A Lot Of Shadows Over Innistrad Decks

Shadows over Innistrad Prerelease April 2-3!

Earlier this week, I talked about my general thoughts of Shadows over Innistrad Standard. This week, I’m looking at some our decklists and what worked and what didn’t.

The one thing I’d like people to keep in mind is that these have been my observations and conclusions, but I could certainly be wrong. It’s not impossible for me to have missed something, be it a card choice or even an entire deck that may change the entire dynamic of the format. Given the information I have, these things are all true, but if my information is wrong, I could end up being very wrong.

As evident by the foil Japanese Liliana, Heretical Healers I picked up, I wanted her to be good. It’s a fun card to play with and does a lot of things I like doing in Magic. Sadly, she is not well-positioned at the moment.

If decks were playing Jackal Pup, Watchwolf, and other assorted ground-pounders with Doom Blades and Lightning Strikes, Liliana would be excellent. Instead, we’re facing down Hangarback Walker, Archangel Avacyn, Arlinn Kord, Reality Smasher, and Gideon, Ally of Zendikar. Each of these cards is good at finding ways to break through previously stable battlefield states and win games.

This means that grinding people out with Liliana, Heretical Healer (and maybe something like Fleshbag Marauder) isn’t really a viable strategy. Your true strategy should be to get your opponent dead before they kill you. There’s a way to do that, and the shell has already been played in a Pro Tour.

B/U Aristocrats

Gerry Thompson

Test deck on 04-08-2016

Standard

Creatures (32)

Lands (23)

Spells (5)

Sideboard

This deck tries to control the battlefield and turn the corner quickly. Unfortunately, the only cards that are capable of doing that are Sidisi’s Faithful, Nantuko Husk, and Zulaport Cutthroat. Whirler Rogue on its own is fine but often not sufficient without a Nantuko Husk because of how small each other creature in the deck is.

You know those times when Mono-Blue Eldrazi casts a Whirler Rogue and suddenly you’re dead? Yeah, it’s nothing like that in this deck unless you have Nantuko Husk. Without enormous monsters, Whirler Rogue doesn’t swing the race as much as you’d like. You’re left trying to nickel-and-dime people out while simultaneously trying to stop them from killing you, which typically involves chump blocking.

There are some games where you can blow them out by bouncing two things in one turn with Sidisi’s Faithful and Liliana, Defiant Necromancer, but even then, you still need to be pressuring them hard to take advantage of it.

I’m not sure what this deck would need to be more competitive.

Silumgar’s Scorn should, in theory, be the blue card you want to build around.

U/W Tempo

Gerry Thompson

Test deck on 04-08-2016

Standard

Creatures (16)

Lands (26)

Spells (18)

Sideboard

This is a non-traditional approach to building Dragonlord Ojutai decks. I think most people would consider a deck with Counterspell and Morphling a control deck, but that’s not exactly true. Sure, your goal is to control the early game, but once you slam your big monster, you should be shifting to Delver mode. Instead of countering their threats, you only want to counter whatever is going to stop your big fatty from killing them.

If that’s the case, can we get our tempo game started earlier? How much hard removal do we need?

Ultimately, this deck failed because of a few reasons, but it was close. In Esper Dragons, when Dragonlord Ojutai connected, you could often come up with a Thoughtseize, counterspell, or Dig Through Time to find one of those cards. That would stop their next relevant play, and eventually they’d die. In this deck, you’d frequently hit a pocket of medium cards, maybe your Dragonlord Ojutai dies, and you’d have to shift gears. You could potentially load up on counterspells, but we never tried it.

The second thing was that the deck was scattered. Sometimes you were trying to set up Thing in the Ice, but then you’d cast Dragonlord Ojutai. Then you’d have to pop Thing in the Ice and reset your Dragonlord Ojutai. They’d kill your Thing in the Ice and replay some stuff, and you’d be end up being kind of far behind because of their lower mana curve.

Out of all the things this deck taught us, it was that Haven of the Spirit Dragon could backdoor into some Eldrazi shenanigans. Thought-Knot Seer is a reasonable curve into Dragonlord Ojutai, but I haven’t tried it yet. The first version of the deck (courtesy of Michael Majors, as is the case with many of these decklists) had Spatial Contortion and Warping Wail in some numbers.

Fate Forgotten out of the sideboard is not pretty, but Disenchants are very good in this format, especially in the first week. Cryptolith Rites, Stasis Snare, Thopter Spy Network, Fevered Visions — they could play anything against you.

