Hello all again!
So a couple of weekends ago (aka ancient history in the world of Standard Magic: The Gathering), I played the StarCityGames.com Standard Open: Baltimore with a bad deck. I knew it was bad. I literally told my opponents it was bad. In retrospect it was, at its core, a sound strategy. The problem was in the details.
Here’s what I ran in Baltimore:
Creatures (29)
- 4 Elite Vanguard
- 4 Leonin Arbiter
- 3 Mirran Crusader
- 2 Hero of Bladehold
- 4 Grand Abolisher
- 3 Elite Inquisitor
- 4 Champion of the Parish
- 2 Geist of Saint Traft
- 2 Doomed Traveler
- 1 Elder Cathar
Lands (11)
Spells (20)
Sideboard
Why was this deck bad? Well, other than the fact it was White Weenie (the last time I played a WW deck was Kithkin back when M10 was first released. Honor of the Pure was like 15 bucks and could be traded straight up for this newfangled Baneslayer Angel thing), I felt like I didn’t have any say in whether I won the game or not. After experiencing the same thing with Kithkin, I swore I’d never run the deck again. You see, I don’t like being dependent on the draw step, hoping my opponent doesn’t “have it.” Why, then, did I do this to myself?
Well, I wanted to see if, in a tournament setting, the Leonin Arbiter/Ghost Quarter “thing” would actually work. I also wanted to see how good Champion of the Parish could be. Now, the verdict on the Arbiter-Ghost Quarter “thing” is still out, while Champion was awesome. The issue was that I got too greedy. In a deck that wants to curve out, you don’t have time to dilly-dally around with crap like blue mana. Geist of Saint Traft was cool and all, but for the one (just one) game he actually won the game by himself, there were countless others he rotted in my hand with no way to cast him while my chances at victory slowly dwindled. And don’t get me started on how bad Mana Leak was on the day…
If I were to try to run the deck again, I would definitely stick to White if I wanted to try the Leonin Arbiter–Ghost Quarter plan again. I did like that it gave me a minor disruption plan on top of the fact that both cards by themselves were fine; against Wolf Run Ramp, both cards would pull their weight independently while together they would allow you to straight up Strip Mine your opponent. I was able to pull out a game I would have surely lost to a Shrine of Burning Rage ticking up against a Mono-Red opponent who was stuck on 3 lands by dropping my Arbiter and double-Strip Mining him. It did feel good, I can’t lie. With that, in case you were wondering, if I did play the deck again, here’s what I would run:
Creatures (33)
- 4 Elite Vanguard
- 4 Leonin Arbiter
- 4 Mirran Crusader
- 3 Hero of Bladehold
- 4 Gideon's Lawkeeper
- 4 Grand Abolisher
- 4 Elite Inquisitor
- 4 Champion of the Parish
- 2 Doomed Traveler
Lands (4)
Spells (23)
I think you have to decide between the blue splash (for Geist maindeck and then some light countermagic out of the board, since in game one you just want to flood the board) or the Ghost Quarter plan. You can run Quarters in W/u, but two at most and if you’re only running two, Arbiter probably isn’t worth it. They could just be Gideon’s Lawkeepers or something. If you play the deck and want to try Strip Mining, stick to Mono-White. The curve is nice and without that many Days of Judgment rolling around, you’re actually sitting pretty when you play a deck like U/B control, as their singleton answers look pretty silly when you bring in Shrine of Loyal Legions out of the board.
However, this article wasn’t about my 3-3 drop from Baltimore.
With that, I want to say that I think Lewis Laskin had the right idea in Baltimore; I saw him playing a U/B/g deck that was basically U/B Control splashing Garruk Relentless. His exact words were “what, haven’t you ever splashed Elspeth before?” Funny enough, those were my sentiments when the card was first spoiled, with me telling Jesse Oliff that it was the best planeswalker in Innistrad and that it was the third best planeswalker ever printed. (You have to understand, when Jesse and I talk Magic, it’s all about hyperbole; Jesse once declared that Behemoth Sledge should be in any Extended deck that could support the colors because of how awesome it was). I still feel that it needs a home, and I think Lewis was on the right track.
