Judge's Deck: Replacement Effects

Ariel at Wizardden.com bringing something new today. Many judges enjoy using their rules knowledge to the fullest when deck building and Judge's Deck is a series on just that. This wont be a regular weekly series, but from time to time I'll give you a glimpse into my deck building shenanigans. Today we look at how to abuse the interactions of multiple replacement effects, specifically prevention effects.

616.1. If two or more replacement and/or prevention effects are attempting to modify the way an event affects an object or player, the affected object’s controller (or its owner if it has no controller) or the affected player chooses one to apply, following the steps listed below. If two or more players have to make these choices at the same time, choices are made in APNAP order (see rule 101.4).

This is the specific rule we will be abusing today. Deflecting Palm and Dictate of the Twin Gods both create replacement effects, but when they come together things get real interesting. If you look closely at the rule above you might notice what we are doing. Lets say your opponent fires off an Exquisite Firecraft at your face and you Deflecting Palm it back at them. They take 4 damage plain and simple.  Same situation, this time with Dictate of the Twin Gods in play. You have 4 damage coming at you and as the recipient you get to choose which effect happens first, double damage or prevent the damage. Both will happen but you get to choose the order. If you choose to double if first that means you prevent 8 damage and shoot it back at them, when it hits them it will hit for double again. That's right we just took 4 damage and through it back at them for 16 damage.

Now how do we make a deck out of this? Obviously we are playing red and white, but there is room for another color. Blue has always been my go to, and it gives us Keranos. I also can't pass up the Soulfire Grand Master interaction with Deflecting Palm and Anger of the Gods for that matter.

Land (26)
2x Battlefield Forge
3x Flooded Strand
2x Island
2x Mountain
4x Mystic Monastery
2x Plains
2x Shivan Reef
1x Swiftwater Cliffs
4x Temple of Enlightenment
4x Temple of Epiphany

Creature (5)
1x Keranos, God of Storms
4x Soulfire Grand Master

Other Spells (29)
4x Anger of the Gods
2x Day's Undoing
3x Deflecting Palm
3x Dictate of the Twin Gods
4x Dig Through Time
2x Dissolve
4x End Hostilities
2x Exquisite Firecraft

2x Orbs of Warding

3x Searing Blood

I'm sure this list could still use a fair amount of tuning, but it is a great starting place. The idea is pretty simple, sit back and control the board until you can safely set up the combo. A couple Day's Undoing let you go even longer and give your opponent something to throw back in their face. There are some other cute interactions sprinkled in as well. Anger with Dictate will take out most anything in the format permanently. Orbs will prevent some damage and keep you from just being burnt out with a surprise Crater's Claws. You can choose to not prevent damage with the Orbs when you have Deflecting Palm just by choosing what order to apply the replacement effects.

I'll leave tweaking and sideboarding to you if you'd like to pick this up. There will be more of my crazy ideas here on Wizardden.com in the future. Thank you for reading the first edition of Judge's Deck.