Rogue Decks for Regionals Nate Heiss Fires. Fires. Counter-Rebels. Fires. Fires. Are you tired yet? Many people are quickly becoming fatigued with the Standard meta-game set for Regionals this year. The old pattern has set in and no one seems to have any alternatives. No matter how balanced the environment is, there will be a dominant deck. Everyone tries to circumvent the deck with modified hate decks or hate-filled versions of the other good decks in the field, but nothing changes the fact that the deck will remain dominant. Do not despair; there is hope! Even though the dominant deck is your best bet when straight statistics are involved, A game of Magic could not have less to do with mathematical tournament analysis. Magic is a game in which one person pits his deck and wits against another. If you can't fight their deck, fight their wits. Go Rogue. Rogue decks have the peculiar quality of tripping people up... a lot. Players are used to wading in a sea of net decks, never blinking an eye, playing like the computerized automaton they practiced to perform like. Then it happens. They look up from their hand to the table and back to their hand. They scratch their head. You are rogue and you have just crashed their automatic playing program with your unusual cards. With the automatic player out of the way, all that stands between you and victory is a very confused Fires player. Rogue decks are by no means superior; rather they win by using unexpected cards and capitalizing on weaker players who cannot adapt to the changing environment of the game. While many Rogue decks simply don't hold water, some are good enough to square off in a straight fight while disrupting their opponent's train of thought. Some are good enough that they become staples in the archetype. Some are good enough to get Banned... remember Dream Halls? The most advantageous aspect of using a Rogue deck is the fun factor. Rogue decks let you have a great time while playing in a tournament, which can provide a comfort level with the deck that might not be attained with a standardized net deck. I will now present some fun and effective Rogue decks with descriptions. The exact lists are not included of course, because there is no such animal where Rogue decks are concerned. I will discuss the major aspect of each deck and the strategies they might take. SkyLights This deck is a Blue/White deck that utilizes the Shifting Sky/Light of Day Combo, incapacitating all the creatures for the rest of the game with two cards. Both of these cards can be fetched with Enlightened Tutor and should be protected by counter magic. The tricky part of this deck is finding a non-creature card to kill your opponent. This deck has great potential if the combo can be protected. The largest strength of the deck is the low number of cards needed to play in order to beat creature decks (probably 12: Skies, Lights, and Wraths). Rising Waters This is a more daring deck to play, since everyone is probably packing Ports and you run the risk of locking yourself up if they get an Elf/Port hand. The deck would function like straight control with a mono Blue build. Interesting cards to include might be Trickster Mage and Memory Lapse. You will probably want to play some bounce cards like Wash Out and Waterfront Bouncer as well. Since you are utilizing Rising Waters, cards like Gush and Thwart are recommended. Puzzling Tyranny One of the newest combo decks on the block is the Teferi's Puzzlebox/Phyrexian Tyranny deck that wins by putting both of the named cards in play and keeping its hand size low. You will definitely need Vampiric Tutors, Crosis's Catacombs, and City of Brass in this deck. The key to this deck is slowing your opponent down in order to stop him/her from playing out nasty Blastoderms and killing you. The most common way to do this is to use bounce spells on their land, complimented by a few Wash Outs. The best way I have seen this deck topped off is with the Ankh-Tide combo, which is very synergistic with the overall combo strategy. Prosperity or Diminishing Returns may also provide an interesting kill mechanism. Death, Glory, and Memories Death or Glory is a very interesting card that is simply screaming to be abused, but all attempts have been unsuccessful so far. However, with the use of Ancestral Memories, Fact or Fiction, and Reviving Vapors, it is possible. The deck uses a full compliment of Wraths and Counters, which can be fetched with the card drawers. Eventually you will cast Death or Glory, bringing back a virtual armada of fat creatures and winning you the game. The nice part about this deck is the versatility it brings in the creature selection. You can play Reya, Avatar of Will, Zanam Djinn, Draco (great with Vapors) or whatever other fatty you desire, as long as you play a many of them. Mine! Mine! Mine! This is a deck based around stealing as many of your opponent's cards as possible. Play Bribery, Dominate, Desertion, and maybe even Grinning Totem. Use Diminishing Returns to continue the fun and back it all up with counter magic! This might not be the easiest deck to build, but with proper acceleration and answers to enchantments, it could be a very effective and fun build. As an added bonus, many people at Regionals like to play a single copy of a fat creature in their deck, which makes Bribery great! Mercs While Mercenaries seem to have received the short end of the stick where powerful searchers are involved, it did get one very powerful (and overlooked) one, Rathi Assassin. The 'destroy tapped creatures' effect is surprisingly useful in this environment, and since it can search for 3 mana Mercs, you can pack Skulking Fugitives, which are another sleeper hit in this format. The deck should probably have the support of Vampiric Tutors, removal spells, Plague Spitters, Dark Rituals, Chimeric Idols and perhaps Infernal Contract. Nightmare or Ascendant Evincar could round out the top portion of the mana curve, giving the deck a final bomb in the endgame. The real strength of this deck is the sideboard; it can run Dread of Night, Tsabo's Decree, and Perish! Zombies While this deck was not ever at its best, Zombies have been reinvented within the past two sets and they are ready to rumble. With cards like Lord of the Undead, Shivan Zombie, Phyrexian Scuta, and Void available to the average Zombie deck, it can make a real dent in the metagame. Supplementary cards can be Plague Spitter, Blazing Specter, and the mighty Skizzik. It can be played with the aid of land kill or discard, as Zombies are not very particular as long as they get their daily diet of brains. All of the above decks are fun to play and should leave your opponent second guessing their actions during your match. Some are inherently more powerful than others, but some enjoyment may be sacrificed. I will now go over some single cards that have been overlooked in the current environment. Some are more obvious than others, but the fact remains that very few of them actually see play. Browse Old tech is still good tech. Browse is the book that always gives you a topdeck. The only problem is figuring out how to live long enough to activate it, and then how to avoid decking yourself. It is an extremely powerful card in the right deck. Zur's Weirding I won one of my first tournaments with this card, packing multiple Fountains of Youth in my deck. While both Weirding and Fountain are still legal, I suggest some other method of making this lock up card tick. Implode Five-mana land kill has always baffled me, but lately they seem better than they should be. Implode is the cream of the crop, as it lets you find more land kill to keep up the assault. Devastate also gets honorable mention, as it kills Elves, Birds, and Sergeants. Zap Speaking of Elves, Birds, and Sergeants... Zap seems to be a very efficient answer to these in a deck that utilized some mana acceleration. I do not suggest playing it over Shock, but I have seen many an Urza's Rage targeted at one toughness guys. Blood Oath This card has always been a sleeper. You can often do 9 points with this card. Utilize it in a deck that capitalizes on bouncing a certain class of permanent and go to town! Dueling Grounds I have seen some people build around this card. It is a very good lock mechanism assuming you have a regenerator or a Kor Haven. It certainly gives Fires a headache. Questing Phelddagrif Ok, so everyone knows about this card, but it seems to work well with Dueling Grounds. The first and foremost thing to keep in mind when choosing your Rogue deck is finding a deck that you enjoy. If you are playing a Rogue deck that you can't stand, you may as well be playing with Fires. If you have any questions or comments about this or any other of my articles, please don't hesitate to email me at nateheiss@yahoo.com.