Since he unfortunately didn’t place and I didn’t have his list, just suffice to say that he was running Snapcaster Mages and Garruks, which I’m a huge fan of. He was also running the sweet black cards that go with U/B Control and was also sporting some Tributes to Hunger, which I’m not too proud to admit that I didn’t realize was an instant until he played his Japanese one (Lewis’s decks are always pimped out, if you weren’t aware) and I had to look it up due to my ignorance.
Anyhow, I really like the idea of running Garruk Relentless. I mean, it’s a planeswalker that protects itself in multiple ways (either by putting a token into play or fighting something, though you figure that if a planeswalkers were to fight something along the lines of a Watchwolf that he would be able to kill it without himself dying, but again I digress) and, when flipped, can start chaining your creatures into better-er creatures while still putting tokens into play and adding loyalty. Have you ever played with Elspeth? Adding loyalty and creatures at the same time is brutal. Especially when those tokens now have deathtouch.
About three days or so before the Baltimore Open, I received my playset of Snapcasters in the mail. I didn’t know if I would get them before Baltimore, so I didn’t plan on playing with them, as borrowing a playset right now seems like a tall order given supply and the demand of everyone wanting to play them. However, Snapcaster is exactly the type of card I want to be casting. I love making complex decisions, I love working around what my opponent is trying to do, and I love forcing them to play into my hands. I can’t stand dropping random white weenies onto the board and hoping they get there (for some reason I forgot this fact in Baltimore; it’ll be roughly another two years before I forget this again).
I also love doing everything at instant speed; it’s similar to playing in position in poker versus playing out of position. If you’re not familiar with poker or its terms, playing in-position simply means you’re required to act after everyone else in the hand. For instance, the dealer is said to always be in-position since, after the flop, the dealer is always the last to act, meaning he/she can act with perfect knowledge of how everyone before him/her bet. Think about it this way; you flop middle pair (your hand is King of diamonds, Queen of Diamonds, and the flop was Ace of Clubs, 5 of Spades, and Queen of Hearts) and bet the minimum amount required to bet; everyone folds to the dealer, who then raises you all-in (which, given your bet size, seems ridiculous, but that’s not the point). Are you really going to call him with middle pair? Since you’re probably not, you fold, and essentially you’ve given up your chips for no reason. Now, imagine the seats are reversed and the guy goes all-in before you’re required to act. You know you’re not going to call, so you simply fold, not having committed any chips to the pot. That’s playing “in-position”.
The exception to the “playing in position rule” is when you know your hand is better than what anyone behind you has. This would be one of the premium hands (AA, KK, QQ, AK, AQ to a lesser extent) and you know that 99 out of 100 times, your hand is better than anything the opponent might have. Raising in this situation is considered raising “out of position”.
Now, how does that apply here? By being able to play everything on your opponent’s turn, you’re able to always play “in-position”. This is why Faeries was always a good deck; they got to make all of their decisions based on what you do on your turn and they get to design how they play, since they go to do so after you made your plays. That feels really good, and if I can do that I will. The exception again being that, if you know that what you’re doing is going to be more powerful than anything they could possibly follow up with, you go ahead and act “out of position”; a good example is tap-out control. You know that your Cruel Ultimatum is better than anything your opponent can muster on their following turn, so you go ahead and cast it regardless. Just imagine if Cruel Ultimatum was an instant! *shudder*
Enter: Snapcaster Mage.
I want to be able to act on my opponent’s turn given “perfect” information on how/what they’ll do on that turn. I want to play something akin to the old school Draw-Go decks that were around way back in the day (which was a Wednesday, by the way. Props if you get the reference). I think that’s slowly becoming a reality and it’s all because of lil’ Tiago.
