There comes a time when, in a given metagame (with a few notable exceptions), you’re fighting against so much targeted and incidental hate that it becomes a losing strategy to continue playing your deck. No matter how many cute tweaks or counter-measures you add, you simply cannot change the deck fundamentals to get around such a shift in priorities.
That being said, many times a deck is on the cusp of conceivably being forced out of the metagame, but is still potent enough to get the job done. Right now, this is the crisis that Boros is facing. The main problem is everyone then freaks out and either switches, or they get a sudden case of The Fear. After Worlds, everyone came into the field knowing Boros was good and popular. It never had a chance to shine before everyone decided to a sip of the Hatorade.
Luckily for you poor souls who can’t switch decks, I’m going to try and help you out by at least giving you a decent BDW list.
Let me clear up a few common misconceptions some people seem to have.
1. You can win the mirror with proper deck construction, correct allocation of resources, “not sucking,” and 4-7 sideboard cards. The emphasize on sideboard is not to be lost on you, gentle reader, for running Armadillo Cloak in the main will help in two or three matches and be close to useless in the rest.
Prepping specifically for the mirror is certainly satisfying if playing someone of equal or lesser skill. You want to make sure you crush them, but it can be highly disheartening when you’re taking crucial maindeck space away from every other match. The worst part is that, many times, this sin is committed by people who lose the mirror anyway.
2. If you win the die-roll a lot, your win rate rises exponentially. Sounds stupid and obvious, but Boros has screwed up so many test sessions with absurd results when other decks are actually on the draw. For example, with my U/W Tron deck (Maindeck Chalices) alternating play in multiple sessions the final results were split nearly dead down the middle.
My point is that a lot of my results, both with and against Boros, were completely skewed. Boros was winning anywhere from 70-80% of its games on the play, but losing nearly that same amount on the draw. I also believe that’s why many people are still playing the deck. If playing in real matches, a streak of plays or a bad mulligan or two from the opponent can give artificially inflated results. It goes back to point number one: many of the games you lose are by an inch, not a mile, so why run more cards that increase the gap?
Of course, it cuts both ways with results fraud. Many people don’t test a huge amount of matches on the draw, so suddenly they think their prize deck “smashes” Boros. It works in your favor on that level, at least.
3. People need to take full advantage of the mana options afforded us by the fetches and shocklands. I’ve been running a four-color Boros variant since the start of the season and by in large, it never gave me any major issues while allowing me to greatly expand my maindeck and sideboard options. The early favorite of three-color Boros seems to be Green, but Black should not be overlooked, if only for Vindicate. By itself, or in conjunction with Molten Rain, it can greatly help the matches against control decks, while giving you yet another card that’s good in the mirror. The other obvious upside is you’re no longer cold to a Worship lock, or an early Jitte on a Troll Ascetic, or Protection from Red creature.
Anyway, enough of my jibber-jabber. Here’s the list I had at the beginning of the season, with one or two minor tweaks. I’ve been content with the deck in its current form, but the expensive manabase dissuades me from actually playing it. Sad face at the manabases for many decks being as expensive as the deck itself.
Creatures (21)
- 3 Isamaru, Hound of Konda
- 4 Soltari Priest
- 4 Silver Knight
- 4 Kird Ape
- 3 Grim Lavamancer
- 3 Goblin Legionnaire
Lands (22)
Spells (17)
Sideboard
I’ll go over a few of the key differences of my version, and share the modifications I’d make depending on what you were facing.
Deck Standouts
Not running a full 4-4-4 set of one-drops.
The main problem was space. Yes, in one sense you want to play two one-drops as soon as possible against control, to push through early damage, but guys like Isamaru and Kird Ape don’t age well. After turn 4 or 5, their life-spans become around two turns max. I could conceivably see Grim Lavamancer going up to four if you preferred, but to me Legionnaire is just better against opposing aggressive decks, and the immediacy of the burn when using him in the late-game could be crucial in some cases.
Running Kird Ape and Vindicate in the same maindeck.
This was probably the toughest decision to make, but Savannah Lions were by far the worst card in the deck (Confirmed at the PTQ), so my testing partners and I threw caution to the wind and ran Ape for all future testing. The result was maybe one game out of every twenty or so where there was an actual conflict between Kird Ape and Vindicate, although this isn’t taking into account if casting Vindicate on turn 3 or 4 was even the right move. I’m simply speaking on conflict in casting costs.
For little risk you gain a much better creature that doesn’t die to anywhere near as much removal, a guy is actually good in the mirror.
Orim’s Chant and Vindicate in the maindeck (also known as, “running cards that don’t deal damage”).
I’d consider cutting Orim’s Chant at this point, but we ran this at the Pro Tour Qualifier in Philly, and it did well for us. It gave us a surprise against Desire decks that normally would try and go off turn 4 and get blindsided; while in other matches it was a two mana pseudo-Time Walk. Considering most of BDW games end with the opponent one turn away from death, it ended up being much better than we first envisioned.
That being said, it relies a decent board set-up to begin with, and as a topdeck it’s pretty much the pits. So I won’t blame anyone for just sideboarding it in only for the Desire match.
