One day some teammates, friends, and I were sitting around talking about the Type Two format to see if we could come up with something new. My teammates and I suggested that a R/G Beats deck might be something to look into. At that point David Gearthart (5th place at Virginia States), yelled at us and said that it was a horrible idea. So one night, we set out to prove David wrong, and Ian MacInnes and I wrote up a decklist and began testing. We both got a huge surprise when the morning came and the deck was still good. It has had some revisions since, but our playtesting has shown it to be very solid against U/G Control and Ravager Affinity, going 7-3 and 8-2 against the decks. The match against Tooth and Nail is a difficult one, but there are tools in the sideboard to deal with it.

Untouchables
Lands
12 Forest
8 Mountain
1 Shinka, The Bloodsoaked Keep
1 Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers

Creatures
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Viridian Shaman
4 Eternal Witness
3 Hearth Kami
4 Tel-Jilad Chosen
2 Molder Slug
2 Arc-Slogger
2 Kodama of the North Tree
4 Troll Ascetic
1 Jugan, the Rising Star

Spells
4 Magma Jet
4 Electrostatic Bolt

Sideboard
4 Stone Rain
4 Creeping Mold
4 Oxidize
3 Karstoderm

As you can see, the deck is running enough artifact hate to hold off Affinity until you can drop one of your huge beasts. I'm not running Oxidize or Tel-Jilad Justice in the main because the two-for-ones are just better. Not only that, but when you're not playing against Affinity, those cards are all but dead. I know you can blow up a random Vedalken Shackles here and there, but aside from that, having dead cards is never a good thing. This way you can beat with your answers when you don't need them to be answers.

Now there are a lot of peculiar card choices in this deck, so I'll go over the ones that may be questioned.

Tel-Jilad Chosen
This guys not only breaks Affinity in half, but it has the fun elements of not being able to be killed by the Triskelion/Mephidross Vampire combo or targeted by Vedalken Shackles. I think the Chosen are one of the few cards that are unbelievable in this metagame that has yet to see serious play. He saw slight play in block when Mono-Green was around, but then again it wasn't around for very long.

Troll Ascetic
This little critter has seen some maindeck and some sideboard play in the past couple of months, so I thought I might add him to see how he would do. He definitely makes this deck. After you stabilize against Affinity, he blocks huge Ravagers and Atogs all day long. He also is one hell of a $#%&@ for control to deal with. Actually they can't deal with him. As soon as you play a Troll backed up with some more beats, the control player might as well just scoop up his or her cards.

Jugan, the Rising Star
Again, control has yet another huge fatty to deal with. If you resolve this guy he's tough for almost any deck to handle, and then when they finally do handle him, he doesn't really go away. More often than not, I was using him as counter bait so that I could resolve my Kodama. In all honesty you can easily turn this into the fourth Hearth Kami and you'll be smooth sailing. I just prefer the fat.

Kodama of the North Tree
Hey look, its a really, really big Troll! Kodama normally turns into a two-for-one more than he kills people. Your opponent will normally double block him just to get him off the board; which is fine with you, because your other guys are getting through that way. At the risk of repeating myself, he is yet another fatty that control has a hard time dealing with.

Arc-Slogger
This is good for getting your opponent's Eternal Witness, Viridian Shamans, and Jenses off of the board. He's 4/5 beater, and he loves to ruin Affinity's day. Not much else to say about him.

Viridian Shaman/Hearth Kami/ Electrostatic Bolt/Molder Slug
Do I really have to tell you? Die Affinity, Die.

Well, now that you know the lowdown, onto the matchups!

Affinity
I'm pretty sure I've already gone over this, but just to restate the fact, 8 out of 10 games! There aren't many decks in the format that can do that except for the anti-artifact builds of U/G control. You have to be cautious when you playing against this deck though. They can randomly plop down their hand, and you have to be prepared to deal with that. If you're ever arguing with yourself about Tel-Jilad Chosen over Hearth Kami, playing down the Hearth Kami makes every situation better, because he normally hits two things instead of one. You don't even really need to side in Oxidize against them unless you're down a game. Then you have to play control over aggro. Make sure they can't do anything tricky that might cost you the game. Another thing I learned is that if the Affinity player doesn't have a first turn drop you should Oxidize the land they played. This way you slow them down a lot because they are waiting to get to two mana to play something.

U/G Control
This is the matchup where your untargetables really shine. The Troll Ascetics, Tel-Jilad Chosen, and Kodama of the North Tree have a field day against them. Actually in most cases those are the only creatures you want to play against them. You don't want to play many other creatures other than the critters that can't be Shackled against this deck because they'll steal them and throw them in the way of your Trolls. After sideboarding you are going to want to side in the Stone Rains. Land destruction is really good against that deck. If you really find it necessary you can side in the Creeping Molds, but I have yet to find that very useful.

Tooth and Nail
There's a flaw in every plan, right? Well, this deck happens to be yours. Your matchup against them first game isn't very pretty, but after sideboarding things are a little more on the bright side. You side in all eight land destruction spells against them, and that normally spells game over for the Tooth and Nail player. When they're getting smacked in the face and not having the lands to deal with it, they might just lose the game.

Mono-Red
This deck isn't that hard to beat actually. You clock is faster than theirs is and you can easily deal with early Slith Firewalkers. They only thing that makes this matchup a 60%-40% in your favor is that they have Arc-Slogger, but in most situations can deal with them with your own, or just drop a Jugan and win. Again this is yet another matchup where your untargetables shine because they can't kill them very easily.

Mono-Blue Control
Well this matchup goes a lot like U/G control, except they don't have many blockers to throw into the way. A second turn Troll spells game over for the Mono-Blue player. You are going to want to go pure aggro on them with your untargetables. They'll scramble to find their Echoing Truths for the Chosens, and if they end up not finding the Keiga, they can be in some serious trouble. After sideboarding bring in your Stone Rains, and they'll scramble even more.

Black/Green
This matchup goes pretty well, showing a good 6-4 record against it. The Trolls and Kodama are unbelievable, with the ability to dodge every one of their removal spells. This is where Karstoderm gets sided in. You drop a turn 3 or 4 Karstoderm and wait until they can handle it.

All in all, I think this is the deck that's going to take me to where I want to be. I think that this deck may be one of the new decks to beat. The only thing that would make this deck even better is Blastoderm. I hope you have as much success as I have with it.

Adios,
Bryan Ramsaroop
thegoth@gmail.com
Evil Roopey on AIM