Deep Analysis — Road to Regionals: Tuning the Suicide Squad

First, congratulations to Nils Landt, who recently qualified for Nationals with the Orzhov Suicide Squad – the exact 75 in my last article – in Hamburg, Germany.

Second, take a look at your scroll bar. All of that is about the Suicide Squad, so if you’re into the deck, there’s a lot to be learned here. As I can’t make it to Regionals this year, I’ve decided to compensate by trying my hardest to send anyone who chooses my deck straight into the Top 4.

This article is the results of those efforts.

Chapter 1: Your Questions Answered

I’d like to apologize to those of you whose personal emails I didn’t get a chance to return. I am usually very good about returning emails from readers, but I got so much mail in response to my last article that I just didn’t have time to get to them all.

That said, there was a definite trend among the emails and forum responses I got regarding the Suicide Squad. The most common questions/comments were:

This deck sure does beat the Big Three, but I’m having trouble with the tier two decks.
What do you think of removing Mana Tithe and/or Jotun Grunt?
Why no Serra Avenger, Hypnotic Specter, Shimian Specter, Yixlid Jailer, Stonecloaker, Wrath of God, or maindeck Worship?
How does the deck fare against Project X, Hatching Plans, Angelfire, and Solar Flare?

The scary part is how many questions and comments I sifted through to get to these most common ones. Again, sorry to those of you that I didn’t have time to get to individually.

Before moving on, I want to make a point.

Everything I Needed to Know About The Regionals Metagame, I Learned From Detritivore

The heading says it all.

Why is Detritivore good in this environment?

The top three decks are Dragonstorm, Gruul, and Dralnu, in that order.

Detritivore is crap against Dragonstorm. It is also crap against Gruul. It’s strong against Dralnu, but why is everyone so eager to play a card that sucks against the two best decks?

Simple: it’s because the two best decks, together, will be piloted by maybe a quarter of the room.

Every year at Regionals, 5-10% of the field will be casual or semi-competitive players whose homebrew decks you will love to get paired against round 1. This year, another 10-15% will have Dredge, Hatching Plans, Splitting Headache, Tron, Pickles, or some other fringe deck. Dragonstorm and Gruul should account for another 25%, and the remaining 50-60% will have slow, three-color decks that get violated by Detritivore. (And yeah, I pulled those numbers out of thin air. Anyone with lots of free time can have the last laugh on me by doing a manual archetype breakdown on June 9th.)

Why is this information so important for the Orzhov Suicide Squad?

Attrition Wars

Against these three-color decks – and, really, Blue control decks in general: Angelfire, Solar Flare, Dralnu, etc. – games against the Suicide Squad inevitably boil down to drawn-out attrition wars. Sadly, Orzhov doesn’t have as many ways to break stalemates as it used to. Last year’s B/W decks had things like Umezawa’s Jitte, the Tallowisp engine, and Promise of Bunrei/Orzhov Pontiff tricks to power through for the win, but none of these Kamigawa-based strategies are legal anymore. It’s no surprise, then, that people are having trouble beating decks like Angelfire and Solar Flare with the Suicide Squad.

Unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of mana-curve-friendly playables that Orzhov aggro can use to win attrition wars anymore. In fact, Dark Confidant and Phyrexian Arena might be it. So, with the curve-happy selection looking bleak, the first thing I did to address this problem was to examine some more expensive options. After all, if I expect many Regionals matches with this deck to be drawn-out attrition wars – and I do – it could be worthwhile to mix in late-game bomb or two that does little or nothing in the early game.

Considering Ghost Council rarely comes down without an extra mana up, it’s obvious that the deck can make it to the five-mana mark with ease, and I’ve observed that most games end with me having six or more mana out, so…

Crovax, old pal, how ya been?

While I still think Crovax is at his best when backed up by Wrath of God and a lot of counterspells, there’s no denying his power in attrition wars. He’s a 4/4 that shrugs off every removal spell short of Sudden Death, he’s a Glorious Anthem for half my guys (although he doesn’t play well with Wretch or Confidant), and, most importantly, he often kills off several of the opponent’s guys the turn he comes down.

C-Unit mops up all the Goblin tokens in the world from Hatching Plans, kills Birds, Elves, Confidant, and Essence Warden from Project X, stops Solifuges, Rusalkas, Elves, and Tin Streets from Gruul (while shrinking the rest of their team and negating that Sulfur Elemental that’s been stranding a Martyr in your hand), and even stops Court Hussar from blocking your Paladin en-Vec.

Best of all, Crovax’s pump abilities are much less symmetrical than they appear. For example, you can kill a Bogardan Hellkite with him by attacking, stacking damage, bouncing Crovax (making the Kite a 5/5 again) and then replaying the Legend to turn the Dragon into a 4/4 with four damage on it. In this way, you can maneuver around the fact that Crovax “shouldn’t” be able to beat a 5/5 in combat. On the other hand, you can crash him into a 5/5 Loxodon Hierarch, stack damage, and then bounce him to make the Elephant a 4/4 again… with four damage on it. It’s a beautiful thing.

I really wanted to play two copies in my maindeck, but a couple of playtest games led me to the harsh realization that while I get to six mana in many of my games, I don’t get there quickly. Crovax did more early-game spectating than I was comfortable with, so I went down to one copy. I’ve been impressed by the difference that one copy has made in the deck; think of Crovax as the 2007 version of the miser’s singleton Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni from the B/W decks of yesteryear.

The other change I made was to add two copies of Faith’s Fetters to the mix. Against Dralnu, I can go hog-wild with Dark Confidant and Phyrexian Arena with few consequences. Against Solar Flare, though – and especially Angelfire – my opponent will actually deal me damage in the midgame. As I don’t get to play with Jitte anymore, and will board out my Martyrs in those matchups, I want some way to give myself a life total boost so that I never have to shy away from casting an Arena when I’ve drawn it. Fetters does a great job of that, and also gives me the option of removing tough-to-answer permanents like Urza’s Factory, Desert, and Skeletal Vampire.

Finally, I concluded that the sideboard was focused too much on attacking the Big Three, and needed to be retooled. I swapped out Epochrasite (R.I.P., my Gruul-bashing friend) for Orzhov Pontiff, which kills some of Gruul’s guys while being actually useful against Hatching Plans and Project X. To lessen the blow a little, I decided to try Slaughter Pact to counteract Magus of the Moon and kill Essence Warden from Project X, even when I’m tapped out.

I made room for the Faith’s Fetters in the main by cutting a Martyr and a Mana Tithe, as they’re the most-often dead cards in attrition wars. (Besides, Faith’s Fetters is generally strong in the matchups where those two cards were at their best.) Crovax simply replaced the fourth Ghost Council.

