"Hey Watchwolf, what did you think about Pro Tour Avacyn Restored?"
"It was a ton of fun to watch; I do like watching a lot of the big pros play the format I have been a part of online for months. However, I wish the decks were a little less predictable."
The fact of the matter is that a lot of the decks that I saw from Barcelona were just evolutions of decks from the past. I heard the commentators saying that this Block Constructed format was relatively undefined and how it was nice seeing new decks. So I’d like to compare the top decks at Barcelona with the decks that have been all over Magic Online for months.
One of the most powerful decks that I saw over the course of the weekend was the deck played by Sam Black and some of Team SCG Black:
Creatures (22)
- 4 Invisible Stalker
- 4 Avacyn's Pilgrim
- 4 Geist of Saint Traft
- 3 Strangleroot Geist
- 3 Dungeon Geists
- 4 Wolfir Silverheart
Lands (24)
Spells (14)
Sideboard
This deck focuses on the fact that hexproof is a pretty unfair mechanic. Enchantments and pump effects like Spectral Flight and Increasing Savagery have potential to be bad on a creature that can be targeted by your opponent. If your opponent has a bounce spell, you will be one-for-oned and set back a turn or two to recast the creature. If your opponent plays a removal spell, he will just have a straight up two-for-one. However, hexproof changes the math here. Your opponent needs to have one of the following cards in order to deal with a hexproof creature:
- Tribute to Hunger
- Liliana of the Veil
- Rolling Temblor (sometimes)
- Terminus
- Bonfire of the Damned
- Killing Wave (sometimes)
- Blasphemous Act
The amount of Tribute to Hungers and Liliana of the Veils I saw was astonishing, because if I got to go to Pro Tour Avacyn Restored I would have likely played with both in my 75. It is also worth noting that the most popular of all of these cards, Bonfire of the Damned, is only be able to kill Invisible Stalker on the play (unless miracled) and can only kill Geist of Saint Traft from a miracle trigger if it doesn’t get pumped. This fact really makes deck a top contender. You are not the one looking for answers; you are asking the questions that they need specific answers to.
This type of strategy has been on Magic Online since Innistrad first came out. In fact, I bought my Geist of Saint Trafts on Magic Online for eleven tickets each just to play a U/W Hexproof deck in one of the first Innistrad (set) Block Premier Events. Not a bad investment, right? A little bit later, people tried a U/R Hexproof Burn deck that went all in on Stromkirk Noble and Invisible Stalker along with Furor of the Bitten and Spectral Flight.
This past weekend, I was able to Top 4 a Premier Event on Magic Online. The format was Block Constructed but without Avacyn Restored. I researched a bunch of the big decks in the format and tried to build a deck that would be able to go against the grain and take people by surprise. Here is what I came up with:
What’s the point of looking at my decklist from a dead format?
There is a lot to learn from it. Some interactions could exist that some people did not think of. The first one is how good Moment of Heroism is against a deck that wants to race you. I know that Sam Black deck was only splashing white, but if it could support a Moment of Heroism or two it could really break open the inevitable mirror match. Feeling of Dread can have a similar role against Naya decks. Personally, I would try to fit in Moment of Heroism.
Other cards that are worth noting are Frightful Delusion and Cackling Counterpart. It is ironic that Dissipate and Frightful Delusion have the same converted mana cost. You can tap your mana and not leave double blue up, and then your opponent will just slam down a huge threat since you can’t possibly have a counterspell. While this spell is easy to play around, it is worth noting that people are playing big threats that have to come into play "on time" and will run low on cards in their hand. This means that sometimes your true target may not be the spell, but you can just try to nab the last card in their hand. This is a typical "Sukenik" card that I could see people not agreeing with in the sideboard, but I know that I would run it.
Cackling Counterpart, on the other hand, is a card I think everyone can get behind. For those of you who don’t know, if you attack with Geist of Saint Traft, at the end of combat you can Cackling Counterpart the Angel token to make a token that will stick around. You want to do it at the end of combat so that way they can’t just kill your Angel token that you are targeting and gain four life. Another good combo is Cackling Counterpart with soulbond. Imagine copying your Wolfir Silverheart… Yeah, that seems like a way to break the mirror match. Lastly, Cackling Counterpart with Restoration Angel is pretty spicy.
Next up, let me just show you two decklists that are very similar. Does anyone remember the Mono-Green Jund deck that my buddy Ray Wickersham made? This one:
Creatures (19)
Planeswalkers (4)
Lands (26)
Spells (11)
Hmmm…I did see the following list at the Pro Tour…
Creatures (18)
- 4 Borderland Ranger
- 1 Olivia Voldaren
- 3 Strangleroot Geist
- 4 Huntmaster of the Fells
- 3 Predator Ooze
- 3 Vorapede
Planeswalkers (3)
Lands (26)
Spells (13)
The little upgrades include Borderland Ranger and Bonfire of the Damned. Ray always told me how vital Caravan Vigil and Shimmering Grotto were to the deck, but Borderland Ranger seems to solve this problem. Bonfire of the Damned is really just like a Blasphemous Act that can cost a little bit more mana but can also nail players and is a one-sided Wrath of God.
