Battle of Wits is almost by nature built as a hybrid deck. You have a deck of 240+ cards with the incentive all around this five-mana enchantment. Even if you wanted to go all card drawing and Tutors to find the aforementioned enchantment, 1) there probably aren’t enough available to do that and 2) you still have to have 200 cards in your deck to make Battle do anything. You need to fill the space with something, so historically most Battle decks have been hybrid combo-control decks.

"Combo" in the sense that Battle of Wits is a "one-card combo" and control because you have so many available cards you can just jam a bazillion counterspells and removal cards in; your Battle of Wits deck is already going to be chock full of Tutors and card drawing, right? What kinds of decks have all Tutors and card drawing? You can use them to find the right answer when you need to (especially when a Battle of Wits is somehow not fast enough on its own). Beatdown is less appropriate as it is more draw dependent. Control loves a game that takes all day, especially when they have lots and lots of stall-tacular cards that do similar stuff. By contrast, look at a creature deck. How much better is a draw with turn 1 Delver of Secrets than not? Turn 2 Strangleroot Geist in MGA or Naya Aggro? Creature decks are far more draw dependentâ€”especially the more aggressiveâ€”and a 240-card deck is going to present weaker opening hands on average based on the vastly larger number of possibly available hands.

The Battle of Wits deck I am going to talk about in this article is also a hybrid deck. But instead of combo-control, it is more of a combo-mana ramp or combo-mana ramp-control. Like most players, I started on a straight B/U deck.

The problem I had was that I often failed to tap my lands during the first four turns. So if you have all answer cards (as a control deck often will), you have this issue that you can have the wrong answer. Negate when you need a Doom Blade, Dissipate when they are playing around Mana Leak early but also have Cavern of Souls, so on, and so forth.

If you switch to a base-green modelâ€”especially a highly redundant oneâ€”you get to be hella proactive with your mana. This deck has a large amount of redundancy in the first two or three turns of the game. You can start on Birds of Paradise for the most explosive draws (Birds of Paradise into Pristine Talisman into Battle of Wits is a thing), and at least four different kinds of turn 2 acceleration. As long as you have your colors, you typically have something ~~interesting~~ to do.

Here is the list I have been playing with:

BUG Battle

Mike Flores

Test deck on 07-29-2012

Standard

Creatures (30)

Planeswalkers (13)

Lands (100)

Spells (101)

Sideboard

Yes, yesâ€”I’ve probably missed something.

After watching Brad’s interview from SCG Open Series: Buffalo, I am wondering if I shouldn’t try Trading Post… I already have the Wellsprings and Phyrexia’s Cores, right? That’s the cool thing about playing a 244-card deck. You can try any sweet thing; there is probably room.

And yet… You would actually be surprised at how often you end up shaking your head in disbelief that you have to cut something from your Battle of Wits deck. It is pretty cool that you can play up to 244 cards…but even 244 is a limit, and at some point you have to stop jamming in every planeswalker just because it is in your colors.

There is a lot going on in this deck (about four times as much as normal) so some of it will take some explanation; might as well start at the foundation…

4 Buried Ruin
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Darkslick Shores
4 Drowned Catacomb
4 Evolving Wilds
28 Forest
2 Ghost Quarter
4 Glimmerpost
4 Hinterland Harbor
1 Inkmoth Nexus
27 Island
1 Kessig Wolf Run
1 Mountain
2 Nephalia Drownyard
4 Phyrexia’s Core
2 Swamp
4 Woodland Cemetery

100 lands out of 244 cards is about 41%; that is about the same as 24-25 lands in a regular-sized deck… So even though you have 100 lands, it’s not like you are super heavy on mana (until you start counting all the acceleration, which we will in a moment).

You might have noticed this bit:

There are actually more Forests than Islands in this deck (if only by one), but not actually more green (on account of the dastardly Darkslick Shores). This deck has a lot Lot LOT of early game green action. You might want turn 1 Forest for Birds of Paradise, and you are generally pretty happy to play turn 2 Rampant Growth or Farseek, both of which require fast green.

The Mountain has only one function: the activation of the one Kessig Wolf Run. In a 244-card deck, the inclusion of one Kessig Wolf Run, one Mountain, and one Inkmoth Nexus is pretty low-cost (especially when you win with Prime Time half the time).

I am hot and cold on having only two Swamps. I think two is the right number, but especially when we go to videos you will see that we are often under pressure for black or even double black. Barter in Blood is a key defensive card in this deck, and Diabolic Tutor is a proxy setup for the win. That said, the deck has four each of Evolving Wilds, Darkslick Shores, Drowned Catacomb, and Woodland Cemetery (not to mention four Mycosynth Wellsprings in addition to all the green search)… So you will actually have both Swamps in play a surprising amount of the time for a 244-card deck with only two Swamps.

