I went to GenCon in a pretty pessimistic mood about my odds of winning any major tournaments. I didn’t know what the schedule was like and how many things I’d be able to play, and the main tournament I was planning on playing was a tournament for which I wasn’t qualified in a format I hadn’t really played. At least I’d been following Standard enough to know something about it, and I knew I needed the practice.
There were two Last Chance Qualifiers and the main event for the Midwest Masters Series, and if I wanted to be sure to be able to play in all of them, I wouldn’t be able to play in any other large tournaments.
For the first qualifier, I played Wafo-Tapa’s UW deck. Brian Kowal had a URG Titan deck with Mass Polymorph that he liked a lot, but I didn’t want to spoil it for him, so I figured I’d try to qualify with a known deck and then as to play his deck for the main event, when he’d be playing it too. I believe I stumbled in one game against Jund and lost, and then lost to Runeflare Trap in a match where he started both games with five cards. That match seemed hopeless.
I didn’t love the way the deck played out, and I didn’t like having a matchup that was hopeless, so I decided to play something else. I think I was going to play Pyromancer’s Ascension, but when I woke up the next morning, about an hour or so before the tournament, I decided to build something new.
I realized that some kind of Bant deck is good against everything, just not always the same Bant deck. Fauna Shaman seemed like it could be the key in allowing a Bant deck to be flexible enough to play like whatever style of Bant deck would be good against my opponent.
I liked the idea of having one Sovereigns and one Eldrazi Conscription with Fauna Shaman so that I could win that way, some Vengevines, some Titans, some planeswalkers, and a lot of Flexibility.
My first build had Squadron Hawks in the sideboard, Sun Titan main, Frost Titan in the sideboard, one Summoning Trap main, and the other three in the sideboard. I think it had two Vengevines main and two more in the sideboard, as well as some unnecessary bullets like a Ranger of Eos.
The idea was that I could bring in Squadron Hawks to become more of a Next Level Bant deck, or I could bring in Traps and Titans against UW, or I could bring in more Sovereigns and Conscriptions to function more like Mythic when I just needed to race. It was a tricky deck in that it required knowing exactly what plan you wanted for each matchup, but I had a pretty good idea of why everything was there.
I forgot to put Sejiri Steppe in the original version, which was possibly one of the single most important cards, but surprisingly managed to qualify in that tournament anyway. I was very happy with how the deck played out, and decided that if I could do that well with my rough draft of the deck, which was several obvious cards off from where it should be, a fixed version would probably be great. I changed it around and played it again in the MMS.
That deck was:
Creatures (26)
- 4 Birds of Paradise
- 4 Noble Hierarch
- 4 Knight of the Reliquary
- 1 Sovereigns of Lost Alara
- 1 Baneslayer Angel
- 4 Lotus Cobra
- 2 Vengevine
- 4 Fauna Shaman
- 2 Primeval Titan
Planeswalkers (4)
Lands (25)
Spells (5)
I decided that Squadron Hawk just wasn’t a direction I wanted to go against anyone except maybe Jund, and it didn’t even seem like the best plan there. It sounded good against UW, but there are only so many different things you can do there, and Fauna Shaman, Vengevine, Planeswalkers, Summoning Trap, and Primeval Titan seemed like a good plan.
At U.S. Nationals, Brad Nelson had a deck that was like this, but the shell was Next Level Bant with Fauna Shaman and a toolbox, instead of Mythic with Fauna Shaman and a toolbox. That approach seems wrong to me, because the idea with Next Level Bant is that you don’t want to play any creatures that they can get value out of killing. (I tried and disliked the deck GerryT suggested at one point: NLB with Cobras and Knights of the Reliquary over cycling creatures.) If you’re building the deck that way, you really don’t want to give it random weak points. Mythic just throws creatures they absolutely have to handle at them until one sticks. If you untap with a Knight of the Reliquary or a Fauna Shaman, it’s extremely likely that you’ll win, and a lot of decks can’t really afford to let you untap with Lotus Cobra when you might just play a Primeval Titan the next turn.
