Hi all!
I am RaphaÔl Lévy and I am glad to start writing for Star City. For those who don’t know me yet, I’ve been playing Magic since Arabian Nights and on the Pro Tour since Pro Tour: Paris in April 97, quite a long time ago. I will try to share a bit of my long experience with you here with strategy related articles.
With PT: LA and 3 Grand Prix in the fresh new Extended format in the books, it feels like the format is settled and the 3 best decks are Psychatog, Boros and Affinity. The metagame goes something like Psychatog beats Boros, Boros beats Affinity and Affinity beats Psychatog. You have probably read a lot about those 3 decks already and that will not be the topic of my article.
Here I will try to introduce you the deck I played in both PT LA and GP: Copenhagen, posting satisfying results both times (respectively 14th and 15th), while unfortunately missing the Top 8. I will try to explain the choices I made for the deck, why I played it, the matchups and what I would change. I’ll even go through the two events I played with the deck and give you a little analysis.
Pro Tour LA: The First new Extended tournament!
I brought an aggressive version of G/B to LA, which I can hardly call “The Rock”. It features Hypnotic Specters, Dark Confidants, the deadly Duress/Cabal Therapy hand destruction duo, Equipment and the best creatures Green has to offer.
Creatures (18)
Lands (19)
Spells (23)
- 3 Umezawa's Jitte
- 4 Duress
- 3 Call of the Herd
- 4 Cabal Therapy
- 2 Sword of Fire and Ice
- 3 Chrome Mox
- 4 Putrefy
Sideboard
While playtesting for the Pro tour, we had a rough sketch of the metagame, but The Rock isn’t a popular deck anymore. It barely ever reaches any Top 8s, and it became one of the deck you don’t even want to playtest, as you know it’s just bad. PT: London Champion Geoffrey Siron sent me the first version of what would eventually become one of the most powerful decks in the format. It was at first his B plan if his Golgari Troll/Psychatog deck wasn’t reliable enough. The B/G deck seemed to be too slow at first. Lots of three-mana creatures (Troll Ascetic and Call of the Herd), to which I added Hypnotic Specters, and the mana base didn’t really seem to handle the curve if you didn’t draw an Elf or a Bird in your opening hand, or if they got burned on turn 1. So before tuning the deck around the metagame, we had to fix the mana problem. Adding more elves and lands didn’t seem very efficient, as the more mana sources we added, the worse the deck became in the late game. I then cut some lands and elves to bring in some Moxen. That change was crucial. It felt like playing a Dark Confidant on turn 1 would be a game winner. Hypnotic Specter on turn 2 would also be a nice thing too, especially on the play. Cutting the lands was the key to make the deck a viable one. Lucien Bui, PT LA 1999 Top 8 finisher and friend from my hometown Toulouse, and I started playtesting the deck, which was even then very similar to the deck I played at the Pro Tour, against what we thought the format will be made of.
The deck just seemed to beat everything. One of the main reasons for this is that the maindeck doesn’t have any dead cards. I had seen B/G decks with Smothers instead of Duress, but Cabal Therapy is just not good enough if Duress doesn’t come along. And Smother may be a dead card. Duress, except in the late game (where it can still be of some use) is always a card you want to have in your starting hand. I was also very impressed by Ravnica’s Putrefy. I’m usually not a big fan of single creature removal, but the versatility of that one made me change my mind. Even in the matchups where you won’t encounter a creature on the board, it will be useful, notably against Scepter-Chant.
The deck seemed to beat Goblins thanks to Umezawa’s Jittes, Sword of Fire and Ice, Troll Ascetic, and surprisingly, Hypnotic Specter. The flying Specter is one of the only reliable way to put counters on your Jittes, as most of your guys will face dead goblins as they attack (stack damage, sacrifice a goblin to Prospector/Sledder) and you won’t get the counters. It seemed to beat any creature deck based as Trolls and Equipment are rarely handled by a deck with creatures. It seemed to beat control deck and combo decks. It was just hard to imagine losing to combo decks with 8 discard spells and Hypnotic Specter. The same goes for control decks. And finally it seemed to beat Psychatog decks. Discard along with “hard to deal with” threats made it a good matchup. Yes, as you probably noticed, Trolls are key in most matchups.
