In my last article I concluded by stating I would be testing a Lotus Bloom / Mind’s Desire deck for Extended in anticipation of the PTQ season, but since Worlds the deck simply became unimpressive against the masses of hate. After a bit of disappointment with TEPS before and after Worlds, I decided to see how my deck from last season that I used to Top 8 several PTQs would perform, as I still had all the cards. I made minor sideboard changes and won an 8-man event on Magic: Online against a few of the new decks, so I felt confident enough to continue testing it against the new metagame.
Early on in testing I analyzed all of the Premiere Event results to see what the popular and successful decks were and I was happy to find that Ichorid was no longer doing well. Here is the break down, updated with all recent results to the date of this article and with links to sample decklists or relevant forum threads where available:
Deck Name – Won, Split, Top 8
TEPS – 3, 6, 26
U/W Tron – 0, 9, 25
Aggro Loam – 2, 7, 24
BDW – 1, 5, 24
Affinity – 1, 4, 23
Trinket Angel – 0, 8, 13
Flow Rock – 2, 5, 14
Scepter Chant – 0, 3, 15
Gifts Rock – 0, 0, 15
Mono-Red Goblins – 1, 0, 9
U/W Post – 0, 1, 8
U/G Opposition – 0, 2, 6
Tooth – 0, 1, 6
CAL – 1, 1, 3
Ichorid – 0, 1, 5
BDW Zoo – 0, 1, 4
Tog – 0, 0, 6
B/W Aggro – 0, 0, 4
R/G aggro – 0, 0, 4
MUC Tron – 0, 1, 2
Wake – 0, 1, 2
W/G/r Slide – 0, 1, 1
G/W Haterator – 1, 1, 1
BDW Scepter – 0, 0, 2
U/R/G mid-range aggro – 0, 0, 2
B/G Aggro Rock – 0, 0, 2
Balancing Tings – 0, 0, 2
Dragonstorm – 0, 0, 2
U/w/g Post – 0, 1, 0
BDW w/ Blue for Fire/Ice – 0, 0, 1
BDW DracoExplosion – 0, 0, 1
Gaea’s Might Get There – 0, 0, 1
U/B Death Cloud – 0, 0, 1
Balanced Ideal – 0, 0, 1
Dirty Kitty – 0, 0, 1
Scepter Tog – 0, 0, 1
MUC – 0, 0, 1
U/R Tron – 0, 0, 1
Gro – 0, 0, 1
Eggs – 0, 0, 1
All events from Saturday, December 30 #880579 to Wednesday, January 31 #903457(43 events total).
Clearly U/W Tron, TEPS, Affinity, Aggro Loam, and BDW stand out, with Trinket Angel, Flow Rock, and Scepter Chant not far behind. Notably Gifts Rock has made Top 8 many times on the back of the experienced players who can pilot the deck, but even they have yet to put up a single win or split with the deck. The rising up and comer is U/G Opposition (some call it “Opposing Force”), which has made several impressive runs in recent events.
Testing against U/W Tron proved quite favorable, as they have few counterspells and fewer threats, along with the usual potential hate cards in main or board, which have always been easy to defeat. Mindslaver, Sundering Titan, Condescend, and Remand are their threats in the first game. Mindslaver and Sundering Titan are usually too slow and can still be dealt with through Cunning Wish, while the counters do not provide much resistance against the combo. After board they may have Meddling Mage, Orim’s Chant, and Trickbind, but you also gain Counterspells to help deal with these cards, and Trickbind doesn’t really affect your combo anyway due to all of the recursion.
TEPS is another favorable matchup, one that gets even better if they play with Duress instead of Orim’s Chant. Based on the few decklists revealed from PTQ results so far, and the preferences of even the MTGO players who can afford Chants, Duress is the more popular approach, which is comforting, even though it is still important to play around Orim’s Chant.
Aggro Loam is a simple matchup, much like the Tooth and Nail opponents, but with a decent aggressive clock to back up their heavy hitting sorcery spell. That sorcery spell is Devastating Dreams, of course. Fortunately the turn 4 kill is quite consistent for Nevermind, and there is the option of using Cunning Wish for a counter (namely Envelop) to stop the Armageddon effect (though they still lose their hand due to the alternate cost). After sideboarding you have a much better chance against them as you remove the useless Deep Analysis and Moment’s Peaces for four Counterspell, allowing you to quickly combat their only real threat.
Affinity has always been an easy matchup, and now that most builds are playing Stifle maindeck instead of Cabal Therapy, you get a bit of a break. Stifle might hit a Sakura-Tribe Elder, but other than that it is meaningless. Their fast draws are nullified by Moment’s Peace and you still have the consistent turn 4 kill, so overall it is quite favorable. Affinity has been waxing and waning in popularity in the past few months, but the results have proven that it can compete, so it is still worth looking at.