Here’s what I primed to run through the gauntlet.

Orzhov Suicide Squad

4 Orzhov Basilica
4 Godless Shrine
4 Caves of Koilos
5 Snow-Covered Swamp
5 Snow-Covered Plains

3 Martyr of Sands
3 Mana Tithe

4 Dark Confidant
3 Ghost Council of Orzhova
2 Jotun Grunt
4 Withered Wretch
4 Paladin en-Vec
4 Castigate
4 Mortify
4 Temporal Isolation
2 Faith’s Fetters
1 Crovax, Ascendant Hero

Sideboard
4 Persecute
3 Phyrexian Arena
3 Worship
2 Orzhov Pontiff
2 Slaughter Pact
1 Martyr of Sands

Specific Questions, Specific Answers

“How about Worship main?”

Worship, unfortunately, is bad against the majority of the field. Remember all those Detritivore-vulnerable decks? Yeah, almost all of them are playing Wrath effects. Worship is quite bad against Wrath, but very good against a small number of decks. And that is why God gave us the Sideboard.

“How about no Mana Tithe?”

My stance on Mana Tithe remains the same as it was in my last article: it’s usually a one-for-one, sometimes a dead draw, and sometimes a complete blowout. That doesn’t mean it’s garbage, it just means it’s not consistent; for every game where it sits in your hand and does nothing (which you may or may not win anyway), there will be the game you win by Force Spiking the Boom/Bust that you had literally no other outs to.

I would love it if there were some solid, consistently powerful card I could play instead of the Tithe, but nothing else seems to fit. The deck’s curve is high enough as it is without playing stuff like Psychotic Episode, and besides, I’m not sure I like my Gruul matchup if I take to maindecking more than four discard spells. As for Javelineers and Rusalka, whose chief merits are against Gruul: Tithe is great against Gruul as well, and those little 1/1 guys do not compare favorably to Force Spike against a Court Hussar. (That’s really saying something, too; the Court Hussar matchups are the ones where Tithe is at its least consistent.)

If someone comes up with a brilliant solution in the forums, I’ll be pleasantly surprised… but for now I think Tithe is imperfect, but the best available option.

“How about no Jotun Grunt?”

Jotun Grunt has many similarities to Calciderm, which is the card people seem to want to replace him with.

Both cards tend to stick around for exactly three turns, and are therefore weakened by chump blockers and trumped by Urza’s Factory. Both will get countered if Dralnu finds them impossible to deal with, and I have yet to see the game where an opponent casts a removal spell on Jotun Grunt. (To be fair, I can imagine games where Gruul would want to Char him out of the way, but I think Grunt is better overall in that matchup because he can be cast earlier than the four-mana mark when you need to. At any rate, my point is that the untargetability isn’t a huge selling point.)

Calciderm might just be better against Dragonstorm because Bogardan Hellkite has to block and trade with it to kill it, and because you are usually at the four-mana mark (or more) when you play Jotun Grunt against them anyway. I think this will come up more often than the “Play Grunt, play another guy” turn being critical to success. It’s probably better against Dralnu as well for the simple reason that it can’t be countered by Spell Snare and requires a “real” counter (Rewind or Spell Burst without buyback) or Damnation to remove. There’s also the occasional circumstance where you have four mana and want to cast your big guy, but there isn’t enough graveyard food around to justify summoning Jotun Grunt.

That said, the extra two points of casting cost are, situationally, very relevant. There are definitely games against Gruul where I need to play the Grunt well before the four-mana mark, because the rest of my hand is too expensive to cast yet. There’s also the minor matter of an extra two points on a Confidant flip, and the odd situation where it’s important to cast a finisher and another spell with your four mana.

The fact that Grunt doesn’t always die after three turns also comes up in long attrition wars. Angelfire tends to chump Grunts with Court Hussar, and I’d imagine Calciderm would be no different. I’d expect they can usually survive a hit for ten from that guy when they’re gaining 3-6 each game from a Helix or two, and that you could still lose the attrition war from that state. Especially if they Detritivore a bunch of your lands, Grunt can get in for sixteen, twenty, even twenty-four points in the late game.

Then, of course, there are the graveyard applications. Consider the Dredge decks, against which Grunt is not only a hoser, he’s a turn 3 4/4. There’s nabbing a Think Twice or Mystical Teachings, or forcing the opponent to cast said spell at a bad time if he wants to keep it. There are also Body Double and Crypt Champion targets to remove. These are tiny little advantages, but midrange beatdown is all about piling up small advantages.

I’m sticking with the Grunt for the remainder of my testing, but I’ll acknowledge that if you want more punch against Dralnu and Dragonstorm – at the expense of Gruul, Dredge, and other matchups – you could go with Calciderm instead and it probably wouldn’t break the deck.

“Why no Serra Avenger?”

Serra Avenger is the other contender for the Jotun Grunt slot, but she isn’t nearly as impressive. Compared to Grunt and Calciderm, her upside is that she can come down on turn 4 even if you don’t have four mana or a loaded graveyard, but her massive downside is that she’s small for a late-game finisher.

It’s great that her evasion means she can’t be chumped indefinitely by Urza’s Factory –you’d be surprised how often that comes up – and it’s great that she can hit Gruul (if she doesn’t get burned out) in the air when Paladin en-Vec has stalled the ground… but she’s weak on defense against Call of the Herd, doesn’t interact with the graveyard, can’t attack into Lightning Angel, and doesn’t hit for as much as either of the two alternatives when damage is important. Since I want my finishers to connect for large chunks of damage at a time, this is a very serious matter.

All in all, I’d say Jotun Grunt is the best choice for the slot, Calciderm is a close second, and Avenger is a fairly distant third.

“Why no Hypnotic or Shimian Specter?”

Three or four mana for a 2/2 is too expensive for the maindeck unless the creature has some ability (like, say, pro-Red) that’s good in a fight. You can’t expect to face no Gruul or Zoo at Regionals, and these guys will really hurt you in that matchup. Hell, Withered Wretch is half the cost of Shimian Specter and I can’t wait to board him out!

Besides, Shimian is too slow to do anything against the kind of Dragonstorm draw that you couldn’t have beaten by just attacking a few times, and Hypnotic will only do anything if you are very lucky and hit the Dragonstorm itself. That’s, what, a one in five chance? One in six, sometimes?

These guys are too ineffective for the maindeck, and I’d rather have Persecute in the board if I’m going to be boarding in dedicated discard.

“Why Withered Wretch over Yixlid Jailer?”

Here are the reasons Jailer is better than Wretch.

