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This article is mostly about works in progress.
I guess "every" deck is a work in progress; but these are—forgive the term—still a bit green.
Deck 1: U/W Combo
The Idea:
The idea was to have a deck that had most of the incentives of U/W Control, plus that little something special... Not a legit mashup per se, but capable of something unique relative to the rest of the U/W decks in the format.
For reference:
- http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/fundamentals/20843_Flores_Friday_How_to_Make_a_Mashup.html
- http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/standard/21135_Flores_Friday_One_Rule_What_Makes_a_Deck.html
| U/W Combo Featured by Mike Flores on 2011-11-06 (Standard) | ||
Artifact Creatures 1 Blightsteel Colossus Creatures 4 Blade Splicer 4 Snapcaster Mage Instants 4 Dissipate 4 Mana Leak 4 Think Twice |
Planeswalkers 1 Karn Liberated Sorceries 4 Day of Judgment 4 Shape Anew 2 Tezzeret's Gambit 2 Timely Reinforcements Basic Lands 8 Island 6 Plains Lands 4 Glacial Fortress 4 Inkmoth Nexus 4 Seachrome Coast | 2 Oblivion Ring 4 Celestial Purge 3 Dismember 2 Flashfreeze 2 Jace, Memory Adept 1 Karn Liberated 1 Timely Reinforcements |
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| Download this deck in Apprentice format! |
Download this deck in Magic Online Text format! | |
How Does This Deck Work?
Most of the deck is fairly obvious. You have blue and white cards. Your goal is control via counterspells and creature removal. You even have a mite of life gain thanks to Timely Reinforcements.
Difference here is that you can produce a one-card kill in Blightsteel Colossus.
The Blightsteel Colossus half of the deck keys on about thirteen cards: Blade Splicer, Inkmoth Nexus, Shape Anew, and of course the solo Blightsteel Colossus.
Blade Splicer is pretty good, actually. This is a creature that other decks actually just play (G/W Tokens, Bant Pod, sometimes U/W Humans); people just like the four power in two permanents for three mana and run it. For this deck, Blade Splicer is a not-expensive source of inventing an artifact without actually playing a non-Blightsteel Colossus artifact in your deck.
Inkmoth Nexus is more of the same (kind of). This is just a threat that some control decks like to play anyway; in this deck there are setup synergies with Blightsteel Colossus (more infect, especially if the other guy has a blocker at some point); plus there is also synergy around Tezzeret's Gambit.
Tezzeret's Gambit does a couple of pretty cool things in this deck. One of them is obviously playing "bad Foresee" duty [also known as "bad Divination"]. You can "build your own Lauren Lee" with Snapcaster Mage + Tezzeret's Gambit, which makes up for having no Forbidden Alchemy a little bit; straight Tezzeret's Gambit is actually often straight up better than the opponent's card draw option.
Obviously I chose Tezzeret's Gambit due to its combination possibilities with infect, but the Phyrexian half can also—wait for it—set up Timely Reinforcements. Ding!
The Limitations:
There are a fair number of things "wrong" with this deck, or at least with playing around the extra paradigm of inventing a Blightsteel Colossus at a discount.
The first one comes from the standpoint of deck construction... This is a Standard blue control deck... with no Druidic Satchels! What gives?
You can't play extraneous artifacts in a deck like this, not because Druidic Satchel wouldn't be good enough in U/W (if U/W is good enough, Druidic Satchel could probably be good enough in it), but because if you are setting up to play a Shape Anew—possibly under pressure—you want to hit Blightsteel Colossus.
Speaking of Shape Anew, one of the more annoying problems with the deck is accumulating as many as all four copies of Shape Anew, with nothing to do with them (like maybe you drew the Colossus). The games go so long, you can be guaranteed to draw combo pieces that may or may not do anything
The combo isn't inexorable or anything. The biggest problem is that with all the Oblivion Rings in the format, even an indestructible Blightsteel Colossus isn't a lock. Also, you can get out-weirded.
That said, there are a lot of good things going on with this deck, and especially at the outset, I did mostly winning with it. Until...
Embarrassing Loss #1
The opponent is B/U.
Problem here was that I was going to get raced by his Nephalia Drownyards. I had by the very late game accumulated all the Shape Anews... But had nothing to aim them at. Back and forth had cost me both Inkmoth Nexus and Golem token to black point removal, and it kinda sorta looked like I was going to get decked.
Nexus and Splicer were going down to Drownyard, but eventually I got lucky and hit the Colossus (don't remember if it was a hard cast or a Shape Anew, but it was there). Problem in this case was that I had exactly one shot with the one-shot robot.
Good news was that the one-shot robot can kill the opponent in one. Also he only had only two cards, and I didn't think he could bounce or kill my Colossus... Here goes!
His answer was Wring Flesh. Which is, I think you will agree, quite embarrassing in the context of this story. I had maybe thirteen cards in my deck; he had two copies of Nephalia Drownyard, and I lost a tight one to getting my nearly unstoppable Colossus knocked down to 8/10.
Embarrassing Loss #2
You ever have a Bad Idea Draft? That is our New York nickname for the last draft of the night. Everyone has to go to work the next day, but hey! Drafto.
This game was a bad idea MTGO match. It was about 3:30, I had something to do the next day, but I had been mostly winning with my new U/W deck, and the Wring Flesh loss was so random. It had nothing on the next game.
Opponent was Bant Pod.
He had basically nothing. Well not nothing nothing; he controlled all of an Avacyn's Pilgrim. I had a nice wide open to stick Shape Anew into Blightsteel Colossus. So ting! That's what I did.