Boros Deck Wins is your best matchup. While last season they had a shot with Chars and a high count of burn spells to complement Molten Rain, this season they are likely to have much less burn. BDW is now more likely to run Orim’s Chant or Gilded Light, as well as possibly Cryoclasm for additional land destruction, which are all much easier to play around than a flurry of burn spells. This is one of the matchups in which you can often drop a turn 3 Heartbeat of Spring (or turn 4 with Moment’s Peace mana open) and not worry about them doing anything too disastrous with it. Often dropping an early Heartbeat will allow you to just ignore their land destruction spells and win at your leisure. In this matchup you should sideboard out the Brain Freeze and Deep Analysis for two Counterspells, which should help you stop Pyrostatic Pillars, Chants, and Gilded Lights.
Trinket Angel is the one matchup you probably don’t want to face, though that depends entirely on how much hate they have for you, and in what form that hate presents itself. One side of the coin involves Meddling Mage, Orim’s Chant, Counterbalance / Sensei’s Divining Top, and Disenchant, which is a build Paul Cheon plays… and it is difficult to beat. The other more common approach uses the Lightning Angels and less of those hate cards, often including Stifle, which again is just a dead card. One advantage you may have is a player dropping a Meddling Mage and assuming you are just a U/G Cloudpost player, though that is not by any means something you should count on. Counterspells from your sideboard let you fend off the hate and make the matchup decent, though they are unlikely to help you power through if your opponent is running the full suite of hate.
Below is the updated list with Envelop over the second Gigadrowse that was temporarily in the sideboard for the GPT. Envelop was invaluable in previous seasons and with decks such as Aggro Loam that want to play uh… devastating Sorceries and of course the random Tooth and Nail appearances, so it is still a worthwhile card to run.
Spells (33)
The second Gigadrowse was initially added as I thought I might board one in and leave the other out against control, but I am not sure that is necessary, and there is still the option of boarding in Mana Short. The reasoning behind running both Mana Short and Gigadrowse is the prevalence of Stifle (and Trickbind) in the current format. Normally Stifle and Trickbind are blank cards against Nevermind, but if Gigadrowse is relied on, Stifle suddenly blanks your Gigadrowse. I am considering cutting Gigadrowse now, specifically for this reason. Possible cards to replace it include Mana Leak, another Muddle the Mixture, Naturalize, Krosan Grip, another Mana Short, another Brain Freeze, and Chain of Vapor.
Anyway, here are summaries of my matches from the 28 person GPT:
Round 1: Shea M. Hart — TEPS
Game 1: I win the die roll and he only has one land with a Lotus Bloom, so I drop turn 3 Heartbeat of Spring. He lays a Gemstone Mine and tries to go off, but he only manages to chain a few Chromatic Stars into a Burning Wish for Grapeshot, dealing seven damage to me. I easily go off on turn 4 with a Rampant Growth, Early Harvest, and finally Gifts.
Sideboarding:
In: 4 Counterspell; Out: 3 Moment’s Peace, 1 Deep Analysis
Game 2: He attempts a turn 4 kill with just spells and Tendrils, but I have a counter and he only gets me to two life. I cast a Gifts on his end step turn 5 and easily win the next turn.
2-0
Matches – 1-0
Round 2: Scott Marshall — U/G Post
Game 1: I have a good hand with Elder, Revive, Heartbeat, Gifts, and lands. He won the die roll and gets turn 2 Wall of Roots. I play Elder. He plays turn 3 Jester’s Cap, I get an Island. He activates Cap on his turn 4 and I respond with Gifts Ungiven to get some good cards out of reach of his Cap. I go for Early Harvest, Nostalgic Dreams, Cunning Wish, and Recollect. He gives me Early Harvest and Recollect, which easily allow me to go off on my turn, as he only removes three Cunning Wishes from my deck with Cap.
Sideboarding:
In: 4 Counterspell; Out: 3 Moment’s Peace, 1 Brain Freeze
Game 2: I have a good hand that I know can go off turn 4, but he manages a turn 4 Chalice for two. On my turn 4, I play Heartbeat, Early Harvest, Gifts Ungiven (netting Early Harvest and Fact or Fiction), Fact or Fiction netting a Cunning Wish, Early Harvest, Early Harvest, cast Cunning Wish for Hunting Pack, and Cunning Wish for Gigadrowse, then finally Hunting Pack for nine tokens, ending the turn with three Islands untapped. On his upkeep I Gigadrowse targeting all five of lands and his Sensei’s Divining Top, using the three remaining copies to target his Mountain, Island, and Forest again to make sure he can’t pull anything with a counter to keep a land untapped.
