The Passion of the Warp World
by Jonathan Winter
A brief history
Warp World is a junk rare. It has been a junk rare ever since it was first printed in 2005 in Ravnica. I certainly didn’t give it a second thought when I first perused the spoiler 4 years ago. However a few weeks after the set was released I stumbled across a thread on the TCGplayer forums describing how Warp World combos with Anarchist to create a potential infinite recursion loop. (The thread can be found here: http://forum.tcgplayer.com/showthread.php?t=44525) I’m always interested in kooky synergies and combos so I eagerly glossed over the comments and resolved to give it a try. Thus began my love affair with, what I think, is the most fun combo deck in magic.
How it works and an early version
Warp World requires that you read the card fairly carefully to understand what happens during spell resolution. Here’s a helpful guide for Warp World novices
- Players count their permanents. Yes, including their lands.
- Players then shuffle their permanents into their libraries
- NO! NOT YOUR HAND!
- NO! PUT YOUR GRAVEYARD BACK! (this happens all the time)
- Players reveal cards from the top of their libraries equal to the number of permanents they shuffled into their libraries.
- All permanents revealed this way enter play while non-permanents get a 1 way ticket to the bottom of the library.
- The only slightly tricky part of the spell’s effect is that enchantments enter play after non-enchantments to give auras a chance to attach themselves to a valid target.
- That’s it! Now you have a chance to resolve ‘enters-the-battlefield’ triggers. (Which is when the fun really starts!)
Warp World’s effect is symmetrical so the idea behind the deck is to break its symmetry. The primary form of anti-symmetry in a Warp World deck is known as ‘permanent acceleration’. This means that what you are trying to do is cast Warp World when you have much more permanents on the board than your opponent. They needn’t be good permanents. Let’s say you have 4 Squires versus a Progenitus (complete with a foul temper). Once Warp World has resolved you don’t give a crap about your opponent’s sexy beast. As long as you have MORE permanents than your opponent, things should be looking fairly rosy. Of course you could end up flipping 4 Squires again and your opponent might flip his singleton Bogardan Hellkite but that would be pretty hilarious if it happened so everyone wins!
The first thing people need to know about building a Warp World deck is that your deck should always try to consist of 4 x Warp World and 56 x permanent cards. Most early versions tried to exploit it as an infinite mana combo that used Kumano, Master Yamabushi as an instant win condition. Here is a sample decklist:
Old Style Vanilla Warp World circa 2005
6 Forest
5 Mountain
4 Forbidden Orchard
4 Karplusan Forest
4 Pinecrest Ridge
4 Anarchist
4 Wood Elves
2 Hunted Dragon
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Kumano, Master Yamabushi
1 Viridian Shaman
4 Fists of Ironwood
4 Heartbeat of Spring
4 Warp World
1 Galvanic Arc
Cards of note:
Hunted Dragon/Forbidden Orchard: These cards exploited the now defunct ruling that tokens generated by you but controlled by your opponent are, in fact, owned by you and therefore count towards your permanent count. M10 rules eliminated this exploit. Forbidden Orchard is a huge loss to extended versions of the deck.
Heartbeat of Spring: This card’s ‘Mana Flare’ effect is often used by mana hungry combo decks to kick-start proceedings. The drawback being that your opponent gets access to the extra mana as well. The current equivalent is Keeper of Progenitus.
Sensei’s Divining Top: It’s no secret, nowadays, that Top is amazingly good. It is a luxury that does not exist anymore; not even in extended as the DCI deemed it to be too good. The only way a Warp World deck can get this kind of draw manipulation these days is if it dips into blue. Even then you can’t exactly play Ponder because it lacks that key characteristic of, you know, being a permanent.
Wood Elves: At first glance this guy seems weak but he has always been one of the first guys selected to be part of the team because he is (a) a 2 for 1 permanent generator and (b)he accelerates your mana by fetching a Forest and, most importantly, putting it into play untapped. This enhances the deck’s ability to recur Warp World in a single turn and is the reason it beats the stuffing out of Farhaven Elf for example. Wood Elves also got better when Guildpact was released because he could then fetch Stomping Grounds and serve as a colour fixer as well. In short, Wood Elves is(was) a champ in this deck.
My Kamigawa/Ravnica block version
When I started playing Warp World I quickly found out that it’s simply not possible to play it as a reliable speed combo deck such as TEPS or, more recently, turbo fog/Time Sieve. In order for Warp to work you need a permanent count of, typically, 10 or more. It takes time to develop a board of this size. It’s too hard to accelerate both your mana and your permanent count so that you successfully go off by, say, turn 4 or 5. This led me to believe that the deck had an identity crisis. As a combo deck you want to go off ASAP but the combo only gets going from the mid to late game. The answer is, of course, a hybrid combo/control deck.
