After winning the StarCityGames.com $5000 Standard Open in Atlanta, I decided I might as well write something about it. I’m Chris Greene. I’ve played in a few Pro Tours, where I’ve mostly posted spectacularly average finishes but once done fairly well (Kuala Lumpur, where I finished 13th). That finish plus some consolation PT points from Hollywood and Grand Prix Atlanta means I’m a Level 2 Pro and thus qualified for Nationals, which is kind of why the deck was built in the first place.
Since I didn’t have to play in Regionals, I planned to judge the tournament in Memphis. My friend Braxton Thrash planned to play. Braxton hadn’t actually played Magic since Onslaught block but had decided to get back into the game recently, which I found out when he sent me an email with a decklist he’d been working on featuring Bloodbraid Elf in what was essentially the G/B Elves shell. I was pretty intrigued, and despite the fact that I’m not an exceptional deckbuilder I took some time off from not studying for my upcoming law school exams to help Braxton out (although I’d say we’re about equally responsible for the final product).
After many further emails and a bit of testing, we arrived at a list that still had many fairly standard Elves cards in it but played Noble Hierarch over Llanowar Elves and Boggart Ram-Gang over Imperious Perfect. We wanted to give the deck some reach but didn’t want to do so in a way that would interact poorly with Bloodbraid, so we replaced the usual Profane Commands with Anathemancers. At this point the manabase contained some absurd number of painlands, which led to a couple of unfortunate losses for Braxton at Regional, and our early exit from the tournament after I’d taken and passed my Level 1 judge test. The close proximity of Beale Street more than made up for that, although there a middle-aged and singularly hideous woman drunkenly tried to buy, of all things, my shirt.
We decided that the deck needed some work to make it both less reliant on painlands and better in general. Putrid Leech (which we’d somehow overlooked) made its way into the deck, along with Auntie’s Hovel and Nameless Inversion, courtesy primarily of Sam Black article a few weeks ago. I played the list in a PTQ in Mobile on 6/6, where I finished fourth after losing a very unfortunate semifinal match to Bant. While I didn’t quite get there, I did gain some insights into the deck. The lands were fine, and definitely preferable to the previous incarnation. The maindeck Cloudthreshers we’d been playing were seldom relevant, so we cut those for Kitchen Finks, more to free up sideboard slots than for any other reason (although the Finks are undeniably good). Having two extra slots meant that we could add Tower Above, which seemed sick in the mirror or quasi-mirror as an effective way to deal with opposing Colossi. Although I didn’t get to board them in much, I think that they’re really good, for whatever that’s worth.
I guess the most important observation from the PTQ was the value of Noble Hierarch in the deck. Although the Noble Hierarchs are, in the words of several people, “greedy,” they’re also very good in the deck. They enable some incredibly powerful openings (Hierarch into Ram-Gang is particularly exciting), help in unearthing Anathemancers, and generally mess up the combat phase for opponents. Hierarchs excel against Faeries, where they basically leapfrog Spellstutter Sprite’s ability to counter on the curve following a Bitterblossom. They have an excellent interaction with Chameleon Colossus. I really can’t overemphasize how good Hierarchs have been, and how consistently they’ve been good.
One of the better arguments against Noble Hierarch is that it makes for a pretty weak cascade with Bloodbraid Elf, but that’s like saying that you shouldn’t play Llanowar Elves because they’re useless in the late game. I would be perfectly fine with paying 2RG for a 3/2 with a Noble Hierarch attached, and on the rare occasions when I’ve cascaded into a Hierarch I’ve seldom been particularly disappointed.
After the PTQ, I decided that there was really no better way to prepare for the bar exam than to play in the StarCityGames.com $5000 Standard Open. Since I don’t really know any local Florida players, I drove up to Tuscaloosa on Thursday to get some more testing in, although that never materialized as I spent most of my time trying to prove the virtues of good beer versus bad to my friend Will (who judged at the $5K, taking and passing his own Level 1 test – congrats, Will, and try the freaking Dogfish Head!). On Friday Braxton and I left for Atlanta, where we arrived at the hotel room to find fellow Tuscaloosans Randy (aka “Ranji”), Will, and Jake already asleep (or trying to sleep, anyway) and the thermostat set to 58 degrees. Braxton and I elected to go to my friend Nick’s hotel room to test a bit more and discuss sideboard options rather than slowly become icicles. I sold Nick on Tower Aboves in the sideboard of his similar list, although not on Hierarchs; he preferred the consistency of Savage Lands to the explosiveness of Hierarchs, which is at least arguable. We got back to our hotel at about 2am, reset the thermostat, and went to sleep.