The deck was quite straight forward: Destroy your hand, play guys, swing. The deck ended up being a little more complicated to play… The sideboard as well seemed a bit “simple”. But it was just efficient. You almost get an auto win against Goblin decks with the 4 Plagues, the Withered Wretch would do its job against graveyard recursion-based deck – that’s actually the only card we had against Reanimator decks – and is also a two-drop to stop early pressure against fast weenie decks, as well as against Heartbeat of Spring combo decks. Naturalizes and Smother gave you a lot of removal against Affinity…
So what could possibly go wrong?
My 16 rounds in the PT made me realize the weaknesses of the deck. I ended day one with a score of 7-1, losing last round to Craig Jones and his Golgari Tog deck. We had noticed during playtesting that Darkblast was a problem, and thought that Withered Wretch could handle it just fine. During Day 1, I beat most of decks without problems really. 2 Goblins, Antoine Ruel Psychatog, Heartbeat Combo, Ryuchi Arita’s Scepter Chant, R/G beatdown and Flores’s weird B/W control deck.
I was satisfied with the results of the deck and at that point would have changed one thing: I wanted the Wretch maindeck. They were just so good, against all decks. The deck doesn’t have many creatures that beat down, it just starts taking your opponent’s life with three-mana creatures, which is usually not a problem when you have the mana accelerators… if you have them. I just brought them in against all decks, Goblins too, as the only card you really fear is Bidding, and you don’t want to keep your discard arsenal after sideboard, they would protect you against it just perfectly. Of course, I still had another 8 rounds to play.
Day 2 started with what would eventually be a bad matchup. I was paired against Tsuyoshi Fujita’s R/W Boros deck on round 9. The problem of the matchup is not the creatures so much, but the burn that follows. You can deal with the creatures but you’re missing good guys to put your Jittes on as most of them get burned, and not many make it to the “adding counter on Jitte” step. Flametongue Kavus after sideboard was yet another problem. I felt that my only out was the Troll, but maybe I was just a bit too pessimistic. I’ll come back to that matchup later. The rest of the day saw my deck (and me) losing to William Moreno, who was totally unbeatable on that day, and battling for top8 against Taiwanese Chih-Hsiang Chang with his RDW, against which I was totally unprepared to play against.
From PT LA to GP: Copenhagen
14th was an acceptable result, but it was time for me to review what was good and what was bad with the deck, as GP:Copenhagen would take place the week after.
First of all, the format seemed to be a bit clearer, the winning strategies emerged, and we knew a bit more what we would face in the upcoming rounds. The deck definitely had to get better against Mountains. I was actually quite disappointed with the Moxen, which more often than not, came up in the worst situations. I liked the fact that I could play Dark Confidant on turn 1, but hated to draw one on turn 10. Wretches needed to make it to the maindeck. And Birds, I love them, but their lack of power make them so lame when you need a creature to equip Jittes with.
So basically what I did was: Cut a Mox, a Call of the Herd and a Hypnotic Specter for 3 Wretches. The deck featured too many three-mana guys, and Wretches smoothed the mana curve well. The 3rd Mox was therefore unnecessary as the deck’s creatures become cheaper. The next change was to cut a Bird for a Elves of the Deep Shadow. I wouldn’t play more of those guys, the 1 damage they deal is relevant. You don’t want another Llanowar Elf either, as they can cast the Wretches on their own. It seems little a slight tweak to the deck, but I really liked them when I could actually attack for one with what was previously a stupid Bird.
Sideboard: The deck clearly has weaknesses against any kind of burn decks – being two colors with eight dual lands without many ways to play around burn spells (no counter magic nor lifegain, except for Jittes) is going to do that. Three Wretches moving to the maindeck opened three slots in the sideboard. 3 Iwamoris made it for GP: Copenhagen…
A few words about the GP itself, and then we’ll move on to the matchup section. The deck’s performance was no real surprise there. It was finely tuned to beat any version of Psychatog thanks to the wretches. I even beat Julien Nujiten during the swiss rounds, who would be the eventual champion, though I lost to Affinity and Boros in three tight games each. Iwamori in the Boros matchup didn’t perform as I expected. Believe it or not, 5/5 is just too small. While the trample ability is likeable with Swords and Jittes, it just dies too easily to Flametongue + Lava Dart or any combination of burn. In contention for Top 8 during the whole tournament, I finished the weekend at 11-4, in 14th place.