I started looking around at the different U/G/x decks; I saw Michael Pozsgay’s 21st place list from the StarCityGames.com Standard Open: Indianapolis, the first tournament where Innistrad was legal. I saw the numerous Burning Vengeance decks floating around as well. Lastly, I simply watched Lewis play some games with his deck to get a feel for what he was doing as well. I really liked where Pozsgay was at with his list as a starting point, though obviously it was unrefined due to a lack of an established metagame.
Most of his cards could be played at instant speed and the ones that couldn’t were necessary (Slagstorm and Thrun, the Last Troll). As I’ve already established, I love this. As to why “drop a land, say ‘Go’” is so exciting to me, I don’t know. With that in mind, though, I know that I want to be deploying the majority of my spells at instant speed, and the only reason I’m wanting to run Garruk Relentless (other than the fact that he’s amazing) is that there are no Bitterblossoms or Mistbind Cliques to mop up games at instant speed or without using any mana at all while putting out threats.
After looking over Pozsgay’s list, there are some things I see that I’d want to change. First off, I love me some Ancient Grudge. They will be somewhere in the 75, no doubt. However, am I sure I want them in every matchup? I can’t really say; while there feasibly are targets in every matchup, I hate dead cards. I want my cards to be live at every point of every game. While Ancient Grudge does hit Inkmoth Nexus, which is a huge issue for most decks, we already have an answer in Geistflame not to mention any of our other instant speed removal that we may decide to play. I could possibly see playing one maindeck due to the number of cards we draw, though.
One oversight that I think was made is Brimstone Volley. I was birding Joshua Cho matchup in round 3 where he was playing Township Tokens. His opponent, at 10 life, drops a Thrun alongside his Blade Splicer and some other creatures. He crashes, and Josh blocks with a token, then Brimstone Volleys his opponent to 5. On Josh’s turn, he attacks with his Snapcaster Mage and the game was already over; with the Brimstone Volley in hand, Josh had lethal regardless of what his opponent decided to do in regards to blocking. Obviously blocking is the correct play, as there’s no reason to take two damage unnecessarily, but the game was over the moment his opponent attacked the turn prior all because of how awesome Brimstone Volley was.
I think this card deserves at least three slots, possibly four, in the deck.
Other than that, I want to move to a fourth Mana Leak over the fourth Slagstorm in the maindeck (with the last Slagstorm in the board) due to U/B control. While Slagstorm still has minor utility in that matchup, I’d much rather have the Mana Leak and, once again, I love doing things at instant speed.
Now we get to the part where I need to figure out how to win the game. Now, Thrun is a great man for the job when it comes to guaranteeing that you’ll have a threat on the board. Can’t be countered, can’t be touched. But…
Have you ever played with Elspeth, Knight-Errant before?
The issue comes in that I don’t know what the best split right now would be for Garruk Relentless and Thrun. I do know that the mana for this deck royally sucks and I like that Garruk only requires one Green mana, which definitely helps its case. I don’t like that both require you to tap four mana during your main phase, but it’s a necessary evil without the various Cliques. Also, with the Wolf Run decks running their own Thruns, it’d be pretty awkward to have your only “real” threat removed so easily by your opponent. (True, they have Garruks as well, but you can counter those!)
Here’s what I’m working with starting out:
Creatures (5)
Planeswalkers (3)
Lands (15)
Spells (37)
As always, giving out a sideboard for a tentative deck idea seems loose at best. However, coming up with good sideboarding plans is actually quite the opposite; it’s very important indeed. The question is: what are we worried about in Standard right now?
Wolf Run Ramp (both Dungrove and non-Dungrove builds)
U/B Control
Mono-Red
X-Blade decks
With Wolf-Run, basically they’re going to spend the first couple of turns building mana and then they’re going to start dropping threat after threat on your head until you tap out. And if that doesn’t work? Well, they still have all those Inkmoths sitting around, right?
So you basically have two different plans you have to work against with this deck.
