This past weekend I made my way down to Providence for the StarCityGames.com Standard Open. While I did pretty terribly in the main event, I still had a great time and would like to introduce a new deck to the scene of Standard. Some of you may have seen the deck tech that I got from the Reuben Bresler. Some of you probably did not. In any case, I'm going to go through the various iterations this deck has had, including the version I would play in a big Standard tournament like the upcoming Standard Open in Indianapolis.
It all started with a block deck by Shota Yasooka. Playing this deck over 10 rounds at Pro Tour Avacyn Restored he accumulated 28 points with this deck. That's an insane record.
Creatures (27)
- 3 Angel of Glory's Rise
- 4 Avacyn's Pilgrim
- 4 Borderland Ranger
- 4 Falkenrath Aristocrat
- 4 Fiend Hunter
- 4 Huntmaster of the Fells
- 2 Restoration Angel
- 2 Scorned Villager
Lands (24)
Spells (9)
Ari Lax brought this deck to my attention when I asked him what I should play in Providence. Well, more accurately he brought his version to my attention.
Creatures (22)
- 3 Angel of Glory's Rise
- 4 Avacyn's Pilgrim
- 4 Borderland Ranger
- 1 Cathedral Sanctifier
- 2 Falkenrath Aristocrat
- 3 Fiend Hunter
- 4 Huntmaster of the Fells
- 1 Griselbrand
Lands (22)
Spells (16)
For those that don't understand how the deck works, here's the basic idea. You are a midrange deck that can randomly do infinite ("arbitrarily large" in judge-speak) damage, gain infinite life, and create infinite 2/2 wolf tokens. Oh, and you can Plague Wind your opponent with this combo.
The combo itself involves three cards. Angel of Glory's Rise, Falkenrath Aristocrat, and Fiend Hunter. The idea is to have an Aristocrat in play. Then you have to get an Angel underneath a Fiend Hunter. And then you win. Ok, so that explanation was probably pretty vague and confusing. To be a little bit more clear, if you have an Angel under a Fiend Hunter with Aristocrat in play, you get to make an infinitely large Aristocrat. You use its ability to sacrifice Fiend Hunter. It gets a +1/+1 counter. Angel comes out from underneath the Fiend Hunter and triggers its come into play ability. This brings back the Fiend Hunter, which exiles the Angel. Rinse and repeat until you reach a desired number of infinite damage.
If you happen to have Huntmaster of the Fells in your graveyard then you can sacrifice this every loop and gain two life each time. And get a 2/2 wolf token. But wait! There's more! What if your opponent has a flying blocker? If you happen to have a second Fiend Hunter, then you can stack it so that you sacrifice that one before the enters the battlefield ability resolves, thus creating a permanent removal effect. If you loop this enough times you can just Plague Wind your opponent. If you have a Zealous Conscripts in your deck (which was something Ari's list was lacking) you can give all of your wolves haste, take all of your opponents permanents, and untap all of your permanents as well. Infinite everything in Standard? Don't mind if I do!
So, I liked the basic idea that Ari sent me, but I felt like it was missing a few things. I started to test it out and I felt like the Mulches were pretty poor. It also didn't have a lot to do as far as mid-game was concerned. Then I remembered some sweet interactions that just rotated. Huntmaster of the Fells and Restoration Angel was a good combo, right? Let's throw that combo in there! It also turns out that Restoration Angel blocks a LOT of stuff and a lot of removal nowadays is sorcery speed. If the games were grinding out I would also want some other threats like Thragtusk and Zealous Conscripts. Have I mentioned how awesome Zealous Conscripts is yet against a lot of decks? Well, it's downright insane! I sure as hell didn't want Cathedral Sanctifier in my deck either (although to be honest I contemplated sideboarding it, I'm insane). With all that said, here is the list I played last weekend.
Creatures (25)
- 2 Angel of Glory's Rise
- 1 Angel of Serenity
- 4 Avacyn's Pilgrim
- 1 Borderland Ranger
- 3 Falkenrath Aristocrat
- 4 Fiend Hunter
- 4 Huntmaster of the Fells
- 3 Restoration Angel
- 1 Thragtusk
- 1 Zealous Conscripts
- 1 Griselbrand
Lands (23)
Spells (12)
- 2 Acidic Slime
- 2 Thragtusk
- 3 Oblivion Ring
- 4 Pillar of Flame
- 1 Sever the Bloodline
- 3 Slaughter Games
Sideboard
So clearly this deck wasn't the most tuned, but it was a helluva lot more tuned than the older lists so I went with it. Instead of boring you with a tournament report, instead I'll share some cool stories about the deck and what it can do.
