I don’t think I’ve made it any secret that Reveillark and I get along pretty well.
I have played with Reveillark since its pre-release debut, and worked on decks with the 4/3 flier at every opportunity. I’ve returned Eternal Witness with Reveillark before. I’ve cycled Complicate, Astral Sliding out Reveillark before. I’ve even brought back Starved Rusalka with Reveillark before. But, despite my best efforts, the most successful Reveillark decks no doubt end up in the traditional U/W shell — and for good reason. The package U/W offers Reveillark decks is outstanding and has a bevy of cards well fit for a clean job.
I started at Extended in one end — Elves, as you saw last week. But, after reading a lot of the feedback on that article and rabidly daydreaming about the format in my extra time, I began to crank the wheels of deck construction in the opposite direction. I processed every idea, every thought, every Standard experiment I had ever tried including Reveillark and, like a recycled paper factory, began churning out a compiled sheet of results.
To be honest, in a week’s worth about of time I still haven’t been through all of my iterations of Reveillark decks I have on the list. I still have a few things I want to try, namely a Reveillark-Mannequin deck, a Reveillark Teachings deck, and, harkening back to the original Reveillark strategies, a Momentary Blink strategy, to name just three.
However, as far as traditional U/W Control list goes, I’ve managed to get quite a few games in against the major decks and hone this one down pretty well. As I think you will be able to tell if you’ve spent any time around Extended, this list has a few — for lack of better phrasing — spicy meatballs in it: this isn’t the same U/W Reveillark deck you might have found hanging out in Magic Online Daily Events.
While Amsterdam is still over a month away, I have articles I want to write lined up for the next few weeks and wanted to get this out before the cooling molten glob of Extended hardens into a defined landscape. Plus, it will be an interesting exercise to revisit the deck closer to the Pro Tour and see how it has shaped up.
Ready? Here we go!
Creatures (18)
Lands (25)
Spells (17)
Like I said, it’s not your average Reveillark deck.
Let’s start with the mana. Unlike some other decks, this is probably going to take a little explaining.
Celestial Colonnade is a great update to this strategy, and the other U/W lands do what they do best. However, what might look a little odd are the Tolaria Wests. What is up with those? Well, there are a few reasons.
First of all, you want access to one Tectonic Edge when you need it, but you can’t risk drawing a lot of them because of messing up your Mystic Gates and heavy color commitments in general.
Can Tolaria West help with that? Check!
Second of all, fairly often you need a way to deal with a single large creature, such as a Tarmogoyf, if you use up all of your removal in other places. Keep in mind you don’t have a mass removal spell in your deck at all, so you have to rely on Path to Exile and Sower of Temptation to help you out.
Can Tolaria West help with that? Check!
Third of all, you need to find exactly one Pact of Negation in your game plan against Faeries (I’ll get to that in a bit), but can’t play too many due to room considerations and being mediocre in multiples.
Can Tolaria West help with that? Check!
In addition to all of that, it also dabbles as a way to find Tormod’s Crypt on the side. Though it’s not like you really need it a lot of the time, it’s good to have one somewhere. It also opens up a lot of maindeck and sideboard options. For example, I even dabbled with a single Ancestral Vision for a while, though I never transmuted for it enough to justify keeping it. Finally, Tolaria West allows you to run a full 29 mana sources without losing a significant amount of spell action. All in all, they’re phenomenal.
Speaking of 29 mana sources, did everybody forget about Mind Stone? I had to check to make sure it hadn’t rotated out of Extended. I haven’t heard a whisper about this card, yet it’s exactly what this deck wants and was very important in old Standard. In fact, I remember pining away for this card like a country singer when I was playing Reveillark in old Standard… And now we can use it! It’s a great card for this deck.
I have seen some people using Knight of the White Orchid, yet I feel that is an inferior option. Yes, you get a 2/2 that comes back with Reveillark, but you have to play cards like Fieldmist Borderpost to optimalize it. Furthermore, Orchid doesn’t always let you accelerate when you want to. Mind Stone is consistently good, doesn’t require WW, can come down on turn two to ramp up to a third turn Sower or Cryptic Command, or on turn 3 with Mana Leak up while ramping to Mulldrifter or Reveillark.
On top of all that, Mind Stone also spirals you upward toward hitting your five- and six-drops on time in the Faeries matchup. Plus, as always, it cycles late game to give you a card. Extended punishes you for getting mana flooded late game, and Mind Stone is just another great tool that allows you to play more mana sources without the risk of getting flooded.
As far as the creatures go, you have your fairly standard mix of Reveillark creatures. Wall of Omens shows as a new addition that conveniently has less than two power and stems the creature tide, but the Mulldrifters and Reveillarks that are staples are there. I would love to have a fourth Sower and Finks maindeck, but there just isn’t room and they aren’t good in every matchup.