I woke up feeling less than refreshed after sleeping on a glorified armchair, but re-energized myself by listening to (and, unfortunately for others, singing at full volume) “Eye of the Tiger” in the Chick-Fil-A drivethru. We got to the tournament site in time to find two Tower Aboves for Braxton’s sideboard. This was surprisingly hard, as none of my friends/acquaintances had any, StarCityGames.com had unsurprisingly neglected to bring them, and various strangers scoffed when asked if they had them. We finally stumbled across what seemed like the only person in the building who had Tower Aboves, and when I offered to pay him he gave me a pitying look and said “Just take them.” Thanks, that guy. I also had to convince a friend of mine that 4 Pithing Needles was really too many for his sideboard, mostly because it was true but partially out of a selfish need to borrow one for my own sideboard.
After a bit of walking around and trying to guess whether the various people with backpacks were headed to the $5K or the nearby judo conference, I registered this, cleverly named “Big Tymin’ with Big Scissors” (although apparently it’s been dubbed “Jund Elves” by the good folks at StarCityGames.com):
Creatures (29)
- 4 Wren's Run Vanquisher
- 3 Chameleon Colossus
- 4 Boggart Ram-Gang
- 2 Kitchen Finks
- 4 Noble Hierarch
- 4 Putrid Leech
- 4 Bloodbraid Elf
- 4 Anathemancer
Lands (21)
Spells (10)
Sideboard
A few notes about the manabase. First of all, the presence of Noble Hierarch makes Savage Lands singularly unappealing. I already felt that I was cutting it close with only 9 lands that could play a turn 1 Noble Hierarch (and I probably was cutting it way too close, something I’ll have to remedy in the future), so I didn’t really want to decrease my chances of doing so by cutting painlands (which all make Green) for Savage Lands. I probably should have played at least one Savage Lands in place of the Mutavault, which although good is probably a bit too greedy. Reflecting Pools are absent largely because of this lack of Savage Lands.
Eventually, the tournament started. Round 1 I played against Dakota Rogers, playing Doran. On the play, I kept a hand with two Maelstrom Pulses, a Wren’s Run Vanquisher, a Chameleon Colossus, and some lands including a Treetop Village. Several turns later, I’ve drawn and played all of my Maelstrom Pulses. Dakota eventually put me in a position where I have to block his Chameleon Colossus with a Noble Hierarch, but I was able to Nameless Inversion my Anathemancer in his end step and then unearth it for the win.
I sideboarded -1 Kitchen Finks, +1 Tower Above. Tower Above gives me another answer to Doran and Colossus, and Kitchen Finks is probably the least relevant card in the deck.
I did at some point play my singleton Tower Above on a Bloodbraid Elf to kill a Doran, but Dakota replaced it with another and pretty much just bashed me with it, aided by two Wilt-Leaf Lieges.
I felt pretty down when I mulliganed to five in game 3. Starting this kind of tournament off with a loss is demoralizing on so many levels, from knowing that you’re playing a single-elimination tournament for (in this case) eight more rounds to knowing that your tiebreakers are going to be terrible even if you do win out. Fortunately, though, my five card hand was insane (for five cards), and after I Pulsed a Wilt-Leaf Liege my two Hierarchs let me swing through his array of smaller blockers with a Treetop Village. Again, Anathemancer sealed the deal.
2-1
1-0
Round 2 I played George Goanas, who was playing B/W Tokens. I don’t remember much of game 1 except that George played a Spectral Procession on turn 3, which I Pulsed, and I at some point bludgeoned him with an absurdly large Chameleon Colossus.
I sideboarded -3 Nameless Inversion, -2 Kitchen Finks, +3 Infest, +2 Cloudthresher. Kitchen Finks are good if they bring in Wraths (and they probably will), but you’ve still got manlands and haste guys as follow-ups to Wrath and the Finks generally just don’t cut it. Nameless Inversion is atrocious against anything in their deck but the Tidehollow Scullers they probably board out. I gave some pretty serious consideration to bringing in Tower Above, but ultimately elected not to. It’s a blowout if you make their Kitchen Finks block while attacking their Ajani Goldmane, but also a blowout if they Path to Exile your Towered guy. I also thought about bringing in Pithing Needle, as it has a number of good targets (Ajani, Windbrisk Heights, Mutavault), but there’s nothing I really felt comfortable boarding out.
Game 2 featured a large number of Spectral Procession tokens, Cloudgoat Rangers and an Ajani Goldmane on his side of the table, and a comparatively slow draw from me that just got worse when he Pathed my first two creatures. I drew neither Maelstrom Pulses nor Infests and died to large White men.
