The Flashy Play: PandeGargadon

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The Flashy Play: PandeGargadon

By Frank Shaskus on April 24th, 2007 · Filed in Standard (Type 2) · 21 Comments

TSP Edition - PandeGargadon
by Frank Shaskus (funkyninja)

There are things you know you know, things you don't know you know, and things that you know you don't know. Today I'm focusing on the third. When I cracked a Pandemonium in the Exodus prerelease I knew it was chock full of potential. Sure it was symmetrical, and I didn't get the first crack, but it had to be breakable. But I knew I didn't know how to do it.

It turned out it was breakable - for much better players than me. My feeble attempts lay somewhat beneath decks that forced errata on the Phyrexian Dreadnought and decks that managed a two-card kill with Saproling Burst (Thanks Ben!). The problem is that the environments were so fast and the symmetry so damaging that I could not make it work. Tapping out on turn four to eat a twelve point Ball Lightning is not unlike having a drum line use your jibblies for practice. It hurts.

And so my playset of Pandemonium lay fallow in my binder, hidden from all light and warmth. But then Time Spiral came along and sprinkled a little water and some fertilizer on them. For not only had Pandemonium risen to meet the sun, it brought along with it Greater Gargadon. These two cards play together like ham and cheese (or tofu and chickpeas, my Vegan friends). Because the core problem of Pandemonium is that it left you with your jibblies exposed to the marching bands of the world, but Greater Gargadon covers you up and lets you maintain some semblance of dignity. (Like that lunch lady who lent you her apron after Tommy Meyers dropped a bowl of hot chili in your lap. Which he still insists was an accident. And Big Erma, I'll be getting that apron back to you post haste.) With one Pandemonium in play Greater Gargadon represents eighteen points of damage. With two, twenty seven. It has both teeth and surprise value. And it brings along that which matters most, the flashy play.

Our first order of business is identifying what we want the deck to do. There are three core ways we can construct a deck to take advantage of Pandemonium:

Sandbag the Pandemonium until you have twenty or so damage you can force out. Call this the combo approach.
Use Pandemonium and bounce creatures to control the board. I think this shall be the control approach.
Deal as much damage as possible, then try to sneak out the last bits with Pandemonium. In keeping with the holy triumvirate we shall christen this the Aggro approach.

Combo:

Pros: We probably won't die to our own Pandemonium
Cons: Firstly, Combo players smell like cheese. Secondly, Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir. Most blue decks, if you don't give them anything to counter, will cast Teferi. Teferi smokes Greater Gargadon like Norway smokes salmon. This deck revolves around the Greater Gargadon, and if the center cannot hold, things fall apart. So no Combo.

Control:

Pros: Most creature based decks can't handle thirty removal spells, especially when a large number of them have buyback 0.
Cons: Pandemonium can kill almost anything after it hits the board. Let's parse that sentence and see what sticks out. We see "after it hits the board". So we examine the implications of "it hits the board". That sounds an awful lot like "comes into play". And there is that crummy symmetry again. You can make all the effort in the world to clear the board and stabilize at 8. But then some fish stick casts a Spectral Force or Call of the Herd with Stonewood Invocation and stack magic and all of a sudden you're a loser that only a cafeteria lady could love. (Though she will love you oh so gently.)

Aggro:

Pros: Avoids all the straw man arguments I threw out. Plus it can deal the crucial two you need to make Greater Gargadon lethal. If you can't design an Aggro deck to do two damage you're probably doing something wrong involving cough medicine and poor self esteem. (Which is fine, we all have our crutches. Mine involves unhealthy amounts of ranch dressing and fried foods. Blame it on programmer peer pressure.) Because of the nature of Pandemonium we will have some overlap with Combo. And that is fine. A slight cheese smell is refined.
Cons: You will be the rare Aggro deck that can’t dream of hanging with another Aggro deck. Imagine the text of Pandemonium as “make all your opponent’s creatures unblockable and give them haste.” You may be optimized to take advantage of Pandemonium, but optimization does not matter overly much when you’re at two life and your opponent has a fifteen percent chance of NOT drawing a card to kill you.

Given the three being relatively evenly balanced, I opted for the Aggro. It is what suits me and my play style best. Few things make me happier than swinging in for two and then burning for the win. You know you best (unless your multiple personality disorder is acting up), so if you want to explore the other options, please do.

Without further dissembling:

PandeGargadon
Creatures who combo 4 Greater Gargadon 2 Dust Elemental 4 Whitemane Lion 2 Stonecloaker 1 Stormfront Riders Aggro Meat Shields 4 Mogg War Marshal 2 Icatian Javelineers 4 Keldon Marauders Orgg 1 Orgg	The Pande in PandeGargadon 4 Pandemonium Your Vanilla Trick 4 Temporal Isolation Mana 4 Prismatic Lens 4 Terramorphic Expanse 10 Mountains 10 Plains

As an aside, I always wonder if Mogg War Marshal was a mistake. It seems like the odd one out of the echo monsters. Firemaw Kavu and Subterranean Shambler both trigger when they leave play, but Mogg War Marshal only triggers when he dies. Even the Keldon Marauder spikes for one before ascending to my grasp. While normally it would not be a big deal, in a deck with nine rescuers this sticks out like a cafeteria lady at Prom.