1) He costs 1B instead of BB. (Fun fact: I have 17 lands that produce B in my deck, which is more than the total number of lands in the Hatching Plans deck.)
2) If Dredge can kill you on turn three, on the play, and you didn’t have a Martyr to stop it, or a Mana Tithe to stop it, or a Castigate to stop it, but you did have Yixlid Jailer… or, in the similarly probable event that the opponent happens to be violently allergic to the artwork of Yixlid Jailer and not to the artwork of Withered Wretch, Jailer is superior.

Here are the reasons Wretch is better than Jailer.

1) If Dralnu Damnations your Yixlid Jailer, they get their Mystical Teachings back.
2) Wretch can attack into Court Hussar and Desert because he has two toughness.
3) If Dralnu Damnations your Yixlid Jailer, they get their Mystical Teachings back.
4) If Dralnu Damnations your Yixlid Jailer, they get their Mystical Teachings back.
5) You can block Llanowar Elves and Scorched Rusalka with Withered Wretch because he has two toughness.
6) If Dralnu Damnations your Yixlid Jailer, they get their Mystical Teachings back.
7) If Dralnu Damnations your Yixlid Jailer, they get their Mystical Teachings back.
8) It takes a Bogardan Hellkite another point of damage to kill Withered Wretch.
9) If Dralnu Damnations your Yixlid Jailer, they get their Mystical Teachings back.
10) If Dralnu Damnations your Yixlid Jailer, they get their Mystical Teachings back.
11) Two toughness makes Wretch harder to Darkblast, and a Darkblasted Yixlid Jailer leaves the opponent with all his Bridges and Dredge cards ready for action.
12) If Dralnu Damnations your Yixlid Jailer, they get their Mystical Teachings back.
13) If Dralnu Damnations your Yixlid Jailer, they get their Mystical Teachings back.
14) Two toughness means Wretch can stay in play when Crovax is in play.
15) If Dralnu Damnations your Yixlid Jailer, they get their Mystical Teachings back.

Tallying up the pros and cons on either side, I see that Withered Wretch has won by thirteen points! Wow, that’s a lot!

Sorry, Yixlid Jailer. Better luck next time.

“Why no Stonecloaker?”

The Dredge matchup is already great, and I think Cloaker would only be passable against Dralnu. He’s going to be highly situational against Gruul, Dragonstorm, and the three-color control decks, and those will make up the vast majority of the environment. Like Hypnotic and Shimian Specter, it comes down to the fact that I don’t think Stonecloaker is powerful or versatile enough for the maindeck, and not game-breaking enough to make the sideboard.

“Why no Wrath of God?”

When you’re an aggressive deck, boarding in Wrath only makes sense in a beatdown mirror match where you expect the opponent to unwittingly overextend into it. In this environment, only Gruul, Zoo, and the Hatching Plans combo deck are really capable of this. The problem is that these decks are, together, maybe 15% of the expected metagame.

I’ve only got fifteen sideboard cards to work with, so I need them to improve a wide spectrum of matchups for me. Compare Wrath to Worship, for example, which comes in against all of the aforementioned decks, does a better job of beating most of them, and also comes in against the number one deck in the format, Dragonstorm. That’s the kind of mileage I need to get out of my sideboard cards.

Chapter 2: The Matchups

With Regionals less than a week away, and lots of decks to test against, I’m going to do a crash-tuning session for this deck.

The plan is to run through the gauntlet of decks I expect to see (and decks that several people have requested to see), do four matches – with sideboarding – against each of these decks, take notes on every game, and tune the Suicide Squad as I go.

Whenever you attempt something like this, by the way, it is absolutely imperative that you are honest with yourself about your results. This means that if you’re taking notes, you can – and should – go back and edit your previous results if you make a card swap that should have altered the outcome of an earlier match.

Say I beat Hatching Plans in one game because I cast Crovax to remove sixteen Goblin tokens from the board that were about to crush my skull. If I later cut him for, say, Sudden Death, I’m doing myself a disservice if I don’t go back and set the record straight by changing that win to a loss. Otherwise I’ll end up thinking the deck has a more favorable win rate than it actually does, which will lead to my getting blindsided on the day of the tournament.

So, when you see me make mention of record changes like that, know that they’re not because I’m being sloppy. On the contrary, they’re because I’m being thorough.

The Hatching Plans Matchup
I decided to start with this matchup, even though it’s a fringe deck, because a lot of people asked about it. I used Keith St. Jean version of Hatching Plans from the forums, as he was one of the few who had MTGO results to back up his list. You can find it here.

The forums indicated that some players were playing Ignorant Bliss, so I added four copies to the sideboard; it’s always good to be prepared for a tougher build. I had Hatching Plans bringing those in for 3 Ignite Memories and 1 Claws of Gix.

I boarded like this against them:

+4 Persecute, +3 Worship, +2 Orzhov Pontiff, +1 Martyr of Sands
-4 Mortify, -4 Temporal Isolation, -2 Faith’s Fetters

OSS versus Hatching Plans, Match 1
Game 1: I have a Martyr and some Paladins this game, and am beating down when he goes off on turn 5 with Empty the Warrens for 23 goblins. I survive two attacks thanks to Martyr and Faith’s Fetters, but fail to mise Crovax in the small window I’ve bought myself, and do not survive the third attack.
Game 2: He mulls once, and I have turn 2 Confidant, turn 3 Paladin, turn 4 Persecute on Red, then a turn 5 Worship with Mana Tithe for his Remand. Smooth.
Game 3: Tiago Chan wrote a great article recently that opened my eyes to the value of keeping extremely land-heavy hands in the right matchup. In this game, I keep a hand of two Basilica, three other lands, Crovax, and Withered Wretch. Why? This hand is resilient to Ignite Memories (had he not boarded it out), and I will definitely have turn 6 Crovax against his Empty the Warrens. I draw Castigate, it gets Remanded twice, the opponent goes off for eight Goblins on turn 5, and I play Crovax turn 6. C-Unit goes the distance.

OSS versus Hatching Plans, Match 2
Game 1: I mull a one-lander and keep the next one. I get him down to twelve with Paladin and Wretch beats, but he summons eighteen Goblins on turn 5 and they run me over.
Game 2: He draws multiple copies of Ignorant Bliss that do nothing because all I do this game is play out beaters. It takes him awhile to find Empty the Warrens, and when he finally does get his Goblins, he has to blow his Repeal on a lethal Paladin en-Vec. Then I cast Worship.
Game 3: I keep a two-lander with Confidant and Worship. I find a third land, but never a fourth, or a Pontiff, or a Martyr, in time.