Game 3, for some reason, I brought in the Pithing Needle. I actually have no idea what I boarded out, although it was almost definitely wrong. I basically played this game to lose. We traded Maelstrom Pulse and Infest for Spectral Processions and I played an Anathemancer. He blocked my Anathemancer with a Kitchen Finks; I played a Chameleon Colossus and passed. His block makes more sense (not that it didn’t initially) when he played a Puppeteer Clique and targeted the Anathemancer, which dealt me 6. I made probably the worst play of the tournament and blocked with my Colossus. It’s been a while since I’ve played against Puppeteer Clique regularly, and I’m so used to the unearth mechanic right now that I assumed (without reading the Clique to confirm this) that my Anathemancer would be, ahem, “exiled” if it would leave play. Obviously I’m completely wrong, and my Anathemancer ended up back in my graveyard. I drew Cloudthresher, attacked with Chameleon Colossus (which was blocked by the 2/1 half of the Kitchen Finks), and passed. He played another Puppeteer Clique, again targeting my Anathemancer. This put me at 3. The only way I could possibly win this game was to play Cloudthresher (which makes both of his Cliques persist and reanimate some irrelevant creatures in my graveyard), block my Anathemancer, and draw either a Maelstrom Pulse or an Infest. So I did exactly those three things. The Pulse off the top of my library hit George’s Puppeteer Cliques, which die for good. I played the Pithing Needle that’s been doing nothing in my hand on the Mutavault that he’s just played (leaving him with no cards in his hand) and attacked with my Colossus and Cloudthresher, leaving him at 5. He drew an Arcane Sanctum and scooped.
2-1
2-0
I was really irritated following this match. Obviously I was kind of thrilled that I drew the timely Pulse, but I still felt like I punted the game with my sloppy play. If I don’t block the Anathemancer, I don’t put myself in a situation where I have to draw a Pulse or Infest, and his second Puppeteer Clique is much less devastating. Even if he doesn’t have the second Puppeteer Clique, his first Clique is going to persist eventually and still be able to reanimate the Anathemancer, which is another guaranteed 6 damage to my head. There’s also no excuse for not just picking up the Clique and reading it, which would have reminded me that my assumption was wrong and terrible. Also, even though it won me the game I shouldn’t have boarded in the Pithing Needle. While there are a bunch of potentially juicy targets in B/W Tokens for the Needle to hit, whatever I boarded out was almost certainly better than the Needle. The Needle shouldn’t have even been as good as it turned out to be, as George could have activated his Mutavault (which was the only card on his side of the board with an activated ability) in response. That would have basically prevented 7 damage to him, and he would have had an extra turn if he’d drawn a blocker since I’d only be able to hit him for 7 the next turn (assuming he blocks my Colossus) and he’d be at 12.
Round 3 I played against Michael Bachman playing Faeries. Game 1 Michael mulliganed on the draw and I played turn 1 Noble Hierarch, 2 Putrid Leech to his Secluded Glen, which is the only card he played until the turn before he died, when he played a mockingly tapped Faerie Conclave. He apparently kept Secluded Glen, Bitterblossom, Spellstutter Sprite, Scion of Oona, Cryptic Command, and Broken Ambitions. I almost definitely keep that hand on the draw, and it’s pretty unfortunate for him that his second land didn’t show up.
I boarded -4 Maelstrom Pulse, -3 Nameless Inversion, +3 Thoughtseize, +2 Cloudthresher, +2 Terror. Maelstrom Pulses are pretty weak against Faeries, even if there is the potential “blow up all your Faerie Rogue tokens” play. Faeries has so many effective ways of making that not happen, though; Scion of Oona makes that play a complete blowout for the other player, and Mistbind Clique counters your Pulse by championing the targeted token. Of course, there’s that whole cute Princess-Bride-type guessing game of whether the Faeries player is boarding his Scions out (knowing that you’re bringing in Cloudthresher) or leaving them in (thinking that you’ll think he’s boarding the Scions out and will play like he’s not playing Scions when he really plans to blow you out by playing a Scion). I don’t get involved in land wars in Asia, and I don’t think Pulses are that spectacular even if the Faeries player boards Scions out, so that eliminates at least that part of the whole stupid inquiry. Nameless Inversion is okay but not especially great against Faeries, whereas Terror at least kills Mistbind Clique and Plumeveil. There are also fewer bad cascades against Faeries with the Pulses and Nameless Inversions gone, as I want to be as aggressive as possible in the matchup.
Game 2 was unfortunately pretty similar to the first, except that my Michael played a few spells off an Underground River and a Mutavault. He Flashfreezed my turn 2 Putrid Leech and Deathmarked my Boggart Ram-Gang, but my Chameleon Colossus was effectively unstoppable against his two lands.
2-0
3-0
Round 4 was another Faeries matchup, this time against Frank Harris (who finished in 15th place — congrats!). In game 1, Frank played two Sunken Ruins and then started discarding Mistbind Cliques, while I played a Leech and a Ram-Gang and just bashed a bunch of times.
I sideboarded as I did in the previous round.
Game 2 Frank mulliganed, and when I Thoughtseized him on turn 1 I saw Mistbind Clique, Bitterblossom, Sunken Ruins, and a Scion of Oona. I took the Bitterblossom and played a Putrid Leech on my next turn. He drew a third land for his Scion, and I played a Ram-Gang and attacked for 7. He put me at 15 with an attack from his Scion and played a fourth land. He tried to Mistbind Clique me in my upkeep, but I had the Terror for his Scion and my attack put him at 6. He didn’t draw an answer and conceded when I attacked.