First, you have to worry about their high-end threats. The issue is that they achieve their end game while you’re still working on placing your 3rd and 4th lands into play. How can we possibly interact when we’re on the back foot as soon as the game starts?
Well, for starters, we have Geistflame. This card helps in both phases of this matchup. Because of how Wolf’s Run Ramp (WRR) uses X/1 mana dorks to start building mana, you can aggressively use Geistflame as a way to stunt their mana development while also having an answer for Inkmoth Nexus later in the game sitting in your graveyard (and lucky you if your opponent forgets about it!). You should definitely look to burn off their initial mana dork with any Geistflames you may have sitting around. Slowing this deck down without actually taking away from your options is a great way to bring WRR back down to earth.
Next, we have 11 counterspells that we can hit our opponent’s high end threats with (4 Mana Leak, 3 Dissipate, 4 Snapcaster Mage) with more possibly coming out of the sideboard (Flashfreeze). Here’s the issue: Hexproof guys. Mr. Dungrove and Mr. Thrun. The Bash Brothers. How do we answer those guys?
The long and short of it? We can’t efficiently. I know that isn’t what you want to hear when thinking about a deck to play right now, but in reality without black, you can’t reliably do anything about a Dungrove Elder. You have Phantasmal Images you can bring in against Thrun, though, so that’s a start. Also, with the amount of non-Forest lands that people are running in their Dungrove decks, you could feasibly pick one off early with a well-timed Slagstorm. And a flipped Garruk produces Deathtouch tokens. And we have our own Thruns.
So for this match, essentially I’m going to want the last Slagstorm and a couple of Phantasmal Images.
Past that you need to figure out what you’re worried about in your area. U/B Control? Just remember this: they also have to win the game. Since your “threats” are either your burn spells (Brimstone Volley tends to end games quickly if used correctly) or Garruk/Thrun, you can feasibly stick yours sooner through Mana Leak than their titans/sphinxes. After boarding, you’ll want another Thrun or two as well as the last Dissipate, since all you really want to be doing is stopping their 4-5 wincons. Other than that nothing they do really matters.
Worried about Mono-Red? Well, you shouldn’t be. With the amount of cheap burn and cheap counters you play, winning with a Thrun or Garruk should be fairly elementary. While you can lose your Garruk to a burn spell, you’ll still be up a 2/2 with them having one less burn spell in hand. Thrun obviously goes the distance here. If you’re boarding, you’ll definitely want the last Slagstorm and, depending on the amount of creatures they play, you may want to look into Arc Trail. Batterskulls come in, obviously, and the number is going to depend on how much you expect Mono-Red. Remember Tree of Redemption as well if all else fails. Also, bring in some Ancient Grudges, because even though they may only have Shrine of Burning Rage as a target, not having an answer to that card will lose you the game almost every time.
Blade decks these days aren’t what they used to be. They’re either hoping to land an Invisible Stalker or a Geist of Saint Traft and attach a sword to it. This plan seems amazing, but there are holes. First, you’re playing Ancient Grudges, so swords really shouldn’t be an issue. Both creatures can be countered, as they’re not Thrun after all. Phantasmal Image out of the board again will play clean-up on Geist of Saint Traft, and Slagstorm hits both. Without a sword, Geist is very easy to block and kill with either a 2/2 wolf token or a Snapcaster Mage. Sure, they got 4 damage in, but you’ve turned their 20 dollar mythic into a Hell’s Thunder, which is exactly what that card is the vast majority of the time.
Assuming a heavy Wolf Run, U/B Control metagame with a smattering of mono-Red and X-Blade decks, here’s a tentative sideboard:
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
3 Phantasmal Image
1 Dissipate
3 Ancient Grudge
1 Slagstorm
1 Batterskull
3 Azure Mage
2 Sword of Feast and Famine
Against WRR, remember that you want to keep them from going off before you’re ready to deal with them. After that, winning is pretty easy with something as simply as a Thrun or even a beast token from casting a Beast Within on your own lands late game. Garruk can also do work here just spitting out 2/2 tokens. But we need to get to that end-game first. Basically what you need to worry about is Thrun here. You can already take care of most of WRR’s plans, its Thrun and Dungrove Elder that are the issues. While a flipped Garruk will produce wolf tokens with Deathtouch (thereby shutting down Dungrove), that doesn’t solve Thrun. That’s why we have Images (and, to a lesser extent, our own Thruns) in the board.
