We Can Do This One Of Two Ways

So I was thinking…

It’s funny how we can go off on these long trains of thought and then sit back and wonder “how did I get here?”

Oftentimes, when I’m stuck in traffic, my mind will wander. It’ll start out based on something the morning radio talking heads said, and by the time I become aware of my own thoughts, I’m now thinking about how Sarah and I need to come up with a date for our wedding since we are bad about keeping on ourselves when it comes to planning these things. In these times, I enjoy backtracking, weaving my way through the maze of thoughts that got me to my current thought process just to see how my mind works much faster than I realize.

That’s what has been happening with my pet deck as of late, Wolf Run Zegana. It’s been evolving, and it would take Theseus himself to navigate the maze of ideas and theorycrafting that led to where the deck (or decks, as it were) are at today.

So let’s get on that, Theseus… There’s even a Minotaur (Wizard) within that maze for you to battle! (Props if you get the reference without Googling it.)

As of my last article, I’d been playing with a base RUG deck that aimed to be a midrange Prime Speaker Zegana deck. The origins of that deck can be traced back even further to my previous article when I talked about trying out different ideas with Ghostly Flicker in RUG decks (acting as my “Restoration Angel”), which can be traced back to me trying to fit Mutilate in a BUG shell, which can be traced back to me realizing I wanted to play Abrupt Decay and Mutilate to tackle the Minotaur Wizard (See? I told you there was a Minotaur at the end of the maze!) that was beating up on Standard at the time.

Quite the winding maze! Interestingly, that gets me back to the deck I played in the StarCityGames.com Standard Open in Washington, DC. Since then, the thoughts and ideas have just kept coming, and the deck barely resembles its progenitor: a Ghostly Flicker centric deck that aimed to get value by Blinking its creatures.

The first thing I did after the #SCGDC was cut the chaff from the sideboard and just include what I needed to handle some of the problems for the deck, specifically Detention Sphere and Acidic Slime. I also went up to the full playset of Restoration Angels, as I talked about in my last article.

I included a maindeck Gruul Ragebeast as that card does so many things that are difficult to replicate with any other card. It simultaneously handles Angel of Serenity and Thragtusk, Olivia Voldaren and Loxodon Smiter (though it might be a stretch to declare that it absolutely handles Olivia, as obviously there are plenty of times it doesn’t).

Once the Ragebeast hits play, ridiculous things start happening.

Strangleroot Geist acts as a double removal spell for smaller creatures. Acidic Slime takes out both a land/enchantment/artifact and a creature. And Clone? Clone just goes bonkers in this deck with Gruul Ragebeast, especially if you have a Strangleroot Geist out.

Also, I finally cut the last of the Snapcaster Mages as well as the second Sphinx’s Revelation (the Revelation cut was immediately followed by the Snapcaster since the main reason I still had him in was the ability to rebuy Revelation) for a third Prime Speaker Zegana and a maindeck Ground Seal, which helps both the Reanimator matchups as well as the matchups against the Snapcaster Mage decks.

Here’s the latest list of the RUG splashing white Zegana deck:

Wolf Run Zegana

Michael Martin

Test deck on 03-31-2013

Standard

Creatures (24)

Lands (25)

Spells (11)

Sideboard

However, after testing with this list against aggressive decks, it felt like I had to hope for a bad draw on their part or I was just toast. Especially Jund Aggro; even if I could hinder their early progress, I was almost always just dead to a Falkenrath Aristocrat. Restoration Angels look pretty dumb when they’re essentially trading for an otherwise dead Rakdos Cackler or, worse, Burning-Tree Emissary. I can easily count on no fingers how many times I was able to kill an Aristocrat with Mizzium Mortars.

Never mind the actual The Aristocrats deck itself… /shudder.

There has to be a better way!