Esper Dragons

Gerry Thompson

Test deck on 04-08-2016

Standard

Creatures (10)

Planeswalkers (1)

1 Sorin, Grim Nemesis

Lands (24)

Spells (20)

Sideboard

This is a bad version of a previously great deck, and the epitome of why you can’t “port” decks from format to format.

Painful Truths picks up some of the slack from the loss of Dig Through Time, but it’s never as simple as replacing one card with another. After the next rotation, you aren’t going to replace Dragonlord Ojutai with Archangel Avacyn and Silumgar’s Scorn with Broken Concentration. That’s not how it works.

Someone prove me wrong on this, please.

Admittedly, I haven’t done a ton of work with Collected Company, and for what I think is a good reason.

We can’t do three-color manabases and have them be good. It’s just not going to happen. Three-color manabases are possible, but they will never be great. You actually have to pay a cost to play three colors right now, and without the powerful Khans of Tarkir cards you aren’t getting the power you want with the sacrifices you’re making to play three colors.

Collected Company gets much worse as a result. Previously, you were getting something in the neighborhood of six to ten mana worth on your four-mana investment. All you needed was a little luck to hit consistently and a solid manabase to be able to cast those spells when you drew them naturally.

Now you’re getting approximately four mana for your four mana, but only if you hit two creatures.

W/G Humans

Gerry Thompson

Test deck on 04-07-2016

Standard

Creatures (28)

Lands (23)

Spells (9)

Sideboard

We could jam more three-drops into our deck to make Collected Company more powerful, but I don’t think that’s worth it. Instead, you should focus on getting on the battlefield quickly and hope that your Collected Company finds a Thalia’s Lieutenant when you already have a battlefield presence rather than relying on Collected Company to create your battlefield presence.

Maybe this isn’t the best shell for W/G Humans. Archangel Avacyn and Always Watching are both excellent options that are relegated to the sideboard for specific matchups, but I suspect they are the way to go instead of Collected Company.

Uhh, let’s put this guy in decks that have black and white mana.

B/W Control

Michael Majors

Test deck on 04-01-2016

Standard

Planeswalkers (5)

Lands (26)

Spells (28)

Sideboard

I haven’t played too much with B/X Control, but I’m slowly coming around to the idea. These are the decks that twenty-year-old Gerry would have been very excited to play but modern-day Gerry tends to shy away from because they are internally flawed. It actually seems like the “kill everything” decks may succeed in this format, though.

I’m not sure if that makes me excited or worried.

Due to things like Sorin, Grim Nemesis functioning as Corrupt in addition to a more-than-fine win condition, and Dark Petition finding Virulent Plague to shut down tokens and some planeswalkers, everything seems to be in place for (almost) Mono-Black Control to exist.

This is on my short list of things to work on once the metagame becomes defined.

W/B Midrange

Gerry Thompson

Test deck on 04-08-2016

Standard

Creatures (16)

Planeswalkers (5)

Lands (26)

Spells (13)

Sideboard

This is my pick for biggest deck at #SCGBALT, although it’s possible that you’d need to combine it with the aforementioned B/W Control in order to make that true.

It has disruption, some of the best removal, the best card in Archangel Avacyn, the best creature-land, difficult-to-remove threats, and a combo finish. What’s not to like?

Well, for starters, Hangarback Walker was medium. You need some early interaction that can brick-wall an entire assault, and Hangarback Walker has the capability of doing that. You want to be able to sacrifice it to pressure planeswalkers, and Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim is great for doing that. You want something to do with your excess mana, and Hangarback Walker does that.

But it’s so mediocre at its job.

I will likely write an entire article on “interaction advantage” in the future, but suffice it to say that Hangarback Walker is the poster child for everything that article will be about. You kind of need to play with it because it adds those dimensions to your deck, but you’re not happy about it. Declaration in Stone doesn’t make it any easier.

Decks go over the top of Hangarback Walker very easily these days, so it’s a card that many people still play with (including myself) because they remember what Hangarback Walker used to be capable of. Sometimes it returns to its glory days and frustrates an opponent, but most of the time it’s a slight bump in the road. In theory, you should be able to use that bump in the road to slow them down and leverage that into taking control with some of your more powerful spells, but sometimes all you draw are Hangarback Walkers and other assorted nonsense like a turn 12 Knight of the White Orchid.

Playing games with this deck was how I figured out that none of Hangarback Walker, Transgress the Mind, or Gideon, Ally of Zendikar was as good as it used to be. The same could be said for Secure the Wastes. The same could also be said for Westvale Abbey once our other decks adapted.

