Tax Edge

Tax Edge is probably the deck I've played the most with in 93/94. It's a fairly cheap and competitive deck that relies on the interaction between Land Tax and Land's Edge. My older versions of the deck were mostly an upgrade of white weenie; cutting the weeniest of the cards, but playing 10 or more creatures to support the combo. This list (with a minor change) placed top4 at last years Warcon:

Sideboard is Moons, Blasts, Circles, Karmas, Cities and an Angel
This is a very fun list to play, but it's far from an optimal one. It lacks e.g. Shahrazad and Wheel of Fortune, the Swords are far worse than Chain Lightnings here, and it is kind of unfocused when trying to support both combo, aggro and and hate in a single deck.

"What is this strange card type? Cre-a-ture?". Stalin is confused during Gråberget Champs 2012.
A creatureless version of the deck was first shown off by Gustav "Tysken" Schmidt at n00bcon 4. This deck supported Howling Mines and Ivory Towers, and used Feldon's Cane to avoid running out of cards to throw at the opponent. Gustav took the deck to the top8, and the story goes that he only lost games where his opponents managed to activate Mirror Universe.

The creatureless version has evolved more since then. Hjalmar "Honka" Backlund played a creatureless hate version of deck at n00bcon 5. This is probably the coolest versions of the deck yet:

When he can't play Juzam himself, at least he got his Sol Ring altered to a Juzam.
I'm fairly certain that it's correct to play Howling Mines in the deck regardless if you want to support a few creatures or not. Honka's choice of playing no creatures maindeck but having access to 4 Ball Lightning in the sideboard is very nice and techy. I personally like to have a few panic buttons like Serra Angel in the deck, but it's probably a smarter move to make all the opponent's creature removal dead.

It looks like there will be a 93/94 tournament at Warcon this year as well btw! Varberg is the hometown of players like Viktor "Oldschool" Peterson and Elof Gottfridsson so I'm sure that it will be a sweet gathering in six weeks!

Kommentarer

  1. Hi from Australia, LOVE the website :)

    I was inspired to put together a Land Tax deck when I was 15 (year 2000) with Winds of Change as the card-drawing engine instead of the more popular Scroll Rack. It didn't take me long to begin asking myself,

    "Why can't we play Type 1 with ONLY *older cards*?"

    And voila, some genius has created a tournament scene around this very idea. Well done!

    After fourteen years, I'm putting the deck back together as Tax/Edge. Since Land's Edge costs 1RR, it makes sense to try out a predominantly red, aggressive, fast-paced build. I was thinking of using many of those same cards: Ball Lightning, Chain Lightning etc.

    And yes, three Blood Moons main deck =D

    Can you tell us anything about how Winter Orb and Howling Mine would change the speed of the deck?

    SvaraRadera
  2. Nice to hear that you enjoy the format :)

    The Winter Orb strategy makes you want to play a much slower game. The Tax Edge deck that placed higest during last n00bcon slowed down the game to something akin to stasis (while surviving with Ivory Towers and Library of Leng), and only had two Land's Edge and one Feldon's Cane as wincons. I think it is correct to play a few Howling Mines in most builds of Tax Edge, where the more midrange versions maybe plays just two and the more controlling ones have the full set of both Howling Mine and Relic Barrier. It's very much about taste though, i prefere the slightly more agressive builds myself.

    The last build I played is very similar to the build here: http://oldschool-mtg.blogspot.no/2013/12/thunder-taxedge.html with some changes (Md: -1 Blood Moon, -2 Plains, -1 Thunder Spirit, -1 Detonate; +1 Stone Rain, +1 Mountain, +1 Plateau, +1 Winds of Change, +1 Land's Edge). Sideboard had some stp's, but no knights. It's presumably not the best possible build, but it worked pretty well.

    SvaraRadera
  3. Thanks for your reply, I was thinking along the lines of what you mentioned.

    I don't know if I'd use the Orb, it's just not my style... Howling Mine sounds fun in a fast-paced deck that has other ways to win than the Tax/Edge combo, but still focuses on getting that Land Tax out as early as possible while minimising lands in play.

    That's a gorgeous deck, by the way. :) Mine will be ready in about a year's time, as I insist on getting everything black bordered. Keep up the good work guys, you are slowly gaining an audience in other countries.

    SvaraRadera

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