2-0
4-0
My opponent’s poor draws meant that my match was over in time to get some much-needed food at a nearby Subway, where the employees (“sandwich artists”, right?) apparently thought that the patron at the cash register’s name was “Preferred Customer,” since it was printed on his credit card.
Round 5 I played eventual 12th place finisher (congrats!) Cedric Phillips, with (surprise!) mono-White Kithkin. While we shuffled, fellow SCG 5K Top 8’er Gerry Thompson walked by on his way to the feature match area and correctly mocked my playmat, which features a bunch of PTQ Top 8 pins. Cedric, for his part, obviously seemed very intimidated by the pins. I decided that GerryT was pretty much entitled to mock me, as he beat me at Nationals last year solely by attacking 10 times with a Body Double posing as my Faerie Macabre. I won the die roll and played turn 1 Noble Hierarch, turn 2 Ram-Gang, while he played a turn 1 Windbrisk Heights and a turn 2 Figure of Destiny. I attacked for 4 again and played a Chameleon Colossus, and he pumped his Figure in my end step. When he attacked with his Figure, I was more than willing to trade my Colossus for it and his turn, which I maintain is better than allowing him to play another threat. I attacked with my Ram-Gang again and played a Mutavault. He played a Spectral Procession on his turn and didn’t block my Ram-Gang and Mutavault, which put him at 3. Cedric bashed me with his tokens and played a Cloudgoat Ranger from under his Heights, and a Knight of Meadowgrain. My hand contained two Anathemancers (although his Windbrisk Heights was his only nonbasic land), so I played the Noble Hierarch I drew the next turn and attacked with a now 5/5 Treetop Village, hoping that he’d block with less than 5 toughness. He obviously blocked with his Ranger and its Kithkin tokens. I left him with a Kithkin token, but had no play on my turn. A Glorious Anthem came down on his side of the table, and his Procession tokens took me to 11. He followed this with a Figure of Destiny. I drew a blank and attacked with my Ram-Gang, which got blocked by his Knight of Meadowgrain and Kithkin token. Lifelink put him at 6, and his attack back with all of his Spectral tokens left me at 5. I drew and had nothing that would let me attack past his 5/5 Figure of Destiny, so I passed the turn. After thinking for several seconds about what I could possibly have, Cedric attacked with his newly-9/9 Figure of Destiny and his Spectral Procession tokens, and I conceded.
I sideboarded -4 Anathemancer, -1 Chameleon Colossus, +3 Infest, +2 Terror. Chameleon Colossus is less than spectacular against decks that have both Path to Exile and plentiful nonblack creatures, and Anathemancer is obviously terrible against a mono-colored deck that plays comparatively few nonbasics. Cedric may think that they’re “overrated”, but I assure you that unless the entire field is Kithkin, an Anathemancer is generally good for a couple of Lava Axes per game.
Game 2, I mulliganed three consecutive no-land hands into Noble Hierarch, Maelstrom Pulse, Forest, Twilight Mire. Keep! Cedric kept a fairly slow hand, with no play until his third-turn Anthem. He followed up with a fourth-turn Anthem, and I happily Maelstrom Pulsed them. My anemic Hierarch attacks were derailed by the Cloudgoat Ranger that he played on his next turn. I played a Bloodbraid Elf into a Wren’s Run Vanquisher that I couldn’t play. I’d drawn an Infest, but I wanted to trade with his Cloudgoat Ranger before Infesting. I tried to do this on my next turn when he attacked with his team, but a discarded Rustic Clachan stopped that plan. Under one of his Windbrisk Heights was another Cloudgoat, and under the other was a Spectral Procession. I managed to Terror both of his Cloudgoat Rangers, but my awkward mana situation (with only Twilight Mire as a black source) meant that I got to take a bunch of damage, going down to 1 before I could clear the board with Infest. He played another Spectral and a Knight of Meadowgrain, and I Infested again. He played more guys and I lost.
0-2
4-1
I think that Kithkin’s a fairly good matchup for the deck, and a removal spell at almost any point during game 1 would have meant that I won. Nameless Inversion would have allowed my Treetop Village to trample over his Kithkin tokens (making my Anathemancer lethal), and Maelstrom Pulse would have let me either blow up his Spectral Procession tokens so that he couldn’t activate his Windbrisk Heights or let my Treetop Village trample over his Cloudgoat Ranger (again making my Anathemancer lethal). I’m not sure if I could’ve won game 1 had I played differently; the only real thing I could’ve done was to play both of my Anathemancers and not attack with my Ram-Gang into his Knight of Meadowgrain, which would give me the chance to draw a third, lethal Anathemancer. I’m pretty sure Cedric would’ve just attacked with his Knight of Meadowgrain had I done that, putting himself out of Anathemancer range. I also thought I played game 2 as well as I could given my mulligan to 4, and I definitely couldn’t have kept any of the hands I shipped. I’m also a little less confident about the matchup knowing that Cedric sideboarded Paladin en-Vecs, which are kind of a house against Jund if combined with an Anthem or even a Rustic Clachan counter. Paladins are definitely not unbeatable, but they certainly make the game more difficult.