OSS versus Hatching Plans, Match 3
Game 1: He double-mulls and misses his second land drop, but resolves Hatching Plans on turn 3. He then gets a massive turn 4, reaching a storm count of six with Lotus Bloom and several draw spells, but fails to find an actual Empty or Ignite Memories. Turn 6 he draws Empty the Warrens, and uses his handful of Rituals to make ten Goblins. However, my two Confidants have been working overtime, and I find the singleton Crovax just before the goblins would have gotten to attack. Go-Go Gadget Ink-Eyes.
Game 2: The opponent double-mulls again. I dunno about that land count of 16… awful lot of hands have been thrown back so far because they can’t cast any spells. Anyway, he gets up to 13 Goblins, but I fire off two Martyr activations and refrain from blocking with my Confidant in order to dig for Crovax or a Pontiff. I hit Crovax, cast it, and smash across for the win.

OSS versus Hatching Plans, Match 4
Game 1: My opening hand is amazing: Martyr, Tithe, Castigate, Paladin, Plains, Caves of Koilos, Basilica. I like that hand against basically every deck but Dralnu! Anyway, I play stuff, it gets Remanded, I resolve a Withered Wretch and a couple of Martyrs, and my opponent keeps searching for enough mana to cast his Ignite Memories. When he finally gets there, and casts it for eight, my hand is just two Mana Tithes and I have WW open. His big turn does nothing, and I win before he can recover.
Game 2: He casts Empty for sixteen Goblins on the play, on turn 2. Okay, that’s an impressive Nuts Draw, but it can’t be worth playing only sixteen lands and losing so many other games due to mulligans. I actually almost win this one. My curve-out is turn 2 Martyr, block and sac it for twelve life to stay afloat, play Confidant turn 3 and Basilica, drop to 2 life on the attack, untap, reveal Mana Tithe and go to one, and play Worship. I’m holding Ghost Council and have four lands out, so as long as Bob reveals a non-Basilica land, I can play the Council, sac Confidant, and be in extremely good shape. However, I reveal Persecute and die. Pretty impressive that I was poised to beat the turn 2 sixteen-Goblins draw, though, yeah? Any creature but Confidant there and I would have lived the dream.
Game 3: On turn 4, he gets 18 Goblins. I have an Orzhov Pontiff, which would win me this game and bring the match set to 3-1 in my favor, but as that card was later cut from my sideboard, I had to go back and retroactively change this to a loss.

2-2, eh? Fine by me. I decided to take out Pontiff after this match for two reasons. One, I didn’t draw any Pontiffs until the final game of the final match, and still ended up 2-2 overall even had I not drawn it. Two, I mainly included that card because I thought this matchup would be terrible, and figured Pontiff might help salvage it. I was wrong; the matchup appears to be even, and even had a more skilled pilot been running the Plans deck (or had I drawn Crovax less frequently), I don’t think it would be very much in their favor. Worship and Persecute are damn strong against them as it is, so I’d rather devote the sideboard space to something like… oh, I dunno… say, another two Slaughter Pacts?

Changes:

+2 Sideboard Slaughter Pact, -2 Sideboard Orzhov Pontiff

Speaking of Slaughter Pact, I want to see if those are actually as good against Gruul as they look.

The Gruul Matchup
I tested against the winning list from SCG’s recent 1k tournament, and had Gruul bringing in Magus of the Moon for Tin Street Hooligan. I boarded as follows.

+4 Slaughter Pact, +3 Worship, +1 Martyr of Sands
-4 Dark Confidant, -4 Withered Wretch

OSS versus Gruul, Match 1
Game 1: I have turn 2 Castigate (looking for Call of the Herd, hitting Solifuge instead) and turn 3 Paladin. He has turn 1 Elves, turn 2 (topdeck!) Call of the Herd. I’m holding Ghost Council and desperately need a fourth land to cast it because of the Elephants, so I play Confidant. Confidant flips the singleton Crovax (har har) and doesn’t dig me to a land, and I am way too far behind to come back. For the record, had Crovax been the fourth Ghost Council – his original replacement – I would have gotten destroyed anyway. Far more relevant than the six damage was the fact that I didn’t see a land, a Paladin, or a Martyr with that flip.
Game 2: I mull a no-action hand into Swamp, Basilica, and juice. Unfortunately, my opponent has turn 2 Magus of the Moon and I never draw a Slaughter Pact or a White source for Mortify. Foreshadowing: Mortify’s eventual replacement here would have been castable with that mana up, but I can’t say for sure how the rest of this game – or game 3, had I won this one – would have gone without retesting it, and I’m fresh out of time at this point.

OSS versus Gruul, Match 2
Game 1: I mull one-landers down to four cards and get crushed.
Game 2: I assemble Paladin plus Worship.
Game 3: I keep Swamp, Basilica, Slaughter Pact, Paladin, Worship against his mull to five. My hand is slow, but pretty much inevitable unless he boarded in – and draws – Krosan Grip. He has Magus of the Moon, but I Slaughter it and drop Paladin, which holds off his whole team for a turn while I pay the Pact’s upkeep toll, then I play Worship.

OSS versus Gruul, Match 3
Game 1: I Mana Tithe his first two plays, then stall the board with a Paladin. He casts Call, but I cast Faith’s Fetters and a Mortify on the tokens to maintain board dominance with the pro-Red guy. Then I drop Jotun Grunt, get in for eight damage and kill a chump blocker, and draw another Grunt. Eventually I hit six mana and play Crovax, killing Giant Solifuge, Tin Street Hooligan, and Llanowar Elves, and allowing me to attack through for the win with a pumped-up Paladin and Jotun Grunt. Ghost Council would have been pretty mediocre in this situation, but Crovax gave the opponent no shot. I’m liking that guy more and more as a one-of in this deck.
Game 2: I mull two zero-landers and keep a weak five. He has turn 2 Magus on the play, safe from the Castigate I’m holding. Luckily, I topdeck Slaughter Pact and get my Worship on. He starts burning my guys away, as I have no Paladin, but I topdeck straight business spells for several turns in a row and put myself out of danger. Finally I find a Paladin and push through enough evasion damage, combined with his Karplusan Forests, to do him in before he can find two Sulfur Elementals to remove my lock.

OSS versus Gruul, Match 4
Game 1: I draw a Paladin and it gums up the board after I remove some Call tokens. Then I draw a second one. Some more time passes, and I draw a third one. Yet more time passes, and I find two Withered Wretches, a Ghost Council, and a Jotun Grunt. Those guys take it home.
Game 2: I have Worship, but only White creatures, and he draws two Sulfur Elementals. Awkward.
Game 3: I have a Paladin, and draw two Slaughter Pacts to back it up. He gets a Magus, I Slaughter it, and several turns later Crovax is in play. I haven’t yet come close to losing when Crovax resolved.