For the rounds that I won, I often won game one with the combo and game two with midrange plan A and a half. During round one I cast Unburial Rites on a Griselbrand and had it promptly stolen by Zealous Conscripts. I untapped and dealt him infinite damage, gained infinite life, made infinite wolves with haste, and stole all of his permanents. In game two he lost to Thragtusks, Angels, and Wolves. He also more than likely kept his subpar opener on the back of the Grafdigger's Cage it had.
In round two I had a feature match against Bant Control. The end of game two was caught on camera but it missed the more incredible game one. It was a back and forth battle the whole game, him being slightly ahead because of multiple Thragtusks and planeswalkers. Eventually he used the ultimate on Tamiyo with multiple cards of note in his hand, including Thragtusk, Supreme Verdict, Jace, Architect of Thought, Terminus, and another Tamiyo. How do you beat a Tamiyo ultimate? By grinding it out, obviously! At that point I knew my line of winning was to combo him so I started to play to that. I eventually got rid of his Thragtusk by casting an Aristocrat and a Fiend Hunter, removing it for good. Of course he cast Supreme Verdict. Towards the end of our 30+ minute game one I finally drew the Unburial Rites to go with my Jarad's Orders (which was by far the best card in the deck). I cast Orders for Aristocrat and Angel, and passed the turn. He draws some cards, thins his deck, plays some walkers, and says go. I immediately kill him when I untap. I think he was pretty shocked, too, since almost no one knew how my combo worked all day.
Our game two was a little less exciting. He was forced to make some subpar plays due to time constraints so on the last possible turn of turns I had to win I had a board of Fiend Hunter, Zealous Conscripts, and lands against his Thragtusk. He was at exactly 14 life. I cast Aristocrat and then a Fiend Hunter. I exiled my Conscripts with Fiend Hunter and then sacrificed it, getting to steal his Thragtusk. I then swung with my team for exactly 14.
Ironically, two rounds later I lost while having a Tamiyo emblem. Let's just say that around then was when I noticed I needed more black sources. I died with one Jarad's Orders and three Grisly Salvages in my hand. I imagine that drawing five cards for GB for the rest of the game would have probably put me in the driver seat that game. Against GB Zombies in the very next round I killed my opponent from 10 life by casting Rites on Griselbrand and then Zealous Conscripts, attacking for exactly lethal.
So, after playing the event with my semi-tuned list I knew I had to tune it even more. The mana was clearly wrong and the Avacyn's Pilgrims were boarded out every game. Farseek would clearly be better here. Borderland Ranger can also go for the fourth Grisly Salvage. Here is the updated list I would play:
Creatures (19)
- 2 Angel of Glory's Rise
- 1 Angel of Serenity
- 3 Falkenrath Aristocrat
- 3 Fiend Hunter
- 4 Huntmaster of the Fells
- 3 Restoration Angel
- 1 Thragtusk
- 1 Zealous Conscripts
- 1 Griselbrand
Lands (23)
Spells (18)
I added another Conscripts to the board because that card is insane in the membrane. A lot of times against control you just steal their planeswalkers and ultimate them, or you take them and get a lot of value (taking Jace on two counters, for example). Against Jund and other midrange decks you get to hit them with a Thragtusk or take any sort of creature and sacrifice it to Falkenrath Aristocrat. The one Slime in the board is to tutor with Orders. Sometimes you just need to blow stuff up. Vraska seems like it will perform better overall against control decks. A lot of times you want ways to hit their Oblivion Rings or Detention Spheres. Sometimes you need to hit their walkers to. Slaughter Games just wasn't cutting it for me. I would often only be able to cast it after they were gaining an advantage on board through a planeswalker. I couldn't afford the turn doing nothing, which is exactly what Slaughter Games felt like it was doing. Nothing.
In closing I'd like to point out a few things I noticed this weekend as far as Standard is concerned:
- Intangible Virtue and Lingering Souls are in the format, and they are a force to be reckoned with.
- Thragtusk is everywhere and there doesn't exist a good answer to it besides more Thragtusks.
- Zealous Conscripts is insane and should be seeing a LOT more play than it currently does. I'm talking two at a bare minimum if you have red in your deck.
- Deathrite Shaman's stock should go up. Worst case scenario, it's a Grim Lavamancer against your control opponents; best case scenario, it hoses an entire strategy.
-Olivia Voldaren is nutty and there's almost no good way to deal with it outside of white cards. Sweepers and Oblivion Ring effects are the best against it, but every other color struggles (besides Tragic Slip and Murder in black).
- Midrange is king right now, it seems. Sure, a token deck may have won Providence, but it feels very midrangey. If the decks are moving towards midrange, then you want to have Unburial Rites in your midrange deck. It gives you an insane edge against everything fair.
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About Larry Swasey
Larry Swasey made Top 8 of two StarCityGames.com Opens with his deck, Blumanji. He can usually be found on Magic Online at the top of the standings as krazykirby4.