The deck wins with Primeval Titan almost half the time, and one of the cool things about the deck is that we can jimmy jam not just everything you have grown to love to do with Prime Time, but things that are sweet that can be facilitated by it…but aren’t usually done, like:

As was mentioned, this deck has a full-on Wellspring package a la my Mono-Black and "Mono-White" control decks from last month’s videos. One of the legit lines of play is to sit there and two-for-one your opponent while gaining life or some other small advantage. No one has as much materiel as you, so either they go over the top or you will eventually run them out. Especially in a deck that has Rampant Growth AND Farseek AND Solemn Simulacrum, giving up the land in play (Buried Ruin) for the two-for-one land-grabber (Mycosynth Wellspring or even Solemn Simulacrum) is quite low cost.

Have you ever seen a Primeval Titan search up a pair of these?

There are some situations where you can jam out your Primeval Titan with a very high confidence of resolution (i.e., you have one of the Maximum Number of Cavern of Souls), but you know that Primeval Titan is dead next turn… It probably won’t even get an attack.

So what’s a girl to do?

Often the decks that can kill a Primeval Titan can’t possibly withstand a Drowned Catacomb. So if they are flush with removal… Who cares? These decks often have Nephalia Drownyard themselves. I don’t think we have to worry about a Drownyard race, do you?

I feel so rich playing these. Such a backbreaker, so often.

One of my favorite strategies when I am losing to Delver in the short term is to Cavern up Primeval Titan for Glimmerposts and then do it again. If you have Cavern of Souls, the Delver opponent’s cards have very different reactive impact… Like he can keep bouncing your Primeval Titan (taxing you for one), but you get to keep playing it down (where you make up a solid multiple).

If you gain a ton of life while he is doing this, it will be hard for him to kill you. So then you can eventually do something more productive with your Titan.

Great shades of GerryT on this one.

Like peanut butter and chocolate. The Mountain has no other function besides operating the Kessig Wof Run; the Nexus’s destiny is to chump block a shocking amount of the time.

Two things that might be obvious and might not be obvious to you… I pretty much jammed whatever duals I could into this deck. But even with a proportional number of lands similar to a 24-25 land deck (plus ramp cards), a 244-card deck is going to tend to have worse mana than a regular-sized deck. The reason is that a regular-sized deck is pretty unlikely to ever hit a streak of 30 Forests and 30 Island (more-or-less), while this one at least can. Basically, every B/U deck in Standard has four Darkslick Shores and four Drowned Catacomb like I do, but they are much Much MUCH more likely to draw them early.

A pretty common scenario with this deck is to dig up blue and green lands early and then use Primeval Titan to facilitate your black (or double black). When you do that it is important to remember that not all dual lands are created equal. All other things considered, you should usually get double Darkslick Shores because any of your other duals are likely to hit the battlefield untapped if you topdeck them, whereas if you are in Prime Time, a topdecked Darkslick Shores is always going to come into play tapped. Frowny face.

So next up is the defining difference of this version of Battle, the ramp and land search:

4 Horizon Spellbomb
4 Mycosynth Wellspring
4 Sphere of the Suns
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Farseek
4 Rampant Growth
4 Druidic Satchel
4 Pristine Talisman
4 Borderland Ranger
4 Solemn Simulacrum
4 Green Sun’s Zenith
4 Primeval Titan

I am lumping Horizon Spellbomb into this crew even though it isn’t really "ramp" so much as "a sweet card I have always wanted to play"; you get to play Horizon Spellbomb because of the crossover with Trinket Mage + the superpower of being able to tap for green mana in your huge B/U deck.

The rest of the stuff is everything you would normally jam into a regular ramp deck (if you could find room); P.S. we have room.

I actually love Green Sun’s Zenith for Borderland Ranger. Search for search.

The green is the difference-maker in this deck. You are always doing something. There is nothing more frustrating than not doing anything, am I right? I hate going five turnsâ€”and making land dropsâ€”and never playing a card.

The other thing is that you keep touching your library. You might not think of a Rampant Growth as getting you a card closer to Battle of Wits, but it kind of does. Plusâ€”and this is importantâ€”ramp makes Battle of Wits that much faster. The whole point of playing this deck is that you can get a fifth (or so) turn one-card combo kill; well, you know what is better than a turn 5 Battle of Wits (which is, in fact, "only" a turn 6 kill)? A turn 4 Battle of Wits (which you can accomplish with any number of ramp spells). You know what is even sexier than that? Turn 1 Birds of Paradise into turn 2 Pristine Talisman (or whatever, but Pristine Talisman is sexiest) into turn 3 Battle of Wits!

4 Green Sun’s Zenith
1 Glissa, the Traitor
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Borderland Ranger
1 Acidic Slime
1 Thragtusk
4 Primeval Titan

The deck has a fair Zenith package.

Green Sun’s Zenith’s most common job is to get Birds of Paradise on turn 2; the next most likely is to find Primeval Titan. You have Acidic Slime and Thragtusk as bullets on five, and more Thragtusks to side into against beatdown, burn, etc.

Glissa, the Traitor is a specialist in this deck. It’s not the most common target, but it can be pretty annoying for some. How is a White Weenie deck supposed to get through Glissa? And when you start looping some two-for-ones with Spellbombs or Wellsprings + Phyrexia’s Core, it can be pretty fun. Glissa doesn’t come up often (you have one copy in a 244-card deck), but when it does, it can become a combination defender and engine.

