When we last left our hero (can I call myself that?) he had moved to green as the support color for his Diabolic Revelation deck, mostly to explore the interaction between Thragtusk and Disciple of Bolas and to get a two-mana accelerator into the deck.
This left him with a deck that was probably slightly better than his first attempt but didn't really solve his problems. The deck was still good against slow decks, but it still didn't have a good matchup against faster decks like Delver, Infect, and Zombies.
Welcome back the continuing saga of (I hate third person and can't really keep this up)...me continuing to try to build a competitive Diabolic Revelation deck.
This week, I'm armed with advice from Brian Braun-Duin's article "Change We Can Believe In." I set about building a four-color version of Diabolic Revelation.
When I say "armed with advice from," I mean I skimmed his article, saw an Esper deck splashing Thragtusk, concluded that that was a thing I could do, and went to build my own deck from the ground up. I'm not sure if I would have been better off if I'd read his thoughts on the deck or started working from his mana base, but that didn't happen.
My goal at this point is to try to force myself to focus less on beating every control deck all the time, instead trusting my basic strategy to cover that and to find a game plan that's more competitive with Delver.
I've played a few matches with this deck, but it's still early in development. Here's my current list:
Creatures (9)
Planeswalkers (1)
Lands (25)
Spells (25)
Druidic Satchel is in some ways a Trading Post like card, which I wanted to stay away from, but I've had such good experiences with it in Andrew Cuneo's U/W Control deck that I just had to give it a try. Phantasmal Image is mostly there because I had to have an answer to Geist of Saint Traft, and once I was playing Phantasmal Image I felt obligated to play a Sun Titan.
The rest of the deck is basically the same engine I'd been working with before. The mana chases me away from Sign in Blood, but I'm interested to see if it has enough card draw without it.
On to the games!
So I beat another control deck. Nice, but not really what I was looking to do to learn whether I'd fixed my problems. Talking to my opponent after the match, I found out he was Nick Spagnolo. Also, he intended to Phantasmal Image my Disciple to sacrifice his Thragtusk but misclicked, which is why he conceded. I think I probably would have won by including a Duress or two in my Diabolic Revelation anyway.
He spoke very highly of many Thragtusks, and I wonder if I have to cut Sun Titan and Nihil Spellbomb for Thragtusk and Grafdigger's Cage. Not yet. I feel like I should err toward making changes, but I've had more experience recently playing with Thragtusk in this kind of deck than Sun Titan.
I'm going to cut a Seachrome Coast for a Hinterland Harbor for the next match though.
Here I beat Infect, which is encouraging, but it was very clear that the five-mana trump spells (Gideon and Curse of Death's Hold) are extremely important. Cutting them would really hurt, but adding more would help. I think this has convinced me to add another Curse of Death's Hold to the sideboard. I think it's fairly safe to cut Jace, Memory Adept, which is disappointing because he's so good at what he does, but I just don't need it.
Well, that went well. As I mentioned, it was a pretty easy configuration of Zombies for my deck, which is not to say I'm sure the matchup was easy, just easier than if he'd been more aggressive. Anyway, since I'm now in a three-round event I can't change anything, but there's nothing I feel like I want to change right now anyway, though Thragtusk is looking better than Sun Titan.
Yay! I beat Delver! That means I've beaten one of each of the decks I was worried about. Feels like a successful building effort so far, though of course it's early to know for sure.
Another aggro deck defeated, but I already expected to do well against decks with mana creatures. Playing Day of Judgment will usually do that. It's unfortunate to end with an opponent who was so grumpy, but it happens.
I'm obviously pretty happy with this deck at the moment, having won all five of these matches. I'm still not totally sure on Sun Titan versus Thragtusk. Thragtusk has been awesome, but so has Sun Titan really. Maybe there's another card that can be cut, but I'm not sure which one.
Thanks for watching,
Sam
@samuelhblack on Twitter
About Sam Black
Sam Black was a member of Team USA 2008, taking home the Team World Championship crown in Memphis. He also placed in the Top 8 of GP Barcelona and GP Singapore 2009, GP Gothenburg 2010, GP Atlanta 2012, and GP Yokohama in 2013 and made Top 4 of PT Phildalphia 2011.