"The Sound of Silence"

"The Sound of Silence"

Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence

Ok, so The Sound of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel has been living rent free in my brain for a while (The Disturbed cover is totally amazing) and I just needed a deck to run Zone of Silence so I could add the lyrics to the notes.

This deck hopes to achieve a full status-lock on the villain ("silencing" them) by digging for certain cards: Exorcism or Professor X for Confuse, Soul Strike or Mockingbird for Stun, and Upside the Head to add whichever one the villain doesn't already have. Zone of Silence is part of that dig, as discarding any of those cards isn't terrible because there are several ways to get them back (and there's some upside too because you might discard White Fox or Digging Deep).

Find a Side Scheme with One Way or Another and then play Zone of Silenceto clear it. If it's on the top of my deck it's free :) and since I know how much threat I need (or want) to remove, I can discard the appropriate number of cards for it.

Of course I may end up discarding cards I don't WANT to discard, so there are a number of ways to get those cards back:

• Forge tutors Utopia which isn't really here to ready Magik as only 3 of my allies are X-MEN. With so few resources in the deck, it's here as a reusable ! Limbo it to the top of the deck to kick Soul Strike and Soulsword!
• Stepping Disc readies me and gets me a Magik card back on top of my deck
• Vigilante Training shuffles a Justice event back into the deck when I go to Alter-Ego (which could be Zone of Silence of course, although Upside the Head or One Way or Another are better targets)
• Chance Encounter can get an ally back to my hand.
• My Alter-Ego ability can put a SPELL back on top of my deck (which - again - could be Zone of Silence)

There are also a number of ways to dig for what you want with card draw:

• Wolfsbane allows you to consistently draw a card since you can see what that top card is (and if it's White Fox you "may add it to your hand", but you aren't forced to)
• Cypher should also consistently draw you a card
• One Way or Another draws 3 for the low price of finding a side scheme which you want anyway
• Spiritual Meditation is a classic Mystic spell: Draw 2, then discard 1 from your hand.
• You'll get to draw an extra card every turn in Hero form with The Sorcerer Supreme in play.

This deck is pretty similar to my Float like a Fighter Pilot deck, but it can achieve the full lock more consistently since Magik has so many ways to re-use cards.

I'm not too worried about loss of consistency by running 45 cards because this deck draws cards pretty consistently and tutors the ones I've discarded or spent as resources. But I also don't want to go over 45! I'd love to include Lay the Trap and Followed, but I don't want to go to 47 and they don't fit the theme status-locking the villain anyway.

I'm more concerned with keeping Magik's already-low cost curve low. At 45 cards this deck is running at 1.088 resources per card. If you don't care about the whole Zone of Silence thing and are a "40 truther" you can cut White Fox, Zone of Silence and Digging Deep to get to 40, resulting in 1.05 resources per card. But I can't call this deck "The Sound of Silence" if I'm not running Zone of Silence LOL.