Despite W/B Midrange having answers for everything, it’s the epitome of medium. B/W Control, W/B Eldrazi, or some other weird variation is likely a better way to utilize the powerful white and black cards, but this shell is probably not the way to go.

Both Thought-Knot Seer and Reality Smasher line up well against Archangel Avacyn. We should investigate.

G/B Eldrazi

Gerry Thompson

Test deck on 04-08-2016

Standard

Creatures (22)

Lands (25)

Spells (13)

Sideboard

Mono-White Eldrazi

Gerry Thompson

Test deck on 04-08-2016

Standard

Creatures (24)

Planeswalkers (2)

2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar

Lands (26)

Spells (8)

Sideboard

Mono-Blue Eldrazi

Gerry Thompson

Test deck on 04-08-2016

Standard

Creatures (28)

Lands (25)

Spells (7)

Sideboard

Mono-Red Eldrazi

Gerry Thompson

Test deck on 04-08-2016

Standard

Creatures (27)

Planeswalkers (4)

4 Chandra, Flamecaller

Lands (25)

Spells (5)

Sideboard

These decks were all kind of normal and didn’t particularly excite me. I was surprised at how relevant Eldrazi Displacer plus Archangel Avacyn was at times and the Mono-Red Eldrazi deck was rock-solid. I wouldn’t be surprised if that deck was a large portion of the first week’s metagame.

The other versions? They’re beatdown decks with no card advantage or staying power. Once your opponent stabilized, you were probably done for. In this format, people can stabilize fairly early, and then it’s lights out. Having things like Eldrazi Displacer and Eldrazi Obligator helps in many spots, but not all.

Let’s look elsewhere.

G/R Eldrazi

Gerry Thompson

Test deck on 04-08-2016

Standard

Creatures (24)

Planeswalkers (4)

Lands (26)

Spells (6)

Sideboard

I shamelessly stole most of the ideas for this deck from a person I played against online. Sylvan Advocate or Duskwatch Recruiter into Kozilek’s Return looked great, especially if the Duskwatch Recruiter transformed and was powering out a Reality Smasher on the next turn. If Kozilek’s Return isn’t your play, Vile Redeemer is another flash possibility.

This deck is aggressive, has a lot of play to it, and offers excellent sideboard options and varied threats, which makes it difficult to fight against. However, it doesn’t have much in the way of card advantage. There are things you can pay for, like Duskwatch Recruiter, which are fine in a pinch, but you rarely pick up any velocity for free. While this deck has a lot going for it, it’s mainly trying to win off raw power alone. That’s not a deal-breaker, but only because this deck is more proactive than most.

The idea of using Blighted Woodland to power up my Sylvan Advocates crossed my mind, but it isn’t worth it. You’d rather spend your mana on a real spell in the vast majority of cases. However, I could see a world where you’re using it to power out something like Dragonlord Atarka or World Breaker to flash back those Kozilek’s Returns.

If I’m playing an aggressive Eldrazi deck, I like having access to both Rending Volley and Eldrazi Obligator. With Thought-Knot Seer in the starting 60, these decks have plenty of game against Archangel Avacyn and whatever G/X Ramp deck shows up. That should be a good spot to be in.

Chandra’s Ignition is a flex slot that I wanted to try as an answer to other decks that focus on their battlefield presence. Unfortunately, many of those decks are white, and Chandra’s Ignition is very poor against Archangel Avacyn.

G/B Delirium

Gerry Thompson

Test deck on 04-08-2016

Standard

Creatures (22)

Lands (24)

Spells (14)

Sideboard

I’ll go ahead and recommend against this deck, but will highlight that you should start testing for Constructed by actually playing with the new cards. Is Archangel Avacyn more like Restoration Angel or Serra Angel? Well, comparing cards to other cards out of context is kind of silly, but after playing with it, I’d say it’s closer to Umezawa’s Jitte than either of those.

Without actually seeing it in action, I wouldn’t have believed you.

I know what you’re wondering: is Moldgraf Scavenger more like Tarmogoyf or Wall of Wood?

What did I just say about comparing cards out of context?!

Delirium is generally online turn 3 or 4, depending on if you go the “let it be” route or actively go digging for it with Vessel of Nascency or Gather the Pack. Hangarback Walker for zero will probably do more work for you than actually casting it.

The goal is to beat them over the head with all of the undercosted green (or colorless) beaters I could find, of which there are plenty. My deck operated as intended and I still failed to win at a satisfactory rate.

