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Innovations – There Is Always A Greater Power: Nassif in Kyoto

Read Patrick Chapin every week... at StarCityGames.com!
Monday, March 2nd – After months of testing for Pro Tour: Kyoto, Patrick Chapin hit a travel setback and was unable to attend. Nevertheless, his testing paid off in spades, with the deck he co-created going all the way to the top at the hands of Yellow Hat Gabriel Nassif. Today, we have the inside scoop on the PT-winning deck… enjoy!

After 24 hours of flying, I arrived in Osaka a couple of days before the Pro Tour, preparing to meet up with my teammates Manuel Bucher, Mark Herberholz, Gabriel Nassif, Guillaume Wafo-Tapa, Olivier Ruel, and Antoine Ruel. To say that I was excited would be quite the understatement.

I had dedicated the better part of the last two months to mastering the Standard format, as I have redoubled my efforts to play Magic at the very highest level. Working with many of the absolute best players in the world allowed me to not only continue to push the envelope regarding deck design, but also allowed me to spend some serious time focusing on my technical play.

Manuel Bucher and I have been enjoying a fair amount of success on the deckbuilding side for some time now, but there comes a time when you want to spend a little extra focus working on your own technical play, rather than relying on champion teammates to carry the banner for you.

For this tournament, I spent the majority of my time working on Five-Color Control, as Manuel and I had already built a futuristic version at Worlds that was successful for us in the Standard portion, and Conflux very clearly helped Five-Color more than many other archetypes.

This is not to say that I only tested Five-Color, as I did spend a lot of time experimenting with various White decks, various Red decks, Faeries, and even developing a new archetype (Four-Color Hierarch). For a little while in testing, it looked like Faeries was just going to be too difficult to overcome this time. However, ManuelB, Wafo-Tapa, and I persevered, and found a way to make it work with the help of Gabriel Nassif and Mark Herberholz.

After (literally) thousands of games of testing, I arrived in Osaka feeling more alive than ever. I looked forward to a fun-filled Pro Tour weekend, a chance to spend a week in Japan with my girlfriend after the tournament was over, and more than anything, a chance to show the world the product of the last two months of my life. Not only did I spend the time and energy necessary to build what I think is the best deck in Standard, but I also drafted 25 times, including playing many extra games of Limited, trying to sharpen my forty-card game back to the point where it was when I was making Top 8 at Limited Pro Tours.

I had not been this comfortable with a Limited format in a long time, and I was looking forward to drafting Five-Color and Esper decks, which I find to be a lot of fun. The long and short of it is that I was ready. I missed half of 2008 due to my inability to travel for part of the year. Now that I am without the same restrictions, 2009 is poised to be my year.

Entering Japan, there is an immigration form that everyone has to fill out. It turns out that, due to a situation from my past, I was denied entry by immigration. It was certainly frustrating that the immigration process is simply “they look at the form, and if you circle yes to anything, you are denied, and there is no way for them to know if you just lie and circle no.”

I had been told that I would have no problems, and just told the truth about everything. I firmly believe that the policy of honesty with regards to matters like this is important, but unfortunately, immigration decided that I needed to apply for a special type of visa to be able to enter the country. This process takes a couple of months.

Obviously, it is no one’s fault but my own for not making sure of the laws in Japan, but there is no question it is frustrating, as I had been specifically told by an authority that I would have no problems. If I had only known, I would have applied for the visa three months ago.

I want to thank Wizards of the Coast, my mother, my girlfriend, Mike Long, Brian David-Marshall, Bob and Courtney Maher, Steve Menendian, Pete Hoefling, Kenji Tsumura, Shuhei Nakamura, Ron Foster, and all of the other great people who had my back while I tried to sort out this matter. It means a lot to me to have the support of so many wonderful people.

I am not in any legal trouble, as I have done nothing wrong, but nevertheless, I was deported and was forced to root for my squad from the sidelines. I had done all I could to prepare them. Now, all I could do was watch.

Fortunately, watching Gabriel Nassif is a fine place to be.

