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Going into Pro Tour: Kyoto, I knew I’d have to get lucky to put up a decent result. When I left for the airport on Tuesday, I still didn’t know what I was going to play. My original plan was to play Five-Color Control like most of the other Belgians, but then our deck suddenly started losing to almost everything. We had spent most of our time tweaking our Five-Color Control list, and we were doing fine against most of the field. That was until we updated all our other decks, and all of a sudden we started losing to everything. Vendilion Clique put an end to beating Faeries with Volcanic Fallouts, and 4 Ajani Vengeant and Fulminator Mages from R/W made that matchup pretty bad as well. We couldn’t even beat R/B Blightning anymore. The problem was simple: we had never tried out cards like Wall of Reverence, or a more aggressive build with several Broodmate Dragons. The result was that our deck was fine, but just not what I wanted it to be. Unfortunately, we only realized that our deck was pretty bad in the week before the Pro Tour. It was a bit too late to build a completely new deck so Plan B it was… Blightning Deck Wins.

A lot of people asked me why I would ever want to play Blightning in a field full of Boat Brew and Celestial Purges, but I just felt like this was the safe bet. With only few days left I didn’t feel like I had the time to build a good Faeries deck, and the R/W Boat Brew deck was just not my kind of thing.

Also, in the few games I played against R/W, I found the matchup to be not that bad. If Boat.dec wasn’t running Kitchen Finks maindeck, everything was fine. Of course, when they do run Kitchen Finks and Burrenton Forge-Tender, things get a lot worse, but that was a risk I was willing to take.

These are the 75 I sleeved up on Friday morning:

Blightning Deck Wins Featured by Marijn Lybaert on 2009-03-15 (Standard) As written about in http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/standard/17197_Feature_Article_Blightning_in_Kyoto.html Print this deck!
Maindeck: Creatures 4 Boggart Ram-Gang 4 Figure of Destiny 4 Hellspark Elemental 4 Mogg Fanatic 3 Shambling Remains 2 Stigma Lasher Instants 4 Flame Javelin 4 Incinerate 3 Volcanic Fallout Sorceries 1 Banefire 4 Blightning	Basic Lands 8 Mountain Lands 4 Auntie's Hovel 1 Ghitu Encampment 4 Graven Cairns 2 Reflecting Pool 4 Sulfurous Springs	Sideboard: 3 Dragon's Claw 1 Shambling Remains 2 Everlasting Torment 1 Wild Ricochet 1 Banefire 3 Infest 4 Bitterblossom
Download this deck in Apprentice format!		Download this deck in Magic Online Text format!

Let’s take a look at some of the choices I made:

No Siege-Gang Commander or Demigod of Revenge?
I feel that cards like Siege-Gang or Demigod just don’t fit in a deck like this. The basic idea behind a beatdown deck is that it is faster than the other decks in the format, and that it should punish every slow draw from your opponent. By playing creatures for Five-Color Control and long matchups, you slow your deck down and it also forces you to play 24 or 25 lands. Running only 23 lands makes your deck a lot more consistent, and makes sure you don’t get flooded too often. And even if you get flooded, there is a chance that you’ll be able to spend your mana on a bigger Figure of Destiny, or unearth some of your guys.

Incinerate/ Magma Spray or Tarfire?
In the Deck Tech video with Mark Herberholz and his Blightning deck, he stated that he wanted Tarfire over Incinerate cause of the one mana difference. While of course the one mana sometimes makes a difference, I believe that one extra damage is just much more important. BDW is a deck where you want to curve out with turn 1 guy, turn 2 guy, turn 3 guy, turns 4 and5 burn you or your creatures. On turns 4 or 5, the one mana shouldn’t really matter anymore, while that one damage sometimes will. I was playing Magma Spray in one of the earlier versions because it was just so good against Kitchen Finks and Sower of Temptation, but by adding Volcanic Fallout to the main deck I felt like I had enough ways to kill smaller creatures. Also, Magma Spray doesn’t go to the head, which is pretty annoying in the late game.

Shambling Remains?
Mark’s argument for not playing Shambling Remains was that with Flame Javelin, Volcanic Fallout, Boggart Ram-Gang, and Blightning you have enough three-drops that you don’t need more. I don’t really know what matchups he has been playing, but I’ve never felt the need to cast my Fallout or Javelin on turn 3. In situations in which you have to do that, things must be looking really bad already, and you’re probably not going to win anyway. Also, I like a turn 5 Blightning to empty my opponent’s hand, rather than casting it on turn 3. What I believe to be a real three-drop is a creature that puts pressure on your opponent, and that is exactly what Shambling Remains does.

