Near the end of July Wizards of the Coast had an article up discussing this years ´´Auction of the People´´ Format. The restriction this year was that you had to build a deck with at least one card starting with each letter of the alphabet. This guaranteed that you would use a minimum of 26 different cards. For those of you who do not know what the ´´Auction of the People´´ is, it is a tournament that pits 16 of the worlds best Magic players against each other (part of the Magic Invitational) using decks that the general Magic population has created using some restriction. In the past restrictions have included, having to use cards that had the same word on them, such as wizard, or island walk, Choosing a letter of the alphabet and picking only cards that started with that letter. I decided this year to give this a try. This years format would prove to be very challenging but was kept wide open because you were allowed to use any card that is legal in Legacy. Decks do not have to be overly powerful, just fun to play and original. My deck is below:

´´Miracle Whip´´

1 Armageddon
1 Brine Elemental
1 Confiscate
1 Debtor's Knell
1 Exhaustion
1 Govern the Guildless
1 Ith, High Arcanist
1 Jotun Grunt
1 Keiga, The Tide Star
1 Lashknife Barrier
1 Meloku the Clouded Mirror
1 Opposition
4 Propaganda
1 Quicksilver Dragon
2 Rishadan Brigand
4 Rishadan Cutpurse
4 Rishadan Footpad
1 Soratami Mirror-Mage
1 Upheaval
1 Vesuvan Shapeshifter
4 Windborn Muse
1 Xanthic Statue
1 Yosei the Morning Star

Land:
4 Flagstones of Trokair
4 Hallowed Fountain
4 Nimbus Maze
4 Rishadan Port
4 Tundra
4 Zoetic Cavern

Idea of deck:
*Keep your opponent from attacking you, to do this you have Propaganda and Windborn Muse. They both force your opponent to tap mana every time they want to attack you. This slows their deck down and also stops you from being overrun by decks that make lots of tokens.

*The Rishadan Creatures are used to cut down on permanents your opponent has in play effectively forcing them to either lose creatures or lands most of the time.
[Editor's note: According to one of the rules of the Auction of the People, having more than one Rishadan creature makes this deck ineligible, but the article is still cool. Here's the rule:
“The deck will have 1-4 copies of 26 unique cards (not counting basic lands). Each card's English name must begin with a different letter of the alphabet. So you will have to include one card beginning with A, one with B, one with C, and so on until Z.” Here there are 3 cards that start with R. But as I said, it's still cool.]

*Armageddon with Soratami Mirror-Mage and either the Propaganda or Windborn Muse on the board stops all attacks on you.

*Brine Elemental along with Vesuvan Shapeshifter helps slow down your opponent as well.

*Confiscate will let you steal their best permanent.

*Debtor's Knell allows for you to recover key creatures after they die or are discarded or possibly your opponent's creatures.

*Exhaustion will usually buy you an extra turn to get cards in play.

*Govern the Guildless lets you gain control of another one of your opponent's creatures.

*Ith, High Arcanist stops your opponent's biggest threat.

*Jotun Grunt will let you get your silver bullet cards back into your deck after use.

*Keiga, The Tide Star will either beat your opponent down or eventually give you their best creature. With Vesuvan Shapeshifter in play you get your opponent's two best creatures.

*Lashknife Barrier will draw you an extra card and makes it harder to kill your creatures.

*Meloku the Clouded Mirror when in play while casting Armageddon will guarantee you will have lands to play for quite a few turns.

*Opposition helps you control the board and pairs really well with Meloku tokens.

*Quicksilver Dragon is the best option for the ´´Q´´ Slot and fits in nicely as it will come in on turn three as a morph and then when your opponent targets it you unmorph it and change the target to one of your opponent's creatures.

*Upheaval is a good reset button.

*Xanthic Statue may not fit in well with a deck with Armageddon but the ´´X´´ options were extremely limited.

*Yosei the Morning Star helps slow down your opponent as well.

*As for lands Hallowed Fountain, Nimbus Maze, and Tundra were obvious choices because they will always give you the color you need.

*Rishadan Port will help you control man lands and help you get the most use from your Rishadan creatures.

*Flagstones of Trokair will help you recover from Armageddon and help you thin your deck out.

*Zoetic Cavern is the secret weapon for the deck. You play it as a morph then Armageddon then unmorph and you have a big mana advantage.

The end date for deck submissions is August 8th [Editor's note: My bad, I'm a little slow getting this one posted] so hopefully my deck will be one of the few chosen and I will let all of you hear about it. I welcome all your comments on the deck along with any suggestions.

As a side note to anyone who reads my articles: I do not have time to go online and read Magic articles on other sites, so anytime I post a deck idea or card interaction they are my own thoughts. If they are posted on other sites then it just means that other people have thought them. I do not copy ideas from people or websites and if you ask anyone I have ever played Magic against they will all tell you I am a good player who uses crappy cards or weak cards and still manage to find fun ways to win with them.

Billy Moreau
[email protected]