This article was written before the Top 8 had played out, but Gabriel Nassif is the Pro Tour: Kyoto Champion, defeating Luis Scott-Vargas in the finals. Congratulations Gab, I am proud of you. I knew you could do it. I will have more to say on the Top 8 next week, including Gab’s unbelievably epic quarterfinal topdeck of a lifetime. Hopefully, there will never be any confusion again as to the reasoning for Cruel Ultimatum.

Gabriel ended up running the Five-Color build that Manuel Bucher, Guillaume Wafo-tapa, and I had been working on for so long.


As you can see, the similarities to ManuelB, Wafo, and my world’s deck are obvious. Basically, we evolved the deck to take advantage of new weapons provided by Conflux. I will spare some of the commentary on many traditional Five-Color card choices, as most of you are long-time readers of mine, and if you are new, you can simply search through my article archive over the past six months.

The core of the deck revolves around the engine of 4 Cryptic Command, 4 Mulldrifter, and 4 Esper Charm. It is this card advantage and power that fuel the rest of the deck. Cryptic Command is by far the best card in Standard (remember when many claimed that Profane Command would prove to be the best Command?!). Mulldrifter is not just a two-for-one… it gives you the option to pay two more mana to “buy” you a third card (the flier). Esper Charm has proven itself over Courier’s Capsule on account of its ability to destroy Glorious Anthem, which is especially relevant now that we rely on Volcanic Fallout.

Speaking of Volcanic Fallout, it is one of the Conflux cards that has really made an impact. We essentially replaced the Pyroclasms and the Cloudthreshers with Fallouts, as it does everything both do and better, with the exception of killing Figure of Destiny on the draw.

The key to Volcanic Fallout is that it is not just a sweeper that is effective against Bitterblossom and Spectral Procession (and Mutavault and Siege-gang and Planeswalkers…), but that it also has tremendous synergy with our walls.

One of the major advantages we have held over most other Five-Color players is our disciplined adherence to Plumeveil over such favorites as Rhox War Monk and Kitchen Finks. By now, most of you know my thoughts on Plumeveil versus Rhox War Monk, but in summary, think of it like this. Usually, a 4/4 for three mana has to have a drawback, like Ashenmoor Gouger, but since Plumeveil is Blue, it just gets 3 great special abilities.

Flying is vital to combating Faeries, Flash is huge for upping our ability to interact on our opponent’s turn, and Defender is crucial to not dying to a Sower of Temptation stealing our guy. The War Monk only has one ability, is much harder to cast (we like Sunken Ruins and Cascade Bluffs), and is only a 3/4, which is exactly the wrong size, since it can’t fight Figure, Gouger, Demigod, Mistbind Clique, a Broodmate Dragon, or the best three-drop in the format (Plumeveil).

Plumeveil is also especially strong with another new Conflux card we utilize, Wall of Reverence. Wall of Reverence is the perfect size for fighting everything from Spectral Procession to Bitterblossom, Demigod to Mistbind Clique, Reveillark to Vendilion Clique. When combined with Plumeveil or Broodmate Dragon, it can often lock a Red deck out of the game very quickly. At the same time, it is perfectly equipped for buying you incredible amounts of time against R/W, Faeries, and various White decks. So many people plan on just beating you down low enough to Banefire you out. Wall of Reverence trumps this entire line of play.

Aside from how strong Wall of Reverence and Plumeveil are on their own, they also create a situation where we tie up the board and create huge stalemates. This means that opponents are not at liberty to only play out just one or two creatures to beat our sweepers, as they can against most control decks.

Instead, they must often commit four or five creatures to the board just to be able to make any progress at all. This magnifies the power of Volcanic Fallout many times. Do you realize that a single Wall of Reverence and a single Volcanic Fallout win the race against Bitterblossom, not to mention buying you many, many turns to draw extra cards and drop gaming winning threats line Broodmate Dragon and Cruel Ultimatum?

Wrath of God doesn’t work particularly well with our Walls, and in fact we replaced them with… more walls. The Wraths have been moved to the sideboard to help with White Weenie, B/W Tokens, and Noble Hierarch, but maindeck they simply aren’t vital. This means that Glorious Anthem is particularly important to fight, as it can make a lot of creatures difficult for us to deal with, as we rely on Volcanic Fallout to do our sweeping in game 1.