Now that I’d picked up a loss, the whole single-elimination mindset started to hit me. I was a little tense but not that worried, although the one Cascade Swans player at the top tables also lost and I really didn’t want to play against Swans. My plan against Swans was basically to ignore it (hence the lack of Thought Hemorrhage in my sideboard), as I hoped that the prevalence of Faeries would cause fewer people to play Swans and knock whatever Swans players were there out of contention.
Instead of playing against Swans, though, I played noted StarCityGames.com columnist and Balefire Liege aficionado Todd Anderson in Round 6. I knew Todd was playing B/W Tokens, as we’ve been friends for a number of years and exchanged a few phone calls in preparation for the tournament. Todd’s a pretty good player playing a good deck, so I figured this match would at least be interesting. Game 1 was anything but interesting, though. I won the die roll, led with a Putrid Leech, and blew him out with Maelstrom Pulse on his Spectral Procession tokens (which stopped him from doing anything interesting with the Ajani in his hand), a Wren’s Run Vanquisher into Nameless Inversion on his Tidehollow Sculler, and a reserve Pulse in case of any further token shenanigans. My Anathemancer dealt him the last few damage.
I sideboarded the same as in round 2, although this time I left the Pithing Needle in the sideboard.
I don’t recall much of Game 2 except that Todd had an excellent curve, Pathed my Colossus, and crushed me with very large Spirit tokens, despite my ever-present turn 2 Putrid Leech.
Game 3 was more interesting than either of the previous games. I kept Treetop Village, Auntie’s Hovel, Boggart Ram-Gang, Cloudthresher, Noble Hierarch, Putrid Leech and Chameleon Colossus. I played my Leech on turn 2 after drawing an Anathemancer, and Todd Thoughtseized me on his second turn. He agonized for a while over what card to choose, which is understandable as my hand is exceptional against him. He finally took my Hierarch, saying “Promise not to draw a land?” Although I hadn’t promised (and in fact had promised that I would draw a land), I drew a Bloodbraid Elf and could only attack with my Leech. Todd played a Bitterblossom and passed. I drew a Wren’s Run Vanquisher, which I played after my attack put Todd at 10. Todd made a Faerie Rogue, played a Murderous Redcap, dealing me 2, and passed. I attacked with my Leech and Vanquisher, and he blocked my Leech with his Redcap. This put him at 6, so I played the land I’d just drawn and my Anathemancer, which put Todd at 3. He went to 2 in his upkeep, and then played an Ajani Goldmane. He seemed torn between attacking and gaining two life. I guess he’d forgotten the Cloudthresher in my hand; if I draw a land he’s dead if he doesn’t gain two. He finally decided to put counters on his team and attacked me to 5. Instead of drawing a land to evoke the Cloudthresher that he should’ve known about, I drew another Anathemancer and just killed him with that.
2-1
5-1
I’m still not sure whether Todd made the correct decision in taking my Hierarch with his Thoughtseize, but I’m sure that not gaining two life on his last turn was an error. He’d written down the contents of my hand when he Seized me so he should have remembered about my Thresher, and not gaining two gives me 21 potential cards to draw that just kill him (18 remaining non-Treetop lands and 3 Anathemancer) instead of just 3 (the Anathemancer). I guess it didn’t actually matter, since I drew the 3-outer that killed him regardless, but it very easily could have been game-changing.
I managed to get to my seat for round 7 just in time to avoid a game loss, as the staff had decided to move the locations for pairings postings around. Braxton was not so lucky, as his section of the pairings had moved from just outside the main room to the far corner of the main room. My opponent was yet another Michael playing Faeries, Mike Tompkins. Game 1 I played turn 1 Hierarch and turn 2 Putrid Leech. However, I had no third land to play the Bloodbraid Elves in my hand and didn’t want to play into Broken Ambitions or Spellstutter Sprite, so I just attacked with a Putrid Leech for a few turns rather than playing my two-drops. My mana issues were complicated by the fact that Mike soon Peppersmoked my Hierarch. Fortunately, though, he had no other plays until turn 4, when he bounced my Putrid Leech with Cryptic Command before damage. I just replayed it, and when he tried to champion a Mutavault for his Mistbind Clique in my next upkeep, I had a Nameless Inversion to serve as Stone Rain/Terror. The same thing happened the next turn, and we were on to game 2.
I sideboarded in the usual manner for Faeries. Game 2 started with a Thoughtseize from me, seeing Flashfreeze, Scion of Oona, Mistbind Clique, Loxodon Warhammer, Swamp, and Underground River. I took the Flashfreeze, which let me resolve a Putrid Leech the next turn and a Ram-Gang on turn 3. I had the Terror for Mike’s Scion when he tried to Clique me in my next upkeep, and after he spent a couple of turns cantrip fogging with Cryptic Command I won.