2-0
Matches – 2-0
Round 3: Tyrus A. Christian – Boros
Game 1: He has quite a bit of early pressure, but Moment’s Peace allows me to hold him off even through double Molten Rain. I cast Gifts Ungiven and combo off at four life.
Sideboarding
In: 2 Counterspell ; Out: 1 Brain Freeze, 1 Deep Analysis
Game 2: He gets me low on life while I struggle with three lands. I fail to get a Heartbeat or more lands and quickly fall as he Cryoclasms and Molten Rains my lands.
Game 3: I keep a hand with double Moment’s Peace, Counterspell, Nostalgic Dreams, two Forest, and Island. He kept a one-land hand, apparently, as he simply drops a Grim Lavamancer as his only play for the first few turns. Unfortunately, I draw no Cunning Wishes or Gifts Ungiven for many turns and his Lavamancer takes me to twelve before he starts applying more pressure with his second land. Finally at eight life I draw the Gifts Ungiven for an easy win on that turn, as I had many lands in play with Heartbeat and Nostalgic Dreams already in hand.
2-1
Matches – 3-0
Round 4: Alex Lee – Chant
We check our breakers and they’re good enough, so we ID.
ID
Matches – 3-0-1
Round 5: Josh Hakkakian — Trinket Angel
We’re both locked for Top 8 and we’re both not interested in playing the matchup when it means nothing, so we ID.
ID
Matches – 3-0-2
Quarter-Finals: Steve Golenda — U/W Tron
This match took several hours, so some of the details will be left out, but the important strategy decisions and key plays will still be included.
Game 1: I choose to draw, but have to mulligan. I fail to draw any lands past the three from my opening hand until he has already Mindslavered me. With the Mindslaver he had the ability to make me use Nostalgic Dreams to discard all of the good cards from my hand to get back Rampant Growth and other unimportant cards I discarded, but instead he simply elects to waste my Early Harvest and my Sakura-Tribe Elder. Fortunately for him, he has Sundering Titan the following turn and I die to it before I draw enough lands to combo him out.
Sideboarding
In: 4 Counterspell, 1 Gigadrowse; Out: 3 Moment’s Peace, 1 Deep Analysis, 1 Ideas Unbound
Game 2: I choose to draw, letting him go first. He draws his opening hand, mulligans, and when I ask him how many cards he has in hand he counts and replies “Seven.” The judge tells him to just mulligan again and draw five cards. His five-card and four-card hands are not good enough, so he mulligans to three before finally having something worth keeping. I mulligan a no-land hand into a fairly slow hand of five lands and a Gifts. I may have mulled again, but it had a good mix of Islands and Forests and I knew my Gifts was highly likely to resolve, so I kept it. Sure enough, his hand only had one land, an Urza’s Tower, and my Gifts allowed me to win soon enough after I played around his possible Chant and Trickbind. He had the Trickbind, but it was entirely unimportant as I just used Nostalgic Dreams to get back a bunch of cards including the Brain Freeze.
Game 3: Steve chooses to draw. I keep a strong hand against control with Counterspell, lands, Ideas Unbound, and Gifts Ungiven. He forces through a Meddling Mage on turn 4 with Remand on my Counterspell and he names Gifts Ungiven. I play an Ideas Unbound to set up my hand as I drew lots of lands in the early turns of the game and I wanted to find some counters and combo pieces. I managed to grab a Fact or Fiction and a Counterspell, which was great. I played another Ideas Unbound and discarded Gigadrowse, Gifts Ungiven, and an Island. I play out my Fact and let him Remand it twice until I get it to resolve. He splits the piles Early Harvest, Counterspell, Cunning Wish over Island and Nostalgic Dreams. I of course take the three-pile, and over the many turns of draw, go I counter two of his Meddling Mages. Later on he Repealed his Mage and replayed it, intending to hit a better target, but I countered that as well. I use a small Nostalgic Dreams to get back a Gifts I had discarded early game along with a few counters, and as I begin to go off I keep mana open for several counters until I just Cunning Wish for Mana Short and see that he only has three Trickbinds. I continue to go off and easily Brain Freeze his library, getting the concession.
2-1
Matches — 4-0-2
Semi-Finals: Tyrus A. Christian – Boros
Game 1: I drop a turn 4 Heartbeat with mana for Moment’s Peace, and he has no big show on his turn to kill me, with only a single Molten Rain. On my turn I Rampant Growth to get a fifth land, then use Early Harvest and Gifts Ungiven to set up the win.
