Source: Inquest #27 (July 1997), pp.40-41; author: Alex Shvartsman

Substitutions:
Underground River or Thawing Glaciers -> Bad River
Mind Warp -> Coercion
Necrosavant -> Gravebane Zombie
Vampiric Tutor -> Necromancy

"One of the most commonly played Type II concepts is back with a vengeance - the Necropotence deck has returned.  At a first glance, Necro does not seem to be such a good card.  You give up your draw phase *and* pay life to draw cards - sound like a bad bargain to you?  Wrong.

Just about every strong player will tell you that games are often won by achieving card advantage.  When you are holding a handful of spells and you opponent's hand is empty, their options are severly limited and it goes a long way towards giving you the win.  Necropotence is one of many ways to achieve card advantage and - in celebration of its return - we present to you the Advantage Deck.

Almost every card in this deck provides you with some kind of additional advantage.  For example, the main goal of the Nekrataal is to 'Terror' one of your opponent's creatures.  In addition to that, you get a 2/1 first striker which is, in effect, a two-for-one card bargain.  Binding Grasp works in a similar way - you take away one of your opponent's creatures and add one to your own force.

Necropotence itself will provide you with a boost of cards in mid-game as long as you've got the life points to spare.  The best possible combination is to play Necro when there is an untapped Nevinyrral's Disk on the table and blow it up after replenishing your hand.

One of the simplest ways to achieve card advantage is by forcing your opponent to discard.  Spells like Stupor let you force away two of your opponent's cards - one of them chosen at random.  Mind Warp is very powerful late in the game and Coercion lets you deal with your opponent's most powerful card before it even hits the table.

Creatures with discard ability are another good tool for the job.  While the much feared Hypnotic Specter has gone out of Type II, his younger brother, the Abyssal Specter, is nothing to sneeze at either.  It lets and opponent choose which card to discard, but the opponent still loses a card, which places the Specter high on the list of threats to be dealt with.

When you have a Mindstab Thrull in play, your opponent better leave a blocker behind or they're in trouble.  By itself, the Thrull is not an overly powerful card (it's pretty easy to kill if it is blocked), but combine it with Nekrataals and Binding Grasps and there is a pretty high chance of it going through unblocked.  Then, there is always Man-o'-War.  It slows your opponent down, forcing them to recast the same creature.  Combined with Mindstab Thrull or Abyssal Specter, it's downright deadly.

Necromancy can be a lot of fun, too.  You can use it to take control of the biggest creature you've killed or discarded.  You can return a Nekrataal or Man-o'-War to play and use their abilities once more.  You can grab a sacrificed Thrull and send it on another suicide run.  Finally, you can do any of these things at an instant speed, keeping an opponent very wary whenever you leave three mana untapped.

The best possible play your opponent can make against your deck is to play cards out of their hand quickly, so that they are not discarded.  If they are able to do so, simply drop a Nevinyrral's Disk and destroy everything on the table.  You still get what you wanted - your opponent's hand is empty and you are ready to play more spells.

After using the above mentioned cards to totally disrupt your opponent's game, beat up on them with a Necrosavant.  This monster is hard to get rid of - if an opponent does manage to kill it off, just sacrifice a Man-o'-War, Nekrataal or another small creature to get it back.  Better yet, sacrifice one of your opponent's creatures you are holding on to with Binding Grasp.

Vampiric Tutor makes it possible to limit the number of high-casting cards that you need to put in your deck, such as Necrosavant and Mind Warp, but still be able to get them when needed.  While the Tutor is anti-productive in terms of card advantage, its benefits more than make up for it.  Being able to grab the right card at the right time is very important and adding one of these to your deck is almost always a good idea.

When playing the Advantage Deck, make sure to pace yourself.  You are not trying to overrun your opponent with speed damage.  Try not to cast a Nekrataal or Man-o'-War when there isn't a very good target for their abilities.  Your goal is to take total control of the game and completely disrupt your opponent's strategy; if that goal is achieved, you can easily finish the game attacking a few times with even just a Man-o'-War.

So to recap today's lesson - card advantage is good.  Necropotence, Necrosavant and Nekrataal all give card advantage.  Cards that begin with Necro (or a derivation thereof) are good.  And you wonder why everyone's always playing those Necro-decks.  So go forth, win games and may the force of the Necro be with you.  Always."