Dual Brews IV: Fork

 The Dual Brews – Fork

Welcome back 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.

After our last rendition (Fallen Angel, to be found here), this edition will focus on both a piece of cutlery and a Magic card: Fork. 

Johan’s take on Fork

There is no shame in admitting that Fork is so far the toughest nut to crack when we started with Dual Brews. During some research I found that Fork can be used in several (sometimes overlapping) ways:

1. Providing reach by effectively doubling direct damage spells (Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Fireball etc.)

2. Acting as a mono red counterspell. If your spell is getting countered, change the target of your opponent’s counterspell to your Fork.

3. Keeping up with your opponent’s powerful spells by copying them. You are Mind Twisting me? Well Fork you, what if we both have no cards in our hands left anymore? Copying your opponent’s Ancestral Recall feels a bit like budget levelling, if you don’t have the funds for Power9.

4. Neglecting the fact that some game breaking cards are officially restricted in our beloved format. I like another Time Walk, yes! Or what about Forking a Regrowth that allows me to Fork another Time Walk later in the game.

5. Being a complete mad man and copying the also unrestricted (!) Shahrazad.

6. Having access to a spell outside of your colors. In a few instances, I was fully locked by my opponent’s Blood Moon. By targeting my artifact with their Disenchant, I was able to Fork the Blood Moon away, relieving me from my mana prison and turning the corner in the game.

These examples are not ranked in terms of importance or competitive strength, more to illustrate the remarkable versatility of the card.

Having access to an unrestricted Fork was not always the case in Old School. According to my investigation that only happened in May 2016, after being restricted in 1995. Stephen Menendian, Vintage aficionado and Magic historian, summarized the restriction of Fork as follows:

Fork’s restriction was never officially explained, but a Bay Area player named Mark Chalice won a major regional Type I tournament with a combo deck that focused on Fork. His deck was designed to combo out by Forking Time Walks in order to take essentially infinite turns in a row.  Once he was able to Fork the first Time Walk, his Howling Mines and other tactics kicked in such that he could use either Timetwister or recursion effects to continue to take additional turns.

It would be too easy to copy/paste his deck list and call it a day. One of our goals of Dual Brews is to have a surprising and creative angle of deck brewing, whilst maintaining a relatively healthy monetary budget. 

Due to budget constraints, I decided not to include Ancestral Recall and Time Walk. More importantly, I decided to stick with two colors: Red (we still wish to cast Fork) and Black. Besides the versatile Fork, I was triggered by a card that looks fun but is inherently bad. That card is Winds of Change.

To avoid any confusion: this card is objectively underwhelming/bad, since it is a clear example of card disadvantage. If Old School players are willing to spend 12 mana on Jayemdae Tome to achieve one (!) card of card advantage, then Forking Winds of Change must be insane. Yes, but that is exactly what we are going to do anyway.

The savvy reader is waiting for the mention of Underworld Dreams and rightfully so! We will let the opponent draw so many cards that this Black Enchantment will become a true killing machine. Forking a Wheel of Fortune: 14 damage to the face!

The challenging part is making the mana work. If we are not relying on Lotus and Moxen (Ruby and Jet), playing both Fork and Underworld Dreams looks tricky. Whilst we have Dark Rituals at our disposal, the hefty colour requirements show a glaring weakness in our deck. Let’s try to fix it with 4 City of Brass, in the hopes of not getting colour screwed.

Not wanting to put all the eggs in one basket, I decided to include Black Vise, Lightning Bolt and Fireball to have other means of damage dealing.

Wrapping it all up, the following deck was concocted:

For the record, I think 3 Fork is usually a ‘playset’. Can you imagine opening with two Fork in hand? These are likely to be dead draws. However, being a spotlight card warrants a 4-piece inclusion!

Bjorn’s take on Fork

As Johan has helpfully pointed out, Fork can be used in all kinds of versatile ways. I must admit, I am mostly of the “let’s Fork the broken stuff” school when it comes to fork. But I must admit, I was intrigued by the deck Johan mentioned, by Mark Chalice. This piece of writing was not even the reason for it, I played this deck some years ago, and it would be a shame not to mention it. I found it was one of those decks that is either fantastic when it works, but also just very underwhelming when it does not. In the 40 or so games I played with it, it worked more than it did not though, and it was obscene to just keep forking Ancestral Recalls and Time Walks. I also had the pleasure of forking a Mind Twist, which was very satisfying. If you want to give Fork a try, try a deck with lots of power if you can. 

But since the dual brews are supposed to be a bit more budget friendly, I thought I would give another train of thought a try. What if you Fork spells that are normally more expensive? I know Fireball is the obvious target here, so I will not leave it out. Also budget is relative when it comes to OS, of course, so adding some other things that are not that great for your wallet do come along. But, what other spells would be cool to fork? Things like Fissure come to mind, since normally they’re very expensive, but tend to be good. Inferno could also be fun, and it would probably end the game if you fork one. So for a while, I was heading in this direction. It would be nice to survive a giant earthquake or an inferno, so why not sacrifice a Su-Chi to Diamond Valley, gain life, get 4 mana from the Su-Chi and then cast Inferno for only 3 extra mana, then forking it? Also, in this variant, one could tap some mana artifacts, then sacrifice them to Atog, making it much bigger, then cast Inferno or earthquake with the mana and fork it. You could then either attack with the big Atog for the win, supposing there are no more blockers after this. Or sacrifice the Atog to Diamond Valley if you have to to survive.  

I was thinking of blue since Braingeyser is also an obvious prime example to fork, just as recall might be. But this deck felt like blue was a bit out of place without the power, so I was thinking why not add green? Mana Flare and Fork are made for each other in an X-spell deck, so I eventually ended up with this: 

This keeps the idea of sacrificing a Su-Chi but adds some more punch with Stream of Life on the life gaining department, while adding plenty of ways to kill your opponent and his creatures with X-spells. I also added some Ley Druids because they add to the Mana Flare effect, or, after clearing the board, play the Ley Druid to make the Mishra’s factories bigger. I mean, why not? I am not sure this deck would be fast enough to win against Johan’s Fork deck, but I am pretty sure this would be a lot of fun to play, so I am keeping it this way. Though I must admit, it would also be fun to replace the Ley Druids with Jade Statues, since they do not mind either Inferno or Earthquakes and are also not bad when fed to a Diamond Valley. So many ways to experiment :) I hope this idea has made you want to try it out. Let us know how it went if you do!