The next thing I would like to note is that we, once again, ran with 4 Broken Ambitions. If you still have Cloudthreshers, it may be reasonable to cut back on the Ambitions, since they are mostly for Faeries. However, we decided that Cloudthresher just wasn’t needed any more, as Fallout does the work it used to do. Still, to ensure we had the percentage we wanted, we kept the Broken Ambitions, which are primarily used for stopping Mistbind Clique, Cryptic Command, Jace Beleren, and Glen Elendra Archmage. People who rely on Remove Soul and/or Negate are often stuck with the wrong one in hand.

Broken Ambitions is also great against R/W, as they have expensive threats like Reveillark, Ajani Vengeant, and Ranger of Eos, and Spectral Procession. By the way, it is interesting to me that R/W was so popular at the Pro Tour. It is being heralded as the deck to beat, but I firmly believe with tight play, one can pick it apart.

I have come to believe that I am probably biased, as it is a very good match-up for our Five-Color deck. It is a very reasonable choice against the rest of the field, as so in a world where people are not building their Five-Color decks correctly, I can see why people would like it. Still, now that people have access to this Five-Color deck, I would assume the R/W deck will suffer a little. It just cannot beat a Broodmate Dragon, and we have answers to all their threats, none of which are particularly scary beyond the usual Figure of Destiny and Ajani Vengeant.

One of the ways we gained percentage here is with Celestial Purge. Celestial Purge is an interesting “color hoser” as it actually kills cards in almost every deck out there. It is at its best against R/W and Blightning, killing the best threats in the former, and literally everything in the latter.

It is an important tool against B/W, as it helps limited Bitterblossom and Sculler. Against Swans, it kills Seismic Assault. Against Faeries, it serves as a bad Wispmare, but is at least useful. Against four-Color Hierarch, it kills Doran and Sculler. Against Five-Color, it limits key spoilers like Ajani Vengeant, Vexing Shusher, Liliana Vess, and our new favorite Scepter of Fugue.

Personally, I like using a third Celestial Purge in the sideboard, but our match-ups against Red and White decks are so good as a result of the Dragons and Walls, it is merely a metagame call to prey on people’s love of the R/W deck.

We are down to 1 Terror main, as the Celestial Purge helps cover the Figure of Destiny, plus Faeries had dropped in popularity. If you expect a lot of Faeries in your area, a second is reasonable but not vital. I would like to note that I do still like Path to Exile, and as this Top 8 demonstrates, it is a very powerful card. We simply moved away from it in our Five-Color deck, as we believed that most people would adjust their decks away from Path-to-Exile-fragile creatures, such as Demigod, Thornling, and Chameleon Colossus.

Path to Exile is much like Kitchen Finks. It is so good, it is sometimes too good to play. Elves in Extended is the same.

Gabriel (and Heezy) championed the Pithing Needle in testing, saying it had been great for them at Worlds. We tried it, and it turned out to be excellent. It is especially nice at stopping Ajani Vengeant, Jace Beleren, Ajani Goldmane, and Seismic Assault, but is also nice against Figure of Destiny, Forge[/author]-Tender”]Burrenton [author name="Forge"]Forge[/author]-Tender, Mutavault, Vexing Shusher, Windbrisk Heights, Treetop Village, and so on. It is just nice to have more cheap answers, especially when they are so versatile.

Finally, we come to the game-winning bombs. Some people have misunderstood the purpose of these game-winning bombs, attempting to play a more “pure” control strategy. What we discovered was that Broodmate Dragon and Cruel Ultimatum are just so good that you can tap out to play them, as nothing your opponent does is going to be as good as what you just did.

Remember when Flores showed us that you could just keep tapping out for Keigas, since nothing your opponent could do would match it? It is the same type of situation. It is pretty simple: Broodmate Dragon beats everybody foolish enough to not play 4 Cryptic Commands. As Wafo-tapa refers to him, he is the savior. Just think about it, he is an 8/8 flier with a great special ability instead of a drawback (and for only 6 mana). When have you ever gotten those stats?

