Guttersnipe.dec

This deck was a bit of a joke deck thrown together for a laugh by a mate of mine. After it had impressively dispatched the other decks kicking about it was clear Guttersnipe was not such a joke after all. This is a very odd deck as it is part combo, part control and part agro. The prsmise is pretty simple, deal some free damage with any dorks you might have sparingly using removal to get it through and stay alive. Then find and cast either Guttersnipe or his weaker substitute Gelectrode and combo off for the win. The combo is an engine comprised of the afore mentioned dorks and then lots of free or cheap cards to trigger them while either cantripping or dealing yet more damage. If you are playing against this deck Guttersnipe is a must kill on or counter on sight, if they have any cards in hand and 3 to 4 mana up you are probably dead. The damage output of this deck always comes as a surprise. One game I recall I was against this and playing elves. I had over ten life and over twelve toughness on the board ready to block and was feeling as safe as you liked mistakenly playing as if I were facing red deck wins. When I passed the turn all he had was 5 lands, a Gelectrode and an Electromancer. They proceeded to untap, lay a Guttersnipe and kill not just me but also my entire team just because he could... This deck style has now been done three times as it is really fun and new, each time with subtle changes and this list is an averaging of the three to proceed it and not one that has actually been played.

25 Spells

Lava Dart
Gitaxian Probe
Preordain
Gut Shot

Grim Lavamancer
Goblin Guide
Delver of Secrets
Stromkirk Noble

Vapour Snag
Lightning Bolt
Chain Lightning
Faithless Looting

Phantasmal Bear
Firebolt
Ancestral Visions
Burst Lightning

Fire / Ice
Snapcaster Mage
Goblin Electromancer
Incinerate

Think Twice
Searing Spear

Guttersnipe
Gelectrode

Fireblast

15 Lands

Steam Vents
Volcanic Island
Scalding Tarn
Shivan Reef

Shelldock Isle
Faerie Conclave
Cascade Bluffs
Sulphur Falls

Barbarian Ring
Island
5 Mountains









There are very few threats in the deck as you need to pack a high count of instants and sorceries and so one of the biggest weaknesses of the deck is doing nothing in the early game. This means your three drop combo dorks are much more precious and have to do a lot more work. It also means you are more likely to draw your dorks later on when they are of least use. The other big drawback of this deck is that it is based around a card that is hard to find and play and vulnerable if you do. You simply don't have the gas to completely burn someone out unless you have Guttersnipe support or have managed to apply good pressure with your few dorks.


The best cards in the deck are Lava Dart and Gitaxian Probe as they are cheap and either cantrip or a second cast almost freely available. These are the kinds of cards you want to be following your Guttersnipe and Gelectrode. The rest of the deck is basically just weaker versions of Probe and Dart. I tried a version greedily using Gush and Fireblast but frequently didn't have two islands (even with a well tailored mana base) to return. The weakest cards in this deck is probably Goblin Electromancer who doesn't reduce that many spells in cost and tends not to deal much damage either. Snapcaster is also not at his best in this deck as the extra two mana to recast a spell is very restrictive and the 2/1 body left behind is hardly exciting. Think Twice is very weak without the Electromancer however as it is very expensive for a card that does less than Gitaxian Probe per cast. Ancestral Visions is one of the the best things you could hope for on turn one however later on in the game it is a bad do nothing draw. Having not played the deck enough it might transpire that Frantic Search is more the kind of draw you want after Probes and Preordains rather than the riskier Think Twice and Ancestral Visions. The Faithless Looting is of course outstanding in this deck and lets you get away with packing a few riskier cards while also providing lots of fuel for your combo engines.


Despite his impressive performance in this kind of deck I can't bring myself to give Guttersnipe an A cube slot as he is so so narrow. A pure storm combo deck could be built around him but I can't see how that is in any way an improvement for any of those deck styles. This deck is very nearly tier 1, probably a 1.5 and is well worth playing for its entertainment value if nothing else. For almost any metagame I can imagine you would be better off with either a storm deck, a counter-burn control deck or red deck wins which is what this deck is trying to be a compilation of. Perhaps someone will optimise the build and have a tier one deck but I am not that hopeful. Relying on one card in a deck wanting to use redundancy in order to win is a bit of a fools quest, at least fools have the most fun!