Hellspark Elemental or Goblin Outlander?
I was a big fan of Goblin Outlander in the early stages of our testing (see my previous article), but when I decided to run main deck Volcanic Fallout I didn’t want a lot of creatures that died to it. I agree that Goblin Outlander is better Versus RW and BW, but in these matchups you also want to be casting Volcanic Fallout, and that just doesn’t match. Running seven creatures with Unearth is also the key against decks with Broken Ambitions (Five-Color Control and Faeries). At the PT, Pascal Vieren played Jan Doise in round 3, and he did 11 damage thanks to Jan’s double Broken Ambitions. Of course, this scenario is a bit extreme, but it does happen from time to time. Remember to put any non-unearth card to the bottom of your deck if you lose the clash. Your chances of hitting a Remains or a Hellspark increase by 25% if you do so.

Stigma Lasher?
In testing I was losing to Five-Color Control only because of one card: Cruel Ultimatum. Against RW, a lot of the games were decided by Ajani Vengeant. I wanted a way to stop these two cards, and Stigma Lasher was the perfect answer. Of course, the Lasher dies to Volcanic Fallout as well, but once you’ve hit with him it doesn’t matter that much anymore. Against decks with Chameleon Colossus / Rhox War Monk / Wilt-Leaf Liege, it’s also nice that you can shrink those guys so that you can kill them with Fallout in the later turns.

Banefire?
Banefire is the sort of card I never want to draw in multiples, but one is always fine. What happens if you draw more than one? You’ll probably either be short on lands to make it big enough, or you’ll not have enough early pressure to make them profitable. Running one seemed perfect to steal some games, and a second one in the board is fine against the slower decks with counters.

The sideboard:

Bitterblossom?
Bitterblossom is the best card you have against Faeries and Five-Color Control. Pascal Vieren chose to run Vithian Stinger over them, but I hate running cards in my sideboard that are only good against one deck.

Dragon’s Claw?
Probably the worst card in my sideboard because, you know, it’s only good in the mirror. Unfortunately, I couldn’t come up with anything better (Quenchable Fire was a close second, heh). Running Loxodon Warhammer looks too slow to me, and even if you connect there’s a big chance your guy will just get burned away.

Infest?
Infest forces you to run Reflecting Pool, which is actually quite annoying. However, your matchups against RW and Kithkin are so miserable that you just need them. Your only chance against both these decks post-board is to cast some 3+ toughness guys (Ram-Gang, Remains, or a big Figure) in the first few turns, following it up with an Infest before killing them within 2/3 turns. After boarding, Fallout gets a lot worse because of Burrenton Forge-Tender, and people often make the mistake by overextending once they’ve got one Burrenton, only to get hit by an Infest.

Some sideboarding plans:

Versus Boat Brew::
- 1 Banefire, -3 Incinerate
+ 3 Infest, +1 Shambling Remains

Your plan is to go big and hope for a game-winning Infest or Volcanic Fallout. Incinerate doesn’t really fit into that plan. While Shambling Remains is in fact pretty bad in this matchup, I believe you have to go all-in on the Infest/Fallout plan, so you just want as many creatures that survive those two cards. If your opponent is also running Kitchen Finks, it’s fine to sideboard Everlasting Torment.

Sideboarding against BW should be quite similar, except for the fact that you don’t want that extra Shambling Remains because they also have Cloudgoat and Bitterblossom tokens to block it.

Versus Five-Color Control:
+1 Banefire, +4 Bitterblossom, +2 Everlasting Torment, +1 Shambling Remains
-4 Mogg Fanatic, -3 Volcanic Fallout, -1 Incinerate

Pretty straightforward. Fallout and Mogg Fanatic are both pretty weak in this matchup. Bitterblossom really shines here. Wall of Reverence is a big problem, so it might be fine to add another Everlasting Torment to the sideboard as it’s your best way to fight this card.

Versus Faeries:
+1 Banefire, +4 Bitterblossom
-2 Stigma Lasher, -3 Blightning

I’m still unsure if sideboarding out Blightning is correct, but every time I draw it I just want it to be something else in this matchup. You don’t want to cut any burn, and you don’t want to cut any of your creatures, so the only option I see is taking out Blightning, as you prefer casting spells on your opponents turn because of all the counters.

I think that pretty much covers all. Should you decide to run this deck at one of the upcoming National Qualifiers, keep in mind that your matchup against RW is quite miserable. If I had to play the deck again, I’d probably just add a third Stigma Lasher to the maindeck, and play some Shriekmaws in the board for the Japanese Swans decklist.

Next time I’ll talk about the UR Swans deck from the Japanese. Playing BR is fine, but if you’re expecting a lot of RW at your Nationals Qualifier, I think playing Swans is the right choice.

Until then, good luck at your upcoming tournaments.

Marijn.