Standard Bennie Brews: Avacyn Restored Edition

Thanks for all the great feedback on my article last week featuring a Commander deck built around Bruna, Light of Alabaster from Avacyn Restored. Apparently I’m not the only one excited to be building a 100-card deck around her! If you haven’t read it yet, when you do be sure to check out the comments; some folks weighed in with awesome suggestions.

Next week I’m going to be building another Commander deck around another legend, but this week…this week I’ve just got to talk about all the new Standard ideas I’ve got now that Avacyn Restored is out. I’m just dying to get my hands on these cards!

The first order of business is Necrotic Ooze. If you’ve been following me, you know I started out with various BUG builds then moved over to strictly B/U. Both could do really powerful things but were just a little too slow and a little too clunky sometimes to really work.

Recently I thought about going R/B/U. The inspiration for this was realizing that borrowing the ability from a dead Spikeshot Elder, I could have an infinitely large Ooze shoot its power in damage directly to my opponent’s face without requiring the attack step, which cracked the puzzle of giving my infinitely large Ooze evasion quite nicely. The printing of Faithless Looting in Dark Ascension made me even more interested in this angle of deckbuilding.

Then came Avacyn Restored, and with it, the mother of all activated abilities…

Draw seven cards.

Holy Yawgmoth’s Bargain Batman! On a creatureâ€”are you kidding me?

No kidding. Sure, it’s attached to a very expensive Demon, and it comes with a fairly steep cost: Â seven life per activation. But seven cards is seven cards. I’d experimented with Civilized Scholar as a way to dig deep into the deck, because sometimes you didn’t have Bloodline Keeper and Grimgrin, Corpse-Born in the graveyard when you needed to cast Necrotic Ooze. Ooze could copy the Scholar’s ability and, so long as you kept discarding creatures to untap, you could keep looting.

The problem was sometimes you ran out of creatures to pitch to untap. Drawing into a couple lands could stop your digging cold.

But Griselbrand…Griselbrand says here’s seven cards, pal. Boom.

I’m already playing around with Vampires and Zombies; surely there’s room for a Demon in the mix?

Needless to say, giving Necrotic Ooze Griselbrand’s ability is pretty amazing, so much so that I’ve even started seeing Necrotic Ooze in pro players’ Reanimator decklists…as the only other creature in the deck other than Griselbrand. Which to me seems a little bit nuts. I mean, there’s so much good work Necrotic Ooze can do outside of just drawing seven cards. Like…it can just win the game on the spot. That’s not a bad plan B, no?

One thing that did jump out at me from these Reanimator lists, though, was Zombie Infestation! Griselbrand, Zombie Infestation…suddenly the decklist came into sharp focus:

Red Ooze Combo

Bennie Smith

Test deck on 05-06-2012

Standard

Creatures (28)

Lands (16)

Spells (16)

Let’s talk about what this deck can do. Turn 1 Faithless Looting. Turn 2 Iron Myr (and with people talking about Whipflare becoming the red sweeper of choice, our little Myr might survive to be used). Turn 3 Lightning Mauler, Zombie Infestation. Hmm, let’s pitch two cards to make a Zombie and swing in for three if the coast is clear. Turn 4 Necrotic Ooze.

Let’s look in the graveyard. If Grimgrin and Bloodline Keeper are in there, make your Ooze infinitely large. If the red zone is clear, swing for the win. If it’s not clear, there are other options. Is there a Spikeshot Elder and a Myr in the graveyard? Tap the Ooze for red mana, sac a creature to untap, do it ’til you’ve got three mana and then Spikeshot ability to the face: game over.

If that’s not available, how about Griselbrand? Draw seven or fourteen, and if you still don’t find Spikeshot, maybe Alloy Myr is in the graveyard, make a bunch of Zombies, sac to untap Ooze until you’ve got eight mana, hard cast the other Griselbrand you drew, move the soulbond to him for haste and swing in the air for eight and recoup eight life with lifelink.

This is turn 4…not too shabby, eh?

Of course, the beauty of this deck is its resilience to graveyard hate. Yes, it works best when Necrotic Ooze can go off unmolested and do broken things, but this deck is perfectly capable of just casting its combo pieces and beating down with them. Lightning Mauler does serious work by giving the creature its soulbonded with haste to take your opponent by surprise with unexpected combat. Grimgrin can do some serious hard work on his own, but giving him haste with Lightning Mauler is even better.

In case you can’t tell, I really like Lightning Mauler. My only regret is that he doesn’t have some sort of activated way to give creatures haste for free, but I think he can do just fine as he is.

Now of course, this is an idealized build of this deck. I’m not sure what the new Standard will look like, but this deck may very well need to add some ways to interact with your opponent early on. However, this deck has the ability to do crazy stuff a lot faster than older versions, so it’s my hope that maybe, maybe… something very close to this could be competitive as a rogue deck at some point in the new Standard.

