White Noise, by [author name="Jay Moldenhauer-Salazar"]Jay Moldenhauer-Salazar[/author]
4 Glittering Lynx
4 Steadfast Guard
4 Glittering Lion
4 Diving Griffin
4 Serra Angel
4 Seal of Cleansing
4 Static Orb
4 Glorious Anthem
4 Parallax Wave
4 Rishadan Port
20 Plains
When team Binary 21 added Jay Moldenhauer-Salazar to our little group, I was quite excited. I mean, this was the guy that punched out”30 Decks In 30 Days,” and all of them were more or less solid if not spectacular. From this I knew that Jay would add a plethora of starting ideas to a team that was looking to make as many waves on the tournament scene as possible…and he has.
Now, of the many deck ideas that he’s put forth, one of my favorites has been White Noise. I liked the consistency the mono-colored nature of”Noise” would afford. Plus, over the last year I’ve played a lot of counter/control types of decks and wanted something different. I wanted to drop some critters and go to work. White Noise afforded me that opportunity, with some elements of control and a neat twist. While my opponent would usually have to untap their critters to get to me, denying them mana, I wouldn’t.
After Jay’s heart, I put the deck together with Apprentice and played it online, and the results were what I had expected. The deck is highly consistent. Being mono-colored and with cheap critter drops like Glittering Lynx and Steadfast Guard, the deck almost never mistreats you with mana screw. You drop lands and little dudes and go to work. What I did find, though, was that almost every game and match was close and the outcomes were invariably decided by around two to four points of health, one way or the other. The deck seemed like it needed a little something to put it over the top — so I began a search for that something.
Initially, I searched white to find perhaps something missed that would put a kick in the pants of the deck but I found very little. It’s white. White isn’t about any kick in the pants. This search was done prior to Apocalypse, a set which might offer a few cards to the mono white version, like Standard Bearer, and also might make versions of the deck splashing Red or Black viable with cards we know have been marked as undercosted and thus good — like Goblin Legionnaire, Gerrard’s Verdict, Vindicate, and Spectral Lynx.
In talking with Jay about the deck, he had thought that Glittering Lion was the weakest link in the deck. The bigger Glittering cat could be good, but without Static Orb in play it seemed to neither provided enough quick offense or a stalwart enough defense. When a deck like Fires can, in the absence of an Orb, afford to spend three mana to kill a Lion after it’s done the duty of stepping in front of a Blastoderm or some other fatty, the Lion isn’t worth it. About the only idea I could see here was to add in another flyer for the evasion. I thought maybe Skyshroud Falcon might be worth a shot in place of the Lion, although I never tried this. I did start to think about what the allied colors of white might offer the deck. I found some interesting stuff…
At the point, I was still of the mindset that what I needed to find was one that would swing the game several life points. With this in mind, one of the first cards that popped into my mind was Armadillo Cloak, which has”swinging a game a few life points one way or the other” written all over it. By looking at green, I also game up with a few other cards that seemed capable of such a swing and also of fitting in with the decks theme of having a synergy under the Orb. Cards like Charging Troll and the easy low casting cost of Wax/Wane seemed tailor-made for the W/G”Noise” deck. Eventually, I came up with this:
“Shrek”
4 Glittering Lynx
4 Steadfast Guard
4 Diving Griffin
3 Serra Angel
3 Charging Troll
3 Armadillo Cloak
4 Wax/Wane
4 Static Orb
4 Glorious Anthem
3 Parallax Wave
4 Rishadan Port
4 Forest
4 Brushland
12 Plains
The deck is still tilted toward white permanents, and thus has a mana base reflecting that. You’d still like to be able to cast a turn two Steadfast Guard if possible, and can often wait to play the cards with Green requirements. Wax/Wane offers a lot of flexibility with a single mana requirement. It stops Saproling Burst. It can help your weenies pump up against opposing weenies. It can make a Serra live after being the target of Flametongue Kavu, and can sometimes provide that last little punch of damage to end a game. Cloak has a defensive aspect, but becomes a winner on any of several creatures, and again it makes Serra a lot tougher to kill going up two on the toughness side.
I’ve done some slight testing of this deck with Mike Mason, who is familiar with mono-white version, and his opinion is that this one is perhaps a tad better.
