I was starting to include some of this information in with my next compilation post on Deep Freeze but it’s probably deserving enough to get its own focus. I’m just going to present the content as originally written in 1997 I think, without comment. Just copying it out into plain text and hopefully helping accessibility for it.
Source for the scans is here.
NEW COMBO PLATTERS!
“Flames of Rath”
Spicy to the extreme, with direct damage and wild creatures. When this baby hits the table, take cover!
“The Slivers”
Hand-picked from the shores of Rath. The more you order, the more flavorful these critters get. Each sliver shares its abilities with the others.
“The Swarm”
This combo has more meat than your opponent can chew. The tough, little creatures just keep coming. Not recommended for weak stomachs. “
“Deep Freeze”
Filled with delicious tricks designed to lock down the competition. Frosty and fun, “Deep Freeze” will chill your opponent to the bone.
These preconstructed decks are served to go. Each has the rarity mix of a standard Magic deck, with the added flavor of a built-in theme and a R&D design. Sample the combos of the Tempest setting, and then throw your own spice into the mix. With the right garnish, you can serve up a deck that hits the spot – every time.
Available October ’97
Customer Service (206) 624-0933 http://www.wizards.com
STRAIGHT FROM THE START
by Melody Alder
A deck without a theme is like a car without a steering wheel. Sure, it’ll work, but it may not go where you want it to. All of the best Magic decks have themes, and the most effective themes include both a strategy to win and a strategy to control the game. Once you’re familiar with some of the most common deck strategies, it’ll be easier to build your own effective deck.
Built to last
These four preconstructed decks from the Tempest expansion were built by the guys who make Magic. Each deck has an effective theme that combines a strategy to win the game with a strategy to control the game. Let s look at the themes of each of the four Tempest decks and explore why they work.
THE SLIVERS
Theme: Stop your opponents creatures and spells long enough to get your Sliver horde out for the kill.
Winning Strategies: This deck wins by damaging its opponent with creatures—Slivers to be exact. Slivers work best when they work together, so you want to have several Slivers in play at the same time. For instance. Winged Sliver gives flying to all Slivers, and Clot Sliver allows all Slivers to regenerate. If you play your cards right, you can have a flying, regenerating Sliver horde faster than your opponent can say, “Not another Sliver!”
Controlling Strategies: If you don’t want to die while building your forces, you need to get your Slivers out quickly. In theory, you should be able to put at least one creature from this deck in play every turn, starting with the second turn.
This deck also employs card drawing so you have a constant supply of creatures or counterspells. For example, the deck only has one Whispers of the Muse (an instant that lets you draw a card) because that spell has a buyback of five mana. This means you can pay an extra 5 when you cast it to put it back in your hand.
So you’ve got your fast creatures, but you also need to control your opponents creatures and spells. This deck has four different counterspells: Power Sink, Spell Blast, Counterspell, and Dismiss—-just enough to keep your opponent at bay. In addition, Ertai’s Meddling delays an opponent’s spell: the more mana you spend, the longer the spell will be in limbo.
If you can’t counterspell all your opponents creatures, you can always get rid of them later. Diabolic Edict, Fevered Convulsions, Dark Banishing, Evincars Justice (buyback for 3), and Extinction do everything from making your opponent sacrifice creatures to destroying them outright. You can also stop your opponent from ever casting spells and creatures by denying him or her cards in the first place. Mindwhip Sliver is a particularly great creature because it has more than one purpose: its a 2/2 creature, and while it’s in play you can pay 2 and sacrifice any Sliver to force your opponent to discard at random. Between the interdependent creature abilities, counterspells, creature removal, and card denial in this deck, your Slivers can really strut their stuff.
FLAMES OF RATH
Theme: Deal lots of quick damage so your opponent stays on the defensive and doesn’t have an opportunity’ to employ his or her own strategy.
Winning Strategies: With eighteen creatures, this deck has a formidable force behind it. Even though it does have several weenie creatures, they’re made more powerful by their special abilities: sacrifice your Mogg Fanatic or tap your Fireslinger to deal 1 point of damage to any creature or player (Fireslinger’s ability’ also deals 1 point of damage to you); Firefly has flying and gains +1/+0 for every red mana you pump into it; and Sandstone Warrior has first strike and is also pumpable with red mana. In addition, the deck has quite a few “fatties” (big creatures), such as Lightning Elemental, Flowstone Giant, and Wild Wurm. And if you want your weenies to be fatties or your fatties to be fatter, you can always enchant them with Tahngarths Rage or Blood Frenzy.