I’m certainly eager to hear your thoughts on this in the comments below!

Moving on to the next build…

My friend Carl Wilt hit me up on Twitter saying this:

As much as I love green decks, BlastodermMan loves him some R/G decks so this suggestion doesn’t surprise me at all; as a matter of fact, Hound of Griselbrand had indeed caught my interest as something to add to my undying Pod deck idea.

Hatebound Pod

Bennie Smith

Test deck on 05-06-2012

Standard

Creatures (25)

Lands (11)

Spells (24)

I’ve talked about this deck idea before. The undying mechanic plus Birthing Pod is a match made in heaven, since undying creatures allow for a very durable creature that you can count on to stick around long enough to Pod it into something bigger. When working with my G/B version, a big problem I had was finding a durable enough three-and four mana-creature to trade up with Birthing Pod. Switching over to red gives us Pyreheart Wolf at three mana but still leaves a fairly large hole at four mana. Of course, Huntmaster of the Fells is quite the powerful four-drop, but once we cast it we don’t typically want to Birthing Pod it away.

Here comes Hound of Griselbrand to the rescue! Now, we have a solid Pod chain:Â Strangleroot Geist — Pyreheart Wolf — Hound of Griselbrand — Vorapede — Flayer of the Hatebound — Sheoldred, Whispering One. Obviously, we can’t expect to upgrade our Geist straight up to Sheoldred over five turns, but the opportunity is there, and we have resilient Undying creatures that can help ensure we get one or two Pod activations, whether we’re grabbing a bullet or climbing up the chain.

That makes me happy!

What doesn’t make me happy…Angel of Jubilation. Seriously, what the heck? I’m guessing that this was one of those safety valve cards WotC prints to make sure something doesn’t get out of hand, but seriously? Did they think Birthing Pod was going to run rampant over the metagame? I could only wish that Standard would be in a place where that could happen!

Not only Angel of Jubilation… but they also printed Terminus.

SERIOUSLY?!?

I’ve been playing creature decks for a long, long time. Ever since I opened my first pack of Magic cards, back when Unlimited boosters were in the stores, and cracked open a Force of Nature, I’ve loved playing creatures. Since Magic began, if you were a fan of creatures you had to struggle with the fact that, often, trying to win with your own creatures was an exercise in futility. Your early creatures died one by one if that’s how you played them out, but if you overextended they’d be Wrathed away. Your late game creatures would get countered or stolen by whatever Control Magic variant was available at the time.

For a long, long time it was hard for a Summon Creature Lover like me.

Thankfully, WotC has changed things. Creatures are good now. Creatures kick major ass. You’ve got to have a really, really convincing reason not to play creatures in your deck these days. Wrath went away and was replaced by Day of Judgment, a development that suddenly made regeneration interesting (unfortunately, good creatures with regeneration hardly ever make an appearance).

We got the awesome persist mechanic to make it even less likely to get hosed by mass removal. WotC continues to make decent creature recursion that makes overextending into a sweeper less of an issue: Bloodghast, Reassembling Skeletons, Gravecrawler. For players like me, Necrotic Ooze turns creature removal into nearly an upsideâ€”if you don’t kill this creature, it’ll kill you. If you do kill this creature, maybe my Ooze goes off. Win-win!

Then they brought us the undying mechanic, and I’m convinced that I’ve reached nirvana. An improved persist? Kill it once, and it comes back bigger? WOW! This must be the Age of Bennie, no?

Well, no…not quite. There’s still this pesky Delver deck that plays aggro-control, tempo games, making my midrange dreams seem still just a little bit out of reach. Maybe Avacyn Restored will bring me to the Promised Land?

I’m afraid the light at the end of the tunnel is the lamp from an oncoming train called Terminus.

In all the times that I’ve been playing creature decks, this is probably the most demoralizing spell I’ve ever seen. The state of creatures now is one where you’re not so scared of destroy effects…but putting them all on the bottom of your deck?

Disaster! Is there any point of playing creature decks for the next year and a half if you’re not a fan of hyper-aggro weenie or Delver strategies? I don’t know.

Thankfully, it appears my concern is in the minority. I even asked Shaheen "Icy Grip" Soorani what he thinks about Terminus, and he was very lukewarm on the card. He and others were of the opinion that Day of Judgment will still be the sweeper of choice, with maybe one or two copies of Terminus thrown in.

If that’s what Mr. Control thinks, then perhaps I have little to be worried about. I’m perfectly happy battling through Day of Judgment with my Ooze and Pod decks. Fingers crossed that nobody else gives Terminus a fair shake, because I’m still fairly certain that playing four copies of Terminus is a viable strategy that just so happens to crush the souls of players like me.

If Terminus does catch on with control players… I’m prepared to abandon creature decks for the next year and a half if sideboarding Cellar Door doesn’t fix the problem.