What’s more interesting than the creatures in the deck are the creatures that aren’t in the deck. For example, you will note Body Double is nowhere to be found. The reason is that he gets a lot worse when you aren’t Wrathing the board and rebuying your Reveillark that way. You don’t really need the inevitability from him. You can run Mirror Entity with him for the combo, but I never found that necessary at all. This deck wins the long game for the most part already.
Also, you will notice no Vensers. While perhaps a future foray into Reveillark using Momentary Blink will change my perspective, Venser was just not very good in my experience. Everything is fairly cheap and not a lot needs to be bounced. Sower is usually just better, and I couldn’t even max out on those.
I think the spells of the deck mostly make sense. Much like the creatures, what is strangest might be the spells that are absent. For example, there are no Wrath of God effects anywhere in the 75.
Why?
I don’t think Wrath effects are very good in Extended right now.
Sure, there are a few matchups where they are good. Elves, for example. But Faeries? Nope. U/W? Nope. Mono Red? Nope. Living End? Not really. GRU? Not really. Jund? Not really.
Why play this card? Just because decks like this have played it in the past? Because you want a crutch against creatures? Those aren’t good reasons at all!
I would rather play good pinpoint removal and use my countermagic as versatile removal than play Wrath of God right now. Additionally, you already have Porphyry Nodes out of the sideboard, which accomplishes a similar thing while being stronger in more matchups. When a heavy-aggro creature deck like Zoo appears, I’ll be playing some Wraths. But right now, in a midrange format, Wrath just isn’t what you want to be doing.
The sideboard, though, is particularly interesting to the casual viewer. What is going on here? Let me explain.
Unlike Wrath, Porphyry Nodes is actually a very well-positioned card right now. A lot of decks are midrange, which Nodes excels against. You can just leave it in play, and allow it to slowly tick down Kitchen Finks, or knock off a Tarmogoyf and Bloodbraid Elf army. Yes, I realize the incredible unsynergy of Wall of Omens and Porphyry Nodes. I board out Wall in almost every matchup I bring Nodes in — and Nodes more than shines.
Most importantly, though, might be Nodes against the Faeries matchup. As I have discussed in previous articles, where some people have cards versus a deck, I have a plan. And, as most plans involving the Blue and Black winged menace are, this one is intricate.
Here’s the lowdown.
Crovax, Ascendant Hero is a breaker against Faeries. If you land one, you are almost certain to win. The key is getting that to happen. In essence, you turn the game into a subgame. The game no longer becomes a struggle of your 20 life versus their 20 life, but a race to see if they can stop you from landing Crovax. It’s an intricate chess-like battle as one player races their king across the board while a hodgepodge of opposing pieces swoops in toward them. You have to execute it properly.
The first thing you need to do is to buy time to get to six mana and, in doing so, force them to pull the trigger instead of just sitting back on Bitterblossom. Mana Leak can help on the play, and Porphyry Nodes is another key player in that plan because it shuts down their Bitterblossom and continually poses an inevitable problem as the game continues.
Next up: Teferi. Teferi shuts off all of their interaction on your turn. If you can do that, you’re already halfway victorious. Much like Crovax, he will break the game open. The trick, much like Crovax, is sticking one.
Here’s how you’re going to do it. You’re going to overload them.
At the end of their turn, you can run out Teferi. It is likely going to be countered. Then, you can untap and cast Crovax. Depending on how much mana they have available, that might be able to be countered too. A crucial part of this whole procedure is the single Pact of Negation in your deck. If you tutored it up with a Tolaria West a few turns prior, then it will be available to you to counter back.
At this point, you might be worried about having an active Nodes with your Crovax as the only creature. That’s okay. Depending on your situation, you can work around it. There are numerous tricks. You can double Nodes (thus destroying your Nodes) the turn before you go off, or Cryptic Commanding it the turn before you go off, or any number of things all depending on what they have in hand. It’s not hard to get rid of your own Nodes if you need to.
Obviously this is all easier said than done, as they will be throwing Thoughtseizes and Vendilion Cliques at you. If this seems convoluted and hard to pull off against a deck like Faeries, that’s because, well, it is. Here’s the good news: each of those cards is good on their own. Sure, that’s your Plan A. But between Nodes, Teferi, and Crovax, you have enough threats that, if played with the correct amount of craft, you can overload them and stick something extremely dangerous. If you want to stick with Plan A as often as possible, you can try something like Mystical Teachings. For now, I’m happy with it as is.
Now for the other slew of matchups in Extended.