Fauna Shaman is a deceptively huge upgrade for Mythic because it fills the one particularly awkward slot: the space for Rhox War Monk or Dauntless Escort or some other card that’s worse than the rest of your creatures. It also gives you enough cheap creatures that you can easily mulligan any seven-card hand that doesn’t have a play before turn 3.
All of this is to say that, when playing the deck the first time through, I realized that you generally want to play like Mythic but with a few more options. Vengevine allows Fauna Shaman to win most games unchecked. Primeval Titan can get you far enough ahead of Cunning Sparkmage to just outrace it, and provides enough card advantage to often beat Jund or UW if it resolves, so it’s somewhat like a better Sphinx of Jwar Isle.
Mana Leak was only in the sideboard of the first build, I think, but I wanted it often enough to promote it. It plays well enough with Garruk that I wanted to give him a chance. Turn 3 Garruk, untap, Mana Leak your answer, untap, play a six-drop, is an extremely powerful line of play.
I’ve heard some criticism of playing only a single Eldrazi Conscription, but I definitely think it’s right. Most of the time one hit will win the game, and the option isn’t so necessary, especially in a build that has Jace to put it back.
Elspeth was surprisingly disappointing. The deck doesn’t need it as a way to push through the way Next Level Bant does, and it doesn’t always have random things like Sea Gate Oracle to throw in the air. Elspeth is always pretty good in some matchups, like Jund or UW, but overall I didn’t really feel like it was pulling its weight as a non-creature in a deck with Fauna Shaman and Vengevine.
Finest Hour was included as maindeck hate for UW, to go back to the old days of the original Mythic deck when Celestial Colonnade plus Finest Hour could beat Day of Judgment and randomly steal wins. Mostly, I included one because I thought it would be fun to live the dream and attack twice with a Primeval Titan.
One Baneslayer Angel is an excellent bullet against Naya and Red that gives you a lot of value for one slot, and I’d definitely want it in any GW Vengevine deck.
Two Vengevines is what I consider the most controversial number. People have said things like, “oh, that deck with the two Vengevine” or “I assume you’re playing four Vengevines now.” That is the direction I went for Nationals, but I think we were wrong, and if I were to play this deck again, I’d actually go back to only two Vengevines. Zvi said they looked like they were included as an afterthought rather than the main focus of the deck, and I think that’s what they should be. They’re not Plan A, they’re the plan you stumble into when a Fauna Shaman somehow lives, which you never really want to expect, and even when it does live, they still aren’t always the best thing you can do. There’s some debate as to whether they’re the best thing you can be doing even without Fauna Shaman if you just play the deck with more creatures and play to take advantage of them, but I just don’t think they’re as powerful as planeswalkers in that situation.
Jace performed as it always does. It was ridiculously powerful, but not exactly in line with what the deck is doing.
As for the sideboard, Linvala has become the best card, and including only one in the sideboard was probably the biggest oversight. There are a lot of Noble Hierarch matchups, and it’s the best card in those matchups. For Nationals, one moved to the main and the other 3 were added to the board. Leyline was good and did what I wanted it to do, but it became somewhat unnecessary with that many Linvalas to try to stop Cunning Sparkmage. Qasali Pridemage is necessary against Pyromancer’s Ascension, but we realized that beyond the first Pridemage for flexibility, War Priest of Thune is actually better.
I sent the list to my team, and Zvi decided he liked it and wanted to work on it for Nationals.
Zvi likes extremely focused, streamlined decks, and this deck was the opposite of that. His change was to cut the planeswalkers entirely for more Vengevines and a few other bullets (Linvala and Admonition Angel). The biggest advantage to making this change, in my mind, was that it allowed us to cut the second Island for Tectonic Edge (we also cut the third Sunpetal Grove for a second Sejiri Steppe, but that was unrelated, and recommended).
Zvi and Gau tested it and reported that all 4 Vengevines were sometimes necessary to win games the way they were winning them, and they were happy with the changes. I liked how cutting Jace changed the mana requirements, but I wasn’t comfortable losing Garruk, especially if we were increasing the curve by adding more Titans and Admonition Angel.