Vindicate is better than Molten Rain to me, purely because it’s a catch-all. Want to mess with Tron, 8-Post, or a mana screwed opponent? Vindicate is there. Stuck behind a Worship lock? Go ahead and wreck it. Pro Red guy? You get the idea. You gain all of this versatility if you sacrifice the two damage you’ll get from Rain. To me, that’s worth it.
Not running a full set of Firebolt.
Some burn spell had to leave, and I prefer Pyrite Spellbomb as a four-of. Rarely do I have time to Flashback and the rest of the time it’s a sorcery speed Shock that can’t kill Pro Red guys. Go ahead and add the fourth one back in you really feel you’ll miss it, or if you want to run an all damage, no LD version like Patrick Sullivan build.
Notable Sideboard Cards
The two that stick out are Cabal Therapy and Condemn, so let me give some brief thoughts on both. Cabal Therapy was my original “answer” to Desire decks, because you don’t need to outright destroy the Desire deck, merely stall for a turn or two. In addition, you could easily take advantage of the Flashback cost, and being able to hit Burning Wish and another set-up or mana card is huge. Combine this with the fact that they need to play around Orim’s Chant and you can imagine why post-board against Desire is fine for you.
Condemn was Patrick Sullivan tech, or at least that’s where I got it from. It just blows out people in the mirror match. In fact, going up to four if you really wanted to ream the mirror seems okay. Basically everybody throws down Armadillo Cloak and Umezawa’s Jitte on Silver Knight and Soltari Priest and swings in for the win. Condemn then hits, and if it’s Armadillo Cloak, they basically lose the game on the spot. They’ve spent five mana and two cards to get blown out by a single mana answer. Obviously against Jitte it’s not as useful, but it’s a great way to kill somebody’s tempo in the mirror, and it’s another answer to Pro Red (although this is more important if you’re only R/W/G).
The rest of the cards are pretty standard fare, so I won’t bore you with tedious details.
Modifications to the Build
If you expect 8-Post, Tron and Scepter-Chant decks everywhere, I’d make these cuts and adds:
-3 Goblin Legionnaire
-2 Orim’s Chant
+3 Molten Rain or Pillage (depending how many Chalice of the Void / Razormane Masticore / other annoying artifacts will make maindeck in your metagame)
+1 Isamaru, Hound of Konda
+1 Grim Lavamancer
Pretty obvious. Cut some not so good cards for more LD to slow down and disrupt already slow decks, while keeping the one-drops high.
If you expect all aggro:
-3 Firebolt
-2 Orim’s Chant
+4 Lava Dart or Magma Jet [No love for Sudden Shock? — Craig.]
+1 Grim Lavamancer
Extended Observations
I’m reminded of a quote from Invader Zim when people talk about general testing results with UW Tron or Scepter-Chant. .
Zim: Computer, give me all the information you have on the FBI.
Computer: The FBI is a government law enforcement agency.
Zim: Continue…
Computer: Insufficient data.
Zim: “Insufficient data”? Can’t you make an educated guess?
Computer: O… kay… Um, founded in 1492 by, uh… demons, the FBI is a crack law enforcement agency designed to… uh, I dunno, fight… aliens?
Zim: I KNEW IT! This is baaaad! This is soooo baaaaaad!
Seriously, it boggles my mind at how people are typically basing many of their percentages on a relatively small number of test games. “Oh hey, I got a turn 3 Scepter + Helix on the play. Woooo, I’m so good at Magic! I have a good game against all aggro ever!”
For general results, fine… reading about what other people got for results and testing a bunch of smaller data points is okay. However, many times people are trying to optimize their decks via these methods. Unfortunately, singular card choices can look much better (or worse) than they actually are, due to general data fluctuation from small sample sizes.
Mid-Range Aggro strategies are dominating many normal aggro archetypes.
A modified Trinket Angel deck can dominate nearly any other deck running creatures while having a small efficient counterspell set (not just Counterbalance), and a toolbox to help against control decks. Even in its current form, which has quite a few holes, the deck still plays two of the best cards in the format – Counterbalance and Trinket Mage – along with one of the best anti-aggro cards in Umezawa’s Jitte.
Aggro Loam definitely features one of the “bombiest” maindecks in the format, thanks to Devastating Dreams, Life from the Loam, and the bulkiness of the men they run. The obvious downside is how bad they lose if a control deck successfully takes the Dreams option away from them. That being said, the deck can pound other aggro and decks like Desire (with the right board) into the ground while not being a complete bye to control. On that note, it should add a non-two-mana answer to take care of Chalice of the Void in the future. Chalice cripples the deck. This brings me to my next point…
Chalice of the Void is just as crippling as Counterbalance.
… Except you don’t necessarily have to build your deck around it. I’ve been very impressed with the power of the card in normal U/W Tron and 8-Post decks. Not only is it a great weapon against combo, but it can wipe out BDW and FDW if you’re on the play. Not to mention all the damage it can do to a supposed Chant lock when given the opportunity. Due to the ease of play, I expect people to be seeing a lot more of these in the future.
And that’s all for now, let me know if there’s anything specific you’d like to hear me talk about by chiming in on the forums.
Joshua Silvestri
Team Reflection
Email me at: joshDOTsilvestriATgmailDOTcom