Teferi started at three copies, but worked up to four because there’s nothing you’d rather be doing in control mirrors. Not even Glen Elendra Archmage felt better. He lets you win counter wars, shuts off Ancestral Vision, and end steps your most important threats. I feel like four is right.
The Forge-Tenders are just for Mono Red. If you can fit in a third, go for it, but I don’t think it’s totally necessary and I’d rather have a lot of the cards for other decks, as I expect Mono Red to die down as the weeks move forward.
I think I’ve actually explained everything else by now in some place or another. So, onto the sideboarding plans!
Living End
+4 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir; +1 Tormod’s Crypt
-3 Sower of Temptation, -2 Wall of Omens
I had Meddling Mages in the sideboard, but I found I didn’t even need them. Living End is just that good a matchup. Not only do you have plenty of countermagic, ways to deal with their mediocre creatures, and cards that you are happy bringing back from the graveyard, but Teferi shuts off cascade. If you just hold Teferi until they Cascade, there is little they can do.
Faeries
+4 Porphyry Nodes; +4 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir; +3 Crovax, Ascendant Hero; +1 Kitchen Finks
-4 Wall of Omens, -3 Sower of Temptation, -3 Reveillark, -2 Mulldrifter
Faeries is always the bane of Reveillark. Fortunately, I feel like with this plan it becomes pretty good after sideboarding. You have to change your plan radically as I highlighted above, but the plan works pretty well. Though you bring in a lot of cards, they are good in other matchups as well, so I don’t feel like you’re overloading for the matchup too much.
GRU
+3 Porphyry Nodes; +2 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir,
-3 Sower of Temptation, -1 Pact of Negation, -1 Mind Stone
This is the one matchup where I leave Wall in and bring in Nodes. Wall is almost custom tailored for this matchup, blocking almost all of your opponent’s threats and holding the ground. Just play carefully with your Nodes and it’s worked out fine in my experience.
I like bringing in a couple of Teferis to shut off their countermagic, their cascades, and their Visions at key points of the game. Sower looks good on paper, but he is horrendous against Punishing Fire.
Mono Red
+2 Forge[/author]-Tender”]Burrenton [author name="Forge"]Forge[/author]-Tender, +1 Kitchen Finks
-3 Sower of Temptation
As I always feel is the case against Mono Red, it’s a close matchup in which you can’t afford to give them any margin. Play well and attrition them. If you play against it a lot, then there are a plethora of great sideboard options against them, including more Forge-Tenders and Kor Firewalker.
Elves
+4 Poryphry Nodes; +3 Crovax, Ascendant Hero
-4 Wall of Omens, -2 Kitchen Finks, -1 Pact of Negation
While Nodes is no Wrath, it still stunts their development on turn 1. Mostly, you just want to stall until you can hit Crovax. Nodes helps you out there. Crovax isn’t always a breaker because of Archdruid, but it can be game over sometimes.
U/W
+4 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
-3 Kitchen Finks, -1 Wall of Omens
In the mirror, you have Teferi advantage and mana advantage, both of which are crucial. They will likely have Archmages, but those are a lot more unwieldy than your Teferi. Just don’t let Teferi get Sowered! If that happens, the game ends.
I like to leave Wall of Omens in to block the Knight of the White Orchids and Finks they might leave in, which allows you to take your Finks out.
Merfolk
+4 Porphyry Nodes; +3 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
-4 Wall of Omens, -2 Reveillark, -1 Pact of Negation
Merfolk is not a good matchup, but fortunately Nodes is insane here. Wall is okay against them, but it gets tapped easily and dies to your own Nodes. Unlike Faeries, Crovax isn’t that great because of all of their lords. Teferi is good though, mostly because he lets you drop instant speed creatures and turns off their countermagic.
A lot of people just keep tossing similar Reveillark decks over and over, but there is a lot to be explored out there in Extended that people just haven’t tapped into yet. I believe this deck to just be one of the many fresh options available to players. It’s a ripe time to be paving the way for the Pro Tour on Magic Online, and I think this deck, as well as the Elves deck I discussed last week, are great places to start.
If you have any questions, send me an e-mail at Gavintriesagain at gmail dot com or post in the forums. Additionally, over the last week, I finally moved into the second half of the decade and bought a new Droid X phone. Since I no longer have a good excuse to hold on, I released my grip on the monkey bars of sanity and dropped down further into the internet black hole by signing up for twitter. You can follow me — and probably get a quick response to any questions you have — by tweeting to the (highly imaginative) username GavinVerhey.
Let me know any thoughts you have, and I’ll see you next week!
Gavin Verhey
Rabon on Magic Online, GavinVerhey on Twitter, Lesurgo everywhere else