I can’t tell you the precise moment when the light bulb flickered on and I thought about switching the white splash for a black splash. I know that the idea originated with the thought of having an Overgrown Tomb and a couple of Rakdos’s Returns in the sideboard of the RUG splashing white Zegana deck, which was discarded as being too greedy even for me. I’d even considered the repercussions of adding black in for Olivia Voldaren (simultaneously adding more power, a mana sink, and an answer to opposing Olivias to the deck), but again discarded the notion.

Why was I sticking to white though? What did White really provide other than Restoration Angel? Rest in Peaces in the sideboard and a Sphinx’s Revelation in the main? While good cards, the fact that the deck was never more than meh in any matchup meant that they weren’t carrying their weight regardless of how good they were at what they did. Not to mention that I could easily replicate their effects in other colors, even having three copies of Prime Speaker Zegana already as my “Sphinx’s Revelation.” Ground Seal, Tormod’s Crypt, Rakdos Charm…all passable replacements for Rest in Peace, even if RIP is the best at what it does.

Another reason I disliked the white version was the inconsistency. Admittedly, this could be fixed without switching colors, but since I wanted to change the deck up anyway (Strangleroot Geist being the chief concern), I figured it was as good a time as any to see how a black splash would hold up.

It turns out that I basically wanted a Jund deck smashed in with my RUG Zegana deck. Not asking too much, was I?

Since I wanted to cut the Strangleroot Geists, I needed some other way to interact early and often with opposing aggro decks. Insert the Izzet Staticaster combo. Since I was already running Olivia Voldaren, having access to the two different “pingers” to combo with Nightshade Peddler seemed like a good idea. There have been plenty of variations on the “Peddle to the Metal” deck, and I suppose this is just another one of those in some respects. I kept much of the RUG core of the deck intact, adding the black for the maindeck Olivias as well as sideboard options.

Another interesting note was that I found myself needing the overload option on Mizzium Mortars a lot less in this deck since having access to two deathtouch pinger combos led to less stalled board states in the midrange mirror. I still liked having access to such an effect, but I didn’t need the full playset. This opened up slots that I could dedicate even further to stopping the hyperaggressive decks.

The funny thing about all this was that the selling point in my mind for moving from white to black was the ability to still play Ghostly Flicker for the Restoration Angel effect, which I’ wasn’t even playing anymore! There were just better things I could be doing it seemed, and even though it doesn’t do everything Resto Angel does, Clone still gives me a four-mana spell that simulates what Angel does decently well while also being able to answer opposing Olivias, Geists, and other legends of note.

With all that being said, here’s the RUG splashing black Zegana list I’ve been running:

Dark Wolf Run Zegana

Michael Martin

Test deck on 03-31-2013

Standard

Creatures (27)

Lands (24)

Spells (9)

Sideboard

The mana is still being worked out to accommodate the additional black cards in the main, as originally it was just a couple of Olivia Voldaren. The two opposing deck design constrictions at play here are 1) the lack of desire for as many shocklands as I already have (meaning I don’t want the fourth Overgrown Tomb) and 2) the need for as many Forests as possible for Arbor Elf to maintain his functionality. I had a basic Forest for the longest time, but you really can’t afford to have both a basic Forest and a Kessig Wolf Run in this deck. It just stretches the mana way too far. Luckily for us, the only times we really want to shock ourselves to play cards on time are going to be for cards like Huntmaster of the Fells and Thragtusk, which alleviate the pain slightly.

Most of the time, you just play an Olivia with mana up, then play a Nightshade Peddler the following turn, and win the game. If they can’t remove the Olivia before you play Peddler, you get to kill at least two things before they can actually get the Peddler off the board, making it a veritable three for one. Obviously, you also have the classic Nightshade Peddler / Izzet Staticaster machine-gun combo as well in addition to all the good stuff that the G/R side of the color pie offers in Standard right now like Thragtusk, Huntmaster of the Fells, and Farseek.