In addition to creatures, the deck has lots of spells that deal direct damage like Searing Touch (buyback for 4), Goblin Bombardment, Kindle, Rolling Thunder, and Lightning Blast, and Furnace of Rath lets you double the damage you deal to a creature or player.
Controlling Strategies: Extremely straightforward, “Flames of Rath” controls the game hy being quick enough in its damage dealing that your opponent is too busy trying to survive to do much else. With two Disenchants to get rid of artifacts and enchantments, plus Squee’s Toy to prevent 1 damage to any creature, the control is pretty solid. Even if you can’t remove your opponents cards as soon as they are played, “Flames of Rath” lays on the damage so quickly that your opponent never gets the chance to recover.
DEEP FREEZE
Theme: “Freeze” your opponent and then send in your virtually unblockable creatures.
Winning Strategies: Almost all the creatures in this deck have a special ability that fits the theme. Between flying, shadow (can only block or be blocked by other creatures with shadow), first strike, and protection from a chosen color, your opponent will have a hard time stopping your creatures.
Controlling Strategies: You don’t want to have to deal with your opponents offense while you’re trying to assemble your troops. Just like in “The Slivers,” this deck uses counterspells to keep your opponents forces at bay. It also has several ways to cycle through your deck so that you’re more likely to draw what you want. For instance, if you need a counterspell, use Dream Cache, the card-drawing ability of Dismiss, or Emmessi Tome.
If your opponent’s nasty cards do make it into play, you can always tap them with Master Decoy’s special ability, or with Puppet Strings. And speaking of controlling your opponent, why not control his or her creatures, too, with Legacy’s Allure? Use Time Ebb to put one of your opponent’s creatures back on top of the library; make it useless by Pacifying it; or quiet it down with Gaseous Form.
Once you’ve countered or “frozen” all your opponent’s harmful cards, your hard-to-block creatures should have no problem getting through.
THE SWARM
Theme: Swarm your opponent with lots of weenie creatures and then increase their power and toughness with other spells and abilities.
Winning Strategies: With a whopping twenty-six creatures, your opponent will have a hard time holding you back, especially considering that Soitari Trooper, Soitari Crusader, Muscle Sliver, and Rootwalla all have ways to increase their power and/or toughness. For instance, the 1/1 Muscle Sliver gives all Slivers +1/+1. Since it’s a Sliver too, it automatically becomes a 2/2 creature, and each additional Muscle Sliver you play gives all of them another +1/+1. With spells like Elvish Fury, which gives a creature +2/+2 and can be bought back for 4, and Overrun, which gives all your creatures +3/+3 and trample, your creature horde is a force to be reckoned with.
Controlling Strategies: “The Swarm” exerts control with creatures: They’re even faster with mana from Skyshroud Elf and the enchantment Aluren, which lets any player play a creature card as an instant without paying its casting cost. The catch? It only works on creatures with a total casting cost of three mana or less. Fortunately, most of your creatures qualify and with any luck most of your opponents creatures won’t. You can get to your creatures faster with Recycle, which makes you skip your draw phase but lets you draw a card whenever you play a card. During discard, you have to choose and discard all but two cards, but this shouldn’t hurt too much as you can most likely east anything in your hand.
In addition, Anoint prevents damage to your creatures while Xeedlestorm deals 4 damage to each flyer. Pacifism makes a creature useless for combat, and Disenchant is a good defensive card for any deck with white. By the time your opponent is just beginning to build up a strategy; you should be well on your way to a nice, juicy swarm.
ALL TOGETHER NOW
Just remember that when you’re building a deck, it needs a way to win and a way to control. If your deck is tight — if it concentrates on one theme with just a few strategies — it will do a lot better than if it spreads itself too thin.
If loving Melody Alder is wrong, we don’t want to be right.
I typically use italics to add some commentary in my posts, but that last bit was part of the article. Check the scans!
The best thing, I think, is each deck has designer credits! That’s super rad to see. Although given I’m geeky enough to be dedicating a whole blog to precons you know I love all of this.
Beats and Skies 
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