You want to kind of transform into a Blade deck here; you want to bring in Azure Mages, the second Thrun, and the Phantasmal Images in addition to the Dissipate and Swords. Something has to go, though.
Unfortunately this is where we leave Garruk on the sidelines. Something has to go and he doesn’t really pull his weight in this matchup.
+3 Azure Mage
+2 Phantasmal Image
+2 Sword of Feast and Famine
+1 Dissipate
+1 Thrun the Last Troll
-3 Garruk Relentless
-3 Slagstorm (You don’t want to play this when your plan becomes dropping smaller guys and swording them)
– 3 Brimstone Volley
Against U/B Control, you have seven cards you want to be bringing in (4 Geistflame, 3 Slagstorm), so
+1 Thrun
+1 Dissipate
+3 Azure Mage
+ 2 Swords of Feast and Famine.
– 4 Geistflame
– 3 Slagstorm
Against Mono-Red, You want to take out your countermagic, starting with Dissipates both on the play and draw. On the play:
+1 Batterskull
+3 Ancient Grudge
+1 Slagstorm
You can keep in two Mana Leaks on the play since you can hit turn two Shrine. However, on the draw:
+1 Batterskull
+3 Ancient Grudge
+1 Slagstorm
+1 Thrun, the Last Troll
+1 Phantasmal Image
Either way, you should be fine, as your Geistflames, Slagstorms, Brimstone Volleys, and flashed-in Snapcasters are really good against them. Just don’t die early, and your late game will far surpass theirs (except Shrine, which is why we bring in so many Grudges). If Mono-Red is a big issue for you, you can definitely adjust your sideboard with more Batterskull and a Tree of Redemption or two.
That’s it for this week. I’m very interested in playing this deck, and as of the time you read this, I will have played it at the Innistrad Game Day. If you’re in Fredericksburg, VA this weekend, come see me game! If not, let me know how this deck works out for you if you play it!
Oh, and before I go; a lot of people asked me about the Elves list that I spoke about in the comments. Turns out people love their elves! Here’s the list that I’ve been sending out, though admitted I’ve stopped working on the deck recently. If you have any questions about this deck or anything else at all, my email address is mikemartinlfs (at) gmail (dot) com. Or hit me up on Twitter (handle in the signature)!
Creatures (32)
- 4 Llanowar Elves
- 4 Birds of Paradise
- 4 Elvish Archdruid
- 4 Palladium Myr
- 1 Ezuri, Renegade Leader
- 3 Copperhorn Scout
- 4 Mentor of the Meek
- 4 Avacyn's Pilgrim
- 4 Village Bell-Ringer
Lands (8)
Spells (20)
The basic premise here is to go “One Drop, Three Drop, Explode”, thus the goofy name. You want to drop a mana dork, then drop one of your three drops (Hopefully its Llanowar Elves into Elvish Archdruid, but Avacyn’s Pilgrim into Palladium Myr still provides an explosive start). Your end-state is to build a ton of mana through mana dorks, tap them all, play Village Bell-Ringer, untap (with mana floating, hopefully), tap them all again, then play a ginormous Genesis Wave.
This wave should hit at least one Village Bell-Ringer and, if you don’t already have one, a Mentor of the Meek. Then you can continue “going off” and drop a ton of guys on the board. At this point, you can try winning this turn if you have enough elves without summoning sickness that can attack with a couple of Ezuri ultimates or just wait a turn and attack.
It’s definitely a Glass Cannon deck, though, so use it with caution!
Till next time!
Mikemartinlfs on the Twitter