Happy New Year everyone! Sorry it’s been so long since my last StarCityGames.com contribution – I could go on and on about being busy with work, with the kids, with the holidays, blah, blah, blah but the fact is that I just haven’t had the time to play much Magic since States, much less write about it. Now that the Holiday Season is over, I hope to get back into the swing of things!
Speaking of States, you may be wondering how I did? The bad news is that I ended up somewhere in the upper middle of the pack with a 5-3 record. The good news is that I had an absolute blast playing my deck, so much so that I wanted to make sure I posted something about it so that others of you might enjoy yourselves too! So why not take a break from testing for extended and head down to your local Friday Night Magic venue and play something other than Affinity, Death Cloud or Tooth and Nail?
My recommendation? Something with Blasting Station, Beacon of Creation, and Fecundity. Woo-hooo!
States preparation saw me pretty much settling down with playing Tooth and Nail (a deck I found enjoyable, powerful and somewhat consistent) until my esteemed editor told me in no uncertain terms that T&N would be an absolute horrible choice to play, for a variety of reasons. He felt that the metagame had turned violently against T&N. Gah! Two weeks before States, what was I to do? Conventional wisdom would be to hold firm and play what you know. But Ted also has the reputation for being a good judge of upcoming metagames.
At the same time, I’d been intrigued by some of the powerful black cards from Champions of Kamigawa, and so of course had been trying out several variations on the classic Black/Green color combination. I’d actually settled on a list I found to be quite promising:
4 Oxidize
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
3 Kodama’s Reach
4 Eternal Witness
4 Horobi, Death’s Wail
4 Beacon of Creation
4 Phyrexian Plaguelord
3 Kokushu, the Evening Star
2 Triskelion
I was particularly enamored with the old-school feel of Phyrexian Plaguelord backed with Beacon of Creation, filling in for Deranged Hermit’s “millions.” And with a Horobi on the board, you could pretty much clear your opponent’s side of creatures.
So with Ted’s words ringing in my ears, I decided to abandon T&N and work on this deck. Black/Green had been good to me in the past, right?
Then Ted launches this salvo in my face, at the very top of his Five Things You Absolutely Must Know for Champs:
5) The Top 3 Decks at Champs Will Be Affinity, Tooth, and… B/G.
“Hey world- when you’re preparing your deck for States don’t forget to find room to stomp Bennie’s Black/Green deck!”
That’s what that sounded like to me. Suddenly, I was planning on playing one of the “Decks to Beat,” no longer advantaged with the rogue element of surprise. I mean, sure my version was considerably different from the Death Cloud decks that were running around, but… presumably hate for those decks would splash damage mine.
It’s a few days before states… what should I do?
I try and weasel Jimbus Ferraiolo for his decklist, but he’s not giving any love my way. I know Ted’s playing something similar to Flores’ mono-Blue – I even guess what the Super Secret anti-T&N Sideboard Tech is (Temporal Adept)- but there’s no way in hell I’m playing mono-friggin’-Blue. [For the record, the last time Bennie played a non-Green deck at States or Regionals is unknown. – Knut]
Screw it, I decide. I’ll stick with my Black/Green.
The Friday before States a few of us gather at our local store for some last minute playtesting. I run B/G against the gauntlet, over and over… and get more and more aggravated. The deck is powerful; it can do obscene broken things… when it draws consistently. And it doesn’t always draw consistently. In fact, half the time it draws all support and no action. I draw fistfuls of Birds, Reaches and Eternal Witnesses and just die miserably. If I play this damn deck at States aggravation will send my blood pressure up to stroke levels.
Meanwhile at the table next to me, Kevin “Neo” Anderson is having an absolute ball playing a Blasting Station/Beacon of Creation deck I’d sent him.
I’d originally run across the core deck idea when The Ben Seck made waves with this roguish creation TheSuperBlastingStation during the 2004 MTGO World Championship Qualifier:
TheSuperBlastingStation
by Ben Seck
4 Wood Elves
4 Eternal Witness
4 Birds of Paradise
3 Solemn Simulacrum
3 Wirewood Symbiote
1 Wirewood Herald
1 Viridian Shaman
4 Beacon of Creation
4 Fecundity
3 Blasting Station
3 Magma Jet
3 Oxidize
2 Rude Awakening
Sideboard
4 Naturalize
3 Fractured Loyalty
1 Oxidize
3 Electrostatic Bolt
1 Mountain
3 Sword of Fire and Ice
I’ve always loved Fecundity and had a few Fecundity deck ideas that never panned out a few Extended seasons back. But since a lot of this deck would be leaving Type 2 for States I was wondering how it might fare in the rotation since the core of the deck remains available. I was particularly intrigued by Gabriel Nassif Beacon deck from the Block Portion Worlds 2004, since all of that would be Type 2 legal in the fall:
Bloodbath
by Gabriel Nassif – Block Portion Worlds 2004
24 Forest
4 Tel-Jilad Chosen
4 Eternal Witness
4 Viridian Shaman
4 Molder Slug
4 Beacon of Creation
4 Oxidize
4 Tel-Jilad Justice
4 Blasting Station
4 Echoing Courage
Sideboard
3 Troll Ascetic
4 Reap and Sow
3 Duplicant
2 Rude Awakening
3 Oblivion Stone
I updated Nassif’s decklist with Fecundity to complete the Ben Seck engine, and added the awesome Sakura-Tribe Elder. With a deck that seemed to easily accumulate a large number of lands pretty quickly, adding the awesome Rude Awakening to the deck seemed to be a no-brainer. I never really took the time to test this deck, but I sent this decklist to Kevin and he built a version pretty close to it:
Forests Attack!
