100 Card Singleton Collector’s Checklist

Rec-Sur

100cs Rec-Sur

Creatures (35)
Other Spells (29)
Lands (36)
Sideboard (15)
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100cs RecSur Click the arrow to download the above deck in .txt format


This thing was a little tricky make into a consensus deck, because there are a lot of ways to make a deck out of this archetype’s namesakes (Recurring Nightmare and Survival of the Fittest). Some versions splash Blue, and others are more like a Rock deck with Rec-Sur and a couple of reanimation spells thrown in. I chose a straight Green-Black-White version with lots of creatures and a bunch of graveyard tricks, because that has been pretty successful. There’s a lot of variety in what people run in their last 10-15 slots, so check out some other lists if you want to get into the Rec-Sur business. I personally think it’s the all-around toughest deck in the format, but there aren’t any overwhelming Top 8 numbers to back me up on that one.

Scapeshift

100cs Scapeshift

Creatures (32)
Other Spells (30)
Lands (38)
Sideboard (15)
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100cs Scapeshift Click the arrow to download the above deck in .txt format


The Scapeshift + Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle combo can theoretically go into any deck that has Green and Red. In practice, people always run Blue to help find the Scapeshift and Black for a few assorted good cards, especially Diabolic Intent. Some people splash White, which I suppose isn’t very difficult in a deck with so much land searching, but I don’t see the necessity of any of the White cards people run. Interestingly, the only White card people seem to agree on is Reveillark, which is solid but also puzzling. So I left out the White. When you put everyone’s deck lists together, you get something pretty similar to platipus10′s build, which you can read about in his article. It is basically a creature deck that can make use of the big mana that also wins with the Scapeshift combo some of the time.

UGB

100cs UGB

Creatures (17)
Other Spells (46)
Lands (37)
Sideboard (15)
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100cs UGB Click the arrow to download the above deck in .txt format


Lundstrom has taken this deck to several Top 8′s. His builds run about 15 creatures alongside a bunch of Control cards, and you could argue that they are Control decks more so than Mid-Range decks. That’s not the only way to build UGB; Tarmotog / Naoto seems to like running those decks with a bunch of creatures and a bunch of counter magic. But Lundstrom’s style has been in the Top 8, so that’s what is reflected in my consensus build. Keep in mind that I only have 2 or 3 different players’ lists to look at for a few of these archetypes. That means that the “consensus” deck is more like a copy of one or two peoples’ decks. That’s fine, too, but it doesn’t have the same effect of weeding out odd cards. For example, if lots of people were playing UGB, I wonder if most of them would also play Sorin Markov? It seems like a weird card. But I’m pretty certain that Lundstrom is a smarter builder than I am, so I went along and put it in there.

Blue-White Control

100cs UW

Creatures (9)
Other Spells (51)
Lands (40)
Sideboard (15)
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100cs UW Click the arrow to download the above deck in .txt format


Most people who play UW splash Black for Mind Twist and Mystical Teachings, so I included that in the consensus list. Most run about 8 or 10 creatures, and I followed that trend as well. About half run the Thopter-Foundry and Painter-Stone combos along with Tezzeret, and I went along with that minus the Grindstone combo.

Although it isn’t as popular as the typical UW+B builds, especially lately, there’s a good anti-Red / Armageddon version of UW Control that Travis designed and wrote about here. It runs more creatures and several cards that work with your Armageddons.

Blue-Black Control

100cs UB

Creatures (11)
Other Spells (50)
Lands (39)
Sideboard (15)
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100cs UB Click the arrow to download the above deck in .txt format


UB Control is less popular than UW Control. While Black adds some creature removal and discard, White adds better removal and can splash for Mind Twist. White also adds some other good stuff like Moat, Enlightened Tutor, and Sphere of Law. UB Control can, however, be built to counter more of the opponent’s spells than UW. Its win conditions are cheaper to cast, and it has a slightly lower mana curve overall, making it easier to keep the mana open for counter magic.

Mono-Blue Control

100cs Mono Blue Click the arrow to download the above deck in .txt format


Most of the MUC deck lists are from superchevalier, so my consensus deck is heavily influenced by a single deck builder. His lists run about 11 creatures and 16 counters, so I kept mine close to that. No artifact combos are to be found in this list. It runs quite a few cards for dealing with creatures. This deck gets to run Back to Basics in the maindeck, thanks to 24 basic Islands plus four fetch lands that only find islands. None of the Top 8 builds ran Underground Sea or Mystical Teachings, interestingly, but that could be a cost issue.

The 100 Card Singleton Collector’s Checklist

With the decks out of the way, here are all of the cards on the checklist, sorted by color.

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100 Card Singleton Collector's Guide - By Color

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  1. Now this is a gosh dang smarticle!!! Sure it took me, Zwick, three apes, and a horse that knows algebra to publish, but still…

  2. This is amazing! Thank you so much. I’ve been trying to see if I could feasible get into the format for the PEs but had no idea where to start.

  3. This article is really a must read for anyone who plays Magic Online — 100CS is easily my favorite format and anything that can be done to increase its overall health and popularity is a good thing. I’ll refer everyone I know who becomes interested in the format to this article as their jump-off point. Thanks!

  4. Yowza, what a long ass article of decklists. I still think it’s a pretty expensive format, and not completely to my tastes, but I have recently dipped into standard singleton so who knows, that might just be a step along the way to 100CS

  5. Very awesome representation of the collector’s decklist. Definitely going to book mark this on my Netscape 2.0.

  6. Been wanting something like this for awhile. Thanks to all the contributors!

  7. Thanks for the positive feedback, guys.

    @Travis and Zwick: thanks for your hard work! I love the way you’ve presented my pet project.

  8. I’ve never played 100CS, but this article makes me want to. In all seriousness, this is the best article I’ve read on 100CS, great job!

  9. I for one found the list extremely helpful. I already play quite a bit of 100cs, but its nice to double check and grab cards that I missed to complete my collection. There are so many possibilities in this format which is why it’s so much fun. All of those who are questioning trying it do it! I’ll be more than happy to test with you. Great article Zimbardo! I think it’s probably your best so far that I’ve read.

  10. I like your explain about the costs of decks and the use of cards,i think is a very very nice article,youy explain a lot of things to new players,and show a bunch of curiosities for expert or casuals players.

    Thanks for a great job,and congrats.

  11. A wonderful article.

    Cost is still a bit too high for me, as I am trying to invest in other formats (neo-Extended and Legacy), but at least now one has a far better idea about the requirements of 100CS (both in regards to deckbuilding, metagame and entry cost).

    A+

  12. Fantastic article, really useful for singleton players to avoid having to weed through the chaff. Will you be having regular updates to this every set/block or will this be a one-off? I appreciate the difficulty in having to data mine so much stuff, but a regular series would be fantastic!