I didn’t do well at Pro Tour Dark Ascension. I felt that my preparation was good; I definitely put enough time in but we never really found something awesome. I worked with Jeremy Neeman as well as some less well-known Aussies: John-Paul Kelly, Luke Mulcahy, and Isaac Egan. We all ended up playing Wolf Run. Luke was on it from the start as he had done well with it at GP Brisbane and felt comfortable with it; the rest of us pretty much dismissed it. That being said, it had the best results of any deck we ran through our gauntlet and given we didn’t find anything awesome, it was the obvious choice.
Given how unexcited I was about our deck choice I was very eager to see what everyone else came up with. Channel Fireball was on Wolf Run as well which made me feel a bit better about our choice but was still uninspiring. Then I saw Raphael Levy’s Frites deck and it blew my mind. I couldn’t wait to try it out. I decided I wasn’t going to play any more Standard while still in Hawaii, but I couldn’t help thinking about the deck. By the time I got home there had been another StarCityGames.com Open, and Ali Aintrazi had made Top 8 with a Heartless Summoning deck that was also playing Faithless Looting and Unburial Rites. I wanted to test both decks out as they were different takes on the same general theme: get a fatty into play as soon as possible.
I wanted to try Faithless Looting decks mainly because they looked like a lot of fun. They also seemed like they could be well placed. It’s very hard for dedicated control to beat the aggro and aggro control decks these days; they have such great threat diversity and the ability to disrupt you. Putting an enormous bomb like Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite into play early is a really good way to combat aggressive decks. Against control you can use cards like Unburial Rites to overwhelm their removal and permission. I built Ali’s deck first as Lingering Souls were two tickets each and I expected them to drop.
I liked the deck because it had a lot of things going for it. I realized pretty early on though that Liliana was a perfect fit. It wasn’t too hard to get the mana to support it as the deck didn’t really play any blue spells and very few red. I tuned the numbers a lot and tested a lot of different things. This is my latest list:
Creatures (13)
- 2 Solemn Simulacrum
- 1 Inferno Titan
- 3 Sun Titan
- 2 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
- 1 Phyrexian Metamorph
- 2 Phantasmal Image
- 2 Rune-Scarred Demon
Planeswalkers (4)
Lands (26)
Spells (17)
No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get the deck to beat both Humans and Zombies. It’s not a matter of just playing more removal as both decks are pretty good at getting around it. They are both able to kill your first fatty and then you. Humans is generally able to get an early Thalia, Guardian of Thraben or put on enough pressure that if I didn’t have a sweeper I lost. Sometimes they just reload with a Hero of Bladehold. Zombies is really good at beating sweepers. My deck just felt too clunky, and it didn’t feel like there was much I could do about it.
The deck is awesome against any deck that isn’t killing you quickly. Rune-Scarred Demon locks up almost any game where they don’t have lethal, and there are way too many threats for control to counter. I decided that I would return to this if Levy’s deck didn’t provide more promise.
Frites had a bunch of things that I hated. I hated the mana, the fatty selection, and the number of mana dorks. I also hated how bad the deck felt against control strategies. Frites doesn’t actually do too much that control cares about. All they have to do is answer your fatties and Lingering Souls, and this isn’t too hard to do.
First thing I did was add Gavony Township. The deck has a bunch of mana dudes and Spirit tokens and being able to turn them into a win condition without having to have Elesh Norn is great. The mana was pretty bad to start with and adding colorless lands obviously makes it worse. I cut the Llanowar Elves for a land and added a bunch of Shimmering Grotto.
The fatties were also something that I wanted to change. Elesh Norn is obviously the nut against aggressive decks but was pretty underwhelming against control and sometimes aggro can even assemble a board that Elesh doesn’t beat. Inferno Titan was also a bit underwhelming. I decided to integrate some of the fatties from the Heartless Rites version. This is my current build:
Creatures (16)
- 4 Birds of Paradise
- 1 Inferno Titan
- 1 Sun Titan
- 2 Wurmcoil Engine
- 3 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
- 1 Phantasmal Image
- 1 Rune-Scarred Demon
- 3 Avacyn's Pilgrim
Lands (24)
Spells (20)
The first thing I noticed was just how good Lingering Souls is in this type of deck. It’s your go to guy for both defense against aggressive decks and offense against Control. With Elesh Norn and Gavony Township it can definitely kill people out of nowhere and you don’t even have to use a card.
The next thing I realized was that Mulch may actually be the best card ever printed. Well not really, but the card is amazing in this deck. Lands are something you want in hand and everything else is fine in the bin. Sometimes you even get enough cards off it to be able to discard a fatty. Tracker’s Instinct is definitely not as good; a lot of the time it whiffs and when it doesn’t it often gives you something that you would rather have in the bin. The flashback is hard to cast but the fact that it has it makes the card worth including in the deck. Being able to see eight cards is a big deal as far as consistency goes.
Just as Tracker’s Instinct is a bad Mulch, Avacyn’s Pilgrim is a terrible Birds of Paradise. The mana requirements in this deck are greedy to say the least; this is why I play so many Shimmering Grottos. With a Birds in play things go so much smoother, but the same cannot be said for Pilgrim. The acceleration is nice and he does make Tracker’s Instincts a bit better, but he’s definitely no Birds. I don’t think these are auto includes and an argument could certainly be made for cutting these for Day of Judgment. That would definitely alter the way the deck plays. At the moment I like the aggressive build. It feels synergistic and the mana is actually pretty good considering. Adding Day would mean rebuilding the mana base, and I’m not sure it could be done without making a lot of spells harder to cast.
