Wurms: If you can't beat 'em, outrun 'em! by Lukas Sanvien 7/27/05

At least once in their Magic career, every player faces one. The dreaded Wurm deck. This deck is evil. Not as evil as the fearsome Sliver deck, which I’ll cover in a later article, but it’s close. New players especially have trouble against this one. Let’s face it. A deck composed of wurms versus a White Weenie? Unless the White is all flying, there really isn’t much that it, or any other basic deck type, can do. However, there is a solution.

THE SETUP

Now, let’s look at the basic setup of a wurm deck. Any good Tournament legal Wurm Pile (as I prefer to call them) will have twenty-four land, a few spells that make opponents sweat like crazy, and wurms. These creatures- in essence very, very big snakes- are notorious for being very large, up to a whopping 9/9 basic strength and toughness. On average, though, they’re usually 6/4 to 6/6, although there are a few that are lower (and even a 1/1!). There are also a few cards that will allow a player to take advantage of various abilities inherent in a wurm. Wurm’s Tooth allows a player to gain a life anytime a player, including themselves, plays a green spell. Many of the wurms are green creatures. Slagwurm Armor actually bases itself in the Magic world, giving the eqipped creature +0/+6, reflecting the strength of wurm scales. Roar of the Wurm allows a player to put a 6/6 wurm creature token into play, along with a FLASHBACK ability allowing the player to play the same spell from the graveyard, then remove the card from the grave. These cards would be enough to make a player sweat. But now remember the strength of the Wurm cards, and give a majority of them TRAMPLE. The creatures are strong right? A deck made up of these fearsome beasties would make even Urza Planeswalker run and hide (more on him later). What are you going to do if you ever face one of these decks?

Simple. You’re going to outrun it.

OUTRUNNING A WURM PILE

Outrun a wurm? But they’re huge, right? Yes. But being huge means they have a huge drawback. Namely, the mana cost.

Take this example:

Rootbreaker Wurm
5GG <-This is your ticket to success!!!
Creature - Wurm
6/6
Trample

The Rootbreaker Wurm is a nasty creature. At 6/6 with trample, this is a perfect example of the archetypical wurm. But just look at the mana cost. At two Green and five Colorless mana, the seven mana cost is a bit tough to get a hold of- especially if you keep it from your opponent.

There are always the giant reset buttons: Armageddon, Wrath of God, and the like. But those are only for extreme emergencies. You’ll want some good, quick cards to throw out in a hurry.

Good example: Blight.

Blight is a nice little one-drop black enchantment card. Play it on one of your opponent’s lands, and it seeps into the card with this handy little trick: if the enchanted land is tapped for mana, destroy it at the end of the turn. You’ve dropped his ability to play the Rootbreaker a little bit.

There’s also this crazy little toy:

Acid Rain
3U
Sorcery
Destroy all Forests.

The U actually stands for Islands (Underwater). Imagine if your opponent had a good eighteen or nineteen forests out, and you play your trump. Well, that leaves him with…five or six Forests to play with. But by that time he’s got some creatures out on the field, and has probably dealt you some damage. Simple.

Hibernation
2U
Instant
Return all green permanents to their owners' hands.

Now, he has nothing on the field, and he’s probably discarding a few cards, since there’s a seven card maximum hand limit.
But what about him? You opponent himself? All that powerful beating has the defense to back it up. How are you going to get around that?

Three ways.

One involves tapping or controlling his creatures, using cards like Twitch, Twiddle (devious when used together), Mystic Restraints, or Freed from the Real to tap, and cards such as Confiscate or Blind with Fury to take control of his creatures.

Second is making him dump cards and destroying his creatures. Black cards such as Dark Banishing and Mind Rot are great cards for this style

Third goes down a dark, Black and Red path.

Direct damage is the way to go.

For example:

Consume Spirit
X1B
Sorcery
Spend only black mana on X.
Consume Spirit deals X damage to target creature or player. You gain X life.

It’s as cheap or expensive as you want to make it. Want to annoy your opponent to no end? Pay one black, one colorless, then three black for the X, and poke him for three damage. Want to make him suffer for even thinking about using a Wurm Pile? Pay the black and colorless, and pay a ton of black to blast him for massive health drain. The best part? All that damage he takes, you get as life.

Also, there are cards such as Yamabushi’s Flame, or Glacial Ray to pound away at your opponent’s health directly. All are relatively cheap to cast, and feel so satisfying to play.

What would be a good deck to play? Black cards are prime for Wurm hunting. Blue and Red make great additions. Here is my current Wurm hunting deck:

Land:
12 Swamp
12 Island

Creatures:
3 Kemuri-Onna- causes an opponent to discard a card when it comes into play.
1 Nekrataal- destroys a nonblack, nonartifact creature, and keeps it from coming back.

Spells:
3 Consume Spirit
1 Waking Nightmare- target player discards 2 cards
1 Coercion- You choose a card from your opponent’s had for them to discard
2 Mind Rot- Same as Waking Nightmare
4 Dark Banishing- Same effect as a Nekrataal, except it’s not a creature
1 Warped Devotion- A personal favorite. If a permanent is returned to a player’s hand, that player discards a card. I use it with Hibernation.
3 Distress- You choose a nonland card for your opponent to discard.
1 Sever Soul- A Dark Banishing with a twist: You gain life equal to its toughness.
1 Reach Through Mists- Draw a card.
1 Unsummon- Return a creature to its owner’s hand
4 Consuming Vortex- Same as above
3 Counsel of the Soratami- Draw two cards
1 Hibernation- return ALL green permanents to their owner’s hands. Use with Warped devotion for discard fun!
2 Boomerang- Return a target permanent to its owner’s hand
1 Eye of Nowhere- Same as above
1 Undo- Return two target creatures to owner’s hand
2 Confiscate- You control enchanted permanent

It’s based around making my opponent have no real chance against the high speed of my deck. Other than Consume Spirit, Kemuri-Onna, and Nekrataal, the cards are all really low casting cost and pretty fast. They focus on bouncing cardsw back into my opponents hand and making him discard his cards.

So find your style, find some cards, and have a blast hunting yourself some Wurms!







I got this off a linl from the WotC boards. what a surprise.

:wha:

Who wrote this? I can't really tell if it's a joke or if they're that stupid. I'm leaning towards joke, though.

ROFLMAO.... too serious to be a joke.

i love this part
The U actually stands for Islands (Underwater).
lol, i do remember playing a wurm deck, but at that point i had gotten the grasp of such things as removal which is all it took to easily beat it

I played a craw wurm deck in the old days.

:nono:

Easy way to find out whether or not it was a joke, where the hell did it come from?

I got it from This Website

Its from a link in someone's sig on the WizO boards.

Unfortunately, that doesn't look like a joke.

If it was a joke they would have mentioned Island.dec. :rolleyes:

there is no way on earth that is not a joke and the fact you people are debating it saddens me.

THAT IS A JOKE!!!!!

*edit*
blight is a 2 drop enchantment

Hmmm... After what Soul Reaver pointed out, I'd have to say this probably is a joke.