Many people play in tournaments of all types. Most of those players play either Type 2, Extended, or Limited. Type 2 Peasant Magic offers a different variation of Type 2.

The rules are simple:
1- 60+ card deck with a 15 card sideboard
2- Only 6 Uncommons total are allowed between Main deck and Sideboard. Timeshifted Time Spiral cards are not allowed.
3- All other Type 2 rules apply

While Type 2 may be a wide open format at this moment, peasant magic is much more limited. There are many good Uncommons in Type 2 you could use such as: Tidings, Moldervine Cloak, Sporesower Thallid, Putrefy, Mortify, Nekrataal, and I could go on for quite a few more. Being limited to only 6 total you are forced to choose what combination of Uncommons you will use. You could play 3 of one Uncommon and 3 of another, or you could play 4 of an Uncommon and 2 of another or some other combination.

Peasant Magic also forces you to look at cards that are not normally played in type 2. Some of these cards include: Guardian of the Guildpact, Ivory Giant, Deathspore Thallid, and many more.

You may have noticed that I've mentioned Thallids above a few different times. This is because I have played in two Type 2 Peasant Magic Tournaments at Flights of Fantasy in Loudenville, New York and I have won both tournaments using a Thallid based deck. I do not feel that my deck is the most powerful Peasant deck but it is a very dependable deck. Here was my first Decklist:

Fungus Attack

Creatures (26):
4 Thoughtpicker Witch
4 Deathspore Thallid
4 Thallid Shell-Dweller
4 Thallid Germinator
4 Penumbra Spider
4 Sporesower Thallid (U)
2 Savage Thallid

Spells (7):
3 Grim Harvest
4 Strength in Numbers

Artifact (4):
4 Golgari Signet

Land (23):
4 Golgari Rot Farm
10 Forest
9 Swamp

Sideboard (15):
4 Aether Web
4 Molder
2 Assassinate
2 Trophy Hunter (U)
1 Elves of Deep Shadow
1 Mortipede
1 Wildsize

I went 4-0, going to game 3 in three of the four rounds. After that tournament I decided to change the deck a bit. Here is what the changes were:

Main Deck:
In: +4 Stinkweed Imp, +1 Svogthos, the Restless Tomb
Out: -4 Golgari Signet, - 1 Forest

Sideboard:
In: +1 Rolling Spoil, +4 Cremate, +2 Martyr of Bones
Out: - 2 Assassinate, -2 Trophy Hunter, -1 Elves of Deep Shadow, -1 Mortipede, -1 Wildsize

The original idea of the deck was to play lots of Fungus creatures making a lot of Saproling tokens and then attack, pumping one up with Strength in Numbers. Another neat trick of the deck was to sacrifice a Penumbra Spider to the Thoughtpicker Witch to always be in control of what my opponent would draw. After sacrificing the Spider I would get a Spider token. I would then get the Spider back from my graveyard with Grim Harvest and repeat. This won me quite a few games.

The main weakness of the deck was Silhana Ledgewalker enchanted with Moldervine Cloak. That was why I decided to add in Stinkweed Imps. Another weakness was vs. The Izzet Combo deck which I will describe later. Cremate allowed me to slow down their combo.

When preparing for Pre-Planar Chaos Type 2 Peasant Magic I weighed my options. The main types of decks that were available were :
1- Peasant Boros since there was still plenty of common burn available such as Volcanic Hammer, Shock, Seal of Fire.

2- White Weenie- With plenty of good Mono White cards such as the Ivory Giant and Guardian of the Guildpact and Faith's Fetters.

3- Izzet Combo- This deck combos off of Rite of Flame, Seething Song, and Empty the Warrens. This deck can also get infinite Mana when there are two Rite of Flames in the Graveyard and one on the Stack with Izzet Guildmage in play. This deck very often gets a turn 1 set of 6 1/1's.

4- Red/ Green Suspend- This uses the Keldon Halberdier and Durkwood Baloth and Rift Bolt. It adds in Silhana Ledgewalker and Moldervine Cloaks.

5- Saproling Deck- This was the choice for me.

6- Various Rogue Decks.

That gave plenty of options of what to play. The deck of choice seemed to be the Izzet Combo deck. That deck consistently was able to bring into play 6 tokens by turn 3 almost every game. With Think Twice, Sleight of Hand, Tidings, and Treasure Trove the deck had plenty ways to draw out the cards needed for the combo. Most decks had a difficult time dealing with 6 1/1's. The Izzet deck could even deal with other Izzet decks by casting Rain of Embers killing all 1/1's. Add in the fact that Muddle the Mixture, Cancel and Rewind are commons this deck seemed like it had access to everything needed.

I chose to play the Fungus deck after building the two. While the Izzet deck could swarm you with 6 1/1's it usually had to empty its hand or come close to it to do so. I had 4 one drops and 8 two drops to use as blockers. And as soon as my Fungus's started reproducing, my army usually got bigger than the Izzet Deck's. Many times I was below 5 life before stabilizing. The key card in the deck is the Grim Harvest. With it, no matter how much removal they have I can still get back key creatures.

The White Weenie deck relied on Veteran Armorer, Ivory Giant, and Guardian of the Guildpact for its main threats. For defense it has Faith's Fetter's, Condemn, Devouring Light. Many decks cannot deal with the Guardian since most of the playable creatures and spells are mono colored. For this reason alone I will add in Shambling Shell for the next Peasant Tournament.

Peasant Boros was another popular choice, playing fast small Goblins and other fast small creature using the plethora of burn spells available to clear the way or to finish the opponent.

Red/ Green Suspend Decks are very difficult to deal with because they can suspend plenty of creatures early on only to have them come into play a few turns later bigger than anything the opponent will have in play. Last tournament I faced a turn one Suspended Durkwood Baloth followed by 2 more Suspended Durkwood Baloth's on turn two. My only saving grace was that I had a Stinkweed Imp in play and was able to dredge it back while my opponent did not draw any red mana all game. The Keldon Halberdiers are difficult to deal with especially when enchanted by Moldervine Cloak.

There are also many Rogue decks you can try to play. I've seen a Black White deck with Martyr of the Sands, Faith's Fetters, Pillory of the Sleepless and various other removal spells. That deck has potential.

With Planar Chaos I now have a new Fungus that gives me what I needed: Card Drawing. But also look forward to seeing Sliver Decks, and who knows what other contraptions people will try. For now have fun trying Type 2 Peasant Magic. And if you are ever in the area, we have our Peasant Magic tournament on the 4th Sunday of every month. If you can't make it, suggest it to your local tournament organizer and feel free to send me any deck ideas you may have from Type 2 Peasant.

Billy Moreau
[email protected]