*Originally posted August 19, 2012

As my previous post may indicate, I enjoy me some Magic. What it may not show is  I spend a lot of my time reading up on the game, looking at cards, and wearing out the F5 key on the MtG subreddit. It's definitely a hobby that has taken over my life but let's move onto the point of this post. Playful decks.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy making and playing competitive decks as much as the next guy. Who doesn't love spending hundreds of dollars on cards to be able to keep up with the arms race T_T. But really for me, it's the gameplay that I enjoy most. So here's a deck I've been toying around with recently. It doesn't have any real huge game winners or money cards but if it survives to turn 4 or 5, then the fun starts.

Creature (18)
4x Doomed Traveler
3x Dungeon Geists
2x Fiend Hunter
3x Restoration Angel
2x Spellskite
2x Stonehorn Dignitary
2x Sunblast Angel

Instant/Sorceries (11)
1x Cancel
2x Cloudshift
4x Mana Leak
2x Day of Judgment
2x Ponder

Artifact (4)
4x Tumble Magnet

Land (23)
4x Glacial Fortress
9x Island
10x Plains

Planeswalker (4)
2x Tamiyo, the Moon Sage
2x Venser, the Sojourner

So as you can probably see, the point is to just tap all of their shit down. It doesn't matter what    it is, just tap it. I've mostly played against mono-green and green/white decks with this and so far it's been pretty effective at shutting them down. With Mana Leaks and Spellskites, you can defend against early pressures. Spellskite will soak up any direct damage spells and Mana Leaks will help delay or break up a combo for your opponent. Once you have your first Tumble Magnet down, you can begin to relax a bit. It'll help delay until you have your Dungeon Giests or Tamiyo.

If things get a bit too hairy and you can't quite stabilize, don't hesitate to blow a Day of Judgement early. This deck isn't meant to win turn 4 while your opponent's probably is. Plus the key cards for you aren't affected (artifacts, planeswalkers) so make use of those board wipes. For the real win here, you ideally have your Tamiyo with a few magnets or maybe a geist or 2 out. With all or the majority of their side tapped, you pop a Sunblast Angel.

Now that the most threatening cards on their side have been dealt with, you can swing in for some sweet flying damage. I've also kept in the Vensers and Stonehorn Dignitaries. This will help reset the counters on the magnets and reuse the Sunblast etb effects. Taking away your opponent's chance to do any significant damage is also fairly fun. Cloudshifts and Restoration Angels were added in to save key creatures or reset the geists' tapping effect.

So far this deck has been really fun to play. So much so that I want to keep it going for post Mirrodin rotation. There are a handful of cards that I would like to see in this deck at some point such as Downpour and Sleep but without a more permanent form of control that the magnets provide, I may be SOL. I'll have to see once Return to Ravnica starts to spoil. Maybe there'll be some sweet cards that I can swap in for this tap/flicker deck. Definitely looking forward to the coming months and what Wizards has to offer.