On Saturday, I’ll be attending my first Odyssey Block PTQ – and, for the first time in two years, I’ve managed to get a serious amount of testing it.
Take last night; between us we hammered out thirty-two games of Magic with the following decks:
- UG Madness (with main deck hate for mono black)
- GW Toolbox (aggro-control with Living Wish main deck)
- Mono Black Control
- Psychatog (European version from PT Osaka)
- RB Punisher Land Destruction
- UWg Solitary Confinement
Here’s how the games broke down:
- Mono Black beat Solitary Confinement 3-0.
- Tog beat Mono Black 2-1.
- UG Madness beat Solitary Confinement 3-0.
- Mono Black beat GW Toolbox 3-2.
- RB Punisher Land Destruction beat Mono Black 3-1.
- Mono Black beat UG Madness 4-2.
- Tog Beat GW 2-1.
We played umpteen UG Madness and Mono Black mirror matches, too. Now, as you can see, this isn’t the huge amount of data that a professional team would put out – but it’s only one night’s testing and we’ve been doing this since April. All it does is to reinforce what everyone already knows: U/G Madness and Mono Black are the two main decks to beat. Tog also seems to be good, as it can beat Mono Black at least half of the time (and I’m not just basing this on three games played).
One thing we didn’t test so well was the sideboards. We did test them but not to the extent I would have been happy with. Mind you, there is only so much U/G Madness on U/G Madness you can play before you start to practice your coin flips to try to win the toss.
So, with a PTQ on Saturday here are some decks, with sideboard and notes for you to look over. I’ve included notes on where the decks came from, too:
Team PhatBeats’ Mono Black Toolbox.
Creatures (9):
4x Nantuko Shade
4x Faceless Butcher
1x Laquatus’s Champion
Other Spells (24):
4x Diabolic Tutor
4x Chainer’s Edict
3x Innocent Blood
3x Mutilate
3x Mind Sludge
2x Haunting Echoes
3x Rancid Earth
1x Morbid Hunger
1x Skeletal Scrying
Land (27):
4x Cabal Coffers
23x Swamp
Sideboard (15):
4x Braids, Cabal Minion
1x Rancid Earth
3x Gravegouger
3x Mesmeric Fiend
1x Grotesque Hybrid
1x Laquatus’s Champion
2x Ghastly Demise
This deck started off – as with many – back in Osaka. Looking at the black decks that did well it seemed there were two main types: Those with lots of Tutors favouring a ‘toolbox’ approach, and those with four of the spells they wanted and one or two tutors at the most.
This deck takes a line between the two with four of the Shades, Edicts and then three of all the next most important cards: Rancid Earth, Mind Sludge, Innocent Blood and Mutilate. Next, we add a few cards we’d like to see and would be happy to Tutor for a few times. Lastly, I’ve added a few”utility” cards, along with a Champion to help get me that last bit of life I need to win.
If testing has shown us anything, it’s that Braids and Rancid Earth work very well in the mirror match, as well as against the Solitary Confinement decks. There are only three Rancid Earths in the main deck – and I wouldn’t go down to less now, since they’re just too good in a multicoloured environment where players are relying on playing just one Plains, Island, or Forest to cast their spells.
Mesmeric Fiend can help against more controlling decks that can’t actually remove it. Gravegouger helps a lot against U/G Madness decks trying to abuse Flashback – and decks that need Threshold aren’t too partial to them either!
The Hybrid helps against Green and White decks (of course), and the Ghastly Demises can come in if you feel you need targeted removal and that ten main deck removal spells as well as Faceless Butchers aren’t enough.
When looking at my opening hand, I really want to see three Swamps – but I’ll go with two if I have an Edict or two or a Shade. Most opening hands I’d like to see three mana, a tutor, some removal, and maybe a creature. I’ll mulligan a two-land hand if I have no one, two, or three casting cost spells in it.
Team PhatBeats’ Anti-Black UG Madness
Creatures (13):
4x Wild Mongrel
1x Aquamoeba
4x Basking Rootwalla
2x Arrogant Wurm
2x Wonder
Other Spells (24):
4x Roar of the Wurm
3x Deep Analysis
4x Aether Burst
4x Careful Study
4x Circular Logic
3x Quiet Speculation
2x Envelop
Land (23):
2x Centaur Garden
11x Forest
10x Island
Sideboard (15):
2x Envelop
2x Ray of Revelation
1x Wonder
3x Krosan Reclamation
2x Spellbane Centaur
1x Moment’s Peace
1x Persuasion
3x Howling Gale
This deck started off as Eliot Fertik’s Grand Prix Trial-winning deck. His deck had no main deck Aether Bursts and played four Catalyst Stones. As we played and played we realised that – good though it was – the deck needed the Bursts to pull out some match ups, and they help a lot in the mirror match too. Catalyst Stone seemed to mean that for one turn, and one turn only, I’d have an extra Wurm token in play – something black decks don’t care about that much anyway. They helped in the mirror match a lot, though.
