Dual Brews I - a take on underappreciated cards

First off, an introduction: Welcome to The Dual Brews, a series where we shine a light on Old School Magic: The Gathering cards that never quite made it out of the binder. Along the way, we might uncover a hidden gem—or more likely, just confirm why these cards were forgotten in the first place.

Either way, Bjorn and Johan are up for the challenge. In each episode, they independently brew a “budget” deck (by Old School standards) built around a single, underappreciated card. This means, no power, no excessive expensive cards. 

This episode’s focus: Personal Incarnation.

Among the classic Core Set fatties, White definitely drew the short straw. While Mahamoti Djinn, Lord of the Pit, Shivan Dragon, and Force of Nature evoke both power and nostalgia, Personal Incarnation rarely gets the same recognition—deservedly or not. 

Can Bjorn and Johan craft a deck that brings this oddball avatar into the limelight? A deck that might even win a game or 2 in a tournament? Or will it just confirm that this card just kind of sucks, and deserves its place in, well, the binder. 

Johan’s take on Personal Incarnation

Let’s be honest, Personal Incarnation is one tough nut to crack. Keeping the Swedish Old

School format in mind (i.e., modern Oracle rules apply), let’s examine the current wording of

the card:

{0}: The next 1 damage that would be dealt to this creature this turn is dealt to its owner instead. Only this creature’s owner may activate this ability. When this creature dies, its owner loses half their life, rounded up.

Naturally, the death trigger is something we want to avoid at all costs. Like the activated ability, the life loss and damage redirection apply to the owner of the card, not necessarily the controller. And while Terror is usually seen as the bane of Personal Incarnation, I’d argue that Control Magic is an even worse offender.

VS How to deal with the drawbacks

To mitigate the card’s inherent downsides, we need to prioritize two key things:

1) Instant-speed creature exile or bounce effects

2) Enchantment removal (specifically to deal with Control Magic)

The second requirement is straightforward. Since we're running white, at least three Disenchants are a no-brainer. The first challenge is trickier. Scouring the legal card pool, here’s what I found:

For bounce effects, we’re mostly limited to blue (Unsummon, Boomerang) or the clunky and largely unplayable Obelisk of Undoing. 

Because of budget constraints, I chose to stick with white and colorless solutions. Martyr’s Cry was rejected, since it is ultimately too detrimental to our game plan. That said, Swords to Plowshares is nearly an auto-include in any white-based deck. So, we begin with this core package:

4x Personal Incarnation (well, obviously!)

4x Disenchant

4x Swords to Plowshares

Filling in the slots

Now let’s look at some supporting pieces. Two cards stood out: Safe Haven and Tawnos’s Coffin. These let you reuse powerful "enters the battlefield" effects. In our format and colors, that mostly means Triskelion and Tetravus. They are expensive, but potent. 

To support these heavy hitters, we need affordable mana ramp. Enter: 4x Mana Vault and 4x Fellwar Stone. To offset the life loss from Mana Vault, I’ve included Dust to Dust. Not only can it remove one of our Vaults, but it can also target an opponent’s Su-Chi or similar threats.

Furthermore, to help stabilise against aggressive decks, I added two copies of Spirit Link. And since we’re not running any Arabian Nights cards (due to budget, yes, Library of Alexandria, I’m looking at you), City in a Bottle becomes an essential inclusion.

Rounding out the deck

Serra Angel: the white creature that arguably overshadowed Personal Incarnation itself. 

Balance: a potential equaliser in rough situations.

Maze of Ith: to stall aggro and protect your life total.

 Is This Deck Competitive?

In high-powered tournaments? Not likely. But in budget-restricted or points-based events, this could turn heads. More importantly, will you have fun? Absolutely. Catch your opponents off guard with the raw, unpredictable power of Personal Incarnation and leave them scratching their heads in disbelief.

For full reference, this is the decklist:

As for the sideboard, it’s a meta call, but Karma and Circle of Protection effects are solid, flexible options. 