We have real answers to Falkenrath Aristocrat as well in Olivia and Tragic Slip. We can even Clone it if it comes to that since we’ll have as many creatures as they do and they’ll surely run out before we do. Also, Izzet Staticaster alone can lead your opponent to have to start sacrificing guys every turn (unless, obviously, they’re Humans, and even then pairing it with Nightshade Peddler will help that). Izzet Staticaster is also just really good against the entire The Aristocrats deck as well.

We’re still going to have a tough time with hyperaggressive decks like Naya Blitz, but we’re also not drawing dead. A turn 2 Izzet Staticaster is awesome against that deck, and if you can somehow follow that up with a Nightshade Peddler, you’ll practically beg your opponent to have four Burning-Tree Emissarys.

Against G/B/W Reanimator, they don’t have much removal at all, so the Staticaster combo is pretty much “good game” against them. Angel of Serenity will allow them to exile the combo permanently (as you’ll probably want to ping it in response), but you’ve also answered all of their mana dorks and Lingering Souls tokens by the time it comes to that in addition to any other creatures they might have foolishly played as they built up the mana to play Angel. Staticaster alone slows them down by offing their mana dorks, which gives you time to set up the combo to protect you from getting blown out by Craterhoof Behemoth, which is pretty much the only thing you care about later in the game.

Drawing a ton of cards with Prime Speakers will ensure you’re able to find a Clone or Dreadbore (or even Tragic Slip) to erase all that Angel of Serenity worked to accomplish, so if you happen to have any of those in hand, you can even let them exile your combo since you know you’ll get it back soon enough. And then, you can even wait to cast the combo again until you’re sure you’re not going to get “gotten” by another Angel.

Oh, and once you get into the really late game (which happens a lot in these midrange mirrors), you can even sandbag an Olivia and cast it and steal Angel as well, which also works. Plus, Olivia can quickly outgrow an Angel as well. Quick Unburial Rites are a concern but aren’t the end of the world either, as again, if you have the combo, you can simply wait until they flash their Rites back then kill the Angel. If they have another Rites and you don’t have a Crypt/Charm, well, you were going to have to deal with that as well anyway. If you’re worried about that sort of thing, you could always bring in a Slaughter Games too.

You’ll definitely want to bring in Acidic Slimes, though, as Gavony Township can be a problem. The Tormod’s Crypts and Rakdos Charm over Ground Seals are because Reanimator runs the full playset of Abrupt Decays; once Ground Seal is removed, they’re right back to doing their thing. It doesn’t even stop them from filling the graveyard up in the meantime, which is something I really miss from Rest in Peace.

In order to remove Crypt, they have to accept the loss of whatever they’ve put in their graveyard to this point, so I’d rather have that than the ability to draw a card in a deck that aims to already draw a ton of them anyway. The one Charm is due to the fact that I want the flexibility of the Charm (specifically Witchbane Orb and Staff of Nin) in addition to the surprise factor when it comes to countering an Unburial Rites.

Jund will still be a problem because Rakdos’s Return is a serious problem. You’ll want to board out the Staticaster combo for cards that are good to topdeck, like Jaces and Acidic Slimes, in addition to your own Rakdos’s Returns to try to get a leg up on them.

If I had to choose between light and dark, right now I’d probably be on the dark side. I really like Olivia Voldaren, as I watched her win many a game by herself on camera this past weekend at the StarCityGames.com Standard Opens in Orlando. When Searing Spear is the removal of choice (as it is now), if you play correctly with Olivia, you’ll win a lot more than not when you draw her. I like having that option in my deck, and even if that doesn’t happen, I still have the midrange “good stuff” shell and the Staticaster combo to fall back on.

Give this deck a shot and let me know how it works out! I plan on PTQing with whatever deck this morphs into by the time the next PTQ comes around. The deck will most likely look almost exactly like this unless some mega shift occurs in the metagame between now and then. If you play this deck (or one like it), please let me know in the comments how it runs for you!

As always, thanks for reading, and I’ll see you next time!

Michael Martin

@mikemartinlfs on Twitter