Esper Spirits
This is your toughest matchup. The plan is to get Elesh Norn into play and have it stay there. They have removal for your mana guys and counters for your bombs but the biggest problem is Delver of Secrets. If they have a quick Delver and enough disruption they can ride it all the way. Their double Lord draws are also pretty tough. Lingering Souls is your lifeline here, and they usually buy you a lot of time.
-1 Phantasmal Image
-1 Tracker’s Instincts
-1 Unburial Rites
+2 Corrosive Gale
+1 Oblivion Ring
Post board things change a lot. They’ll have some way to interact with your graveyard and more permission. The general plan is to progress the game to a point where you can play a threat each turn. Being able to interact with their creatures makes this a lot more likely.
Wolf Run Ramp
This matchup is great. You’re a far more consistent and faster combo deck. Your threats are also better. They can definitely get there if they have a great draw and can kill your accelerators, but most of the time you just do your thing.
-4 Lingering Souls
-1 Inferno Titan
+2 Oblivion Ring
+1 Wurmcoil Engine
+2 Ancient Grudge
Things don’t change a lot, but they are more likely to kill your mana dudes. Lingering Souls was bad in game 1 and gets even worse post board. You’re very happy to be able to cut them. The Oblivion Rings give you more ways to interact with their Titans and the Ancient Grudges can slow them down by killing a Sphere of the Suns but are mainly there to make sure you don’t die to Inkmoth Nexus.
Humans
Game 1 is a bit of a race; they can often interact with your first bomb and if they have a Hero of Bladehold or a big Champion of the Parish they can sometimes kill you even after you get Elesh Norn into play. Most of the time they don’t, though, and you can replace any threats that have been removed with additional ones. Much like against Spirits, Lingering Souls place a crucial role in buying you time until your late game takes over.
-1 Phantasmal Image
-1 Sun Titan
-2 Tracker’s Instincts
+2 Ray of Revelation
+2 Oblivion Ring
Post board they have counterspells but you have a lot more ways to not fall behind early. This matchup is good game 1 and even better post board.
Zombies
They are very quick and can kill your mana dudes. They don’t have too many answers for resolved fatties, though, and Lingering Souls usually gives you enough time to trump their threats.
-1 Unburial Rites
-1 Rune-Scarred Demon
-2 Tracker’s Instincts
+2 Oblivion Ring
+2 Wurmcoil Engine
After siding they can usually interact with your graveyard, and they can also have access to Vapor Snag which is very good against you. The matchup gets worse but not by too much. The plan is to have Wurmcoil Engine not get bounced by snag and ride him to victory.
Mono Red
This isn’t a matchup that I’ve had a lot of experience with. The games I’ve played have generally come down to whether or not they have enough burn to finish you off when you take over the board. Once again Lingering Souls plays an important role here.
-1 Rune-Scarred Demon
-1 Phantasmal Image
-1 Inferno Titan
-1 Tracker’s Instincts
+2 Oblivion Ring
+2 Wurmcoil Engine
Traitorous Blood is pretty scary, and it’s very hard to play around. This is the main reason to take out Inferno Titan. Your game plan doesn’t change much but you have much better fatties.
Mirror
The mirror is pretty silly. If they have a stock list then you are favored game 1 due to most of your fatties being better than theirs in this matchup. They might be a little bit faster though and are more likely to have Elesh Norn so you can get blown out early.
-4 Lingering Souls
-1 Inferno Titan
-1 Tracker’s Instincts
+2 Memory’s Journey
+2 Wurmcoil Engine
+2 Oblivion Ring
Things get even more hilarious post board. The matchup generally comes down to either Memory’s Journey blows or Wurmcoil Engine wars. Be sure to play around Journey if possible, but if they don’t have it in their bin it’s often hard for them to leave up 1U so you won’t have to play around it too often. The games that go long are very tricky to play as there are a lot of different things going on. I think play skill is a little bit more important than card choices in these games.
U/B Control
Brad Nelson posted in his article on U/B that Frites is pretty much a bye and this was definitely my experience with the French version of the deck. Pretty much all the changes I have made help to break this. I’ve played against U/B Control eight times so far online, and I’ve won six of them with the current list. U/B is pretty hard to play and I’m sure that’s a factor, but I think the matchup would still be favorable even if they were playing better. Gavony Township makes your mana dudes and Lingering Souls a lot more lethal while Sun Titan and Rune-Scarred Demon are threats they really care about.
-3 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
-1 Inferno Titan
-1 Phantasmal Image
-1 Unburial Rites
-1 Avacyn’s Pilgrim
-1 Tracker’s Instincts
+3 Garruk, Primal Hunter
+2 Wurmcoil Engine
+2 Memory’s Journey
+1 Oblivion Ring
Garruk, Primal Hunter is your massive trump here, and they won’t be expecting it if they put you on Frites. Do everything you can to resolve it: this usually means baiting for a while with Unburial Rites and other fatties. They have pretty much no way to deal with it, and it will grind them out. Memory’s Journey is good at making sure you don’t get decked too quickly, and it will also counter Surgical Extraction. Wurmcoil is your go to guy here as they will have to grind through him and that isn’t easy to do. Try your best to not get your Wurmcoil extracted as this will make it a lot harder to win.
You’ll notice that I take out at least one Tracker’s Instincts in every matchup except Wolf Run Ramp. This doesn’t mean that I should cut it from the main deck. Most decks will side some form of graveyard removal, and this makes Instincts worse. It’s also pretty slow, and there are some matchups where you don’t have the time to use it to the best of its ability. That being said I am considering cutting one for either a Wurmcoil Engine or an Oblivion Ring as these are cards that have been very good.
I hope you enjoyed reading about how I have evolved Frites. I’ve had a lot of fun doing it, and I will be playing this deck for some time to come. As always I look forward to reading your comments.
Sledgesliver on Magic Online