Back a couple of years ago, while I was still playing paper magic at FNM at my local store, I was looking through a friend’s binder.  I came across a rare that I immediately said “WOW!!!”.   That rare was Mass Hysteria.

Now, most people would be saying “What are you crazy, that card blows!!”.  And, to a degree I’m inclined to agree.  But at that moment in time I didn’t realize that it gave my opponent’s creatures Haste as well.  The guy I was trading with immediately informed me that I was trying to trade him for what could be the “jankest rare of all time”.   As we were talking I said that I guarantee I could make a deck based around Mass Hysteria that rocked, and the bet was on. 

                I traded for the play set of Mass Hysteria’s immediately and set about on my quest to turn a crap rare into gold.  I raided the local stores singles box and rare case for cards to accent the Hysteria.  I quickly realized that 4 copies wouldn’t be enough to ensure one hit the table every game, so I needed a backup plan.  I quickly found another cheap Hater maker in Lightning Greaves and with 8 Haste givers I was satisfied.

                The next step was to find creatures that just needed Haste to make them good. I was looking for cards with big P/T that may have downsides that could be eliminated by Haste.  I came away with 7 at the time:

1.       Cosmic Larva – The upkeep wouldn’t matter as we’re swinging as soon as he hits the table and the trample makes sure something sticks on turn 3.

2.       Spark Elemental – 3/1 for R with trample.  Yes he already had haste, but I did need some one-drops.

3.       Desecration Elemental – 8/8 for 3B.  Twice the anticipated P/T for the casting cost.  The downside won’t matter as by the time they may cast a spell he’s done his damage.

4.       Eater of Days – Another huge creature with a downside eradicated by the Haste

5.       Leveler – His downside was a little harder to get around and I only included 2 of this one in the deck.  He would only get cast if I was sure I could win on this turn, or if I knew I had no chance of winning (ya know, just for the fun of removing my library from play..:-))

6.       Dross Crocodile – Not as efficient as some of the others in the deck, but when dropped with Haste served as nearly as scary.

7.       Blind Creeper – A tournament staple in his Heyday that worked to my ends just as well as everyone else’s and filled out my 2 drops nicely.

I filled the rest of the deck out with things to bring my big creatures back from the dead (since I had already ventured into Black.  Favorites of this included cheap cards like Raise Dead and Recover to help with card advantage.  Most of the creatures had 4 each in the deck and with a little bit of color fixing, the deck did fairly well (going usually about 65%-35% and winning usually turns 4-6) and has been one of my most fun decks to date.

When I decided to get back into magic, right as Lowryn was dropping , I decided to go with MTG:O as I already had an account from when the service first launched, and the FNM group at my local shop had waned, plus I play a miniature game on Fridays now as well.  When I logged back in I had no clue what I wanted to play.  I immediately went to the “card shop” and bought the Merfolk Theme deck (because I am such a Merfolk mark), and toyed with that for a week or two.  Eventually, I realized that the Merfolk’s new theme of control and life gain for tapping creatures was fun, but not quite for me.  I’m a huge Johnny/Timmy.  The combo appealed to my Johnny side, but there just wasn’t enough wanton destruction for my Timmy side.

It was at this point I decided to pull out my old Mass Hysteria deck and try to put it back together online.  Realizing quickly that most of the cards in the deck were junk rares and commons I didn’t think it would cost that much, but also wanted to look around and see what new things I could add to the deck to tweak it.  I came away with a few new cards to try out:

1.       Emblem of the Warmind – Yet another Haste giver in color and that seems cheap enough to fit the curve.  Unfortunately, after some play testing I found that this Enchantment didn’t work as well as I was hoping as I had to invest another turn or more mana into a creature to get it swinging out of the hand.

2.       Lavacore Elemental – 5/3 for 2R that has a bad downside of Vanishing 1, this poor guy is screaming “Give me Haste!”, because he gets more vanishing counters when your guys deal damage to an opponent.  I was only too happy to give it to him.

3.       Wretched Anurid – Another 3/3 for 1B, only this one actually stays a 3/3 and only chews up a resource I hardly use, my life.  In he went.

4.       Waning Wurm – 7/6 for 3B with another crappy Vanishing number (2).  Also screaming for Haste, though he gets no extra tokens.  Again, I’m more than happy to oblige.

Some of the creatures from the old deck didn’t make it back in, like the Blind Creeper, Dross Crocodile, and the Eater of Days but only because I found more efficient creatures to take their places.  This time though instead of creature recursion I decided to go with creature destruction to knock away some of those pesky blockers and because less of my creatures had trample.

The deck this time around isn’t as consistent, I think a good part of that has to do with the shuffler, but such is life with a random number generator, but it is still massively fun to swing with big huge creatures so early.  Below is the current deck list I am running:

2x Brain Pry

4x Cosmic Larva

2x Desecration Elemental

2x Leveler

4x Lightning Greaves

4x Mass Hysteria

8x Mountain

2x Nameless Inversion

2x Nights Whisper

4x Shock

4x Spark Elemental

7x Swamp

2x Terramorphic Expanse

2x Terror

4x Vivid Marsh

2x Waning Wurm

3x Wretched Anurid

Sideboard:

4x Rend Flesh

1x Rend Spirit

2x Sensei’s Diving Top

4x Sudden Death

4x Sudden Shock