I didn’t plan to attend the Pro Tour until two weeks prior to the event. I only had four Pro points coming into Amsterdam, and had no plans to make it to the gravy train. (I also conceded to my brother Joe in the Malaysian Nationals Top 8 so that he could make it to Worlds).
I’m Level 3 this year and I knew I could only attend one Pro Tour, so I had to make my choice wisely. I like Worlds a lot; I’ve been attending Worlds for almost seven years straight, and I wanted to keep that tradition alive — which was my initial reasoning for saving my invite to use at Worlds.
However, as dumb as it may sound, I’d completely forgotten that the top 8 players of Worlds in the previous year are invited to the next year’s Worlds. I only realized this when I checked out the information on Worlds and I saw my name on the invite list. Sweet!
So not wanting to waste the invite (and an opportunity to visit Amsterdam), I proceeded to make plans to attend the event.
Two weeks before the big day, I had done zero testing. I knew that I wanted to play something simple in the hopes of putting up a decent finish. My team built some stock decks like Faeries, 5-Color Control, Jund, R/G Beatdown, and a couple of combo decks.
At first glance, the R/G beatdown seemed to be the worst deck around. It wasn’t built by me and I had no intention of putting it in our gauntlet, because testing an irrelevant matchup would affect my decisions in framing my deck and sideboard, yet have minimal effects on the main event itself. But no matter how awkward it looks on paper, it was beating most of the decks. It had at least 50% against most decks and a wonderful percentage against aggro-control decks like Faeries or Bant, which are kold to the Punishing Fire combo.
I was also talking to Frank Karsten a lot about the deck, and we kept improving it and changing card selections until it was almost done. Surprisingly, he decided to not run it at the Pro Tour and battled with Ad Nauseam instead. Still, Frank Karsten is Frank Karsten, and he finished in the top fifty nevertheless.
Here’s the list I played at the Pro Tour:
Creatures (32)
- 4 Birds of Paradise
- 1 Spitebellows
- 4 Demigod of Revenge
- 2 Fulminator Mage
- 3 Bloom Tender
- 4 Figure of Destiny
- 4 Bloodbraid Elf
- 1 Goblin Ruinblaster
- 1 Lodestone Golem
- 4 Vengevine
- 4 Fauna Shaman
Lands (24)
Spells (4)
Before I go into details on the card choices and matchup analysis, I would like to talk about how the deck works and why.
The deck started out as an aggro deck, utilizing fast creatures like Figure of Destiny and Goblin Guide, curving out all the way towards recursive creatures like Vengevine and Demigod of Revenge to seal the deal. The Fauna Shaman was in the deck the entire time, and he makes the deck sick if he stays alive. The initial version also had four Arid Mesas to utilize Ethersworn Canonist as a sideboard option against combo.
The initial version was fine, but it lacked consistency. Goblin Guide was not that impressive. The deck also got clogged with big spells at times and had difficulty in casting creatures with double-green mana alongside creatures requiring five red mana. I exchanged Goblin Guides for Noble Hierarch and adjusted the count of red/green lands to the deck for further consistency until the final brew arrived.
Let’s discuss my card choices:
4 Birds of Paradise, 3 Bloom Tender
I knew I wanted to play a decent amount of mana acceleration due to the heavy density of four-drops and five-drops in the deck. Noble Hierarch was an automatic four-of in the deck until the very last minute — until, after testing hundreds of opening hands and solo games, I realized that the exalted ability wasn’t very relevant. Sure, it’s sweet to pump Bloodbraid Elf on its first attack — but because of the many hasty creatures in the deck, you never get to utilize exalted much anyway.
And the downside of Hierarch’s inability to produce red was huge. You don’t want to be holding Demigod with four lands (assuming you don’t draw Fire-Lit Thicket) and a Hierarch in play. Hence, Birds of Paradise got the nod.