3-1. Solid! Slaughter Pact was amazing every time I cast it; in fact, looking back, it seems I didn’t lose a single game in which I had it. To be fair, I probably would have lost the fourth match if Gruul had been maindecking Magus of the Moon over Sulfur Elemental and still boarding in four Sulfur Elementals, but (1) I don’t find that likely and (2) the final configuration of the deck could have won that game (and the first match) because…

… After testing this matchup, I realize Slaughter Pact should be in the maindeck over Mortify. It’s not White, but it’s so much better against Gruul and Dragonstorm, I think it will improve my matchups against those two decks overall – and those are the two where having White cards in hand for Martyr is most important.

Even though Pact doesn’t kill Skeletal Vampire – which Mortify can, I guess, if you’re fortunate enough to have the mana open when the Vampire comes down – the Pact might be better against Dralnu overall because it lets me play out a turn’s worth of threats against Teferi, let those get countered, and then Slaughter Teferi for free before they can Teach for more countermagic. Even better, I can try a Slaughter twice in one turn; if the first one gets countered, the upkeep clause goes away, so it doesn’t matter if I have six lands out or not.

Changes:

+4 Slaughter Pact maindeck
-4 Mortify maindeck

Now I have four sideboard slots open. I’m a bit restricted in what I can put in there, because I need those four cards to come in against Gruul; Withered Wretch and Dark Confidant are so terrible in that matchup, I must have something to board in for them.

Mortify would be the default, but I’m thinking either Last Gasp or Sunlance might make the cut there instead. Sunlance would be better against Gruul because it’s White and cheaper, but Last Gasp works against Skeletal Vampire, Firemane Angel, Lightning Angel, and Crypt Champion. Hmm, when you put it that way… doesn’t seem very close. Last Gasp it is.

+4 Sideboard Last Gasp
-4 Sideboard Slaughter Pact

Up next is one of the decks I’ve never tested against. Let’s see if Last Gasp actually pulls its weight against…

The Project X Matchup
I had Project X (Scott Rogers’s list from the finals of the SCG $1k open) boarding in a Putrefy for the Loaming Shaman. I boarded like this:

+4 Persecute, +4 Last Gasp, +3 Phyrexian Arena
-4 Paladin en-Vec, -3 Martyr of Sands, -2 Faith’s Fetters, -2 Temporal Isolation

I debated between taking out two Isolations and taking out the Grunts for awhile, but decided I’d leave the Grunts in because they let me Slaughter Pact or Last Gasp Saffi when she’s just hanging out on the board, and then Grunt her away so she can’t be returned by Crypt Champion.

OSS versus Project X, Match 1
Game 1: I have turn 4 Ghost Council, but my opponent is poised to go off turn 5. However, I’m on the play and topdeck Withered Wretch like an expert. He doesn’t have a Hierarch, so the GCO goes the distance.
Game 2: My opening hand has Orzhov Basilica and Caves of Koilos. My opponent opens with Confidant, which Slaughter Pact can’t kill. Awkward. I have a Confidant, too, but it dies to Putrefy after revealing two nonlands. Five turns later, my opponent’s board is flooded with permanents, my hand is still seven cards, and I still have not drawn a land since my opener. Bummer.
Game 3: I mulligan and then Last Gasp his Confidant, and he Wishes for Mortify to take mine out. I get an Arena to stick, and eventually Crovax. However, I’m at low life, and I end up racing my own Arena with Crovax and a 1/1 Withered Wretch. I cross the finish line at two life, holding a fistful of removal.

OSS versus Project X, Match 2
Game 1: I Slaughter Pact a Hierarch and start beating down with Paladin and Council through his Teysa. He Chords for a Council of his own to take mine out, and then for a Hierarch to try and intercept Paladin, but I have Temporal Isolation at the ready. Several pro-Black attacks later, I am victorious.
Game 2: He mulls once, and I get to use the nifty Slaughter Pact–Jotun Grunt combo on Saffi this game. Then I cast Ghost Council, and then Crovax. The Ascendant Hero kills three of my opponent’s creatures and powers up the Ghost Dad himself to bash for five. I win on the following turn.

OSS versus Project X, Match 3
Game 1: I Mana Tithe his turn 2 Teysa and pump the fist a little; the Teysa combo is the one I can’t disrupt with Slaughter Pact. I get to draw cards unopposed with Confidant for a few turns, and play Ghost Council followed by Withered Wretch and Jotun Grunt with a land open. (By the way, always Grunt away their creatures with converted mana cost three or less, so they can’t return them with Crypt Champion.) Oh, and I won this one.
Game 2: I Mana Tithe his turn 2 Confidant. (Nice Spell Snare.) He Congregates for the Teysa combo, and I have a few options. I can Last Gasp the Teysa or the Saffi as soon as he plays it, and then Jotun Grunt the offender away, or I can wait for him to try and go off, then kill the Crypt Champion with Last Gasp when he tries to target it with Saffi. If I do it that way, he will have lost two combo pieces (Champ and Saffi), but he’ll end up with an extra 1/1 flyer to chump my Grunt with. However, since I know my Grunt won’t go the distance here anyway, I go for that plan. I feel vindicated when he casts Glittering Wish a few turns later, which could have fetched the third combo piece had I not gone for the two-for-one. Anyway, I get an Arena out, which serves up Ghost Council, Withered Wretch, and my main man Crovax for the win.

OSS versus Project X, Match 4
Game 1: He mulls to five and gets stuck at one land.
Game 2: Just before I started this game, I was realizing how poor Persecute is in this matchup. Most of the games come up to topdecking battles, and I can only think of one time I’ve cast it and hit anything with it. Speaking of the devil, in this game, I draw a Persecute, it’s terrible, and I lose. The lifegain from Fetters would have come in handy in several of these games, and the more I think about it, the more I think I should have left them in. (I would have lost this one even if Persecute had been Fetters or Isolation, for the record.) Also, I’m starting to love being on the draw because it lets me Mana Tithe Dark Confidant, which I did once again this game. He had turn 1 Birds, which made me think I wouldn’t get to do it… but he had only a bounceland as his second land! Mise.
Game 3: I draw two Persecutes here; they are terrible and actively lose me the game. I might have pulled it out had they been Fetters or Isolations, but the Persecutes certainly did nothing. Again, I’m not going to go back and re-test, but the lesson has been learned.

3-1. I like this configuration of the deck a lot, but I do want to change the boarding strategy against Project X to leave out the Persecutes and leave in the Isolations and Fetters.

Speaking of Fetters, I’m wondering if it will be as good as I think it will be against Dralnu. I’m almost positive I want to keep it in the deck regardless, because it’s a removal spell that gains life – which turned out to be even more relevant to the Arena plan than I gave it credit for – but I am still anxious to see if it helps with the Vampire problem as well.