4 Trinket Mage
1 Elixir of Immortality
4 Horizon Spellbomb
4 Nihil Spellbomb

Trinket Style has his own little army in this deck. Nihil Spellbomb is just a "delayed blast" cantrip that can help you dig to your Battle of Wits (basically a slow cycler)… That also has great value against Frites, Moorland Haunt, and even Runechanter’s Pike.

Horizon Spellbomb is a sweet card! It is kind of like a really crappy Amass the Componentsâ€”total investment of four mana, two-for-one. But again, you can "delayed blast" it. The versatility of playing Horizon Spellbomb for only three total mana lets you hit your third land drop some games, and it can help you set up black mana. This card might not make the cut in the absence of Trinket Mage… But we don’t have to speculate on that, do we?

Elixir of Immortality is the coolest. Ever get Battle in play with fewer than 200 cards in your deck? Trinket Mage will get ’em!

Also, gaining five life is a sometimes-desirable functionality.

4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Ponder
4 Ichor Wellspring
4 Think Twice
4 Divination
4 Forbidden Alchemy
4 Diabolic Tutor
4 Amass the Components

Cards that draw cards.

Basically, you want to make your 244-card deck smaller to help you find Battle of Wits and other bombs.

4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Garruk Relentless
4 Battle of Wits
4 Tamiyo, the Moon Sage
1 Garruk, Primal Hunter
1 Wurmcoil Engine
2 Consecrated Sphinx
4 Karn Liberated
4 Temporal Mastery

Mostly haymakers.

When you have a Diabolic Tutor, the scripted play is generally to find Battle of Wits, but that isn’t always the right move. For instance, you can actually be raced some games. You might want to find a Primeval Titan to gain life + block or Karn to remove a key permanent.

4 Tribute to Hunger
4 Doom Blade
4 Go for the Throat
4 Dismember
4 Barter in Blood
4 Black Sun’s Zenith

Stuff that kills stuff.

The one card that I think I would like some copies of is Life’s Finale. I previously had four, then three, then just one copy of Liliana of the Veil…too hard to cast under pressure.

Strengths

I am not going to claim that this deck is the be-all and end-all, but it can beat anything. Anything. You have 24 dedicated removal cards (not counting planeswalker control like Garruk, Tamiyo, or Karn)…which is more removal than most decks have threats. You can double up with Snapcaster Mage or exploit your card advantage to draw into that copious removal.

Only a deck with 200+ cards can play the number of lines that BUG Battle can; you can play like a Kessig Wolf Run deck, or you can grab double Drownyards to suffocate a midrange deck.

Speaking of which, one of the greatest advantages of this deck is over basically any midrange control deck (especially ones without counterspells). Decks that are dickering over two-for-ones? Trying to get a little Wurmcoil Engine value with their Goat tokens? You are going to go right over the top.

I know Battleâ€”even an accelerated Battleâ€”is going to have some competition from the speed and fun of G/W Elves, but I daresay it is easier for me to imagine Birds of Paradise â†’ Pristine Talisman â†’ Battle of Wits as a thing (because I have done it three times this week, at least) than Arbor Elf â†’ Elvish Archdruid â†’ Genesis Wave [for both Village Bell-Ringers]…and another Genesis Wave (and some extra luck to boot).

Weaknesses

Like any deck with ramp or midrange controllish elements, Battle is potentially vulnerable to fast Delver draws. Honestly, I would rate the experience of playing against various Delver decks as "not as bad as I thought."

I won more than I lost.

I would get the "ramp" draw and a Cavern of Souls and win like a Wolf Run Ramp deck instead of a Battle deck. Or I would kill all their guys. It was never particularly comfortable…but also not nearly as bad as I imagined.

There are two unique weaknesses to not just Battle decks in general, but this deck specifically that you should probably be aware of before you pick it:

You need to keep some weaker hands than you might with more conventional decks. You have a lot fewer dual lands proportionally than another three-color Standard deck. That affects your early distribution of colored mana, especially given all the Phyrexia’s Cores, Ghost Quarters, and Drownyards. Any 244-card deck is going to have a bit of a variable here.
… But not every one is going to have the sheer volume of library touching. Horizon Spellbomb. Rampant Growth. Farseek. Green Sun’s Zenith. Borderland Ranger. Solemn Simulacrum. Diabolic Tutor (ting!). Primeval Titan. Probably more… You touch your deck a lot in this list, and while that is generally a positive multiple (if you are good), it takes a lot of time to search a 244-card deck.

Opportunities

Also, as far as fast combos in Standard go, this one can’t be easily disrupted by a bunch of creature removal.

Threats

While I think this is the most fun deck in Standardâ€”while still having a good shot to slay opponentsâ€”Battle is no longer alone in the realm of fast combo hybrid decks, which I think might adversely affect its adoption.

Up next: Some pretty g-d exciting videos!

LOVE
MIKE