By Bennie Smith
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Tel-Jilad Justice
2 Echoing Courage
4 Blasting Station
4 Fecundity
4 Eternal Witness
4 Beacon of Creation
4 Solemn Simulacrum
3 Rude Awakening
23 Forest
Anyway, so I’m having a crisis of faith with my G/B deck the night before States, absolutely miserable with my choice while I’m watching Kevin next to me having a ball with Forests Attack! He’s drawing cards, making lots of dudes, pinging away tons of creatures and killing with a massive land attack. He’s actually hanging tough with Affinity and Tooth and Nail, winning as much as he loses. Josh, who’s played the Affinity gauntlet deck so much that he ultimately decides to play Affinity at States, proclaims the Beacon deck is better than we all thought.
It was 11:45pm. The shop closed at midnight. I decided to play Beacon the next morning for States, and asked Kevin to look over his deck so I can write down what he’s got going.
During the 15-minute drive home, I do some hard thinking on the deck. One thing that seems pretty obvious is just how easy it would be to splash another color without harming the Forest count too much. My first thought is adding some awesome Kokushos, since it’s been the one thing I’ve loved consistently in my G/B deck. I even like their synergy with Blasting Station… but then I realize that “splashing” a couple of creatures that cost two off-colored mana is likely silly. Then I remembered Kiega, who only costs one colored Blue mana… that was cool, but didn’t feel like it gave enough oomph for the cost of adding another color.
Then I remembered Meloku, and it all just clicked into place. I stayed up ’til nearly 2 a.m. building and goldfishing this:
Having a Blast
by Bennie Smith
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Oxidize
3 Sensei’s Divining Top
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Eternal Witness
4 Fecundity
4 Blasting Station
4 Beacon of Creation
4 Solemn Simulacrum
2 Rude Awakening
2 Meloku the Clouded Mirror
2 Island
19 Forest
Sideboard
4 Plow Under
3 Keiga, the Tide Star
4 Naturalize
4 Viridian Shaman
Meloku functioned much like Beacons #5 and #6 or Rude Awakenings #3 and #4 with Blasting Station, and could simply just make a few fliers and win the long way. Her casting cost was perfect, allowing me to develop my Forest count from the get-go to juice up the Beacons, while easily fetching an Island later on when I wanted to cast Meloku.
The last additions to the deck were the Divining Tops. One thing I noticed while goldfishing was just how often I was shuffling the deck, and that occasionally I’d fail to draw enough business cards and stall. Obviously the consistency issues I’d been running into with G/B were heavy in my mind. The Top seemed to be the answer to my prayers.
I ended up going 5-3, but I think with a little luck and some more practice with the deck I could have easily gone 6-2 and maybe even squeaked into the Top 8. I went 1-1 against Affinity, and in the match that I lost we went to three games. In the last game, it came down to a top deck war that went on for a ridiculously long time before my opponent pulled it out. I lost to Jim’s bizzaro Legend.dec to a little bit of bad draw luck compounded with a lack of experience with my deck, plus Jim’s high proficiency with his. I lost in three games to a Tooth and Nail deck where I got frustrated by some poor draws on my part and likely made a few too many mistakes. I also won against Green/Black, a mono-Red control deck, and two other decks I can’t quite remember.
Anyway, even after my third loss I kept playing just to try and get a better feel for the deck, and came away with these thoughts:
#1 – The deck is a lot of fun! Honestly, some of my opponents seemed to be getting some enjoyment even when they lost to me from the sheer rogue craziness of the deck. Making lots of little dudes, drawing lots of cards when they die, and then stealing a win out of nowhere from a Rude Awakening is just a hoot.
#2 – The deck is powerful! It’s chock full of potent synergies between cards that are all at least somewhat good independently. And there are lots of stack tricks to abuse that I stumbled over due to lack of experience with the deck. You’ll want to put in some practice time, and view each game you play as an opportunity to learn something new.
#3 – Fecundity is amazing when your deck is full of chump blockers! One of my worries with Fecundity was that my opponents would end up benefiting too much from drawing their own cards from Fecundity, but I found in practice that you could manage the card advantage so that it tilts overwhelmingly your way. The trick is to have your guys die before damage is put on the stack, something that’s pretty easy to do with a bunch of 1/1s (even more so with Blasting Station in play). Each of your little dudes that dies while chumping buys you time while you rip through your deck, making more little dudes, pinging away at life totals until you’re ready to just flat out win with Rude Awakening or a huge Beacon with Blasting Station out.