Bloom Tender was the last change I made to the deck, and it was sweet. That slot was for Lotus Cobra in the beginning, but I wanted to make the deck more consistent with mana accelerators instead of Cobra’s raw power (like powering out turn 3 Demigods). But wait a second… What if I could still maintain the raw power of casting turn 3 Demigod,
yet
have the consistency of a mana producer? The trick lies within Figure of Destiny, Bloom Tender, and Fire-Lit Thicket.
Turn 1: Figure of Destiny
Turn 2: Bloom Tender
Turn 3: Play Fire-Lit Thicket, tap Bloom Tender for WRG, swap G for RR, and you have WRRRRR on turn 3 — enabling Figure to become 2/2
and
casting Demigod in the same turn.
The Bloom Tender was very impressive and interacts well with the deck. The extra mana it produces was huge in casting big spells, activating Raging Ravine, utilizing Punishing Fire combos, leveling up Figure of Destiny, and so forth. It feels like a Thran Dynamo that costs two mana.
4 Figure of Destiny, 4 Fauna Shaman
I group them both together in this group because they belong to the “cheap-efficient-creatures-that-potentially-win-games-by-themselves” category.
The best card in this deck is Fauna Shaman, hands down, no questions asked. It wins games by itself if it goes unchecked for two or three turns… but I’m sure you already know that. Besides dumping Vengevine and Demigod for setting up a big turn, Fauna Shaman also fetches silver bullets to handle various situations. Spitebellows plays the role of Oblivion Ring in the deck, handling Knight of the Reliquary and Baneslayer Angel well. Lodestone Golem is a nice target to fetch against combo, and you can follow it up with an endless stream of land-destruction creatures. Figure of Destiny goes hand-in-hand with Bloom Tender, sets a fast clock against combo, and provides a decent win condition against aggro because you usually stall the board with bunch of ground creatures and use Figure/Demigod to fly over.
The R/G deck is a midrange deck that wants to do the opposite of what opponent does. If you fight a control deck, you want to be the fast deck, and if you fight a fast deck, you want to be the control deck.
2 Fulminator Mage, 1 Goblin Ruinblaster, 1 Lodestone Golem
Initially, these slots were four Boggart-Ram Gangs. However, Ram-Gangs were easily the worst card in the deck and I am glad that I found the land-destruction package to replace them.
Ram-Gang looks like a really nice card to fit in a Red/Green beatdown deck — but in reality, it doesn’t do anything. Perhaps the appropriate word here is “significance.” Ram-Gang does not do anything
significant
in attacking your opponent’s game plan, and he is easy to deal with as well.
Also, I realized that games are usually one-sided with this deck. Either you won with a board position that was way ahead, or you lost to decks going off before you kill them. Ram-Gangs don’t contribute much in either way then. The land-destruction package also gives you outs against opposing Punishing Fire/Grove of the Burnwillows combo, as well as a decent chance to fight combo in the maindeck.
It’s important to note that disruption is significant bonus for a deck filled mainly with attackers. Disruption makes it harder for your opponent to adopt his game plan (as opposed to adopting yours). When you are just attacking, he only needs to handle your attacker while maintaining his board position. When you are attacking
and
destroying his resources, it is much tougher to do that. Fulminator Mage also fits the curve, and goes well with Bloom Tender.
The lone Goblin Ruinblaster was there because I wanted more options with Fauna Shaman. For example, there are situations where I want to blow a land and I have the available extra mana to play Goblin Ruinblaster instead of Fulminator Mage, and there is no reason why I wouldn’t want an extra 2/1 hasted body.
Lodestone Golem is primarily there for combo.
4 Bloodbraid Elf, 4 Vengevine, 4 Demigod of Revenge
These are the big spells of the deck. They are hasty creatures, difficult to handle — and most importantly, they are all card advantage creatures. You don’t get to draw a card from them, but when they come back from the graveyard, it’s just as good as drawing a card (and sometimes, it’s better).
Demigod seals the deal most of the time due to the fact it flies. Demigod is also a lot more insane when it is abused with Fauna Shaman as compared to Vengevine. No further elaboration is needed on these cards — they are just awesome.
