Back when Alara Reborn Standard was first taking shape, it was clear that token decks would be a force to be reckoned with. B/W and G/W Tokens were already potent and popular decks before the release of the new set, and Zealous Persecution stood to increase the stock of at least B/W dramatically. As I discussed in my last article, it is important to design with not only the popular stock decks in mind, but also the decks designed to beat them. Building a deck that crushes B/W Tokens but loses to sweepers like Jund Charm or Volcanic Fallout wouldn’t have been a great choice at Regionals, for example. In deckbuilding, it’s easy to get fixated on one deck to beat and forget about the rest, but few tournaments are Pro Tour: Tokyo, where The Solution takes home the prize.
My very first attempt at an Alara Reborn Standard deck was a Doran deck (not terribly unlike the one that won Grand Prix: Seattle, in fact). In part I was looking for a deck to use Zealous Persecution. It was the card that most excited me when I saw the Alara Reborn spoiler. Simoon had been one of the most important cards in the sideboard of my Red Zone deck back at PT: Chicago 2001, and Zealous Persecution seemed positioned to have an even bigger impact in the new Standard. Getting to play with an Armadillo Cloak analog again kind of excited me, too.
The problem was that Zealous Persecution was actually too well positioned at the time. Rather than being a high powered sleeper like Simoon, the presence of token decks made it an in-your-face powerhouse. My Doran deck was actually quite vulnerable to the card itself, relying on eight mana-creatures to accelerate into threats. Not only that, but the deck also suffered quite a bit of splash damage from Anathamancer because of its manabase, turning the matchup with aggressive Red decks (of which I expected a great deal) from significantly advantaged into knuckle-biters, because they could also play Terminate and shut down my Doran beatdown.
My next attempt at a deck was seriously over the top in the other direction. I decided to try to build a deck to dodge all of the hate cards aimed at token decks. I put together a Doran deck much more in the style of Lorwyn block, with Treefolk Harbingers rather than mana creatures. I played Grizzled Leotau as well, giving the deck incredibly explosive draws with Doran. Turn 1 Harbinger, turn 2 Wall of Cat, turn 3 Doran — attack for eight. The opponent was dead on board on turn 4 if they didn’t have any way to stop it. The only creature in my deck that died to Fallout was Qasali Pridemage, and nothing died to Zealous Persecution.
The deck was, not surprisingly, rather awkward and heavily reliant on Doran. The mana was somewhat awkward, and without mana creatures, most draws still felt “fair.” I didn’t get to trying a Hierarch/Harbinger split like the GP winner played, in large part because I was distracted one day when I was doing a gatherer search of Standard Legal cards and got to the W’s and saw Windborn Muse.
I was momentarily taken aback. This card was legal? How, in a format dominated by decks built around activating Windbrisk Heights, had no one even mentioned this card? It seemed almost too perfect. Zealous Persecution wasn’t the new Simoon — this was. A card completely under the radar and perfectly positioned to have a huge impact on the most popular decks in the format.
At first, I shoehorned Windborn Muse into my Doran decks, but that obviously wasn’t the right fit at all. As good as the card was, it didn’t belong in a dedicated beatdown deck. I tried a few more iterations of Green decks that accelerated into Windborn Muse, among other big creatures, but it wasn’t gelling. I said goodbye to my love affair with big Green creatures and looked elsewhere. One of the catalysts of that decision was a discussion with Pat Sullivan in which he convinced me that Doran just wasn’t as good in the format as he once was. Against decks like Faeries, he was huge and virtually indestructible, but when White decks have Path to Exile and Red decks can even run Terminate, he just doesn’t have the same impact he used to*.
So I moved away from Doran and started looking for the best Windborn Muse deck. I messed around with Rampant Growth/Fertile Ground decks with Planeswalkers and Windborn Muse to protect them, and they seemed somewhat promising, but I stopped my work on them when I had an ultimate “Duh” moment. Windborn Muse has two power. Why hello there, Mr. Reveillark.
Windborn Muse fit perfectly into Reveillark. The deck was already built around a base of utility creatures. It had the tools to play an aggressive game but also to sit back and protect a Windborn Muse with Cryptic Command and Glen Elendra Archmage . I tried a few iterations and took some ideas from Regionals lists once that rolled around. Early on, I had Meddling Mage in my maindeck and no Kitchen Finks, but I found that Red decks were an issue and wanted to fit Finks main. I wanted to use mages to protect my Muses from removal against B/W, but I found them often dying to Murderous Redcap without having much impact many games, so I decided to stick with Glen Elendra for Muse protection and leave out Pikula.
