“Hexproof is a gateway drug to counterspells, Matt. JUST SAY NO.”
—Hunter “Rolex” Slaton
“Bogle.dec is the correct name. GW Auras is what people call it who are guilty about playing it.”
—Sean Morse
Watching Reid Duke pilot his version of “Bogle.dec” to the finals of the Magic World Championship was invigorating. I’m a Reid Duke fan. He’s a close second to Brian Kibler in my personal pantheon of awesome Magic gods. I’d never play Bogle, no way. It’s not interactive. It’s kind of blue. I do envy anyone who gets to draw more cards and Duke drew cards, tons of cards, every game. But no, I couldn’t. The deck doesn’t relate to me or my interests. Or wait, what’s this?
Slippery Bogle’s creature type is beast! We’re all good. The Magic gods have shined their glory upon me. I certainly could play with a beast, I’ve been doing it since I re-started playing Magic. I bought as much of the deck as I could at Twenty Sided and the rest from TCG Player (as I always do). They came in on Monday and I assembled the deck after work. It looked like this:
Bogle.dec
| Creatures (13) 4 Slippery Bogle 4 Gladecover Scout 4 Kor Spiritdancer 1 Dryad Arbor Spells (27) 3 Unflinching Courage 4 Ethereal Armor 4 Daybreak Coronet 4 Hyena Umbra 4 Spider Umbra 4 Keen Sense 4 Rancor | Lands (20) 3 Misty Rainforest 3 Verdant Catacombs 4 Razorverge Thicket 1 Wooded Bastion 4 Horizon Canopy 4 Temple Garden 1 Forest Sideboard (15) 2 Rest in Peace 1 Grafdigger’s Cage 3 Stony Silence 2 Dismember 4 Leyline of Sanctity 2 Path to Exile 1 Suppression Field |
Kadar and I were subs in a basketball game at seven. When our horrifying defeat concluded (DEFENSE WINS GAMES, MAN! PLAY DEFENSE!!!) I raced home to fire up MTGO and get some reps in with Bogle.dec so I didn’t fuck up at TNM. Things like this happened:
I got to draw so many cards. I got to make a beast into a 19/17 with lifelink, trample, vigilance, and first strike. I got to fetch with a Misty Rainforest and grab a Dryad Arbor to save my Bogle from an edict effect. Sometimes I mulled to three and scooped really early. Sometimes I had no creatures in my hand ever. Sometimes people played Runed Halo naming whichever creature was suited up (and then played it again when I dropped another creature of a different variety and named that card, too). Once a player cast Hibernation on me. HIBERNATION!!!
Slaughtering Tron was pretty fun, though.
Cut back to real life. Kadar searched up the one Keen Sense I forgot to order from our huge box of cards we’ve achieved over the years of casually drafting with our buds. I walked to the store and sleeved up the last piece.
Seth was back at Twenty Sided (which was undergoing expansion). He’d been away for a bit doing god knows what. He asked if I wanted to play and I said yes after an initial no way (I didn’t want the secret of my deck choice to get out). Seth was playing mono white Martyr Proc. His goal was to gain a gillion life. My goal was to gain a gillion life and do a gillion damage. I beat him two games in a row then pairings were called.
Round One vs. Seth’s Martyr Proc
Only minutes ago I had slaughtered his Elspeth. She still lay on the ground, bloodied by Super Bogle, giving off none of her usual radiance. But we’re here to play Magic and play we must.
Game one Seth scooped super early with me not at a very high life total and him with seemingly better board presence. My Bogle was about to get Daybreak Coronet upgrades installed so it was probably OK to scoop though I don’t think he knew that, I think he wanted to go to round two and grab some help from his sideboard.
Game two I mulliganned to five and kept a no creature hand. Kor Spiritdancer showed up turn two. I played her and hoped Seth had boarded out his Path to Exiles. Whatever Bogle Repellent™ Seth had in his board failed to show up and eventually I drew 1000 cards and had a suited up Spiritdancer and Bogle in play. We shook hands. I tried to chat him up a bit but my giddiness was met with Seth’s utter frustration, a spot I’ve been in a hundred times before. He suggested I buy him a soda and I asked him what kind. “Any kind, whatever, just go away. I don’t want to talk to you anymore,” he said. Orlando chose orange cream soda for Seth. He drank it down fast saying “OH! I haven’t had this kind before!” I guess we all won that match a little bit.
Round Two vs. Richard’s UWR
Richard smiled when I played turn one Slippery Bogle. Game one was over quickly.
“Let’s see if I even have sideboard for your deck,” he said.
Game two got pretty tricky. He wrathed, killing my Spiritdancer but I had a Bogle to play and suit up with Rancor and some held-back auras (expecting a wrath). Richard Sphinx’d for a couple and I attacked him down to one. He had a bunch of lands, a Celestial Colonnade, Tectonic Edge, and Engineered Explosives on one. I fetched up a Dryad Arbor with Misty Rainforest at the end of his turn and attacked on my turn. After tons of thinking Richard said, “It has trample so it doesn’t even matter,” and extended his hand.
At one point in our match Richard had blocked a suited up Bogle with Snapcaster Mage and I let my Bogle die. The guy playing infect to my left had been watching and reminded us that Bogle had first strike from Ethereal Armor and back on the board went Bogle. Worth noting here that it’s good to read one’s cards.
Round Three vs. Blake’s BUG deck (I think it was BUG)
Game one I trampled over two wimpy Tarmogoyfs with an enormous Bogle. “I don’t know if I have anything to sideboard against you,” said Blake. He left out his Qasali Pridemages (they could’ve helped a bunch). We discussed this after game three. Game two Blake beat me, my only game loss of the day, on the back of me drawing all eight of my creatures and only a couple enchantments. The turn after I died to Voice of Resurgence Jumped and Giant Growthed by Elspeth, I would’ve drawn a Rancor. For something like eight turns I could’ve drawn any enchantment and been ok. I drew none and lost.
With ten minutes left in the round I kept a Gladecover Scout, Rancor, Rancor, Ethereal Armor, Razorverge Thicket, Misty Rainforest, Spider Umbra. Through some seriously incredible top decks I was able to put Blake at two life on my turn three. He scooped’em up.
Mike Simpson agreed to split with me in the finals. I needed to get to Jen’s to dump a dead mouse from her electric mouse trap. Nothing frightens Jen like a dead mouse.
I have mixed feelings about playing this deck. It has zero to no interactivity but you have a blast playing it. You play with mediocre cards that become amazing when piled together on a piddly ‘lil creature. I felt like a dick playing a deck with zero interactivity and I won a lot of games and had a great time. To say that winning isn’t tied to having a blast would be incorrect.
The deck is clear cut. You need a dude in your hand. You need a couple of auras and a land or two. The rest is up for grabs. You can’t keep no land hands. You can keep one land hands most of the time. It’s really hard to keep no creature hands but sometimes on mulls to five you do anyway and it works out. You are more or less playing a different game than your opponent unless you stall out, don’t get card draw going, or some other catastrophic thing happens. It’s like storm or twin or any of the other decks that don’t really give a warm dook about what you’re doing. It’s kind of awesome.
Will I play it again next week? Probably.
Thanks for reading!
Much love,
Matt
MTGO: The_Obliterator