Cruel Ultimatum? You already know the story there. I think it is fair to say that time has proven that Cruel Ultimatum is the correct way to build Five-Color Control. Cruel Ultimatum is the Future? Well, that Future is Now. Two Pro Tours in a row with Cruel Ultimatum in the Five-Color deck that made Top 8. Remind me again on what the builds look like that don’t use it…?

… Oh, that’s right, we call those players B/W or R/W advocates. I know if I played B/W or R/W, I can see why I would be categorically against helping anyone interested in playing Five-Color Control.

The most interesting aspect of the manabase is how the Sunken Ruins and Exotic Orchards ensure the turn 2 Scepter of Fugue. In playtesting, we found that 27 land was too much and 26 not enough. We debated how to solve this problem, considering a Courier’s Capsule mix that would allow us to play 26/60, or perhaps an Oona’s Grace package that would allow us to play 27/60, but in the end Gab just ran out of time and decided to run the 27/61, preferring to give up 1.7% chance of drawing Cryptic Command rather than risk building the deck in a way that he was unsure of.

The sideboard continues to feature Conflux. Scepter of Fugue is our new anti-control card, and when you can slow the game down against Faeries, the Scepter can be a devastating trump, ripping the countermagic from their hand and allowing you to eventually force through a Cruel Ultimatum. It beats Faeries for the same reason that Jace helps them win.

Speaking of fighting Faeries, another new weapon we brought is Wydwen, the Biting Gale. This card has been around for years, but has never really seen much tournament play. We decided to run it on account of its ability to allow us to fight the Faeries players on their turn. If they counter it, we untap and drop a bomb. If they don’t, they are in big trouble as they can’t kill it with removal.

It is also sweet against Five-Color, as it is essentially unkillable and with Flash. Finally, on top of everything, it is a great way to fight people’s Planeswalkers. When they tap out to drop a Planeswalker, you can Flash Wydwen down during their endstep, untap, attack, and now have mana to protect her.

The Wispmare and Remove Soul are also useful against Faeries, but are primarily used in other match-ups. The Wispmare helps keep Glorious Anthem off the table against B/W. Remove Soul is an ideal counter for fighting Reveillark (as well as Spellstutter Sprite).

Negate is a classic sideboard staple for the Five-Color deck, helping combat controlling decks. Personally, I wouldn’t have minded the miser’s Swerve, but when in comes to countering Cruel Ultimatum, Planeswalkers, and Head Games, Negate is the choice.

Infest and Wrath allow you to add more sweepers that are not vulnerable to the same things as Fallout. Expect Forge-Tenders? Infest is clutch. Creatures too big to Fallout? Wrath is the solution.

There you have it. Five-Color Control, still good. Once again, the key to Five-Color is finding the right way to adapt your build to combat whatever new threats the format presents. It is not easy to make Five-Color work, but the rewards are great.

Congratulations Gabriel. Nine Top 8s? That ties him with Kai, second only to Finkel on all-time Top 8s. Unbelievable. It is great to see the greatest deckbuilder of all time, one of the top 3 players the game has ever seen, still at it. Anyone who doesn’t vote for Gab for the Hall of Fame deserves to lose their voting privileges.

I would also like to congratulate Team RIW teammate Ari Lax on making Top 16 at his first Pro Tour. He is an up and comer that you should keep your eye on.

Finally, before I take off, I would like to give props to Brian Robinson, playing in his first Pro Tour and reaching Top 8. He added Gaddock Teeg and Kitchen Finks to the Four-Color Hierarch deck I came up with, which turned out to be the perfect to carry him to a 7-1 record in the swiss for the Constructed portion of the event.


Thanks again to everyone who came out and showed support when I was dealing with a particularly bad beat. I have bounced back from worse, and I will be in full effect next week for Grand Prix: Chicago, and hopefully Grand Prix: Hanover. I have actually traveled internationally about half a dozen times in the past seven months, so I don’t anticipate any difficulties. However, I will be especially diligent in the future to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again.

See you guys next week!

Patrick Chapin
“The Innovator”