Bjorn’s take on Personal Incarnation

I've always like brewing with cards you don't see that often, and I like the challenge that Johan proposed, thinking about 2 different takes on a card that you don't see that often. One of the first ones I proposed was personal incarnation, since one almost never sees it on a OS tournament. Maybe that is because it just is not that good. I must admit, mine don't see a lot of play either. But I do have them, and I have played with them. 

The beta obviously has seen a lot of play, though mostly before it came into my possession

Figuring Johan would not use any green, since it is the color he least likes in the game, I decided the deck would be white/green. 4 duals could be considered "budget", but that is already pushing it. So, maximum of 2 colors it was. 

First off, how many incarnations would I play? I would be tempted to say 4, but chances of success with 4 might be a bit dim. So, I decided I would go for 2, as big finishers in a deck. So, I don't want the incarnation to die. Actually, it is a fate I want to avoid at all cost. So, there you have it. 

Avoid Fate is one of those cards that I also am a bit wary of. I kind of like it, though it doesn't do much in many games. In this setup however, it might be just right. When you play it, the most likely responses will be instants. Terror, Swords to plowshares. Double bolt if your opponent does not understand how it works. Or control magic, which would also be bad. Either way, Avoid Fate might just work. 

Obviously, since we're deeply invested in white, we're going to use the good cards like Disenchants and Swords to plowshares to give the deck a fighting chance. Also, we need stuff to have it not die, so why not a Safe Haven and a Sword of the Ages. 

Thinking of how to use a big creature in white, I decided I wanted to go for an Armageddon deck, since that would be the way to winning if you get the incarnation in play. Play it. Counter the instant removal. Wait your opponents turn, play Armageddon, win. Right? 

I would need some ramp to pull that off, so I went for Birds of paradise (if you get 4th edition ones there still kind of affordable) and Fellwar stones. Then I added some Sylvan Libraries and Land Taxes to get to a lot of land and doing some reshuffling. Serra Angels to play before, so those can be destroyed to give the incarnation more of a chance. I had Su-Chi's first, but then decided to go for more budget friendly chronicles Erhnam Djinns, who basically have the same function. Just play them first, let them be killed, then play the Personal Incarnation. 

Since I would not be playing blue and most of my opponents in OS do, I added one main deck Tsunami, and a Wrath of god just in case things get out of hand before I play the incarnation. Also, one Disrupting Scepter. This card can me really annoying but might tempt your opponent to get rid of an elimination spell if he has not seen a lot of creatures, or just force him to if he has just few cards left. If you get to zero cards in hand, than the incarnation is pretty safe. 

A Dust to dust to get rid of those nasty moxes helps to further cripple my opponent when I play Armageddon. And if he has a Su-Chi and a Mox (one of the most seen images in OS games these days), it is also good. If you can use Land tax to your advantage, a Jalum tome might also not be bad. If the game takes longer, the scepter and the Jayemdae Tome are pretty good. 

The end result might look weird, but I think it might have a chance if played correctly and your opponent does not draw too much power. Could this be better? Yes, probably. Will it get you into the top 8? Unlikely. But if you do manage to pull it off and start hitting with the incarnation, it will be very satisfactory! I think I will build this deck and give it a try, maybe coming back with an improved version. Or not, if it feels like it is really bad :) Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the idea! Tell us what you think on magicancients@gmail.com if you want to, or maybe leave a comment. 

To be fair, this would probably be better, but less creative and more predictable. By the time you reach the Incarnation, you would think your opponent is out of removal because he used them all on the other creatures. But you might also be tempted to play the armageddon without the incarnation, and that is sort of defeating the point. 

On an end note: Turns out, Johan did not use blue. Oh well, let's just see what the next one brings. I am sure he will play blue sooner or later :) I've enjoyed this idea, and am already thinking about a new card to start thinking about. 