Building around delirium is possible, but the hard delirium “payoffs” aren’t actually worth it. You’re better off playing a certain delirium card in your deck that fills a role rather than trying to jam all of them in the same deck and trying to reap the rewards.

One of the easiest archetypes to point to as being viable for Week 1 is G/W. There’s no shortage of excellent green or white cards, but where do you go from there? As noted, I think Collected Company is rather weak. In most cases, I’d rather have Archangel Avacyn.

We can slot her into G/W Megamorph and have a reasonable deck, but I’ve been unimpressed with Deathmist Raptor. There are fewer ground-pounders that exist on raw stats, so Deathmist Raptor doesn’t trade as favorably. Plenty of the removal also happens to exile creatures if they actually care. Most of the time, they don’t.

The first thing I like doing in a new format is pushing certain things as far I can. I want to try and go as low to the ground and as big as possible and scale from there, as it’s much easier to save time adjusting from those points on the scale, especially from the knowledge you gain about what is and isn’t possible in the format.

So let’s go big.

G/W Midrange

Gerry Thompson

Test deck on 04-08-2016

Standard

Creatures (26)

Lands (26)

Spells (8)

Sideboard

Ulvenwald Hydra is a real card. It blocks Archangel Avacyn, attacks into Archangel Avacyn without fear because of how large it is, and with Rogue’s Passage it secretly has evasion. Since it can also fetch Blighted Steppe or Westvale Abbey, it comes with plenty of utility.

The best thing about Ulvenwald Hydra? It transforms Nissa, Vastwood Seer earlier than expected. They may do something else with their turn besides kill Nissa, thinking they have another turn until she’s actually a threat, but Ulvenwald Hydra typically throws a wrench into their plans.

This deck accelerates into powerful threats, most of its creatures provide some sort of card advantage, and it will likely beat other midrange decks with Rogue’s Passage. There’s a lot of mana in the deck, but when you’re trying to get to six mana on turn 5, it’s worth it.

This deck is big, powerful, fast, resilient, and totally within in the realm of possibility for Standard.

For a while, this was our best deck.

W/G Clues

Gerry Thompson

Test deck on 04-08-2016

Standard

Creatures (28)

Lands (25)

Spells (7)

Sideboard

The Clue deck does a bunch of cool things:

· Beat them down while also rarely running out of gas.

· Disguise Archangel Avacyn well by being able to use your unspent mana cracking Clues.

· Sideboard into a control deck where all you do is kill their stuff, gain life, and eventually pull ahead.

This isn’t the best beatdown deck, but it’s not trying to be. If you had infinite time, eventually you would overpower your opponents, so the trick was playing enough removal to stop your opponent from getting traction. Seven seemed like a fine number as long as you had enough Den Protectors to get them back when you needed. Post-sideboard, Tamiyo’s Journal often filled a similar role.

Hangarback Walker is kinda medium in this deck, but we did try a single Angelic Purge in an attempt to make it better. While adding a mode on your Hangarback Walker does make it better, playing Angelic Purge itself did not make the deck better. Dromoka’s Command already gives you outs to random enchantments like Cryptolith Rite, Fevered Visions, and Stasis Snare, so you don’t need the Vindicate effect.

The main issue arose when you didn’t have anything you wanted to sacrifice for profit. You could sacrifice a random Clue or Thraben Inspector to it, but you actually want to keep those around! We eventually learned to be happy with our medium Hangarback Walkers and how much they helped our Dromoka’s Commands.

I did try Thalia’s Lieutenant for a while, especially after playing against some more aggressive Human decks that used it to great effect.

The last thing to note is whether to use Evolving Wilds or Tranquil Expanse in the manabase. Because of the Battle lands, most decks want Evolving Wilds, but since this deck has Knight of the White Orchid, it definitely wants access to the Elfhame Palace wannabe instead. Small details like “Which crappy tertiary two-color land do I play?” actually make a big difference in this format because you have to play a bunch of lands that key off each other.

Be careful.

Potential boogeyman?

G/R Rites

Gerry Thompson

Test deck on 04-08-2016

Standard

Creatures (29)

Lands (22)

Spells (9)

Sideboard

Most of the Cryptolith Rites decks I’ve seen have been G/B, but red makes more sense to me. Cryptolith Rite and haste play so well together that I can’t imagine not having Thopter Engineer. It makes for more explosive turns, especially on any turn where you sacrifice a Hangarback Walker.