Why can't I fit in?

I originally loaded the deck with all top end fat. After getting my butt handed to me more times than I cared to count (14) I realized that actually having some early defense was probably a good idea. But even then, I wanted Aggro defense. Hence the Keldon Marauders, Mogg War Marshal, and Icatian Javelineers. They can swing, or they can take out popular creatures that share their mana cost. The Marauders can buy you one turn against ground based Aggro, which is a lot when your only goal is to get to four mana and hopefully take the game over. They also do an excellent job of dealing the two damage we need to make the Gargadon lethal.

Temporal Isolation lets you be clever. Beyond clearing the way for the Greater Gargadon it also allows you to break some of the symmetry of Pandemonium. Pandemonium states that the creature deals damage, so if you Temporal Isolation the creature while the ability is on the stack you prevent the damage, as well as remove a blocker for Greater Gargadon. A nifty trick that will probably never happen is to cast Temporal Isolation on your Gargadon, attack, and then rescue him with damage on the stack. Because an unblockable Greater Gargadon is cool.

Orgg is in the deck because, with the possible exception of Big Erma, he is the only one who ever really understood me. Back when Orcish Lumberjacks plundered natural resources and Tinder Walls were the green ritual, the Orgg was brutally fast. Nowadays he’s outclassed by many excellent fatties, but I run him because I remember him when he was beautiful. (Orgg has been in my spell check dictionary for about ten years now. I didn’t get around to adding my last name until two years ago.)

All the rescue creatures are there for the same reason, to eke out some small advantage over the short term and the turn into a machine gun in the long term. Under Pandemonium Stormfront Riders can do six a turn, and if they stick, all of a sudden your Whitemane Lion becomes a reusable Incinerate.

Greater Gargadon opens up several neat tricks for you. Mogg War Marshal means three counters gone, and no need to pay echo. You can cast a rescue critter with no creatures in play, then sacrifice it to the Greater Gargadon while the return ability is on the stack. This can provide the crucial points. Don't be afraid to bounce the Marauder to get the cheap point, and know that Greater Gargadon can sacrifice him at will.

It helps to know your counterspells in block as well.

can be Trickbind,

Cancel,

Dismal Failure,

is Mystic Snake, and

is Teferi (which counters Greater Gargadon).

can be Mana Tithe. Because you can do most things at instant speed it is usually a good idea to try to go off at the end of your opponent's turn. Or you can wait until the end of your turn, after they put their storage land abilities and Legendary Wizards on the stack.

My only real regret with this deck is that I never did find a way to work in Momentary Blink. All the rescue saved creatures from removal about as well as blink, and while the synergy with Pandemonium was excellent I usually found myself preferring a rescue creature in hand to give me the machine gun. If you can find an effective way to weave it in then please let me know in the forums. I will sing your praises to the heights, unless it doesn't work, in which case I would sic Big Erma on you. I'm sure Blink would make it better, I'm just not sure how.

In actually playing with the deck some things jumped out at me:

Terramorphic Expanse is dog slow. It also has a knack of showing up when you least want to see it.
First turn Greater Gargadon followed by third turn Pandemonium will prompt a pretty quick concession.
Pro Red stops the targeting of Pandemonium. So Serrated Arrows should probably head into the sideboard for the ever-present Soltari Priest.
Icatian Javelineers are really expensive.
The CTRL key, which allows you to keep priority in Magic Online, will become your best friend. Sometimes you want to sacrifice everything with Dust Elemental on the stack, and the CTRL key makes that possible.
If you don’t draw Pandemonium, you want to use your rescue creatures to eke out board position. With so much mana in the deck you can stall for forever with rescue and a couple of your speed bumps. If Stormfront Riders sticks you can change gears from stall to swarm.
Sometimes you have to go all in with the Greater Gargadon. It is not often, but there will be a game where you’re opponent is at eighteen and you can destroy your whole board just to get him in play. There are not a lot of topdeck answers for a 9/7.
On a related note, Greater Gargadon blocking a Phyrexian Totem means your opponent loses nine permanents. This can be good for you.

This deck is not much of a factor in the highly tuned world of competitive magic. You give TSP white weenie reach. You give Willbender/Doppelganger some spectacularly juicy targets. If anyone played Scryb and Force they would bring the hammer down upon you (but it seems like none plays it - go figure). And, not to belabor the point(while simultaneously belaboring it), but your best cards are trumped by Teferi, one of this format's defining creatures.

While you do have the ability to beat these decks you probably won't do it with Pandemonium on the table, and you certainly won't be doing it very often. So you have to decide if nailing the flashy play a couple of times is worth the occasional bloody beating. Obviously you know where I stand, but make your own choice. Give it a shot, you don't have anything to lose but ten or so tickets. And then give it your own spin, because I’m betting just about everyone reading this can make it better.

So know you know what I didn't know, albeit after I knew it, unless you already knew it, in which case I apologize for wasting your time. I hope you learned that sometimes you gotta cover the jibblies, and sometimes you gotta let them hang out. And that it is ok to love your lunch lady. Because it's a big scary world out there so who better to accompany you than a big scary woman?

By Frank Shaskus on April 24th, 2007 · Filed in Standard (Type 2) · 21 Comments