Jatog cup Leeuwarden

The Jatog cup is a new Oldschool event as a side event to a larger sorcery tournament. Since this was the last weekend of my summer vacation and we were home due to some problems underway, I decided to go there to end on a positive note. It was going to be a small tournament, I heard on the day itself that there were 24 participants, but less actually showed up. To improve on my experimental midrange pile and because I did not have time to make something else, I decided to take that with me. On the day itself we were in the "Troll cave", meaning in the basement of the venue. This was fine by me, being in a large hall with a 100 plus people were not an appealing prospect. When it was time to start the tournament, my first pairing was against Ruben, who was playing a the Deck/Triple S hybrid, meaning he was playing Su-Chi's and Serra's, but with tomes instead of Savannah lions, with a full white removal package, combined with pretty much all the blue restricted cards and of course mind twist and tutor. A pretty hard matchup. There was plenty of removal and blocking in the first game, and it turned out that the removal of my opponent also included wrath of god and main deck city in a bottle, which is of course a big problem with my many colored deck with city of brass and Erhnam Djinns. 

The wrath of god was a bit of a surprise, it did not expect that one, but I suppose it was better then another swords or divine offering. 

Anyway, there was so much removal that was produced, that it was hard for me to get through. 

It was a long game, in which  I was mind twisted at a crucial moment which left me without the removal I had on hand, and that meant I could be taken out by the Su-Chi that my opponent had on hand. To be fair, that was my own fault in a way. The turn before, my opponent cast demonic tutor, and I had timetwister in my hand, but decided not to play it, as it would give him a full hand again, and I was not sure that was the right choice. Or the most interesting choice. So I did not, was mind twisted the turn afterward, and that was that. Well, it took a pretty long time after that actually, but still, the game was decided then and there. Before that, my opponent played armageddon, and I decided to just not play land. I was hoping to play a credible threat with just artifact mana, but that was not doing much. 

Eventually, I went for wheel of fortune, figuring that my deck is more explosive than his, and that would give me an edge here. 

Even though my Su-Chi was destroyed again, in the end, my deck was producing a big creature, and was able to destroy the city in a bottle, that again had showed up, and that was the win in this first, very grindy game. 

The second game, I had to mulligan, and kept a reasonable hand, with 2 lands and a mox, a suchi and tome. He started with and, mox, fellwar stone on turn one. I played a land. He played another land and fellwar stone on turn 2. Unfortunately for me, the removal was also there, so when I played my Su-Chi with the topdecked white mox on my turn 2, it was quickly disenchanted. 

On my turn 3, I played a tome since I had no more threats in hand. On his turn 4, I was mind twisted for everything I had left. 

When I tried Su-Chi (a nice topdeck with which I was happy) it was mana drained after my opponent had played copy artifact on my tome. This was turning a pretty perfect draw for him. 

Did I say almost perfect? Let's make that totally perfect. The mana drain was followed up with a braingeyser, arguably the best card you can have with mana drain. 

After that my tome was destroyed, and I had a small break when I was able to divine offer his tome. 

He compensated that with tutoring for his ancestral recall though. I mean, look at that graveyard and you can see how pretty much perfect that was working out for my opponent. 

Meanwhile, my next 2 draws were 2 lands, while he was playing chaos orb. 

not a credible threat there.. 

After playing copy artifact on his tome, I disenchanted his in hopes of getting back into the game, by that time my opponent was way ahead of me in drawing cards. 

He had a hand full, while I had basically nothing. 

my opponents hand at the time

So before I started drawing enough, he played some more mana and just fireballed me to death. Very unsatisfactory, this :) 

The third game I thought I was off to a pretty good start with a quick timetwister, and I thought that would give me enough advantage with the 2 moxes to get ahead. 

Unfortunately, no such luck, since my opponent again had the perfect destroy and counter and balance everything away, and then played his Solkanar the swamp king. I had 4 turns to draw either one of 3 swords to plowshares, a wrath of god or control magic, balance, abyss or tutor, so one of 8 cards out of 41 cards still in my deck, which I proceeded to not do, so I just died. There were just too many removal cards there and even though I had started quickly, I had no chance to do anything meaningful. 