Then GP: Barcelona happened.
I had no time to test between Barcelona and Seattle, because all of my playtesting time was eaten up by PT: Seattle the following weekend. I got to Seattle Friday evening, and fortunately ran into Gerry Thompson, who was also planning on playing Reveillark, although his build was rather unorthodox and used Bloom Tender and Mistmeadow Witch. We discussed what we expected in the field. Despite the fact that Swans was clearly a one-hit wonder with the hate that would be aimed its way, it was certain to show up in force. Many pros were playing Faeries, along with Patrick Chapin 5CB. I hadn’t played much against any of these decks, since they weren’t really seen as big parts of the metagame around Regionals time when I did most of my testing, but with a general idea of what to expect and some advice from Gerry, I jury rigged the following deck:
Creatures (26)
- 4 Windborn Muse
- 4 Meddling Mage
- 4 Mulldrifter
- 4 Sower of Temptation
- 4 Reveillark
- 4 Kitchen Finks
- 2 Glen Elendra Archmage
Lands (22)
Spells (13)
Sideboard
I knew I wanted Meddling Mage main against Swans and Faeries, and removing the Path to Exiles from my own deck made Mages better in those matchups. I wanted to use them to protect Windborn Muse without stranding Path in my own hand. I think the most questionable card in the maindeck for the event was Sower of Temptation, since it isn’t great against much of the expected field. In my mind, Sower is the sort of card that is so powerful when it is good that it can be worth having a somewhat suboptimal card in some matchups. Even against B/W Tokens, you can use a Sower to steal a Spectral Procession token and keep them off of Windbrisk Heights if you don’t have a Muse, and I’ve won more than a few games against Swans by stealing Swans itself.
As for the sideboard, I’m not so sure. I used all of my sideboard cards throughout the tournament to good effect, but that doesn’t mean they couldn’t have been something better. I consciously played no way to remove a resolved Bitterblossom or Seismic Assault. Against Bitterblossom my plan was to rely on Windborn Muse and pro-Black creatures to let me race, while against Seismic Assault I just hoped never to let it hit play (which is much easier against a three-cost enchantment than a two-cost one, especially so when the three-cost enchantment is played in a deck with lots of comes-into-play-tapped lands).
These were my general sideboarding plans:
Versus B/W Tokens
-4 Sower of Temptation
-4 Kitchen Finks
+3 Stillmoon Cavalier
+2 Wrath of God
+2 Negate
+1 Glen Elendra Archmage
I had Austere Command for this matchup for a long time, but found that the main ways I really lost were either to tapping out and eating an Identity Crisis, or my opponent resolving an Ajani and just pumping his guys and attacking one at a time into my Muses once they were huge. Stillmoon Cavalier gave me a way to attack through their creatures and take out Ajani, as well as just kill them. The games are mostly about protecting Windborn Muse, which is why you go to the full counterspell package.
Versus Swans
-4 Kitchen Finks
-2 Wrath of God
-1 Windborn Muse
+2 Path to Exile
+2 Negate
+2 Jace Beleren
+1 Glen Elendra Archmage
Windborn Muse is actually a lot better than you might expect here, because they can do a lot of damage with manlands, which the Muse makes a lot more difficult. Against the typical Crusher sideboard, you can win lots of games by just taking their Crushers with Sower and there’s very little they can do about it. I typically set Meddling Mage on Seismic Assault every time pre-sideboard, and name Assault on my first and Maelstrom Pulse on my second after boarding, though it depends on what sort of countermagic I have and what the board situation is.
Versus Mirror
-4 Meddling Mage
-2 Wrath of God
-4 Kitchen Finks
+3 Stillmoon Cavalier
+2 Negate
+2 Jace Beleren
+1 Glen Elendra Archmage
+2 Path to Exile
Against other Reveillark decks, the games are all about Sower of Temptation and Reveillark. You’ll generally spend most games jockeying for position with both of these. Stillmoon Cavalier will let you attack in a stalemate, and Windborn Muse makes it harder for your opponent to take advantages of windows to attack you.