Basically in a mirror match, he who casts the first Catalyst Stone has an advantage. If you’re playing them in the main deck, you’ll probably win game one of the mirror. If they have them in their sideboard, they then must bring them in (and probably had them in the sideboard for just that reason). With this deck, I’m saying "I expect there to be a lot of Mono Black, and I don’t think that many people will play them in the main deck of their UG decks). I could be wrong.
The reason I’ve taken them out is to slip in a few Envelops. Envelop helps a lot against Mono Black – so much so that there are another two in the sideboard just for that matchup. If you’re expecting Haunting Echoes, you should probably bring in a few of the Krosan Reclamations, too – these are also very good in the mirror match.
Looking at my opening hand, I’d like to see an Island, a Forest and a few creatures as well as one counterspell. I’ll go with no Blue mana if I have enough creatures in hand that I think I could force a win anyway. I’d have to think very carefully about going with no Green mana. Unlike many people, I wouldn’t go with a one land and Careful Study hand. You need to get to three or four mana, really, and even if you have two Basking Rootwallas in hand, it’s a risky play – mind you, if you’re playing against Solitary Confinement it might be worth it.
Solitary Confinement (based heavily on Mike Rosenburg’s GPT deck).
Creatures (1):
1x Genesis
Spells (36):
3x Solitary Confinement
2x Cunning Wish
3x Living Wish
1x Holistic Wisdom
2x Time Stretch
4x Concentrate
1x Circular Logic
2x Rites of Refusal
4x Syncopate
1x Mirari
3x Mirari’s Wake
4x Compulsion
3x Aether Burst
3x Flash of Insight
Land (23):
4x Krosan Verge
5x Forest
4x Plains
8x Island
2x Skycloud Expanse
Sideboard (15):
1x Aether Burst
2x Seedtime
1x Ray of Revelation
1x Envelop
2x Moment’s Peace
1x Phantom Nishoba
1x Ambassador Laquatus
1x Teroh’s Faithful
1x Battlefield Scrounger
1x Druid Lyricist
1x Genesis
1x Plains
1x Island
This deck was played by Mike Rosenburg at a Grand Prix Trial of 22 players in Cleveland. Mike won the tourney. The other top eight decks can be found here.
The deck is designed to get a genesis into your hand or graveyard, a forest in play and to allow you to cast Solitary confinement. The rest of the deck allows you to get these things into play, and the use of Mirari’s Wake means that you always have the mana you need.
This deck is the first I’ve seen to use so many Wishes – but it uses them well. The main reason I’m adding this deck into the list to play against is that it’s a combo/prison deck. We have control, aggro-control, and aggro decks to test against… But no combo. Having played the deck over the last few weeks I’d say that when it works it’s great, but learning which hands to mulligan – which to keep and what to discard to the Compulsions – is very hard. Compulsion makes the deck tick – without it, the deck just wouldn’t work at all.
It’s very tempting to take out the Time Stretches and the Holistic Wisdom to make the deck more consistent (I’d add a fourth Confinement, a second main deck Genesis and one more Circular Logic) – but, for now, I’m leaving it alone. The only changes I’ve made are to add a Plains and Island to the Sideboard, removing a Nomad Stadium and Cephalid Coliseum. The damage from them was too much; often I was trying to ‘go off’ on one life.
I’ve also dropped two Islands for Skycloud Expanses. In many games we found we needed more white mana, and this will help.
It’s very difficult to beat if it gets going, as the player tends to let you do pretty much anything, saving the few counterspells for things which will eat the Genesis or destroy the Confinement. After all, you can’t cast Haunting Echoes, Mind Sludge, and use Laquatus’s Champions to kill them (which all target a player) and you can’t deck them – that’s how they win.
Psychatog (based heavily on Frank Karsten’s PT Osaka deck)
Creatures (15):
4x Psychatog
4x Shadowmage Infiltrator
4x Faceless Butcher
3x Mesmeric Fiend
Spells (21):
4x Chainer’s Edict
4x Aether Burst
4x Deep Analysis
2x Compulsion
4x Circular Logic
3x Syncopate
Land (24):
4x Darkwater Catacombs
10x Island
10x Swamp
Sideboard (15):
3x Upheaval
3x Zombie Infestation
3x Rancid Earth
3x Ghastly Demise
1x Possessed Aven
1x Envelop
1x Persuasion
This deck is basically Frank Karsten’s deck from PT: Osaka. Frank came 42nd with the deck. It was one of the two distinct successful types of Psychatog deck that were played at Osaka, the other coming in at 7th place. I chose Frank’s version because – with Judgment now in play – I believe that we need more creature removal and better card drawing than just Concentrate. Shadowmage Infiltrator gives me the latter and the Butchers certainly help out with the former.