2-0
6-1
So, at 6-1 I figured that I’d need to win one more round before I could draw into the Top 8. My opponent in Round 8 was Richard Marquez, playing a similar Jund Aggro list (but without Hierarchs). I won the die roll and played Hierarch into Vanquisher into Finks, while he played a Ram-Gang that I Inversioned. I played a second Vanquisher, knowing that he’d probably Pulse them. I was fairly comfortable with that, since that would essentially eat his entire turn and allow me to get even more ahead with the Bloodbraid Elf in my hand. He did Pulse my Vanquishers, and after my Bloodbraid Elf cascaded into a Putrid Leech I attacked for six. I played an Anathemancer, which dealt him another 4, and attacked for the win the next turn.
I sideboarded -4 Maelstrom Pulse, +2 Tower Above, +2 Kitchen Finks. Kitchen Finks is one of the more annoying cards to play against for Jund, and Maelstrom Pulse is okay but unspectacular. The mirror really comes down to Chameleon Colossus, and Maelstrom Pulse doesn’t do anything against Colossus. There’s also a good chance that Pulse will hit your own guys too, and I’d rather have Tower Aboves to answer Colossus than worry about creatures that don’t particularly matter with a card that might actively hurt me if I play it.
Game 2, Richard drew two Colossi while I stumbled on land after a mulligan. I drew two Kitchen Finks, which bought me a little bit of time to get up to four mana and play my own Colossus, but I couldn’t block his Colossi effectively and took twelve on the turn after I played mine. A couple of turns later I died.
Game 3 was pretty much the reverse of game 2. I drew two Colossi to Richard’s zero, and he eventually ran out of blockers. I never played the Tower Above in my hand, but it would have been sick had he actually drawn a Colossus.
2-1
7-1
I was pretty excited to win what I thought would be the match that would allow me to draw into the Top 8, and I was already looking forward to resting on my laurels over a richly-deserved dinner during round 9. I had good tiebreakers going into round 8, and from what I could tell most of my previous opponents had won (with the exception of one of my earlier Faeries opponents, who had just been crushed by Braxton). However, after checking the standings just before Round 9 I saw that there were 11 players at 7-1. I was in 6th place, so right in the middle of the pack. Tiebreaker math is both incredibly boring and not something I’m good at, so I basically just confirmed with GerryT (who was also 7-1) my intuition that we’d all have to play and trusted his judgment.
When my opponent sat down across from me, I breathed a sigh of relief. The only two decks at the top tables that I didn’t feel comfortable playing against were Swans and Elf Combo, and my opponent was playing neither of those decks. Unfortunately, that’s when the head judge announced that the round was being re-paired. Apparently the fact that my new opponent , Ben Neumann, and I were playing for Top 8 was enough to warrant a feature match, despite several other people who are, well, recognizable being in the same position. I guess there’s some kind of limit on how many times per tournament you can put Gerry or Cedric in the feature match area. When Ben arrived at the feature match area, I recognized him as the Swans player who’d been playing at tables near me throughout the entire tournament, which didn’t so much fill me with confidence. I felt even worse when he won the die roll.
Game 1 he played Seismic Assault on turn 3, which I Maelstrom Pulsed, although he killed my Wren’s Run Vanquisher and Noble Hierarch. He then played Kathari Remnant on turn 4 and cascaded into a Seismic Assault, which I also Pulsed. I’d kept my hand mainly on the strength of the two Pulses and the Vanquisher, so I wasn’t exactly happy when he bounced my Treetop Village the next turn with Deny Reality and cascaded into a Swans of Bryn Argoll, effectively putting the Chameleon Colossus in my hand another two turns away and giving him another threat. I eventually played the Colossus and bashed for 8, but he played yet another Seismic Assault the next turn. He tried to go off, but ended up with what were presumably a bunch of unplayable Green spells (as he had no Green source) in his hand instead of killing me. Still, his Swans put me at 8, and 4 the next turn. As I’d dealt him another 8 with my Colossus on the previous turn, he was now at 4 also. I looked at his board, trying to figure out how he wasn’t dead this turn, but swung with my Colossus anyway. The Ghitu Encampment that I’d overlooked obviously blocked my Colossus, and when my awkward postcombat Bloodbraid Elf (which wouldn’t have killed him anyway even if it hit into a Ram-Gang, as he still had the Kathari Remnant to block) cascaded into something that wasn’t either an Anathemancer or a removal spell for his Swans I scooped.