Admonition Angel seems like Zvi’s pet card. He wanted it in the sideboard of the original Mythic deck, and it was the first card everyone else cut after the PT. It was also the first card he wanted to add here. I tried playing it in a 21-game testing session, and it was the only card in the deck I never played. I was skeptical, so I had him tell me more about it. He explained that if your Fauna Shaman untaps, they probably don’t have removal, so rather than just chaining Vengevines (a creature that’s good against removal, which they don’t have), you can find Knight of the Reliquary, then Lotus Cobra (if needed), then Admonition Angel, all under Knight’s protection, and at that point, Admonition Angel will beat any board. Against Naya or Mythic, this is what you want to do, although you get Linvala before starting that chain. This sounded reasonable, and I believe several of us followed this line of play to success in Nationals.
Awkwardly, this meant that a significant portion of the time that Fauna Shaman lived, I still wasn’t taking advantage of the extra Vengevines in the deck.
In Nationals, we played:
Creatures (31)
- 4 Birds of Paradise
- 4 Noble Hierarch
- 4 Knight of the Reliquary
- 1 Sovereigns of Lost Alara
- 1 Baneslayer Angel
- 4 Lotus Cobra
- 1 Admonition Angel
- 1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
- 4 Vengevine
- 4 Fauna Shaman
- 3 Primeval Titan
Lands (25)
Spells (4)
I almost played a Garruk instead of the third Primeval Titan, but I was convinced not to when Brian Kowal said even he didn’t want Garruk (he loves Garruk more than anyone).
The Tectonic Edge was good for me, but I think that if I played the deck again now I’d be:
Creatures (28)
- 4 Birds of Paradise
- 4 Noble Hierarch
- 4 Knight of the Reliquary
- 1 Sovereigns of Lost Alara
- 1 Baneslayer Angel
- 4 Lotus Cobra
- 1 Admonition Angel
- 1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
- 2 Vengevine
- 4 Fauna Shaman
- 2 Primeval Titan
Planeswalkers (3)
Lands (25)
Spells (4)
There’s less UW, so the Summoning Trap/Primeval Titan package can be reduced for more help against Red in the form of an extra Obstinate Baloth. The Planeswalkers help a lot against Mythic or other decks where Vengevines just aren’t great, and generally make the deck more powerful, I think.
Rough sideboarding advice:
A lot of matchups are about choosing whether you want the top end to be Titans or Sovereigns, but clearly there’s a little more to change as well.
Against Pyromancer’s Ascension, you need to bring in answers while being careful not to decrease your threat count too far. You also want to lower your curve. This means you cut at least one mana creature, Sovereigns, Conscription (they’ll probably have Into the Roil, so it’s just not worth the risk), and other unnecessary cards like Linvala.
Against UW you want to maximize Summoning Trap and minimize your vulnerability to removal. This means Titans, not Sovereigns. Other obvious upgrades happen, like cutting Linvala for Negate.
Against Jund, they’ll be bringing in a lot of removal, so you can’t count on ever making the Conscription package work against them, so this is another case where you want to be on Titans, and you can’t be on both because too many mana creatures will die. Clearly you also want Baloths, and planeswalkers are relatively weak.
Against Red, you want to lower your curve as much as possible, probably dropping the entire top end and trying to win with Baloths and ideally the one Baneslayer Angel.
Against Mythic, you need to race them, so you bring in all the Linvalas and Sovereigns and hope that your Fauna Shamans can make you better at finding Sovereigns than them.
Against Ramp, it depends somewhat on what their removal is like, but for the most part, you’re racing and their titans would be way better than yours, so you want Sovereigns.
Against Naya, Primeval Titan, rather surprisingly, seems better than Sovereigns, but I still might want to leave one Sovereigns and one Conscription in. This matchup is almost entirely about Linvala.
Against the lifegain White Weenie deck, I think your primary game plan is to stick Admonition Angel, and Jace clearly also helps here. You don’t have a lot to do in the sideboard.
Dredgevine is another deck where you’re racing and you want Linvala and Sovereigns and no Titans.
To answer the most obvious question: yes, I do still think this is a better direction to take this archetype than the more traditional approach like Josh Utter-Leyton’s winning deck. Fauna Shaman is so powerful, and if you don’t go too far, the cost is so low.
Thanks for reading…