I’ve made only one main deck change: Deep Analysis has replaced Concentrate. In testing, I found myself having to discard cards to kill creatures and keep Psychatogs alive. Deep Analysis is still useful once you do that; Concentrate is not.
I looked into adding Cunning Wish to the deck, but the cards that would have to come out are just too important. If I were going to add them, Mesmeric Fiend would probably find itself relegated to the sideboard, or even removed completely.
In testing, this deck handles the new U/G Madness decks well, and can use counter spells and Aether Bursts to keep creatures alive. Ideally, you want to keep the Infiltrators alive as long as you have just one more Psychatog left in your deck. Drawing cards helps you to win.
The other thing that drew me to Tog was Upheaval. It’s a perfect answer to Mono Black’s insane amount of mana, it also helps beat Solitary Confinement, and you can often have the counters you need to force it through.
I would be looking for a Swamp, an Island, and at least one counterspell, Chainer’s Edict, or Aether Burst to keep an opening hand. Failing, that one more land and a Butcher would probably be kept, too. Early Psychatogs don’t help too much, but an early Infiltrator – should it stay on the table – will win you the game.
I find myself valuing the Infiltrators over all the other creatures, even allowing a Butcher to be killed and returning a problem creature to my opponent. After all, if you’re drawing twice as many cards as your opponent, you’re more likely to draw answers to their threats.
Rancid Lady by Adam Reynolds (with help from team PhatBeats).
Creatures (7):
4x Braids, Cabal Minion
3x Magnivore
Other Spells (29):
3x Rancid Earth
1x Earth Rift
4x Burning Wish
4x Recoup
3x Innocent Blood
4x Chainer’s Edict
2x Browbeat
4x Firebolt
4x Catalyst Stone
Land (24):
13x Swamp
3x Tainted Peak
2x Shadow Ridge
6x Mountain
Sideboard (15):
1x Rancid Earth
1x Earth Rift
2x Decompose
1x Lightning Surge
1x Browbeat
1x Haunting Echoes
1x Mutilate
1x Innocent Blood
1x Stitch Together
1x Book Burning
1x Mind Sludge
3x Coffin Purge
This deck started off as a mono-Red punisher deck from an article by Michael LaLonde. One of our play test group, Adam, bought it along and we played it and found that Michael’s original deck just wasn’t capable of beating U/G Madness more than one in four times. Turns 4 and 5 6/6 Wurms pretty much won the game then and there – either that, or you had to use so many cards getting rid of them you couldn’t cope with the rest of the creatures. Never mind what happened if your opponent cast counter spells your way!
We started playing with the deck and quickly noticed that it did very well at blowing up land, and could beat control decks very well. The average damage dealt by the non-land cards in the deck was around two – and so even if your opponent allowed you to draw three cards, more often than not they could do just as much damage as a six-point Book Burning. Even so, it was losing.
The real star of the deck was Recoup. Every spell could be cast twice, and with a Catalyst Stone in play, things got very silly very quickly. Eventually we decided that we needed better removal – and that’s where Black came in handy: Chainer’s Edict and Innocent Blood kill 6/6 Wurms much better than Firebolt does.
Adding Black to the deck also gave us the opportunity to try out Rancid Earth, as it does so well in mono-Black, and so we dropped some spells we weren’t happy with and gave it a play. Very quickly we added Braids to the deck to increase the amount of land destruction, and Magnivore as a finisher to capitalise on the sheer number of Sorceries in the deck.
Even so we were still having problems – and so added Burning Wish to allow us to tutor for the solutions we needed straight out of our sideboard, giving the deck a real utility feel. I still don’t think the deck is anywhere near finished, but it should be after a few PTQs and a Grand Prix later this month.
So, there are a few decks for you to pick apart. If you can beat all of them you’re probably in for a good chance. You’ll need to be able to give U/B Birds a run for it’s money, too, as well as G/W Beats but concentrate on beating mono-Black and U/G if you’re short on time as you’re more likely to run into those than anything else.
Good Hunting.
Next Week: PTQ Houston in Bath -how will I do? Including all the new decks I see, all the tech I get my hands on and a tourney report… What more do you want?
Cheers, Jim Grimmett.
Team PhatBeats,
Team Diaspora,
Level 2 DCI Judge.