Then one evening I’m in the shower, thinking about the deck again. I believe this was triggered after just logging off the net and some conversations with the team on several deck ideas and such. It struck me that the heart of the deck was playing under an Orb, something that this deck is tailored to do, and most other decks are not. We knew that had Enlightened Tutor been printed in Seventh edition, that the deck would have immediately been better (so would a lot of other decks), but with the hot water running I started to realize that there might be another way to make sure one got the Orb into play as fast and often as possible. That was by doing what some other successful decks had done by”going turbo.” We know a lot of blue-oriented card drawing and deck manipulation is cheap and easy to cast, and helps one plow through a lot more cards than other types of decks…So I just choked the deck full of it. It turned out like this…
W/U Turbo Noise
4 Glittering Lynx
4 Steadfast Guard
3 Diving Griffin
3 Serra Angel
4 Static Orb
3 Glorious Anthem
3 Parallax Wave
4 Force Spike
3 Seal of Cleansing
1 Sleight of Hand
4 Opt
4 Accumulated Knowledge
7 Island
4 Adarkar Wastes
9 Plains
The Blue card drawing facilitates getting to the Orb as soon as possible. It also lets us run fewer of the finishing cards, while still expecting to see them in time to do their business. Even in the case of running under an Orb, the cost of casting an Accumulated Knowledge or Opt can usually be paid without too much trouble.
Jay had some insightful comments about this deck; he thought that Daze might be better than Force Spike, which looks like it may well be true. Daze puts the same requirement upon your opponent — but under an Orb, Daze would then allow you to return a tapped land to your hand and then return it to play untapped. He also commented on Spiketail Hatchling, which could be another nice choice to add to the deck. The deck still suffers from having a base of permanents that are all white, making Wash Out a concern. Having a combo of Hatchlings, Daze, and Force Spike among others might make punching through a Wash Out in a timely manner quite difficult, not to mention winning some early counter wars over the likes of Static Orb.
Through further testing, I’ve again found this deck to be a decent choice. The impression is that it may be better than”Shrek” — but as with a lot of ideas that utilize blue, the build needs a lot of work to be optimized. The impression is that the drawing needs to have a few more powerful drawers for the mid game and it may need to at least explore the original Counterspell. Rethink might also be an option. This idea probably also has better sideboard options, an area I’ve yet to explore fully…
Opposing-Color”Noise” Variants
I mentioned this briefly above. Since the appearance of Apocalypse, there is the possibility of building base-white Orb decks that have some real power as well. Caves of Koilos and Forge[/author]“]Battlefield [author name="Forge"]Forge[/author] do a lot to make this possible, but there are other cards that show some merit with the design as well….
Black/White
In all versions, the basis of the deck is going to be the same with Orb generally followed by the white creatures that don’t have to tap to attack. From there, one generally wants to look for similar things like cheap undercosted cards and ones with alternate casting costs.
With black, the first card to think of is Snuff Out because of its alternate cost. It can be both fast in the early game or efficient in the mid game under an Orb. After this, there is the powerful and cheap Duress to stop an opponent’s strongest non-creature cards. From here, the choices branch out quite a bit. Gerrard’s Verdict is cheap and effective as well as sometimes netting a little life gain. Vendetta is cheap removal at the price of one black to cast, and Vindicate has all around utility. A black white deck might look something like this:
Cop Car, Sirens Blaring
4 Glittering Lynx
4 Spectral Lynx
3 Steadfast Guard
3 Diving Griffin
3 Serra Angel
3 Glorious Anthem
4 Static Orb
4 Snuff Out
4 Vindicate
4 Duress
4 Caves of Koilos
4 Rishadan Port
6 Swamp
10 Plains
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Red White
This would probably be the most aggressive version of the deck, although with even a quick glance I can see there could be a more controlling version as well. A quick run through gave me something like this:
Medium Well Done
4 Glittering Lynx
4 Goblin Legionnaire
3 Steadfast Guard
3 Skizzik
3 Serra Angel
1 Tahngarth, Talruum Hero
4 Static Orb
3 Glorious Anthem
3 Parallax Wave
3 Squee’s Embrace
3 Urza’s Rage
4 Seal of Fire
4 Rishadan Port
4 Mountain
4 Forge[/author]“]Battlefield [author name="Forge"]Forge[/author]
10 Plains
This is probably cutting between the control and speed possibilities with these two colors. One way to go surely would be more cheap burn. Rhystic Lightning looks very nice in this deck, as does the old standby, Shock. Heck, this type of deck might make Volcanic Hammer and Flame Rift interesting. If you were to run Seal of Cleansing, then you might be able to work popping Seal of Cleansing on your own Orb and then using a spell like Ghitu Fire to finish. Lots of possibilities here to explore, folks, so have at it…And if you find a”Noise”-type deck that you really like and is doing well for you, I’d like to hear about it.
Will Rieffer
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