I boarded -3 Colossus, -1 Kitchen Finks, +3 Thoughtseize, +1 Pithing Needle. If he’s on the “board in a bunch of guys” plan, I’ve got Inversion and Pulse to deal with them if necessary. Honestly, at this point I’d pretty much given up on the tournament. I didn’t think I could beat Swans unless I won game 1, and knowing that even if I won game 2 I’d be on the draw in the final game was pretty disheartening. I felt even worse knowing that I’d inexplicably missed seeing the Ghitu Encampment that was basically staring me in the face (not that noticing it would have changed anything), which was both stupid and sloppy on my part.
Game 2 was surprisingly uneventful, as I Pulsed Ben’s one Seismic Assault and bashed him with random guys. I didn’t change my sideboard plan.
Game 3 we both mulliganed 1-land hands. I don’t know what the odds of the 1-land opener are for my deck, but given the astronomical odds against that happening from Cascade Swans I already felt pretty lucky. I kept my six-card hand of Noble Hierarch, Putrid Leech, Anathemancer, and three lands. Unfortunately, those lands were Treetop Village, Auntie’s Hovel, and Mutavault, so I had to play my Hierarch on turn 2 and my Leech on 3. Ben had played his own Putrid Leech on his turn 3, and blocked with it when I bashed the next turn with my Leech. He pumped, I pumped, and after a couple of seconds wondering what was going on in his head I asked if he was ready for damage. He said he was and then didn’t immediately start to do anything, so I told him that his Leech was dead. He looked confused for a moment and told me that mine was too, and then I reminded him about the exalted trigger from the Noble Hierarch. He looked a bit sheepish and binned his Putrid Leech. I wasn’t trying to misrepresent my Noble Hierarch in any way; I’d played Hierarch in both of the previous games and exalted had come up in each of them, so I assumed that he would realize that it was happening. He didn’t, and the two life turned out to matter in a very major way. He further confirmed that he was on the “creatures” plan when he played a Countryside Crusher the next turn. I Leeched him for 5 (exalted!) and played a Vanquisher the hard way to hopefully block his Crusher. Unfortunately, after the Crusher got five counters in his upkeep (revealing a Swans of Bryn Argoll on top of his library) he played Deny Reality on my blocker, cascaded into a Swans, and Countryside Crushed me to 8. As I untapped my lands Ben realized that he’d accidentally forgotten to draw; the Swans he cascaded into was the same one he revealed for his Crusher. I hadn’t noticed it either. It’s a lot easier to notice when your opponent is drawing extra cards than when he’s not drawing cards at all. We both got warnings and the judge instructed him to draw a card. He didn’t seem pleased about this since the card he drew was probably going to be a land (which shouldn’t happen with his Crusher on the table), but he didn’t appeal. I drew an irrelevant card and attacked with my Leech again. Reluctant to let me draw 5 cards, I guess, Ben took 5. I played Anathemancer, which put him to 2. On his turn, he played another Deny Reality, bouncing my Treetop Village and cascading into another Crusher. This let him attack me to 2 with his Swans, since I had only two attackers now and wouldn’t have enough mana next turn to unearth my Anathemancer if I attacked with it. I was thinking about my outs at this point, which were something like 4 Pulse, 3 Inversion, 3 Anathemancer, 4 Ram-Gang, and 4 Bloodbraid Elf. I drew, assuming that my top card will be one of the sideboard cards I hadn’t seen either game, but instead it was a Boggart Ram-Gang which let me lethal him and make Top 8.
2-1
8-1
Ben was none too happy about my ripped Ram-Gang, which is understandable, but his loss can pretty much be traced back to the Leech-on-Leech battle. I obviously got pretty lucky to draw one of my outs (which were still less than 50% of my library), but his error put me in a position where I had basically 8 more outs than I could have otherwise: the Boggart Ram-Gangs and Bloodbraid Elves. If he just blocks and doesn’t pump, he’s at 4 at the end of the game, and my Ram-Gang on the last turn is not good enough. If he doesn’t, he attacks me with his Leech a bunch of times and I’m dead on his turn, before I can draw the Ram-Gang. Either way, I’m not writing this article. I guess it just serves to demonstrate that every play potentially matters.
In the quarterfinals I played against Art Basler with Bant, which triggered some flashbacks to the PTQ the previous Saturday and my semifinal loss to Bant. Happily, I won game 1 on the strength of turn 2 Putrid Leech, turn 3 Boggart Ram-Gang coupled with some mana problems for Art.
I sideboarded -3 Chameleon Colossus, +1 Infest, +2 Terror. As fun as it might be in theory to Infest against Bant, it’s probably too slow most of the time (and especially on the draw) as the sheer number of mana-producing creatures the Bant deck tends to play lets it drop un-Infestable Dauntless Escorts, Rhox War Monks, and Rafiq of the Many before Infest can really cripple it. Infest is better than Colossus, though, as they have Paths and Bant Charms and infinite non-Black creatures.