#4 – My sideboard sucked. Plow Under isn’t nearly as effective against Tooth & Nail as advertised, namely because they have so many ways of their own to shuffle their deck, they rarely suffer the double whammy of mana-setback and draw-setback. I found that Keiga was a much better option to bring in, since you can usually get it down early and swing with it, before sacrificing it to steal some massive fat creature from your opponent. I think a couple of Condescends might not be a bad idea to fend off Cranial Extractions, which proved to be a huge pain in the ass.
Anyway, coming away with such positive vibes from playing the deck, I was curious how others might have fared. Scouring the Top 8 deck lists on the Wizards site, I ran across these success stories:
Beacon of Creation Decks from State Champs 2004
Rashad Miller, 7th Place – Illinois
20 Forest
2 Plains
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Wood Elves
3 Solemn Simulacrum
4 Eternal Witness
3 Viridian Zealot
3 Sensei’s Divining Top
4 Beacon of Creation
3 Blasting Station
4 Fecundity
2 Rude Awakening
Sideboard
3 Karma
4 Plow Under
4 Creeping Mold
4 Oxidize
Rashad’s deck reminded me a lot of my own deck, and he obviously found the Tops to be as handy as I did. I can’t say that I agree much with cutting a Blasting Station; the card is so crucial to the deck, and everyone is running maindeck artifact hate, it seems to be quite risky even with Eternal Witnesses. I’m also a bit baffled by the Oxidizes in the sideboard rather than the maindeck, and wondering why he feared Black so much that he splashed White just for Karma?
Marshall Ashford, 2nd Place – Georgia
18 Forest
1 Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers
4 Wood Elves
4 Viridian Shaman
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Solemn Simulacrum
4 Eternal Witness
3 Chrome Mox
3 Blasting Station
2 Wear Away
2 Rude Awakening
4 Beacon of Creation
4 Oxidize
3 Fecundity
Sideboard
1 Fecundity
4 Naturalize
4 Reap and Sow
2 Creeping Mold
4 Plow Under
Marshall went for speed with Chrome Mox, and trimmed away some of the core engine with only 3 Stations and 3 Fecundity. 4 Oxidize, 4 Shaman and 2 Wear Away top loads some serious Affinity hate, which likely did him well.
Tyler Sage, 7th Place – British Columbia
21 Forest
4 Solemn Simulacrum
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Eternal Witness
3 Viridian Shaman
1 Duplicant
2 Rude Awakening
4 Beacon of Creation
4 Blasting Station
3 Fecundity
4 Oxidize
2 Sensei’s Divining Top
Sideboard
1 Swamp
1 Island
3 March of the Machines
3 Cranial Extraction
1 Viridian Shaman
2 Circle of Protection: Black
3 Circle of Protection: Red
1 Plains
Another disciple of Sensei’s Divining Top! I really like the style of his toolbox sideboard, though it pains me to dedicate three slots to basic lands. Still, being able to bring in March of the Machines, Cranial Extractions, or Circles of Protection seems like a strong strategy.
Seb Dolling, 3rd Place – Sommerset
22 Forest
1 Swamp
4 Eternal Witness
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
3 Viridian Shaman
3 Viridian Zealot
2 Kodama of the North Tree
4 Beacon of Creation
4 Blasting Station
4 Fecundity
3 Rude Awakening
2 Rend Flesh
Sideboard
4 Spreading Algae
4 Plow Under
1 Naturalize
2 Creeping Mold
4 Oxidize
The second person to run maindeck Viridian Zealots over Oxidizes… there’s no doubt that Zealots work much better with Fecundity and Blasting Station, but I’ve always felt it was just way too slow as a card. Maybe it works fine in this deck with the acceleration available? It’s something I’ll have to try. Kodama of the North Tree is a great beating stick, but it feels a bit random here-maybe Seb just wanted to give a new card a try? The Spreading Algae in the sideboard certainly raises an eyebrow, I’d be curious to see if it actually proved useful?
Alright, so I’ve thrown a bunch of decklists at you; what now? Learning from what I played, and looking at some of the successes at States, I’d probably give something like this a try:
Having a Blast v2
by Bennie Smith
4 Birds of Paradise
3 Sensei’s Divining Top
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
3 Viridian Zealot
4 Eternal Witness
4 Fecundity
4 Blasting Station
4 Beacon of Creation
4 Solemn Simulacrum
2 Rude Awakening
2 Meloku the Clouded Mirror
1 Keiga, the Tide Star
Sideboard
3 March of the Machines
2 Keiga, the Tide Star
4 Oxidize
1 Viridian Zealot
2 Molder Slug
3 Dosan the Falling Leaf
What about Regionals? You can bet your bottom dollar that I’ll be revisiting this deck after Betrayers comes out to see what might strengthen the deck. Depending on what cards come into the mix, and depending on how the metagame shapes up, this might be a good rogue choice. Let’s keep our fingers crossed!