Coming up on Magic: The Gathering Online - The ever popular small set format. For a limited time, players will have the option to crack not DKA-INN-INN but the triple DKA special. Card values are wildly different, colors skewed, and all kinds of insanity can happen. What should you be looking for?
It’s certainly not a bad idea to build around captains, especially if you’ve been pitched one or two. Stromkirk Captain with some Nearheath Stalkers is a tower of first strike that your opponents won’t be able to ignore, and may be the best captain in this format. There are a variety of other playable vampires floating around, but it helps that you’ll have a large and often passed one in the common slot. Diregraf Captains are your best bet after Stromkirk, and Immerwolf and Drogskol about even for third place.
Obviously Drogskol’s value goes up if you can get your hands on a few Lingering Souls, but white/blue really doesn’t have a whole lot of versatility in DKA-DKA-DKA. In any case, keep an eye on the captains. If you’re willing to play Grixis, you’ll be able to run both Vampire and Zombie captains in the same deck, with plenty of support. Just don’t forget to grab a few Evolving Wilds to help facilitate the tri-color package. This sample deck at 2:25:00 here shows what a really, really solid Grixis DKA deck looks like.
Green is a very powerful proposition in DKA, but you’re going to have to find out if it’s open early, as you’ll need specific cards to get the win. Stack up Briarpack Alphas high and get your hands on Strangleroot Geists, buffer bears, slayer spiders, and finisher wurms. Green can go full blown open and this can result in you getting passed things like Increasing Savagery late.
White is something that seems to be a little lost without Innistrad support. You’ve got access to a lot of interesting things but outside of the rare slot (Lingering Souls counts too since it’s going to get first picked) you’re looking at some rather expensive birds and a complete lack of solid removal. Burden of Guild is a tough tax to deal with if threats come down early, and while Mattocks and Elgauds can get there they miss out on a lot of the oomph that other tribes and colors have. If you’re cobbling together a human sacrifice deck with torturers, flayers, demons, and townsfolk though, that can be made to work – but make sure you know what you’re doing.
Red has a lot of power in Fires of Undeath and Stromkirk Captain but will require black as well. As far as mono red cards go, Nearheath Stalker is just fine and Markov Warlord and Blood Feud can close out games. Faithless Looting, while incredible in DKA-INN-INN doesn’t have a whole lot to work with here so you’re not going to want to assign it much value.
Blue, as discussed before the prerelease, has a great lineup of playables even in pure DKA. Relentless Skaabs, Nephalia Seakite, Niblis of the Breath, Soul Seizer, Stormbound Geist and Tower Geist all get it done, and there are absurd rare slot win conditions as well.
Black’s got great removal with Tragic Slip for any situation and the slower but certainly deck desired Death’s Caress. Farbog Boneflinger cleans up with a body attached and Wakedancer will flood the field with two relevant creatures. Black’s got a lot of other cards that can sometimes make the cut, and is probably second to blue in terms of sheer power potential in straight up DKA, sharing a color across two captains.
Removal, tribal, evasion – Not all that different than a traditional draft in many respects. Be prepared for some triple Dark Ascension action when release events kick off on Magic: The Gathering Online this week!
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