The Dralnu Matchup
I’m not aware of any popular, techy Dralnu lists these days, so I just tested against Frank Karsten’s stock list, with Pact of Negation main over Seize the Soul. Seize is dead against me anyway.

+4 Persecute, +3 Phyrexian Arena, +2 Last Gasp,
-4 Temporal Isolation, -3 Martyr of Sands, -2 Slaughter Pact

Although Last Gasp is going to be a one-for-two any time it kills a Teferi, it’s a cheaper way to kill Bottle Gnomes, and – much more importantly – it can actually kill Skeletal Vampire. A seriously large number of my losses against Dralnu come from my inability to handle that card, and I’d board in all four Gasps if that didn’t leave me with zero good ways to answer Tef himself.

I had Dralnu bringing in 1 Damnation and 3 Bottle Gnomes for Extirpate, Draining Whelk, and the two Persecutes. Persecute is good in game 1, because it can name White and knock out a decent chunk of my hand, but post-board it has to name Black or else risk getting a devastating Persecute on Blue right back in the face. I think I’d rather have Bottle Gnomes than a Persecute that was forced to name Black.

OSS versus Dralnu, Match 1
Game 1: We fight over three Confidants, and I get the third one to stick. However, he then rawdogs the one Skeletal Vampire. Sigh. Then I rip Fetters! He casts Teaching for Remand and Remands it. The Remand cantrip yields Think Twice, and his draw step yields another. He plays his eighth land and passes. I try for Fetters on the Vampire again, and he responds by digging with Think Twice. Nada. He casts the other one. Only four mana left open… did he topdeck The One? Yup, there’s the Rewind. I lose.
Game 2: I mulligan and never see an Arena or a Persecute, draw too many lands in the midgame, and get steamrolled. I get him down to six, but it’s because he lets me in order to get card advantage; I’m never actually in the game.

OSS versus Dralnu, Match 2
Game 1: Two Castigates and a Confidant all get countered. I resolve a Ghost Council with a Martyr to back it up, but he rawdogs the Sudden Death to answer it. Teferi follows, and Slaughter Pact looks kinda silly against Spell Burst.
Game 2: Again I mulligan and never get any important cards to stick. My draws are all Paladins and both Jotun Grunts, which Dralnu really doesn’t care about in the midgame. There’s one turn where it looks like I might win because I force in a Ghost Council using Mana Tithe, but I have to tap out to do it, and he has the Damnation.

OSS versus Dralnu, Match 3
Game 1: I get massively lucky this game, and still barely pull it out. I draw three copies of Ghost Council, three of Slaughter Pact – and only the third resolves on Teferi, through Spell Burst and Pact of Negation – and Pact of Negation’s upkeep cost puts him short of Rewind mana for my Crovax when he’s at 4 life. Whew.
Game 2: I mull to five, don’t have a second Black source for far too long, and can’t cast my Arenas until he’s started chaining Teachings together. Just I think I’m about to force one of the Arenas through, he shows me Pact of Negation.
Game 3: I mull, but resolve turn 3 Phyrexian Arena. (Just for kicks, we play it out.) On turn 5, I cast Persecute and Mana Tithe his Rewind. Bye bye, hand. Love that Arena… anyway, a steady steam of beaters follows and I win this one by a mile.

OSS versus Dralnu, Match 4
Game 1: I stick a turn 2 Confidant and it draws me tons of cards. He never manages to get rid of it, as he’s land-light and I Mana Tithe two early draw spells.
Game 2: Another lovely mull to five. I make a game of it when a Confidant sticks, but he gets out three Deserts and blanks every attacker I draw.
Game 3: I stick turn 3 Arena. We go back and forth for awhile, but as it turns out, drawing two cards per turn makes it tough to keep up. Persecute resolves soon after, and Ghost Council sneaks in a turn later to back up Withered Wretch.

2-2. I’m okay with that; Dralnu seems to be the worst of the Big Three for this deck, because I have the highest concentration of non-threats against them. I’m honestly not sure if 2, 4, or 0 Last Gasp should be boarded in for Slaughter Pact. Pact is better against Teferi and Bottle Gnomes (it’s free if they opt to gain the life!), but can’t kill a Vampire. The two and two configuration at least gives me a shot at having an answer to either problem creature. It made me sad that I only drew Crovax in one of these games, but I was pleased to note that once I resolved him, even Dralnu couldn’t handle the power of the Ascendant Ass-Kicker.

The Solar Flare Matchup
So far Last Gasp has been strong against Project X and “meh” against Dralnu. I expect it will be good against Angelfire, but I don’t think I want to board it in against Solar Flare. I’ll try that matchup out next, and see if I find myself wishing I had access to something broader in Gasp’s slot – like Mortify.

I’m using Ferdinand Reinsch’s Top 8 list from Bremen Regionals.

I boarded like this against it:

+4 Persecute, +3 Phyrexian Arena
-4 Withered Wretch, -3 Martyr of Sands

Trying to figure out Flare should have been boarding was tough, but I think -1 Slaughter Pact, -2 Faith’s Fetters, +1 Wrath, +2 Damnation, seems about right.

OSS versus Solar Flare, Match 1
Game 1: He mulligans and leads with Hallowed Fountain, tapped. I play a second-turn Bob, and then another Bob after he Castigates my Castigate instead of playing a Signet. The lack of Signet means that even if he has turn 4 Wrath, I’ll have drawn several cards off my two Confidants while keeping the pressure up. My hand has Jotun Grunt, Slaughter Pact, and Withered Wretch for backup, so I’m planning to race on damage rather than aiming for an attrition war. As it happens, he doesn’t even have the Wrath after he digs with Court Hussar (who is promptly Slaughtered), and the Confidants plus Wretch bring it home.
Game 2: He mulls to four and I crush him. (Well, that was anticlimactic.)

OSS versus Solar Flare, Match 2
Game 1: I mull to six and he mulls to five, but while I am stuck with reactive early cards like Temporal Isolation and lacking double-Black to cast Withered Wretch, he starts drawing cards and gets back in the game. I end up losing a long attrition war involving Urza’s Factory and hardcast Akroma with mana to pay for Mana Tithe!
Game 2: I get out two early Confidants, but remain stuck on two lands for a very long time. I then get out an Arena and start drawing non-business cards, having had to discard several business spells because of the Confidants. My opponent gets double Persecute and Aeon Chronicler, which nukes all my removal and rewinds all the card advantage I got off the Confidants. Then the Chronicler kills me.