4 Punishing Fire, 1 Spitebellows
Spitebellows is the Tutorable removal for this deck, and it deals with Knight of the Reliquary, Doran, and Baneslayer Angel. There is no better choice to accomplish this task without diluting your deck. Combust is similar — but Tutorable removal that doesn’t potentially blank your Bloodbraid Elf is better.
Punishing Fire, well… it’s just nice to go into a deck that plays four Grove of the Burnwillows. However, Punishing Fire is awful against control or combo decks, and it should always be sided out to make room for incoming disruption.
8 Mountain, 4 Karplusan Forest, 4 Grove of the Burnwillows, 4 Fire-Lit Thicket, 4 Raging Ravine
The general rule of thumb is all your lands should be able to produce red because of Demigod. At the same time, you also need to have a healthy amount of green sources, because you want to be casting Birds and Elves on the early turns.
Ancient Ziggurat was an early contender for fulfilling the role, but was quickly dismissed because it can’t pump Figure, can’t be used for Fauna Shaman’s activation, can’t Punishing Fire, and can’t filter Fire-Lit Thicket.
Hence, it was removed to make room for Karplusan Forest. The downside of Karplusan Forest and Grove of the Burnwillows is not significant, because you usually either win big or lose big to combo,
or
you get swarmed by weenies. The upside is that they are both untapped red/green sources that don’t make you stumble upon drawing them like taplands do.
The four Raging Ravine are the only taplands, and they give you extra stamina in the long game alongside with Punishing Fire, so you don’t run out of things to do. Fire-Lit Thicket is awesome because it filters your Bloom Tender into red, doesn’t require you to endure pain for mana,
and
enables you to cast Vengevine without having another green land.
The colored mana ratio is relatively stable as well. Generally, you have sixteen green sources out of twenty-four, which make it two-thirds. Put simply, you should be drawing two green lands out of every three lands you draw. Hence, it’s rare that you’ll have a hand that gives you no green mana — but that would be an easy mulligan.
For match analysis, I will go through matches that I played in the Pro Tour to give you a more accurate picture of how the deck works. I went 8-2 in the Constructed portion, and 4-2 in the Draft portion.
Merfolk (1-0)
I played against it on the first round and won based on the strength of Fauna Shaman.
I made a mistake that almost cost me the game when I decided to gun down a Silvergill Adept
and
cast Fauna Shaman on the same turn. I could have left two mana untapped to gun it down during my opponent’s turn, but I would have needed to take two pain from Karplusan Forest — whereas playing both spells in my turn would save the a point of damage thanks to Fire-Lit Thicket.
It turned out that he played two Lord of Atlantis (he had revealed one to me for Adept) on his turn, making my machine-gun combo not quite good enough, and then almost killed me with a Spreading Seas to make his dudes unblockable. Thankfully, Fauna Shaman saved the day when Fulminator Mage killed my own land.
Sideboard: +3 Spitebellows , +2 Kitchen Finks, -1 Lodestone Golem, -1 Fulminator Mage, -2 Vengevine, -1 Figure of Destiny
Dredge (1-0)
He beat me in game 1 when he assembled his engine of multiple Bloodghasts, then reanimated Iona, Shield of Emeria. Game 2 and 3 weren’t even close; he
kept suboptimal hands. Although he
did
answer my Relic of Progenitus with Pithing Needle twice, my creatures managed to take it down in time.
Sideboard: +3 Relic of Progenitus, +1 Faerie Macabre, -2 Vengevine, -1 Punishing Fire, -1 Lodestone Golem
White Weenie (1-1)
White Weenie has to be the breakthrough deck of the tournament; it won the Pro Tour, and I don’t think anyone would have expected it. I won one and lost to one, breaking even. Both my games against it were also 2-1.
Brave the Elements is very good against this deck, and it can make our Spitebellows backfire (since Brave in response to Spitebellows forces us to kill one of our creatures — booo!).
However, if they don’t draw Brave in time (or if we manage to handle the first one or two threats), then it’s not hard for Fauna Shaman and gang to take over the ground and air. Their first-and second-drops are very important, as are our mana accelerators — so
never
board out mana accelerators in matchups where you want to race for damage.