Matchup Analysis
The deck is very consistent and has efficient weapons against every other deck. Let’s see in details how the matchups go against the most played decks and how to sideboard.
Psychatog:
Probably one of the best matchups. Games can take different routes depending on your draws. Quite often, the early hand destruction allows you to play your threats without finding much adversity. When that doesn’t happen most of your creatures are very annoying for him. Dark Confidant, Hypnotic Specter are must-kills in the early game, and there’s no way he can deal with the Trolls except killing you faster with the Tog which often dies or isn’t fed enough, as it often finds an empty graveyard to feed from thanks to the Wretches.
IN: +3 Smother, +1 Withered Wretch
OUT: -3 Umezawa’s Jitte, -1 Chrome Mox
Try to play around Pernicious Deed. Don’t leave your Trolls without protection.
Boros:
One of the hardest matchup. What happens is that you usually take a few damage from the fast creatures, and when you finally stabilize the board, you get burned to death. If you manage to set up a Jitte or a Sword, the game is over. Otherwise, the matchup is tough.
IN: +3 Iwamoris, +3 Smothers, +4 Plagues, +1 Withered Wretch
OUT: -4 Duress, -4 Cabal Therapies, -2 Hypnotic Specter,-1 Dark Confidant.
Plagues work as a removal for a Lavamancer or a Lion and a Cranial Extraction. Keep in mind that Dark Confidaent is also a wizard, same as Lavamancer… so maybe you want to take out more than one in the matchup as they are not very spectacular there. The big problem after sideboard is Flametongue Kavu. Maybe you want to keep the Cabal Therapies after sideboard to take care of those. Iwamoris are a bit too weak. Trample is nice, but 5/5 still isn’t big enough.
Overall, a hard but not unwinnable matchup.
Affinity:
This is an “ok+” matchup. There are many versions of Affinity out there, but the key to this matchup is Jitte and removal. When Jitte is out, take care of the Ravagers with your removal so they can’t stop you from putting counters on them.
IN: +3 Smothers, +4 Naturalize
OUT: -4 Cabal Therapy, -3 Duress
You bring in 7 removal spells. The matchup should turn in your favor, as you won’t see much coming through. You may want to add Pernicious Deeds in the sideboard. It’s up to you if you think the matchup is too tough.
Overall, the deck performs pretty well against any kind of control deck thanks to the discard spells, and against creature-based decks thanks to the Trolls and equipment.
As of now, and after I had the time to pilot the deck though 25 rounds of sanctioned Premiere Events, I would change a couple of things:
- The Hypnotic Specters. While they’ve been quite good a lot of times, they are just not adapted to the format – they don’t do enough while being too expensive and too fragile. You may want to replace them by the fourth Wretch or cheaper creatures. Wild Mongrels maybe?
- Chrome Mox: With Hypnotic Specters out, you are in no need of that many moxen. While you still want to be able to cast a Dark Confidant on turn 1, you don’t want to have too many of them… I guess one is probably the right number.
- Sideboard: As I mentioned above, I have been quite disappointed by Iwamori. With the fourth Wretch probably making it to the maindeck, you have four open slots in the sideboard. The problem now, is that people are going to play Iwamori in this deck’s sideboard… and the mirror matchup is often won by the one with bigger creatures (or with the most Trolls), so you have a dilemma: either take out the Iwamoris for more efficient cards against Boros, and therefore, have a slight disadvantage against an untuned version of the mirror. Or stick to Iwamoris. That is still a question I have no answer for.
In a field dominated by 3 decks, B/G seems to be a solid deck to play, as it doesn’t really have unwinnable matchups like Affinity against Boros… and has a lot of very good matchups. As I write this, GP: Bilbao is coming up this weekend. I’ll try to answer the questions left unanswered and bring you an update of the latest version of the deck as I will certainly work on it a bit more this week and play it there.
Good luck!
Raphael