OSS versus Solar Flare, Match 3
Game 1: My early Dark Confidant is instantly Wrathed away. Several Compulsive Researches and Court Hussars later, I’m toast.
Game 2: I mull to five and never draw a second land. Well, that was also anticlimactic.

OSS versus Solar Flare, Match 4
Game 1: I get a Ghost Council to stick around turn 6, with a creature around to protect him. The opponent’s only answer is a Chronicler, but I have a pair of Slaughter Pacts ready for it, and GCO gets there before he gets enough mana to play Angel of Despair.
Game 2: We get in a long, hard-fought attrition war when he casts Body Double on my deceased Paladin en-Vec to stop my team from attacking, and it takes me a long time to punch through. I do, though, eventually.
Game 3: I mull to five but get a turn 2 Confidant that it takes him until turn 6 to Wrath. Meantime I cast Castigate, Persecute, and draw into three Temporal Isolations for the Akroma he later attempts to hit me with.

2-2. We both had some heavy mulligans, but they were about even on both sides. This matchup seems fairly draw-dependent; if he starts chaining Court Hussars and Compulsive Researches, I get buried in a mountain of card advantage, and if I stick Confidant or Arena, the same happens to him. If he gets stuck on land, I’m the favorite because I can punish him with a clock, but if the game goes long and we start having a topdecking fight, he’s the favorite with his Very Big Spells.

All in all, seems pretty even.

Now back to a Big Three deck. At this point I want to confirm my Dragonstorm matchup and then see how Angelfire goes.

The Dragonstorm Matchup
Here, I’m using Zac Hill Dragonstorm list from his most recent article. I’ll give my opponent the benefit of the doubt and assume he’s read my articles and knows I have no Shadow of Doubt and can safely board out Gigadrowse. I’ll furthermore assume he knows to board in Repeal because of Worship, which leads me to the boarding plan of +3 Ignorant Bliss, +2 Repeal, -4 Gigadrowse, -1 Hunted Dragon.

+4 Persecute, +3 Worship, +1 Martyr of Sands
-4 Withered Wretch, -2 Jotun Grunt, -1 Crovax, -1 Slaughter Pact

Kevin Binswanger pointed out that Jotun Grunt should be boarded out here before Paladin en-Vec because I’m bringing in Worship. This is absolutely correct, and I feel like a doofus for not noticing it on my own. Forget protection from Red – Grunt’s cumulative upkeep is just bad business with a Worship plan when I’m taking out five other creatures to begin with.

OSS versus Dragonstorm, Match 1
Game 1: I have turn 2 Bob, turn 3 Castigate, turn-four Castigate. He has one Dragon, but I have Isolation for it, and my beaters finish him in no time.
Game 2: I mull to five, but successfully Castigate his Dragonstorm before he can cast it. I then Persecute all the support cards out of his hand. He topdecks Ignorant Bliss a turn too late, heh. A Ghost Council then finishes him in short order.

OSS versus Dragonstorm, Match 2
Game 1: I get turn 2 Confidant, turn 3 Confidant, then a Martyr, then a big pocket of land. I can’t even deal with a single dragon, much less five.
Game 2: I have Worship and Martyr, but he’s been building up counters on his storage land and is able to get a lethal Dragonstorm off by hardcasting Telling Time and then Repeal on my Martyr.

OSS versus Dragonstorm, Match 3
Game 1: I Castigate his one threat and beat down with a pair of Paladins and a Wretch. I’m holding Isolation and Slaughter Pact the entire game, too, so I’m never really worried.
Game 2: This is just an embarrassment. He has a Hellkite to Wrath me, but I Pact it right away and then we just sit there topdecking lands for an eternity. Eventually I find a Paladin and kill him with it, all by its 2/2 lonesome. Awesome.

OSS versus Dragonstorm, Match 4
Game 1: He mulls to five, and I Castigate his only finisher. He rips a Hellkite that Wraths me, but I untap, play GCO, Slaughter Pact it (sooo good!) and attack a few times for the win.
Game 2: He Remands a Castigate, but it hits on the following turn. Persecute comes a turn later, and then I assemble Paladin plus Worship. He Dragonstorms after that, but can’t find a Repeal in time. What a beating.

3-1 against the best deck in the format? I’ll take that.

The Angelfire Matchup
I haven’t seen anything written about an update for this deck since Atsushi Wada’s Top 8 in Kyoto, so I’ll use that. I have Angelfire taking out 4 Boom/Bust for 3 Detritivore and a Faith’s Fetters. I’m going like this:

+4 Persecute, +3 Phyrexian Arena
-4 Withered Wretch, -3 Martyr of Sand

Remember: do not cast Slaughter Pact if you might not have lands in your next upkeep! You have been warned.

OSS versus Angelfire, Match 1
Game 1: I mull to five and he manascrews me with Boom/Bust.
Game 2: I come out of the gates with Confidant, Castigate, Mana Tithe on the attempted Wrath, Paladin en-Vec, another Castigate, and Jotun Grunt. He tries desperately to defend with Lightning Angel, but I Isolate it out of the way and crash for the win.
Game 3: We both sit drawing nothing for a bit, as my first few draws are Jotun Grunts. Then I start casting stuff, he starts Remanding it, and soon there’s ample food for them. They jump in and start battling, I kill a couple of Lightning Angels, and pretty soon a Grunt and a Ghost Council are taking it home.

OSS versus Angelfire, Match 2
Game 1: I mull to five and resolve two Ghost Councils. The second one is not Wrathed, and eats the opponent’s face, backed up by a Jotun Grunt with ample graveyard food.
Game 2: I have turn 3 Arena, and…okay, you know the drill by now.
Game 3: I have Arena again this game, but actually lose because I draw all answers. This is normally okay, except that he draws two of his three Detritivores and uses them to blow up all my White sources while I am sitting there drawing no action. I Slaughter Pact them both, but my attempted Isolation on his Lightning Angel is Remanded, leaving me within burn range of his Lightning Helix.

OSS versus Angelfire, Match 3
Game 1: He casts Bust to promote what appears to be a profitable race between his Lightning Angel and my Paladin en-Vec plus Ghost Council. Then I play Plains and Martyr of Sands and the race is over.
Game 2: I Persecute away three cards and then resolve a Paladin and a Ghost Council. They go the distance.

OSS versus Angelfire, Match 4
Game 1: I have to spend three Slaughter Pacts on Lightning Angels, and a Faith’s Fetters on a Court Hussar to let me attack for four instead of zero. Then he plays Bogardan Hellkite and I’m out of removal. It’s pretty awkward.
Game 2: No Arenas this time, but my opponent has Detritivore. I kill it, naturally, when it’s done removing six of my lands. We have an excruciating topdeck war, where I have Crovax hammering into his Urza’s Factory with him at eight life. Finally I find a Grunt to get some actual beats going, and win.
Game 3: It is only in this game (somehow), after drawing all three of them, that it hits home how bad Mana Tithe is in this matchup. The average Angelfire draw produces more mana than it needs to cast its spells, and they don’t have any eight-drops like Solar Flare. Mana Tithe becomes dead in record time, just like I did in this game. I should definitely be boarding it out here.

