Quick Preamble: For those who have no idea what the term Glass Cannon describes, please see this article by Richard Feldman on the subject.
For those without Premium, here’s the basic description.
”Bringing a deck that packs to a commonly played archetype is something I’ve come to term ‘bringing the Glass Cannon Deck.’ It’s where you launch yourself head-on at the tournament with a deck whose only chance is to avoid your few nightmare matchups the whole way through.”
Thank you, the real article begins here.
Currently, Extended is a very diverse place, which means for many of us the strategy is picking one of the top four or five decks, practicing, and trying to take the envelope home. Past some sideboard changes or a cute maindeck addition, these decks have the capability to beat the majority as long as you play well and get a little lucky at times.
However, despite the diversity of the environment, a number of people are taking glass cannons to the PTQs. This isn’t necessarily a bad decision or deck choice, it’s simply one that’s dependent on match-ups more so than other decks you could bring out. Right now I want to go over some of the decks that I believe to be glass cannons.
Glass Cannon Decks
Affinity
Ichorid
U/G Opposition
You could argue that these decks aren’t decks that technically fall under the definition, but to me these are the main three that come to mind. Affinity and Ichorid always come with the caveat, “Well, it’s great as long as there isn’t too much hate…” Meanwhile U/G Opposition, at least the builds that have produced so far, has had some downright terrible control matches. Once the opponent realizes to focus entirely on stopping Opposition and one or two other cards in the deck, then it becomes an easy deck to defeat. That being said, future builds may fix these issues and become true contenders.
Let’s take a moment and break down the merits of these individually.
Affinity
Creatures (19)
Lands (20)
Spells (21)
Sideboard
Decks Affinity is supposed to beat: U/W Tron, Boros, Desire (TEPS) and Trinket Angel; as well as having “the nuts” draws to beat anything.
Decks that crush Affinity: Aggro Loam and Scepter-Chant; concentrated hate like Pernicious Deed or Kataki, War’s Wage are also huge concerns.
This deck isn’t necessarily optimized for our purposes. For example, I would love to fit some Atog in the deck somewhere, and the single Glimmervoid looks a little out of place, but the list is pretty standard. The idea behind it is simple: destroy the opponent before he has a chance to get his game-plan online or recover from the initial onslaught.
For these purposes, the full set of Shrapnel Blast look amazing here. I see many Affinity decks drop down to two or three, but consider how many games you’ll win by just getting them to 5-10 life and then throw a Blast or two at their head to end it. Ultimately Shrapnel Blast is one of the few ways Affinity has to win the game when the ground game becomes untenable.
The deck is very good at just blowing through slower starts from decks. Meanwhile, Arcbound Ravager and Myr Enforcer can stomp on normal aggro decks with the right draws. However, when it loses, it loses huge. Scepter-Chant makes a mockery of the deck, and the best you can do post-board is just bring in Needles and Grips and hope for the best. I’m almost amazed they haven’t resorted to Blinkmoth Well or Relic Barrier yet.
Aggro Loam is the other practically unwinnable match, and with good reason. If Devastating Dreams resolves, the game is over. Terravore and Vinelasher Kudzu can actually grow to size of any Ravager while having easy answers to Plating or a huge Nexus thanks to Putrefy and Burning Wish. I won’t even get into the sheer beating that is Solitary Confinement.
In a way, I think many Affinity boards are mis-constructed, because Tormod’s Crypt is next to useless in many matches. I’d love to see, say… Ancient Grudge or extra Krosan Grips and co. to help take care of the new problems being presented by upgraded U/W Tron decks. Razormane Masticore and Chalice of the Void aren’t exactly fun to see, considering many times the Tron player is just stalling until Mindslaver or Platinum Angel hits.
Giving up on the two nearly unwinnable matches in the board seems like a fine idea, because you’re already relying on god draws every time you run into these decks.
There isn’t a commonly held Ichorid listing at the moment; and I have yet to hear of any of these decks making Top 8 at any qualifiers. So unfortunately there is no listing to give out to you. My own build is a bit outdated, but all I can really say is that the core of the deck is still fine. The key changes come from the addition of Dread Return and the use of a few huge creatures to help out. Sundering Titan is the obvious reanimation target for the deck, but I’ve seen other players use Yosei, The Morning Star (Time Walk FTW), Kaervek the Merciless (Wipes out storm combo something fierce) and Bogardan Hellkite (Just wrecks creatures in general).
Decks Ichorid is supposed to beat: All control and most aggro decks game 1.
Decks Ichorid gets crushed by: Supposedly Aggro Loam was really tough, Desire is close to 50/50ish, and then it depends on who you ask. The deck is hurt by hate, because it can slow the deck down enough to just get beat up.
So yes, Ichorid has issues with hate to some extent. There are two simple solutions to the problem; one is to run a maindeck solution that doubles as amazing against everything else. This would mean running something like Chalice of the Void, good against aggro, stops multiple locks against Scepter-Chant, and set at zero stops all the annoying Crypts in games 2 and 3. For those less inclined to ride the Chalice Bus, then Pithing Needle is still around to help take care of hate while not being dead.
The second solution is to modify the deck to rely on dredging less and simply using the Life from the Loam engine more thoroughly. The problem with this is you begin to turn into an Aggro Loam deck, minus the best card, with replacements of Wild Mongrel and Zombie Infestation for Terravore and Seismic Assault. On the other hand, you get to be a Zombie making machine!
Ultimately, the problem with Ichorid is people are still keeping Tormod’s Crypt in their decks either out of fear, or simply wanting a cheap answer to keep Aggro Loam in line. With Dread Return, the power level of the deck, if anything, has gone up from last season. This makes it an attractive choice to those few souls willing to brave going up against hate nearly every round. Although the deck has yet to Top 8, it always seems that a few are playing it at each PTQ which keeps it just enough in people’s consciousness. If for some reason the number of Crypts decreased, I think the deck could conceivably come back with a vengeance.