My next game gave me a bit of a weird opening hand. Well, at least I would be able to play the tutor for something useful, if I drew blue mana I could go for ancestral recall. Or for a pretty lousy mind twist for 3 on turn 2. Also not that great. 

My opponent was however stimulating me to play a lot of cards quick, and not keep any in my hand. Point taken. 

I played turn 1 factory, sol ring and lotus, he followed up with Sylvan library. 

Even though there was a lot of green and red, the deck which turned out to also have landdestruction could not handle my turn 2 Su-Chi, so I was quickly ahead 1-0. My opening hand for the second game was more promising. 

first turn Djinn and then.. timetwister? Maybe?

The first turn Djinn turned out to run into swords to plowshares because there was also white in the deck, which I had not seen in game 1. But, pushing it further, I filled my hand with wheel of fortune and proceeded to draw 2 extra cities, so I had 3 of them in play on turn 5. Fortunately, I also drew another Djinn. The trike only showed up after I had copied my opponents black vise. COP red was also a useful draw, although I had not seen channel fireball in game 1, I still figured there was a chance it was in there. 

Though it seemed like I would win easily, that was not the case. White and red do have a lot of removal, and there was a lot of it. Though not enough to plow trough everything I got using the jalum tome, and eventually, that led to enough damage, or at least I thought so. 

Eventually, I had to call in the help of my Serra Angel to eventually win. 

This took al lot longer than expected.. but I won, so I am not complaining!

This gave me some options to take some pictures on the other tables. 

Titania Mirror :) Rock!

I love seeing thunder spirits flying around

On to the first game of the 3rd round. My opponent was opening with a sol ring, which was a bit too quick for me, so I decided to disenchant that. 

He destroyed my Jalum Tome after that. Well, at least it got some appreciation out of that I guess. Most people don't value that card enough if you ask me. I think it is pretty great, but somehow it does not get the love it should. So if someone thinks it is good enough to destroy, I suppose they at least value it. I got lucky and got an ancestral recall soon after. 

My opponent now showed some more of his deck and tried to slow me down with Abyss. That is quite a hassle for my deck, but not as much as one might think, and my Su-Chi did good work, together with the factory. 

It also meant I got ahead quick enough to win game 1. On to game 2! My next opening hand was not great. I had boarded in some artifact hate figuring I was playing some the deck or robots variant, and I do hate to mulligan a hand with Ancestral recall in it, but I really had not choice. This hand was unplayable. 

There was some back and forth destruction going on, after which my opponent played a Moat. That is kind of a hassle, since most of my creatures don't fly. I decided to see if I could cripple him by playing Armageddon, which I had sideboarded in. 

I managed to get rid of the Moat, after which he played Ancestral recall. Not a great sign that you are getting back on top. I also did not have any threats to play at this time. 

I tried drawing more cards to keep up my advantage. 

The Tome, and a couple of my Su-Chi's, were not meant for a long life, however. They were destroyed or removed from the game. I got some revenge by playing dust to dust on his mox and fellwar stone. 

After I got a Triskelion in play, I thought that might work. No such luck however, because it was met with balance. 

After the balance I had lost 2 of my lands, but I at least had mana artifacts that would have to give me and advantage sooner or later. I tried pushing the limit with Erhnam and Su-Chi, since the balance was gone now. 

The Su-Chi met with even more removal in the form of divine offering, but the Djinn could do some work while my newly found Serra could overcome her summoning sickness. 

After a while that seemed like a really long time, I finally got the feeling I could push it over the edge with these creatures, and I did. I won the next game as well. 

Next up, I played Ivo, and I had no idea what I should expect. My opening hand was far from great, but since my deck has a habit of making a nuisance out of itself by mana screwing me with 27 sources and 2 copy artifacts that are most often used as copies of fellwar stone or moxen, I decided it was good enough to keep and not run the risk of mulligan-ing and then get a hand with one land, an experience I have had more than enough times. 

Ivo was off to a raging quick start. He would have 5 mana on turn 2. Wow. 

