Gaming on a Budget: The Crawnmower

The week of me discussing my the folder full of Magic the Gathering decklists I recently found on my lost flash drive from 2006 continues.  This time I'll be putting the Gaming on a Budget spin on it.

Oddly enough, this entire article was written over 5 years ago in its entirety (intro and minor editing notwithstanding), proving that a) mid-twenties dethtron is pretty much as big of an asshole as early thirties dethtron and b) I was a stingy miser even when I had a decent job.  

After trying to recollect exactly how this article came to exist I had to talk to Lauby to help me put some of the pieces together.  You see it's odd that I would write a 4 page "lab report" on this subject since I didn't have a blog at the time, didn't participate in any MtG forums, and had no target audience for this outside of Lauby and my buddy Dustin.  What has been pieced together, though, is that I was pretty disillusioned with the MtG tourney scene at the time and the investment necessary to get into it.  True, I had plenty of cards and could easily have made many of the standard Ravnica block era metadecks, but that wasn't for me.  More importantly I was also super-disappointed in the tournament players in my area at the time.  If their stench weren't enough to make me dislike them, their general lack of social adroitness pretty much sealed the deal.

Thus it came to pass that I set out to build a deck using only commons, uncommons, and lands that would be valued somewhere under the $10 mark.  From this the creature heavy Crawnmower deck below was born.  Putting this together is cheap.  Other than the blanchwood armor and overgrowths, most of the cards used in it are valueless.  Hell, a seasoned collector would probably give you most of these cards for free if you asked nicely.  

The experiment, unfortunately, was never finished as work made it impossible for me to play in any tournaments.  I did, however, in playtesting defeat several players who were testing the standard metadecks of the time.  I hope you enjoy the following lab report and consider trying to disrupt the meta as cheaply as possible in the current block.  Feel free to adapt the Crawnmower to your own needs- a version of this should be legal in just about any tourney type (most of the cards are staples of the core sets), so this should remain fairly timeless.  Try this out next time you're looking for a creature heavy, fast deck and you won't be disappointed. 

Purpose

To disrupt the Ranvnica block metagame and make nerds feel bad about themselves.

Hypothesis

The crawnmower will wreck any metadeck vulnerable to a rapid buildup of large, trampling creatures.

Materials -note that the materials aren't all budget minded, but the effect they produce is priceless~ ed.

-Metal Briefcase

-Handcuffs

-Dry ice

-Fast Food Placemat

-“Rat’s Nest Deckbox”

-Money; but not too much

-“The Crawnmower”

Creatures

1x Trained Armodon

1x Ghor-Clan Savage

4x Craw Wurm                                                          

2x Scaled Wurm

2x Rootreaker Wurm

4x Silhana Starfletcher

4x Llanowar Elves

Sorceries

2x Rampant Growth

1x Summer Bloom

2x Creeping Mold

Enchantments

1x Regeneration

1x Web

4x Beastmaster’s Magemark

3x Blanchwood Armor

2x Overgrowth

3x Fists of Ironwood

Basic Lands

24x Forrest

Procedure

1)      Mix cards thoroughly, taking care to avoid clumping.  Store the finished product in the “Rat’s Nest” deckbox.  Doing this will inspire terror in the hearts of your opponents as they will invariably believe that you will be using Umezawa’s Jitte. 

2)      Add the deckbox and dry ice to the metal briefcase.  The mysterious fog pouring from the case will add to the illusion of awe inspiring amazingness of the deck you will be playing.  Handcuff the briefcase to yourself.  This will clearly trick your opponent into believing that your cards are of value.  Maybe you own 27 Cranial Extractions… the world may never know.

3)      Register in a local type 2 tournament.

4)      When asked about the deck that you are playing, inform your opponent’s simply and coolly that you are playing the “Crawnmower.”  Your opponent will no doubt be intrigued, confused, and perhaps even a little horny.  This is to be expected and a response to the inevitable questions must be carefully rehearsed.  You will no doubt be asked what you are talking about.  To avoid revealing too many of your secrets you should let your opponent know that this deck is currently sweeping tournaments in Europe.  As most Americans know nothing of what is going on outside of the US, you should be met with little to no opposition after explaining this.  Should they press the issue be sure to act surprised that they have no idea what you’re talking about.  Simply insist that you are playing a rogue version of a deck called der Nebelwurmer that you believe was first tested by someone named Jürgen outside of Kiel.  Let your opponent know that he/she is clearly out of the loop and would have known that if they were truly on top of the latest buzz on the internet.

5)      Lay down your fast food placemat.  This will be used as a playing surface during the tournament.  The purpose of this is to further throw your opponent off of his/her game buy confusing them more.  Would you really display your fine fine Jittes on a Burger King placemat?  This is also to secretly make fun of anyone who may have made the conscious effort to bring a mat to play on.  It should at least be funny to you.

6)      Play all games as quickly as possible.  All cards in this deck are included for two reasons: a) to produce fast mana or b) beat your opponent to within an inch of his/her life.  The fact that you will frequently be playing a Craw Wurm or one of your other Wurms as early as turn 3 and typically no later than turn 5 will give you a distinct creature advantage.  Be sure to enchant your larger creatures as much as possible, dispels and disenchants be damned.  This will create more havoc on the battlefield while ensuring that direct damage will be ineffectual.  It is also highly important that you give Craw Wurms and Scaled Wurms trample as this makes them horrifying.  Be sure to play Creeping Mold on at least one $20 dual land.  Nothing is funnier than destroying valuable lands.  Laugh maniacally.  Your opponent will not see the humor in this.

7)       In the event of a win, be sure to be as obnoxious as possible.  Remember, you just beat a $400 tournament deck with leftover cards of almost no value. 

8)      Continue Crawnmowing, rinse, and repeat.