half written article

so the deck is basically a deck that i came up with after i read whose the beatdown by mike flores. and i was reassured that this deck was ok and somewhat well positioned in the extended world after BDM and Flores were talking about a blightning beatdown deck on the top 8 magic cast. i had the deck built already and was testing before they talked about it. and to be honest i dont really have a grasp for extended right now as my main focus is standard. so right now i am just having fun running Gavins Revival deck and crushing people that dont see it coming

a little bit before Christmas I received the gift of awesome, Deckade, and so far its a really great read. At this point in time I am reading about how sligh decks are powerful, red is possibly the strongest color in the format and Flores is tinkering around using black knights. I love this book and everything I have learned so far from it.so while going through it I find “Whose The Beatdown?” and I have so many great things about this article so I read it...then I read it again. And when I finally got down to the end of It, I realized how great it really is. Now its a pretty simple article but that doesn’t mean it isn’t great by any means. What I also grasped from this article is that I see a lot of players, including myself, doing this same thing. You play an aggressive strategy, run into a deck with a similar agenda and you either A. decide to become more conservative and play defensively or B. you do what your deck was designed to do and smash face. So I got to thinking and with all the control decks running around in extended, why I don I turn on the fire and put some pressure on some people with a beatdown deck. And why not use my favorite color combination of R/B to do it.

List number 1

4 flame javelin

4 blighting

4 goblin guide

4 hellspark elemental

4 lightning bolt

4 oona's prowler

4 sign in blood

4 slavering nulls

2 goblin ruinblaster

2 skinrender

7 mountain

8 swamp

4 akoum refuge

3 dragonskull summit

3 graven cairns

SB

4 duress

3 goblin outlander

3 smash to smithereens

2 goblin ruinblaster

2 volcanic fallout

1 spitebellows

now this is just a shell for the deck and it was pretty bad. I could occasionally get the right draw and have goblin guide followed by oona's prowler or hell's thunder in the early game. Whats key about the Prowlers and Nulls is that it easily puts pressure on your opponent by having them discard cards,Nulls having the effect by controlling a swamp and Prowler by having the option for your opponent to discard a card to give it -2. the power of blighting is increased when your opponent has to make the decision of removing your board presence or dealing with the blighting after you attack.

Having the direct damage of flame javelin is what really puts you over the edge as its instant speed is very valuable in the world of Cryptic Command. Overall I didn’t lose every game I played. Most decks I played didn’t really have a plan for aggro decks and just kind of beat me because I gassed and the sign in bloods were drawn too late in the game to make a difference.

I quickly want to mention that when I was testing this deck, I had no problem with prismatic omen decks. Goblin ruinblaster was my best card along side Slavering Nulls and Oonas Prowler. The Nulls put early pressure and removed cards that would help the deck progress to gain a significant advantage that I learned by playing against it so much. This decks worst match up was WW and it was a really bad time when I was matched up against it.

List 2

now list 2 has a number of additions and an almost complete revamp of the sideboard. I had went into the tank and came up with all of the cards I was playing with during the time of lorywn block and I came to the conclusion that I some how forgot how powerful cards at that time were and that this deck defiantly needed work to make it better.

4 Blighting

4 Boggart Ram-Gang

3 Dark Tutelage

4 Flame Javelin

4 Goblin Guide

4 hells thunder

4 hellspark elemental

4 lightning bolt

4 oona's prowler

1 skinrender

4 aunties hovel

4 dragonskull summit

4 graven cairns

5 swamp

7 mountain

SB

4 duress

3 thought hemorrhage

3 incendiary command

3 guttural response

1 skinrender

1 lightning reaver

first I want to thank jesse for letting me borrow the Tutelages.

Now to get to the deck.The deck is a smiple blightning beat down and when I was testing you should never change your strategey for the deck. The deck hits hard, fast and it causes to many problems for my opponents.i really want to say that you need to think about your board position if your going to play this deck because in extended you need to take advantage of every point of damage possible. Every spell counts, every play is important.i am going to say this but I realize that most people think that they do this and most players in the community dont really do it.

I know many of your are asking how it does against faeries, just and omen and my answer is excellent. In fact my best match up is against faeries and jund. Let me help you out with those match ups

Fae

From my persective, the problem with fae is that most players sit at wait for you to act, play your important spells, counter them and then counter attack you. With Flores Beatdown you just take the fight to them. In my matchs against fae, the only problems I had was which order of spells I was going to hit them with. Goblin Guide is an all start and puts the pressure on them early and while they are digging for something to stop him, your hitting with blightnings, prowlers and hellsparks.