He played a factory and a stone calender. Now there is something you do not see every day :) Cool! Then another fellwar stone and a Jayemdae Tome. I was not doing that much with the Maze of Ith that was also in play, so decided to copy the tome and see if I could keep up, but I did not draw that much interesting stuff, while Ivo was drawing into a lot of factories. More than I had, to say the least. 

He topped this off with Titania's song, and I was quickly down 0-1. Feeling I could beat this deck with my artifact destruction main and in the sideboard, I went on to the next game pretty confident I could make it to 1-1. That diminished somewhat after I played first turn factory, and he played land, sol ring, fellwar stone. Damn. 

While he was playing some more fellwar stones, my deck refused to produce any more than the 2 lands I had in my opening hand. Not even after a time walk. 

This went on for a while, while he was playing an Icy and Sylvan Library, I was discarding stuff, waiting for anything useful to happen. Unfortunately, I just sat there mana screwed and lost. 

Feeling a bit let down by my deck, I accepted when Ivo asked if we should play another game. Sure. Why not, plenty of time left. Of course, to rub it in that I had lost a game which should have been possible to win, my deck did produce some mana, which gave me plenty of options to dispatch the artifacts and I won pretty convincingly. Unfortunately, that did not count for the match :)

On to the last match, my opening hand was not great, but I decided to keep it anyway, being scared of drawing something worse than 2 cities. The Sylvan and the fellwar stone made this hand decent enough to gave my deck a chance, so w  went for it. 

Later on, when my factory was destroyed, I was happy I had copied my fellwar stone. 

Because that gave me an option to play my Su-Chi even though my other city was also destroyed, and I was mind twisted to top that off. 

Being mind twisted doesn't exactly bring the best out in me, so I was pretty content hammering at my opponent with Su-Chi's after a timetwister had refilled my hand, even with the maze of ith on the other side. 

I just went for it and even managed to get an extra Djinn out after. The Nether void strategy was not really working since I had the advantage, and then Nether Void just kinda sucks. I know. I have tried making that card work for years, and I never managed to get a stable, well performing build that was consistent. It would always just kinda suck on about 1 in 3 to 4 games, doing nothing interesting while I was being hammered. This felt the same way, but then the other way around.  

I won the first game after that, in the second game I had to mulligan to 5, keeping this, just praying that my opponent would not destroy my lands before I got to play the timetwister. 

Turns out, he could do even worse, playing first turn Juzam Djinn. If I had a swords to plowshares there, that would have been a nice 2 for one, but no such luck. So I would just have to hope for the best. 

The timetwister produced nothing interesting to fix the situation. Even a library of Alexandria did not help, because there was nothing to stop the Djinn, even though I had boarded in the Abyss next to my swords to plowshares. 

 

So, I just lost and felt really dumb about not drawing into any removal there. But hey, just because it is in your deck, it doesn't mean it is going to show up :) that is part of the randomness of a cardgame, and this was a prime example. So, onto game 3. If I had had a tundra instead of a plains or a factory, this would have been a fine hand. 

But, randomness being randomness, I did not draw a blue land, and just went into fuck this mode and played the wheel. Good thing I did, because I would not have drawn any lands for the next 7 turns. 

The next turn was another no-show on land, so I decided to use the lotus for blue mana and play the ancestral recall. That gave me an option to play a land (Library, another non color land) but at least I had kept 2 blue in my mana pool, and that gave me the option to this, which was pretty spectacular. And random. Did I mention random? This game really felt like there was no playing skill involved, only random stuff happening. 

Even though my copied Su-Chi was dispatched off, I went on a rampage with the remaining Su-Chi and 2 factories, and the game was over quickly, leaving me at 3-2 in the swiss. 

Even though it felt like undeserving of a top 8, I managed to get in at the 8th place, having to play the Triple S like contraption again. I opened with Library of Alexandria, and got only one card off it, because my opponent had city in a bottle again. Of course you do :) That left open only the aggressive road, which I went for playing the favorite land-mox-fellwar stone, hoping to go for it from there. 