Versus Faeries
-4 Mulldrifter
-2 Wrath of God
-4 Sower of Temptation
-2 Mind Stone
+3 Stillmoon Cavalier
+3 Paladin en-Vec
+2 Negate
+2 Path to Exile
+1 Glen Elendra Archmage
I hadn’t tested enough against Faeries going into the Grand Prix, so my sideboard plan there wasn’t great. After thinking it through and discussing it with some people (including Gavin Verhey, who beat me with Faeries in the last round of the GP), I came up with this idea. This plan may not be great either, but it changes the dynamic of the matchup quite a bit. The problem with playing Reveillark against Faeries is that you’re both creature-based control decks, but their deck is built around a two-mana enchantment, while yours is built around a five-mana creature. They have far more counters and utility cards than you do, which means the control game is one you can’t really win.
The idea with this plan is not to play the control game, but rather the aggro-control game, cutting many of your higher cost cards and your card drawing for extra aggression. This plan gives you ten three-mana creatures that Faeries can’t easily deal with (6 pro-Black, 4 Finks), along with extra countermagic to back them up. Windborn Muse is actually much better than you might expect here, keeping them from being able to race you in the air. Since both of you want to keep up some amount of mana for counters later in the game, making them pay to attack is quite painful for their development. The cards you really need to be wary of are Sower of Temptation and Mistbind Clique, since either can really ruin your beatdown day. Like I said, I haven’t tested this plan, but I like it in theory — try it out and let me know how it works for you.
Versus 5CB
-2 Glen Elendra Archmage
-4 Meddling Mage
+3 Paladin En-Vec
+2 Wrath of God
+1 Path to Exile
I haven’t played this matchup, so this is just theoretical. It seems like your deck should be very good against theirs. You’re very resilient to Anathamancer, and Windborn Muse makes their Bloodbraid beatdown much worse. Your Sowers actually get to take meaningful creatures (unlike against other Red decks), and they don’t have an overabundance of removal for them (again, unlike other Red decks). They can never remove a Paladin En-Vec once it hits play except by bouncing it with Cryptic Command, and it blocks their entire deck. If you expect 5CB to be popular, this is a very good deck to play.
Versus Red
-2 Glen Elendra Archmage
-4 Meddling Mage
+3 Paladin En-Vec
+2 Path to Exile
+1 Wrath of God
There are enough different “Red” builds that this is only a loose guide. Against decks with Tattermunge Maniac or Jund Hackblade you want to keep in Meddling Mage because having an early blocker (who can name something like Boggart Ram-Gang to hurt their tempo) can save you a lot of damage. Some Red decks are all cheap haste creatures and Wrath is really weak. Paladin is great against all of them, though, so bring him in!
Versus Doran
-2 Glen Elendra Archmage
-4 Meddling Mage
+2 Path to Exile
+2 Wrath of God
+2 Stillmoon Cavalier
This assumes the Doran deck is like the one that won the GP, with virtually all G/W creatures. I’m not sure about this plan, because Glen Elendra may be good to protect your Sowers from removal — Meddling Mage is significantly worse because they have multiple kind of removal they can use. They only have so much removal between Sower and Windborn Muse, though, and you can buy a lot of time with Stillmoon Cavalier blocking Doran or Knotvine Paladin. Keep in mind that you can Sower Dauntless Escort to force them to sacrifice it before you follow up with a Wrath.
As for my GP experience, I went 4-3 (after two byes), losing in the last round to miss Day 2. I beat two Reveillark decks, a Swans deck, and a combo Elf deck, and lost to a Tattermunge/Hackblade beatdown deck, G/B Elves, and Faeries. The G/B Elves match was not close — I got completely run over by Garruk, which the deck simply cannot deal with, and I would not recommend this list if you expect a lot of G/B Elves in your area. My Faeries and beatdown losses were much closer, and in each match I essentially lost one game to Adarkar Wastes damage. There really is no reason for the deck to have 4 Adarkar Wastes — I’m not sure whether I’d rather play another basic land and a fourth Borderpost or Arcane Sanctums, but either of those combinations is better than dying to painland damage.
As for other changes to the deck, I’d consider cutting Jace from the sideboard and playing two copies of Celestial Purge. With the rise of Faeries, it seems like having a Bitterblossom answer is a good idea, and while Purge isn’t the best answer to Bitterblossom, it is the one with the widest applications elsewhere, giving you another cheap removal spell against 5CB and other Red decks. I haven’t tested enough against Faeries to know what the matchup looks like in general, but I suspect it’s not as bad as some people seem to think it is, especially with the beatdown sideboard plan. But only time will tell.
And time is something I’m out of this week. Check back next time for my article on preparing for PT: Honolulu.
bmk
bmkibler on twitter