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Shandalar

Even though the computer AI plays horrifyingly bad, the Shandalar campaign is fun. While the strongest deck here (not using expansion sets) is probably the mono-blue spoiler-loaden one, this one is very hard to assemble directly, since nearly all the cards have to be retrieved from dungeons, and there are few good blue cards in the common set to cheaply aquire at the beginning. Blue also lacks good creatures in this format. The best way to go is to build some cheap weeny deck, be it black, white or green. The weeny decks have two advantages: 1. your average duel is over very fast, which is quite a boon, given the sheer number of duels you play. 2. the cards are mostly common and easily assembled. Most of the decks of your enemies are slow and die before they know what hit them. While the red burn spells sure look alluring if many opponents have only 10 live at lower levels, in the highest difficulty many have more than 20 live, and there are not many good common weenies in red either. Once you have a strong deck, you go and raid dungeons and raze wizards castles, while solving quests for mana links if opportunity arises, until you have the blue spoiler deck pieced together. Then you go and kill Arkazon. Of the artifacts only the sword and the tome for the four card limit are worthwile, and you cann usually pick them up along the way.

The basic problem in the Shandalar version without expansions is that there are no multilands. And Strip Mines. Multicolour decks tend to lose against monoclour decks with Strip Mine even with multilands, if these have drawbacks. So you have to build monocolor, whic also allows you the inclusion of Mishra's Factory. Here are three possible monocolor weeny decks I used to good success and the base blue spoiler deck. All decks make use of the 1 additional spell per type that is granted by the Tome of Enlightment.

White Weeny

I first decided to build a white weeny, because those are fexible and there are some commons to help you get started like Benalish Hero, Mesa Pegasus, Tundra Wolves and Holy Armor. (I also used to play a white mage in Master of Magic). Later you can demolish all the expensive computer decks with Armageddon, and have Serra Angels to break the standoffs which may seldomly ensue. The concept turned out to work ok, although my deck was a bit short on white mana sources, considering the two geddons and 6 WW spells. Probably it would be better to change one Angel to a plains. You cannot cast them in most games anyway, since the opponent is either dead or you are Geddoning before that. The Spirit Links are pretty useful to put on a Serra Angel in "life loss carries over" dungeons.

Black Weeny

Black weenies in this setup have the problem that their weenies are more expensive and thus slower. So to be fast and get that 1st turn Specter you have to pack Dark Rituals. But if you do, you have not enough room for Mishras Factories. If you put in Rituals and Mishras you cannot use enough basic swamps without losing to many business cards. And you need swamps to consistently get the needed BB, or even B. This is the weekness of the black weenies.

Green Horde

This is the fastest and deadliest of the weeny decks here. Everything is cheap as dirt, very fast, hitting the opponent with mana denial and quick damage. Also it has a very high content of business spells. If he succeeds to stabilize in time, often a single pinging Scryb Sprite can still deliver the death blow. If you put in Grizzly Bears instead of the Archers, which are nearly as good, you do not need a single rare card. So the deck is also fast and easily assembled. I had no problem beating any computer opponent into the ground with this. Against Black you can take in more Dervishes, which tend to win the game all on their own for you. Of course you can speed it up even more with Mox Emerald and Lotus.

Spoiler Base Blue

10 Island                -
1  Mox Emerald           0
1  Mox Sapphire          0
1  Mox Jet               0 
1  Mox Ruby              0
1  Mox Pearl             0

1  Strip Mine            -
1  Black Lotus           0
1  Sol Ring              1
1  Library of Alexandria -

3 Counterspell          UU
1 Power Sink            XU
1 Control Magic        2UU
1 Mahamoti Djinn       4UU
1 Wall of Air          1UU
1 Dancing Scimitar       4
1 Air Elemental        3UU
1 Giant Tortoise        1U

1 Ivory Tower            1
1 Jayemdae Tome          4
1 Mind Twist            XB
1 Demonic Tutor         1B
1 Fireball              XR
1 Disenchant            1W
1 Copy Artifact         1U
1 Regrowth              1G
1 Timetwister           2U
1 Time Walk             1U
1 Ancestral Recall       U

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