2-2. Not bad considering I was boarding wrong for the entire set. I should definitely keep in Wretches instead of Tithes, as it was much more common for me to be lacking in attackers than disruption for the opponent. Along the same lines, I think boarding in only three Persecute might be correct as well.

The NarcoBridge Matchup
Finally, we come to Bridge. Again I used one of Keith’s lists, which can be found here.

I had him boarding in 2 Darkblast and 3 Krosan Grip for one Life from the Loam and the Simian Spirit Guides. I figure even if they don’t know about Worship, they can expect Tormod’s Crypt and/or Leyline of the Void from a B/W deck, so they’ll probably have the Grips in anyway.

I board out Confidant because he dies to Darkblast every game. Even if they don’t have the full four post-board, they’ll almost certainly have at least three to kill Wretch and Martyr (before they flip too many Bridges), and should dredge into one quickly.

Darkblast, by the way, must be the first card you shoot with Withered Wretch. If you let it sit and they’re holding a second one, they’ll dredge the first and have enough firepower to kill your Wretch. You should also keep a mana open in their upkeep at all times (where possible), because if you don’t, they can Darkblast the Wretch on upkeep, dredge it, and Darkblast again to remove your ace.

OSS versus NarcoBridge, Match 1
Game 1: I get turn 2 Withered Wretch, and nuke a bunch of his ‘yard, but he has a 6/6 Golgari Grave-Troll that I have no answer for. I have a Ghost Council out and try desperately to keep Confidant on the table, in hopes that I will draw into a Fetters or Isolation, but I just keep hitting lands and Castigates. The Troll does me in.
Game 2: He mulls to five in search of a Dredge card and gets stuck at one land. I Last Gasp his Rusalka and have Ghost Council and Confidant in play and swinging, with Mana Tithe and Slaughter Pact in hand, by the time he finds his second land.
Game 3: I Last Gasp his first enabler and play a Wretch. It dies to a pair of Darkblasts, but not before I remove one of them. I play a second Wretch, but he had three Darkblasts in his opening hand, and kills this one as well. Again, I remove a Darkblast, and also catch a freshly-dredged Grave-Troll. Paladin en-Vec keeps plinking away at the opponent, and when a Ghost Council joins him, the game ends in two turns.

OSS versus NarcoBridge, Match 2
Game 1: I have turn 1 Martyr, but he has the Darkblast for it in his hand. Thaaat’s awkward. Maybe I should hold off on playing that guy until turn 2? I play a Wretch on my third turn and shoot the Darkblast, but once again he has a huge Grave-Troll (9/9 this time), and I draw none of my ten answers.
Game 2: I mull to five and he has two Darkblasts in hand for my Wretch. I don’t put up much of a fight.

OSS versus NarcoBridge, Match 3
Game 1: I have Martyr turn one on the draw, and a Withered Wretch. I play Wretch with a mana open for Martyr, so he flashes back Dread Return targeting Magus of the Bazaar to get me to blow the Martyr (I do) and focus on dredging back threats. However, I topdeck Slaughter Pact for the Magus (in case that was the wrong target, Returning a Grave-Troll would have left him tapped out as well because he had to hardcast Imp as his third creature first) and Wretch out his graveyard. A swarm of dudes beat him down.
Game 2: I have Last Gasp on his first enabler and my Wretch sticks. He never gets much of anything going.

OSS versus NarcoBridge, Match 4
Game 1: He has turn 1 Simian Spirit Guide into Magus, turn 2 another SSG into a second Magus and a Darkblast on my Confidant, and a turn 3 kill before my third-turn Jotun Grunt can even remove anything.
Game 2: He mulls to five and can’t find any dredgers. The five-card hand has Darkblast only, which doesn’t really let him get going. It does, however, get removed by my Withered Wretch. One Martyr, one Ghost Council, and two Worships later, the game is far and away a victory.
Game 3: Again he has a slow draw after a mull to five, and I am able to get Paladin plus Worship down very early. I then play Withered Wretch and two Slaughter Pacts on his topdecked enablers, so I am able to beat him down effectively before he finds an answer to the Worship or a lethal army.

3-1. I was fortunate to draw a Wretch almost every game in this set, but then again, I was mulliganing towards them. In fact, in the post-board games, I shipped back any hand that didn’t have Wretch or Martyr, unless I was on the play and had Last Gasp and Tithe or another removal spell, or Worship plus Paladin and at least three mana sources. I obviously couldn’t follow this strategy in game 1, as I was assuming an unknown opponent… that’s part of the reason I went 1-3 in maindeck games.

Chapter 3: The Tuned List

Did you try shaking a stick at that last section? Yeah? Did it work? I didn’t think so.

That’s because I just listed more game results than you can shake a stick at. Here’s the final list.

My suggested boarding strategies are as follows.

Dragonstorm
+4 Persecute, +3 Worship, +1 Martyr of Sands
-4 Withered Wretch, -2 Jotun Grunt, -1 Crovax, -1 Slaughter Pact

Gruul
+4 Last Gasp, +3 Worship, +1 Martyr of Sands
-4 Dark Confidant, -4 Withered Wretch

Dralnu
+4 Persecute, +3 Phyrexian Arena, +2 Last Gasp
-4 Temporal Isolation, -3 Martyr of Sands, -2 Slaughter Pact

NarcoBridge
+4 Last Gasp, +3 Worship, +1 Martyr of Sands
-4 Dark Confidant, -2 Faith’s Fetters, -1 Castigate, -1 Crovax

Hatching Plans
+4 Persecute, +3 Worship, +1 Martyr of Sands
-4 Slaughter Pact, -4 Temporal Isolation

Project X
+4 Last Gasp, +3 Phyrexian Arena
-4 Paladin en-Vec, -3 Martyr of Sands

Solar Flare
+4 Persecute, +3 Phyrexian Arena
-4 Withered Wretch, -3 Martyr of Sands

Angelfire
+3 Persecute, +3 Phyrexian Arena
-3 Mana Tithe, -3 Martyr of Sand

I’ll be out of town this week, but may have internet access at night. I’ll try to drop in and comment in the forums, and will respond to personal e-mails when I get the chance.

Thanks for reading, and best of luck at Regionals!

Richard Feldman
Team :S
[email protected]