Sideboard: +3 Spitebellows, +2 Kitchen Finks, -1 Lodestone Golem, -1 Goblin Ruinblaster, -2 Fulminator Mage, -1 Vengevine
Scapeshift (2-0)
The Scapeshift decks I played against ran Prismatic Omens, and were not the regular Red/Green Scapeshift deck that you usually see. I thought I was a heavy favorite due to my land destruction theme… but I was wrong, because most of my land destruction were in the form of non-basic lands, making it conditional. Good opponents always played basic land or fetch lands in the early turns to minimize the effect of my land destruction spells. Nevertheless, assembling six or more basic lands in a row is difficult and I managed to win them both.
Sideboard: +2 Fulminator Mage, +2 Goblin Ruinblaster, -2 Punishing Fire, -2 Vengevine
Hive Mind (1-0)
This matchup is very dependent on how quickly they can find their Lotus Bloom. If they have one on turn 1, chances are you can’t kill them before they going off. Otherwise, land destruction and Lodestone Golem will get the job done.
Sideboard: +2 Fulminator Mage, +2 Goblin Ruinblaster, +2 Lodestone Golem, -4 Punishing Fire, -2 Vengevine
G/W Iona (1-0)
Land destruction and Punishing Fire was all it took to make this an easy match. The deck relies on its Windbrisk Heights, Summoning Trap, and mana acceleration to power out Iona — but that’s a lot to ask against a deck that both plays Punishing Fire and blows up your land. He also played Knight of the Reliquary and Baneslayer Angel, so Spitebellows were handy.
Sideboard: +3 Spitebellows, +2 Fulminator Mage, +2 Goblin Ruinblaster, -4 Vengevine, -1 Bloom Tender, -1 Figure of Destiny, –Lodestone Golem
Pyromancer Ascension (0-1)
He was playing a transformational sideboard with Pestermite and Splinter Twin. I won game 1 with fast beats; he got me game 2 with the sideboard plan, and then switched back to Ascension game 3 and played it on turn 2. Turn 2 Ascension was almost impossible for my deck to beat, because I have literally no way to stop him from going off, and he kept playing basic lands.
This is a bad matchup. The only way we can win is if our opponent doesn’t draw Ascension in the early turns.
Sideboard: +2 Fulminator Mage, +2 Goblin Ruinblaster, +2 Lodestone Golem, +3 Relic of Progenitus, -4 Punishing Fire, -3 Vengevine, -2 Demigod of Revenge
Bant (1-0)
This was my final match of the tournament, playing against Conley Woods. He asked me if I could make good use of the extra Pro points, hinting that he would appreciate a concession, and I told him that I’d like to play regardless — so the game was soon afoot.
Neither game was close. He was land-light, and I assembled the Punishing Fire combo early. Despite the fact that I mulliganned to five in one of the games, the Punishing Fire combo is too much for a Bant deck to handle… And even if he could, it might have been too late because Figure and Demigod were coming from the air.
Sideboard: +3 Spitebellows, -1 Lodestone Golem, -2 Fulminator Mage
It would be impossible to list all matchups because there are just too many decks in the format. The most important thing during sideboarding is to avoid diluting the deck too much. You still win through attacking, and your disruption spells are only good when you’re applying pressure at the same time. Otherwise, you’re only getting a fair trade without getting ahead.
Generally, Punishing Fire gets sided out against combo and 5-Color control because it’s too slow to achieve anything relevant. Vengevine also gets sided out a lot in creature matchups because you win by taking control with Punishing Fire and then flying through the skies.
In retrospect, I would still play the deck again at the Pro Tour because it is fun and attacks the opponent from multiple angles, using attrition, speed, and land destruction. However, I would make some changes: I’d cut the Relic of Progenitus for Blood Knight for a better matchup against White Weenie and Doran, and I’d swap all my copies of Goblin Ruinblaster for Avalanche Riders so that my opponent can never play around my land destruction spells.
‘Til then, see you at Worlds!