I was rereading some of the old posts I made in the aforementioned TCGplayer Warp World thread and came across one that I made in January 2006 that pretty much sums up my stance on how the deck should be played:
“Calx I’ve been trying to tweak the deck again recently and have decided that the best card we have against BDW is in fact ghostly prison. It really knocks the wind out of their sails coz they lose ****loads of tempo trying to pay for their beats. This gives you a few extra turns to go off. In addition I’ve found that the prison has awesome synergy with Forbidden orchard. ”
Ghostly Prison is a fairly well known card these days in non-type 2 formats. It is the type of anti-agro card I look for when it comes to Warp World/control because it is (a) a wonderful early spell that stalls aggressive decks and (b) it is a permanent. I had initially overlooked it because it doesn’t work with Heartbeat of Spring. However with the change of focus for the deck I did not need to play the Heartbeat out until right before going off in the later stages of the game. I fine-tuned my list and came up with the following
Jono’s Prison Warp Deck circa 2006
4 Tendo Ice Bridge
4 Forbidden Orchard
4 Karplusan Forest
2 Vitu-Ghazi, the City Tree
2 Mountain
1 Plains
1 Temple Garden
6 Forest
4 Warp World
3 Anarchist
2 Fists of Ironwood
4 Heartbeat of Spring
4 Sensei’s Divining Top
4 Sakura Tribe Elder
4 Wood Elves
4 Faiths Fetters
4 Ghostly Prison
2 Silklash Spider
1 Kumano, Master Yamabushi
SB
4 Defense Grid
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
4 Loxodon Hierarch
3 Glare of Subdual
3 Kodama of the North Tree
On Friday 13th January 2006 I piloted this deck to victory at FNM at the old OGC, Ashgrove. There was a modest yet fairly potent field of 21. I beat Sam Atkinson (who had recently top 8ed GP:Melbourne!), Anthony Purdom and Daniel Ginn. I had to draw with Cory Hill in the final due to him killing my Kumano but then not being able to stop my infinite recursion engine. However I came out on top that day and it was after weeks of being savagely beaten while trying to play worse versions of the deck. Even though I’ve top 8ed at other more high profile events this is the result I am most proud of because I had put so much time and effort into building and fine-tuning a deck no-one else believed in. (On a side note the ‘best deck’ at the time was Katsuhiro Mori’s Ghazi-Glare deck. I was able to build a reasonably functional transformational sideboard that turned the deck into Ghazi-Glare-Lite for game 2. This strategy was necessary to avoid getting destroyed by Cranial Extraction.)
Warp World today
The sad truth for Warp World players is that if your meta-game has lots of permission then you’re in for a world of hurt. Counterspells are brutally effective against a deck that needs to resolve an 8 mana sorcery to have a chance of winning. With this in mind it becomes relevant to point out that, according to TCGplayer.com, the most played card in standard is Cryptic Command! It is pointless trying to build a permission proof version of the deck so your best bet is to go with the tried and tested strategy of designing ‘to beat agro’.
I’ve spent some time trying out the toys we have to play with in the current type 2 pool. Cards like Kitchen Finks and Murderous Redcap seem tailor made for Warp World shenanigans. In addition we have access to old favourites like Bogardan Hellkite and Siege-Gang Commander. To cut a long story short, I decided to ditch most of those cards for a new type of control tech based on soldiers.
Jono’s Soldier Warp Deck 2009
4 Warp World
2 Nucklavee
2 Bogardan Hellkite
2 Captain of the Watch
4 Knight-Captain of Eos
4 Oblivion Ring
4 Birds of Paradise
3 Trace of Abundance
4 Farhaven Elf
4 Elvish Visionary
3 Mulldrifter
6 Forest
3 Mountain
2 Plains
1 Island
4 Reflecting Pool
4 Firelit Thicket
4 Wooded Bastion
Knight-Captain of Eos is the MVP here because he makes the deck behave in a manner akin to turbo-fog. His built in permanent acceleration is just so sexy in the deck. It’s important to note that this isn’t an infinite recursion version of the deck. Nucklavee is a very clunky combo piece and your win condition doesn’t rely on big mana. The plan is to cast warp between 1 and 3 times so that your board hopelessly outclasses your opponent’s. At some stage you’ll be able to alpha strike with a bunch of soldiers beefed up with Captain of the Watch. My results so far suggest a good game (though not overwhelmingly so) against most forms of creature agro. Unfortunately there are several bad matchups including all permission decks, elfball and time-sieve. Also, Anathemancer is just not your friend!
Conclusion
This is a deck I heartily recommend to offbeat magic players. You’re not going to improve your rating piloting it every week. You will, however, win lots of fans for playing an exceedingly interesting and fun deck featuring unexpected twists and interactions. It also looks like it may have a bright future once Lorwyn rotates from Standard. A warning though; because of the nature of the card there is a lot of capacity for unsportsmanlike abuse of it. I’ve heard tell of people slowly pile-shuffling for each resolution of the spell causing their opponents to concede in frustration. I cannot emphasize enough that the deck is all about fun both in playing the deck and designing and fine tuning it. Thanks for reading and I hope that I’ve warped you world!
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