U/G Opposition
Creatures (27)
- 4 Llanowar Elves
- 4 Birds of Paradise
- 4 Wirewood Symbiote
- 4 Wood Elves
- 2 Eternal Witness
- 4 Coiling Oracle
- 2 Scryb Ranger
- 3 Spectral Force
Lands (20)
Spells (13)
Sideboard
Decks Opposition is supposed to beat: Pretty much every deck relying on a multitude of creatures.
Decks Opposition has issues with: Desire and Control cause serious issues.
Now this is a deck that, in its current form, is a perfect example of a glass cannon deck. It has a multitude of ways to beat smaller creature decks, like Trinket Angel and Flow, by abusing Opposition and Spectral Force. The deck is composed of tons of cute synergies from its various 1/1 men. Let’s look over a few of the more prominent ones.
Men + Opposition + Static Orb = complete lock of the opponent’s mana and board.
Elf or Birds + Wirewood Symbiote + Coiling Oracle = recurring card draw while using renewable mana.
Spectral Force + Scryb Ranger = Beats.
The deck has an incredible amount of synergy, but the list I’ve just shown you has some major flaws that become evident with testing. First though, let’s work on making some basic upgrades to the list I’ve shown you.
Immediately the inclusion of only three Static Orb and Opposition come to my eye. These are some of the only relevant cards you have in the control and combo matches, not to mention the centerpieces of the deck. These are the first cards that to go up to the full set. Eternal Witness are the easy cuts, because they’ll only be useful once your rolling along and don’t do enough if you begin to fall behind.
Spectral Force has been argued to be just cute overkill, but I find it allows the Opposition player to end a game very quickly if unable to lock the opponent up, or if Beacon gets dealt with. Meloku the Clouded Mirror is a possibility for an alternative to the “big stupid Green guy,” but every time I’ve tried Meloku, he’s simply seemed slower and less efficient than beating down with an 8/8. That being said, the times you use these huge men as your main kill aren’t exactly numerous, so we can drop whichever one you pick down to two.
At this point you can also consider Chrome Mox for the deck to help with the acceleration aspect. This is something I haven’t tested enough to give you a final verdict. At the moment I’m leaning towards keeping a full set of Moxen in the deck, to help speed up dropping Coiling Oracle and Wood Elves. They also allow for you to power out a turn 3 Opposition into a turn 4 Beacon of Creation, even if your elves are getting killed.
The sideboard is probably the most important aspect of this deck. As I said, control matches are a huge pain in the butt to deal with. All many of them need to do is stop Opposition and Static Orb, and suddenly the only threats you have (outside of a few Spectral Force or Meloku) are 1/1 elves. Hence you need a way to start forcing your key spells through, while also keeping enough room in the deck to not pack it into hate like Pernicious Deed or Devastating Dreams.
Krosan Grip are the obvious addition to deal with annoying artifact / enchantment issues. As for forcing through your own spells against control, Elias and I were bouncing some ideas back and forth. The best ones were Xantid Swarm, splashing for Cabal Therapy, and using something like Exhaustion or Temporal Spring to keep them behind in the early game.
At first glance, Swarm seems to solve many of the issues the deck has with forcing through lock components. Against something like 8-post or U/W Tron it certainly is the quickest and hardest hitting of the options, because the first way they’ll have to deal with him is Engineered Explosives. By then you could’ve already resolved multiple elves and turned that into an Opposition or Orb. The downside is against decks like Scepter-Chant, he’s just another guy that will get burned off. Still, that’s a one-mana threat they have to deal with, or they risk losing outright.
Splashing for Black has the downside of destabilizing the manabase, despite the obvious benefits to running Therapy. It’s a question of keeping a minimum of 14-15 Forests in the deck while still being able to hit UU, which the deck already has issues with. Going into another color makes these issues more apparent, though you can pretty much always flashback Therapy, making it a great way to deplete control’s resources before taking them head-on.
Exhaustion and land bounce were ideas mainly against Post and Tron decks. With eight Comes Into Play Tapped lands, a single one of these cards can cause you to get an extra turn of mana and card slinging without having to deal with counters. Considering how badly these decks want to get to the mid and late-game, this is huge for you. Now the question becomes is it worth spending board slots on cards that focus purely on these types of control decks, especially with Xantid Swarm in the mix? That’s something for you to answer about your particular metagame.
Trinisphere and Stifle are the obvious anti-combo cards to have around. A resolved Trinisphere with a clock is basically good game against Desire, and Stifle can stop any attempts to go off on turn 2/3 before 3-Ball gets online. Empty the Warrens isn’t a concern in the least, considering you’re running a multitude of creatures along with Beacon of Creation. Heck, even if you board it out, 3-Ball with Stifle should be enough to stop most of those shenanigans. Blinkmoth Well can also be a consideration against the various Scepter-Chant decks floating around.
Opposition could become a huge contender with some optimizing, or it could stay a fluke deck that can only beat other aggressive strategies. I think this has the most potential to break-out with a few good card choices and solid playing. Not to mention the overall cost of the deck is quite low compared to many choices, so that’s another reason for the cheaper among us to eschew Affinity and roll with another kind of 1/1 critter.
And that brings this chapter to a close. With my own PTQ is this weekend, I’ll more than likely be taking Tron because I couldn’t scrounge up the quadrillion duals for another deck. Oh, that and it kicks copious amounts of ass. Good luck to all of you trying to qualify this weekend!
Josh Silvestri
Team Reflection
Email me at: joshDOTsilvestriATgmailDOTcom