From Beyond is another card that I haven’t seen in most people’s lists, but it does a bunch of work. It provides its own mana engine and it can eventually search for Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger. I prefer to ramp into Dragonlord Atarka because it’s more realistic for you to get to seven than ten, at least before it matters, but Atarka is certainly weaker against Archangel Avacyn. You should typically be able to get under Avacyn, though.

Another option would be splicing Thought-Knot Seer into the deck. Obviously it doesn’t fit the game-plan, but it might be a good enough Plan B to make it worth it, especially since you’re already playing Dragonlord Atarka. The deck naturally has a bunch of colorless sources too.

Reclaiming Vines was Todd Anderson’s suggestion for the mirror match because it destroys Westvale Abbey and Cryptolith Rite, both of which are important. It’s slow and kind of mopey, but it might be correct.

The big Frog is also real. Make no mistake, it will hop its way into Top 8s on the regular.

G/B Midrange

Gerry Thompson

Test deck on 04-08-2016

Standard

Creatures (22)

Planeswalkers (1)

1 Ob Nixilis Reignited

Lands (25)

Spells (12)

Sideboard

Tireless Tracker is not Courser of Kruphix. It’s more aggressive, more susceptible to removal, and generally a worse card. However, for a midrange deck like this, it actually fits the game-plan better than Courser of Kruphix would.

This deck is one-dimensional. It disrupts the opponent a little bit and kills them with efficient beaters rather than create some card advantage on the way. It’s basically Abzan Aggro (or Aggro Rock if you’re as old as I am). There is nothing flashy here. It’s an archetype that generally works when the card pool allows it. In this case, the card pool allows for such a deck to be built, but I don’t think it allows such a deck to thrive. Card-drawing monsters are nice, but you’re going to need a little more than some spot removal to back it up if you want to win in this format.

Eventually, someone is going to go under you, go over you, or just outdraw you.

The one thing this deck did showcase was the power of The Gitrog Monster. It’s huge, which dodges a lot of removal incidentally. The cheaper creatures in the deck are threats themselves, so The Gitrog Monster naturally survives in a lot of games. It also keeps the gas flowing, plays well with Evolving Wilds (as does Tireless Tracker), and powers up Sylvan Advocate (and sometimes Nissa, Vastwood Seer) a turn ahead of schedule.

G/B Midrange is the obvious home for the Grog, but we can be more creative.

Behold, my greatest invention — Froggles.

Froggles

Gerry Thompson

Test deck on 04-08-2016

Standard

Creatures (3)

3 The Gitrog Monster

Planeswalkers (2)

2 Chandra, Flamecaller

Lands (29)

Spells (26)

Sideboard

I thought The Gitrog Monster and Molten Vortex would make a cool combination. My first thought was a bunch of lands, including Drownyard Temple, so that led me to create a similar shell to that of U/R Goggles with all the Magmatic Insights and Tormenting Voices. That led me to adding the Pyromancer’s Goggles themselves, which made me chuckle.

Heh, Froggles.

And here we are.

The decklist is rough, but there is potential. Once you hit the mid-game, it’s very difficult for someone to stop you. Your capacity to kill things, deal damage to players (or planeswalkers), and draw cards is unparalleled. Clearly the difficult part is getting there.

I continue my flirtation with Vessel of Nascency because of how powerful it feels in Limited. It’s not Satyr Wayfinder good, but it’s close. You lose the chump blocker, but gain the ability to find basically whatever you need to complete the puzzle. Your graveyard is stocked, and delirium, if it’s relevant, is often online.

Lightning Axe and Fiery Temper are a potent combination for stemming early beatdown. Accelerating with Drownyard Temple into Pyromancer’s Goggles with a Lightning Axe is also a great way to stay alive. Sometimes dropping the Frog is all it takes. There are very few creatures that Reality Smasher has to stay home against, but The Gitrog Monster is one of them.

Maybe the Molten Vortexes are actually silly, but they are very powerful against small creatures. It could end up being a sideboard card.

The current sideboard has some additional sweepers and some additional threats against control decks, particularly those packing Anguished Unmaking and other Disenchants. Make no mistake: Autumnal Gloom (or rather, Ancient of the Equinox) is a powerful card. Three mana for a 4/4 trampling hexproof creature is a great rate. It almost made the maindeck as a large blocker and powerful finisher.

***

I’ve been scouring the internet, as I typically do, in search of technology. There have been many decks tested and I think have a firm grasp on what’s going on. The real test is going to be what happens at #SCGBALT this weekend…