Witness what happens when Bennie goes to the dark side…

W/B Miraclewalker

Bennie Smith

Test deck on 05-06-2012

Standard

Planeswalkers (12)

Lands (19)

Spells (29)

The miracle cost for Terminus and Banishing Stroke is so insane that you definitely want to play four of each, and it’s well worth the downside chance of having one in your opening hand. This is because hard casting them for six mana is still not entirely unreasonable in this sort of deck! Black removal, Liliana, Lingering Souls, Sorin, and Gideon can buy you a ton of time to get to six mana. Heck, if you’re using Liliana to discard, you can always pitch a miracle in your hand figuring you’re bound to draw into one.

Controlling decks like these without card drawing or card filtering often struggle to have the right answers to the problems at hand, and you’re often living or dying off the top of your deck. Playing a critical mass of miracle cards increases the chance of your top deck being absolutely insane. It’s possible that I want even more miracles in here; a couple Entreat the Angels perhaps?

Have no fear though: even if Terminus is everywhere and I’m playing some sickness like this at higher-level competitive events, I’ll still likely break out quirky brews for Friday Night Magic. Here’s one I think might have some play even in a Termipocalyptic world:

G/W Feed the Pack

Bennie Smith

Test deck on 05-06-2012

Standard

Creatures (30)

Lands (10)

Spells (20)

Feed the Pack has been on my radar as something to try because it’s a cool enchantment with a powerful effect that "has haste." Meaning, you get benefit from it during your turn rather than having to wait until your upkeep like traditional green enchantments (like the new Descendants’ Path and Triumph of Ferocity). I’ve wanted to "live the dream" of playing Feed the Pack with a Tree of Redemption in play to sacrifice at the end of the turn for thirteen 2/2s. That’s a pretty sweet board state to pass back to your opponent!

Of course, you need other creatures in your deck and not all of them have the Tree’s insane toughness, but there are certainly a few worthies to consider. Spellskite can give you four 2/2s. Skinshifter can give you eight.

The new Wolfir Silverheart can come down as an 8/8 and give whatever you’re planning on sacrificing to Feed the Pack four extra toughness, which is an extra four Wolves (one of which you can bond with to become a 6/6).

Prior to Avacyn Restored, I had Stonehorn Dignitary in the deck; buying a turn’s break from being attacked while giving you a four toughness to sacrifice to Feed the Pack seemed worth the spot. However, now we’ve got some better tools.

Having the flash ability of Restoration Angel and Wolfir Avenger gives creature lovers some much-needed ability to interact with our opponents on their turn and gives this "fun" deck some much-needed oomph. Resetting Silverheart, Tree of Redemption, and Metamorph all at instant speed… I’m really looking forward to seeing how it does. This shell may not be ideal, but I have no doubt that Avenger and Redemption will be featured in some sort of deck I love in the upcoming Standard.

A special shout-out to Rachel Franzen and George Abraham, who tweeted me some new brew ideas. I’m still thinking about those cards, and they may pop up in a future column!

Okay, I think I’ve rambled on long enough today. Thanks for reading, and as always I can’t wait to hear your thoughts on these ideas in the comments below. Help me make these decks better!

Take care,

Bennie

starcitygeezer AT gmail DOT com

Make sure to follow my Twitter feed (@blairwitchgreen). I check it often so feel free to send me feedback, ideas, and random thoughts. I’ve also created a Facebook page where I’ll be posting up deck ideas and will happily discuss Magic, life, or anything else you want to talk about!

New to Commander?
If you’re just curious about the format, building your first deck, or trying to take your Commander deck up a notch, here are some handy links:

Commander Primer Part 1 (Why play Commander? Rules Overview, Picking your Commander)
Commander Primer Part 2 (Mana Requirements, Randomness, Card Advantage)
Commander Primer Part 3Â (Power vs. Synergy, Griefing, Staples, Building a Doran Deck)
Commander Starter Kits 1 (kick start your allied two-color decks for $25)
Commander Starter Kits 2 (kick start your enemy two-color decks for $25)
Commander Starter Kits 3 (kick start your shard three-color decks for $25)

My current Commander decks (and links to decklists):

Previous Commander decks currently on hiatus:

Grimgrin, Corpse-Born (Necrotic Ooze Combo)
Damia, Sage of Stone (Ice Cauldron shenanigans)
Geist of Saint Traft (Voltron-ish)
Glissa Sunseeker (death to artifacts!)
Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer (replacing Brion Stoutarm in Mo’ Myrs)
Thelon of Havenwood (Campfire Spores)
Melira, Sylvok Outcast (combo killa)
Konda, Lord of Eiganjo (The Indestructibles)
Vorosh, the Hunter (proliferaTION)
Progenitus (Fist of Suns and Bringers)
Savra, Queen of the Golgari (Demons)
Uril, the Miststalker (my "more competitive" deck)