My Su-Chi was mana drained though, and I then my deck decided it was a good time to taunt me with 3 Erhnam Djinns in my hand, but no a single green mana to play them. 

Even by the time I had drawn into enough mana to play Su-Chi and Serra Angel, I still had no green mana. I was of course met with wrath of god then. I am not sure if playing the Serra was the correct play, but since I had seen so many swords to plowshares in the game earlier in the day, I just wanted to keep pressure on the board, and quickly, because my opponent had played a tome with his mana drain mana. 

The green mana only came after I was mind twisted, which I used to play Sylvan Library. That gave me an option to pay some life, trying to keep up with the tome. I was able to disenchant it, then keep attacking with the Su-Chi and a factory, somehow miraculously winning even with this massive color screw I had been dealt. 

I felt I should have a chance for the second game because of the library of Alexandria in my opening hand. But, you guessed it, my opponent had a bunch of restricted stuff again on turn one, and destroyed the library with City in a bottle. 

God, I hate this card for so many reasons

Which meant I would have to try to keep up the onslaughtof mana production on the other side, to see if I could do something meaningful. 

I was able to squeeze out a Su-Chi, before being mindtwisted again, after my opponent had already played his Ancestral recall. This guy really had a talent for drawing mind twist in most games, and drawing it early. But then again, being really talented at drawing a lot of power is what makes you win in OS games, so if you're got at that, it's only logical that you're in a top 8. 

The mind twist did cost my balance, dust to dust and disenchant, so that was bad, and it also meant there were no awnsers for the Su-Chi and the Serra he played, after which I drew 2 lands, so doing nothing, so losing. 

The 3rd game my opponent opened with Library of Alexandria. I had kept mind twist in my opening hand, so played it for 4 on turn 2, but somehow I was not able to follow through on that. Turns out, he had 2 swords to plowshares left in his hand, and after that my deck did nothing for a couple of turns. 

Creepy but true, that also meant I did not follow through while his hand was filling up, and the library started working again. I was able to put some pressure with a Su-Chi and a Mishra's factory, but did not dare playing the trike also, because of the balance and wrath of god that could still follow. 

Turns out, mind twist is a really shitty card when you're thinking strategy like that. Because I was mind twisted again, and my trike, divine offering and disenchant were gone after that, and my opponent still had a working Library of Alexandria. 

After trying to keep in the game with a pretty huge disadvantage in cards, I had to try to keep in the game by playing timetwister. 

After which I was promptly mind twisted for my whole hand. Well yeah, why not. Turns out, this game was only about library and mind twist in the end, the other cards did not really matter. The advantage of both was simply too much to handle. 

After the swiss we went for a quick bite before the top 8, and ate with a small group at a local italian street food joint. The pizza and paste was great there, and all the while we were talking OS. 

So, at the end of the day, there are the finals. It was Koen against Ruben. But participants were a bit shaky at the end, especially Koen since he has a 3 month old baby, so I imagine he does not get a lot of sleep. Both noticed during and after the game they had made some pretty suboptimal plays or total misplays during the game. The game was interesting to watch, and the spectators raised their eyebrows more than once. But that is what you get after a day of gaming, you get tired. Or tense, for being in a final, in case of Ruben. Either way, it is understandable you're not at your best then. 

Turns out, Ruben just kept going with early mind twists, taking most of Koen his hand on the first game with the help of 3 moxen. Oh, and did I mention he also had Library of Alexandria again?

In a very weird move, he then played balance just to get rid of Atog, discarding 2 Serra Angels in the process. That was definitely one of the eyebrow moments. 

In the end, that play cost him the game, when Koen could play ancestral recall off a tutor, and then continue hammering Ruben with factories. 

The second game, Ruben had a very early COP: red, after which a really weird exchange of cards was played, in which Koen in the end, after playing 4 lightnings that were all prevented, won the second game as well. 

Koen, winner of the first Jatog cup!

As always, the crowd of OS players was great, it is so nice to play old cardboard against you guys. Hope to see you all next time! Thanks to you all and especially to the organization. You're the best. See you soon!