Boros also got upgrades courtesy of Willy Edel and Paul Rietzl:
Creatures (28)
- 3 Fiend Hunter
- 4 Champion of the Parish
- 2 Doomed Traveler
- 3 Loyal Cathar
- 2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
- 4 Silverblade Paladin
- 2 Zealous Conscripts
- 3 Lightning Mauler
- 1 Kessig Malcontents
- 4 Riders of Gavony
Lands (25)
Spells (7)
Creatures (26)
- 3 Mikaeus, the Lunarch
- 3 Fiend Hunter
- 4 Stromkirk Noble
- 4 Champion of the Parish
- 3 Cloistered Youth
- 4 Hellrider
- 4 Silverblade Paladin
- 1 Lightning Mauler
Lands (24)
Spells (10)
These decks are more or less direct descendants of the Boros decks that have been running around and smashing Daily Events consistently since Innistrad Block Constructed first started. For the past few years, there has always been an obvious aggressive deck that has been a force to be reckoned with. Note how it is usually white based. Scars of Mirrodin had Tempered Steel, Zendikar had Boros, etc. This deck was definitely predictable and should have been everyone’s public enemy number one.
The last deck archetype that I want to compare to older lists is Reanimator. Although I haven’t played the older versions personally, I have seen it have decent finishes as a whole when there was only Innistrad and Dark Ascension. Here is an example of a decklist:
Creatures (9)
Lands (23)
Spells (28)
The only "good" reanimation targets are Flayer of the Hatebound and Drogskol Reaver. In my opinion, these just aren’t the best targets out there. This is also what has been preventing Heartless Summoning from having a big impact in Block Constructed. There just aren’t enough fatties. However, with Avacyn Restored, this deck got significantly better:
Creatures (12)
- 3 Borderland Ranger
- 4 Huntmaster of the Fells
- 2 Griselbrand
- 1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
- 2 Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
Lands (25)
Spells (23)
In Robert Jurkovic’s deck, we can see that he feels like Griselbrand and Gisela, Blade of Goldnight are the top finishers. How are those for improvements over Flayer of the Hatebound and Drogskol Reaver? As a whole, I can get behind Griselbrand and Gisela, Blade of Goldnight as far as finishers go. However, an innate problem is that a single Sever the Bloodline really ruins your whole day. Is there a way to remedy this situation?
Ken Yukuhiro had the answer.
Creatures (25)
- 4 Borderland Ranger
- 4 Fiend Hunter
- 3 Falkenrath Aristocrat
- 3 Huntmaster of the Fells
- 4 Griselbrand
- 3 Angel of Glory's Rise
- 4 Cathedral Sanctifier
Lands (23)
Spells (12)
I don’t know who originally came up with the idea to use Angel of Glory’s Rise is a reanimation target, but I know I missed. It is just completely amazing the amount of interactions that you can do. If you bring back two Fiend Hunters and a Huntmaster of the Fells, you can either choose to get an extra Wolf token by Fiend Huntering Huntmaster and using the other Fiend Hunter to hunt the original Fiend Hunter. This results in your board being Angel of Glory’s Rise, Fiend Hunter with a Fiend Hunter under it, Huntmaster of the Fells, and two Wolf tokens.
You can replace Huntmaster of the Fells with Borderland Ranger, Cathedral Sanctifier, or Geist-Honored Monk out of the board to double up. An alternative could be to just Fiend Hunter your opponent’s creature and Fiend Hunter your Angel of Glory’s Rise. This allows you to blank any of their Blasphemous Acts or Bonfire of the Damneds. Unfortunately, this only leaves you with an Angel of Glory’s Rise if they Terminus… Man that card is good!
How about some more advanced Fiend Hunter tricks? Let’s say that you bring back two Fiend Hunters and a Huntmaster of the Fells again, but you have Falkenrath Aristocrat. I suppose that we can do the same trick as before and get an extra Wolf token, but there are so many better things to do.
We can have Fiend Hunter target Angel of Glory’s Rise and your other Fiend Hunter target your Huntmaster of the Fells. Now you can sacrifice one of the Fiend Hunters to get back Huntmaster of the Fells. Hooray, you get an extra Wolf but lose a Fiend Hunter. This is where it all comes together. You sacrifice your other Fiend Hunter and get back the Angel of Glory’s Rise that you exiled. Now both Fiend Hunters come back. Repeat as many times as you want. This gives you a huge/huge Falkenrath Aristocrat and as many Wolves, life, and lands in your hand as you want.
What is the minimum to go infinite? You just need a Falkenrath Aristocrat, a Fiend Hunter in your graveyard (if it is in play, you can sacrifice it to Falkenrath Aristocrat), and an Angel of Glory’s Rise. This gives you just the huge/huge using the method that I explained earlier. This interaction is one that I, and I’m sure that a lot of other people, missed when looking over the set. Personally, I can’t wait to play this deck on Magic Online.
Some other decks at Pro Tour Avacyn Restored that evolved from past decks include G/R Aggro (like Florian Pils’ deck) and the RUG control deck that Dan Unwin came up with. However, there is one last deck that I would like to address. It is this innovative 75-card list:
Spells (29)
Just wow. This is perhaps the only deck that I did not foresee at the Pro Tour, and it won the event! "I believe in miracles!!" This is the last type of deck that I want to go over. It is the deck that can only be present because of cards in the third set of a block. In Shards of Alara, it was Jund. In Zendikar, it was the Eldrazi ramp decks. These decks are always the coolest ones because they really showcase what the new set has to bring.
Note to self: if you play this deck, the mirror match will make you want to quit playing Magic. For the upcoming Block Constructed Grand Prix, I expect people to be testing this deck, but in reality, it is really hard to see where the decklist can be changed. Another problem could be people only testing a few games with the deck. With a mechanic like miracle being the premise of this deck, a large sample size of games must be taken.
So there we have it. Hopefully this article will convince you of one thing: Block Constructed on Magic Online truly is the way to go! It may even help you do well at future Pro Tours.
Thanks for reading,
Jonathan "Watchwolf92" Sukenik