy twenty life all it accomplished was empty his hand and tell me that he didn't have cheese for my face.  I won by drawing and putting more creatures on the battlefield while he drew nothing but lands.

The last round was versus Selesnya, normally a challenging strategy with Ethereal Armor, lifelink, and big, green monsters.  I lost game one when my opponent gained a ton of life with Centaur Healer and Nylea's Disciple who were both bestowed with Hopeful Eidolon.  It was impossible to race him so I conceded.  Game two he played three guildgates in succession and this allowed me to inflict plenty of damage.  I then cast Goblin Shortcutter on successive turns to prevent him from blocking my creatures with Madcap Skills.  The deciding game hinged on my decision to burn a Voyaging Satyr early on.  By doing so, I made him stumble on mana which stranded four Nylea's Disciples in his hand.  He worked hard to stem the bleeding but a pair of Goblin Shortcutters circumvented his efforts.

After the tourney, people remarked on the deck's quickness, how it applied pressure on turn one and never let up from that point onwards.  I smiled in response because it meant that I had achieved my goal of constructing a deck with blistering offense.  It also proved my belief in the age-old adage that "Speed kills."

Indeed.