On his turn, Bant Pod played Phantasmal Image ("wow, that's bad") and then Oblivion Ring.
Note to self: Putting a lot of work into getting out a Blightsteel Colossus is bad against the commonly played card Phantasmal Image.
Deck #2: U/R Tempo
The Idea:
The success of Delver of Secrets | Insectile Aberration in Legacy seems portable to smaller formats. I already have 2/3 of the beatdown triumvirate (no Tarmogoyf, but good old Snapcaster Mage).
This is what I started on:
| U/R Tempo Featured by Mike Flores on 2011-11-06 (Standard) | ||
Creatures 4 Chandra's Phoenix 4 Delver of Secrets 4 Snapcaster Mage Instants 4 Brimstone Volley 4 Incinerate 4 Mana Leak 4 Shock 4 Think Twice 2 Vapor Snag |
Sorceries 4 Ponder Basic Lands 6 Island 4 Mountain Lands 4 Copperline Gorge 4 Hinterland Harbor 4 Sulfur Falls | 3 Ancient Grudge 4 Flashfreeze 4 Psychic Barrier 4 Slagstorm |
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| Download this deck in Apprentice format! |
Download this deck in Magic Online Text format! | |
I replaced Tarmogoyf with Chandra's Phoenix, which is pretty good offensively, plus has some natural synergies with a format full of blue opponents with counterspells and Nephalia Drownyards.
I ran Ponder in particular because I went light on lands; of course Ponder is awesome with Delver of Secrets as well.
One thing I really liked about working with this deck was the opportunity to go back to Brimstone Volley. This deck can seize the initiative with a quick offense, which puts the opponent into Snapcaster Mage + Brimstone Volley range very quickly. You can literally drop a Delver, throw some Incinerates around, and then put the opponent into a "definitely dead" spot when he taps for a big guy to try to take control, or even just attacks (block to set up morbid, etc.).
Most of the cards (Shock, Incinerate, even Vapor Snag) were chosen to help flip Delver of Secrets, and of course their speed and synergy with Snapcaster Mage. Speaking of which...
Weird Stuff About This Build:
I have kind of a lot of green sources for just three copies of Ancient Grudge in the sideboard. Hinterland Harbor on the first turn can slow you down a little bit, but it hasn't been that bad for me; more interesting might be the opportunity here... You can possible go Daybreak Ranger or even some kind of bigger and scarier green threat, potentially [just a thought]. I even had Thrun, the Last Troll in my sideboard for a while, though I never actually cast it.
Weird Cards in Particular:
Vapor Snag - Not the most common card in Constructed, but pretty appropriate in an offense-minded blue one. You can "build your own Man-o'-War" with Snapcaster Mage, and it is a Man-o'-War that does an extra point along the way. Of course you can also use Vapor Snag to buy back your own Snapcaster Mage for some other kind of awesome Super Arts, or just Vapor Snag the opponent's threat regular-like.
Psychic Barrier - Just a counterspell (which you want in a fair number of matchups, and this is a sideboard spell)... But while regular blue decks want a Psychic Barrier for its counterspell-ness, this one actually wants it for its "do an extra point of damage"-ness. It is probably pretty frustrating for the opponent to be on the wrong end of Vapor Snag, Psychic Barrier, Chandra's Phoenix, Snapcaster Mage for Psychic Barrier, etc.
What Needs Improving:
The mana is the weak point on this deck. It is yet another build where Gerry Thompson is surprisingly prophetic with his comments RE: Terramorphic Expanse. Probably you can cut a couple of Hinterland Harbors for basics to increase the speed and consistency of early game Delvers.
It's possible that the mana can't get a whole lot better in Standard, but that would be kind of sad as when this game gets going, it seems pretty unbeatable. When you lose, it is generally due to stumbling early and having insufficient "catch up" cards as you move to the mid-game.
I don't have any Phantasmal Images, and for the most part, haven't needed them. I don't know if that is too fancy or what, but I haven't had any problems racing Thrun, the Last Troll or U/W Humans. You do, however, need a clock to race, so you can't actually keep a hand of all good sideboard cards with no Delver (I have done this). Your opponent will just resolve Thrun and then kill you with it while you stare blankly at a battlefield with three Psychic Barriers in your hand.
Another card that I didn't play but might have some value is Desperate Ravings. The deck wants some manipulation in addition to Ponder, and while it is typically ahead early, you can still go long against "real" blue decks. If you get to the point where Forbidden Alchemy is coming online in addition to Think Twice, you can potentially fall behind as they have this card Dissipate, and you only have this card Mana Leak. Desperate Ravings might be something to consider. Haven't tried it yet, but one thing I really like about Desperate Ravings is its potential synergy with Chandra's Phoenix.
Finale-ish:
The deck seems pretty good against G/W Tokens, which is equally great given the recent Grand Prix finish in the hands of Mr. Juza. It is okay against Red Deck, generally quite good against non-red beatdown decks, and pretty comfortable against control.
An interesting thought [that has relatively little to do with this new deck in particular] is that possibly we will move to a format where Delver of Secrets replaces Grave Titan or Consecrated Sphinx. That is, Snapcaster Mage is the default (of course) but that instead of a "big guy" to go with it, blue mages may just go Delver instead (think the move to Caw-Go over Sun Titan decks prior to Caw-Blade). Then they will be able to take advantage of first-turn Delver draws; and while a 3/2 flyer isn't that exciting late game, it's certainly pretty serviceable, especially if you have control going on otherwise.
Well, those are some builds I've been working on recently; again, works in progress. Thanks for reading!
LOVE
MIKE