Sideboarding
In: 2 Counterspell; Out: 1 Brain Freeze, 1 Deep Analysis
Game 2: I now know what I did not in the Swiss — his only disruption will be Molten Rain, Cryoclasm, and three Gilded Light, so I will not have to play around Orim’s Chant or Pyrostatic Pillar anymore. He has a turn 1 Isamaru followed by Grim Lavamancer, but Moment’s Peace holds him off for a few turns. Gifts Ungiven gets some combo pieces and another Moment’s Peace. On his next turn I cast my other Gifts Ungiven at his end step and he uses Gilded Light, which I counter. I win on my turn holding a Cunning Wish throughout the process for any more tricks he may have.
Games – 2-0
Matches — 5-0-2
Finals: Ray Houle — Gaea’s Might Get There
Game 1: I have to mulligan a one-lander, but I get a great second hand with Gifts, Heartbeat, Early Harvest, and three Forests. He wins the die roll and I play out my Forests each turn until he starts throwing lethal damage at me on turn 5, yet I haven’t drawn an Island, Rampant Growth, or Elder, so I can’t kill him yet. I use up the Peace I drew and the flashback, but he has me low enough for Grim Lavamancer to finish me off. He waited for my turn to kill me with it, for some reason, and I drew the Rampant Growth that turn. Unfortunately it was too late and his Lavamancer killed me in response to Early Harvest.
Sideboarding
In: 2 Counterspell; Out: 1 Brain Freeze, 1 Deep Analysis
Game 2: I know he is boarding in three Orim’s Chant along with likely Krosan Grip and Vindicate thanks to the decklists the judges made available to each player for a brief moment before the round. He has early aggression thanks to a full Gaea’s Might on a Wild Mongrel, as I do not have a Moment’s Peace. I find a Peace and survive at fourteen life as I Gifts and assemble the combo to win.
Game 3: He gets me down to twelve life before attempting to hit me with Gaea’s Might, but I have a Moment’s Peace ready. Several burn spells and activations of Grim Lavamancer take me to five life quickly, but I have all the combo pieces available to go off on my turn. I try to read how likely it is that he has an Orim’s Chant and when I cast Nostalgic Dreams I choose to discard a Counterspell to get an extra Early Harvest, but he hits me with the Chant. Fortunately, this only forces me to mana burn for one. He hits me with Lavamancer on my turn to take me to two life. I use a Moment’s Peace flashback to stay alive from his attackers, mana burning for one due to the odd cost of the spell. On my turn I make certain I can win and notice that he has Grim Lavamancer, but only one card in the graveyard, so he can’t yet activate it. This just means I have to prevent him from being able to activate Lavamancer at all before I try to Brain Freeze him. At first I think about Stifle or Mana Short, but then I realize I don’t have Deep Analysis in, as I boarded it out, so I finally figure out my option is to Echoing Truth his Grim Lavamancer and he can’t do anything to kill me before his draw step forces him to lose. Unfortunately, fatigue has set in at this point and I make a series of bad plays. I accidentally get the last Nostalgic Dreams in the graveyard due to not counting how many are left, so I am forced to just play off of the cards I have left in hand. I play all of my card draw before using the land searching cards to thin my deck, so of course the second Cunning Wish I need is in the last three cards. This means I only have one Wish to use, meaning I can’t both Brain Freeze and Echoing Truth, so I decide my only chance is to use Hunting Pack to make a large amount of Beasts. He can still attack into my Beasts to try to get his creatures to go to the graveyard, but I realize I can just flashback a Moment’s Peace to keep his creatures in play, so I go for it and make 14 4/4 Beasts. On his turn everyone tells him to just “Craig Jones” it and flip the lucky card, which he obviously does… with a Bloodstained Mire.
1-2
Matches — 5-1-2
After an event I expected to easily win came down to several of my misplays, I was obviously upset, but at the same time I knew it was simply a matter of endurance and fatigue. I had once again proven to myself that the deck is highly powerful and that it is worth playing in Extended.
Out of the cards from Planar Chaos, nothing jumps out as a useful addition. Extirpate is likely to be a challenging card to beat, though not many decks have a reason to play it over Tormod’s Crypt and Orim’s Chant, so I am not too concerned. Often I have been able to win without use of the graveyard, with my game 2 against Scott Marshall as a good example.
I plan to play this deck at a PTQ soon, and at GP: Dallas (for which I will have 2 byes), so I will continue to analyze the Extended results and write more articles on the format, including any new information on the deck. Feel free to write any questions and criticisms in the feedback thread, as I will be active there and in the Extended Heartbeat thread. If enough interest is shown I will be writing an in-depth play guide for the deck, involving how to play with Gifts Ungiven and how to play around various disruption, among other strategies.
Until next time,
Ryan Cimera
BTape on MTGO, StarCityGames.com, MTGSalvation.com, and YTMND
BubbleTape on MiseTings
BTapes at gmail dot com