Game 2 is a somewhat different story, as Art had three mana guys out on turn 2 and eventually Rafiqed me out of the game, while my Maelstrom Pulse was forced to trade for his Dauntless Escort. I probably lost this game when I tried to Nameless Inversion Art’s Dauntless Escort on his turn instead of mine, which let him Negate my Inversion and get me for 3 more damage. If I’d done it on my turn, he probably would have played a not-so-lethal Rafiq of the Many on his turn, which I could have Maelstrom Pulsed. I gained basically nothing from waiting until his turn to play the Inversion. I remember my rationale being that it would disrupt his curve somehow, making him waste mana on his turn and potentially mooting an exalted trigger if he only attacked with one creature, but this doesn’t really hold up in retrospect as he really had no other good threats and only one exalted creature. He’d have to play into my Pulse, and I’d get to keep attacking with my Wren’s Run Vanquisher and probably just kill him with Anathemancers.
Game 3 Art once again stumbled on mana and my aggressive curve and plentiful removal were enough to send me to the semifinals (which is a longer way of saying that I barely remember the specifics of this game).
2-1
9-1
So, on to the semis. After the judging staff inexplicably kicked me out of the feature match area and I wandered around for a bit with my friends (who, I should point out, had been actively mocking me from the sidelines), I came back to find that my opponent was Julian De Los Santos, the B/W Tokens player who had just dispatched GerryT.
I lost the die roll and kept an okay hand, although it had no removal. Julian played a turn 2 Tidehollow Sculler following my Noble Hierarch on turn 1, seeing my hand of two Wren’s Run Vanquishers and a Chameleon Colossus with assorted lands. He took a Vanquisher, which puzzled me. I’m playing a Vanquisher on the next turn anyway and a Colossus on turn 3 (or 4 if he kills my Hierarch), so how does that really help him here? If he takes my Colossus, there’s a strong possibility that I’ll have to wait until turn 4 (or 5) to play my second Vanquisher, so he not only removes a potentially problematic card but slows me down. Anyway, I was fairly happy with this play. I played a Vanquisher on the next turn, and when he attacked with his Sculler it was pretty clear that he had Zealous Persecution. I obviously didn’t block, and took 3 when he played his Persecution, mainly, I guess, to kill my Noble Hierarch. I attacked with my Vanquisher and the Treetop Village that I’d played the previous turn (he had one nonbasic at this point, so Anathemancer seemed poor), and took 2 more from the Sculler. He played another land and passed; not exactly the nut start from the B/W deck. I crushed again with my Vanquisher and played Chameleon Colossus, which I fully expected to be Path to Exiled. Instead, Julian just drew a card and scooped. He apparently kept a hand full of Persecutions and a Sculler. That seems like a mulligan to me, but I guess not to him.
I board as I did earlier, -3 Inversion, -2 Finks, +2 Cloudthresher, +3 Infest.
Game 2 is somehow even less eventful than game 1. Julian played a Windbrisk Heights and a Reflecting Pool, while I played Noble Hierarch and Boggart Ram-Gang. He missed his third land drop and I played a Bloodbraid Elf, which cascaded into a Maelstrom Pulse that would’ve been insane had he actually made his land drop and played the Spectral Procession in his hand, but instead got sent to the bottom. My attack put him at 10, and he ripped a land to play his Spectral. I played another Bloodbraid Elf, which hit a Vanquisher that I now couldn’t play (since I had no more Elves in my hand), and bashed with my non-Hierarch team. He thought for a while and decided not to block, going to 1. He drew another land on his turn, attacked with his tokens, and played a Wrath of God from under his Windbrisk Heights. He followed this up with a Tidehollow Sculler, and when I showed him the two Anathemancers in my hand he conceded. I was in the finals!
2-0
10-1
After all of the tension of the previous rounds, the end was anticlimax. I split with Charles Schutt, the ELVES! player. Like its Extended cousin, the Standard Elves combo deck seems pretty difficult to play correctly, and having watched Charles play a number of matches it was pretty clear that he was more than competent with the deck. I didn’t feel like the deck was a particularly good matchup, as I didn’t have enough disruption to effectively fight his engine preboard and postboard would be fairly similar. He could play around Infest in sideboarded games by just playing all his relevant creatures in one turn or by refueling with Ranger of Eos. I was also incredibly tired, and I figured that my odds of winning didn’t justify turning down the $700 I’d potentially lose by not splitting. So there you have it.
I think the deck is an excellent choice for the current metagame, and not just because I won. The better matchups comprise a large percentage of the field (B/W Tokens, 5 Color, and Faeries, for example) and the truly bad matchups are a comparative rarity (Swans, ELVES!, and TurboFog, for more examples). The deck can obviously support better cards against those worse matchups (Thought Hemorrhage springs to mind) if the metagame warrants it. Personally, I enjoy being able to punish opponents for stumbling, and this deck is probably about as good as anything in Standard (including Faeries) at doing that.
Of course, I’m saying all this not entirely sure how the metagame will develop. Faeries is already adapting to the increased presence of Anathemancer and Chameleon Colossus with such things as maindeck Puppeteer Clique (in LSV’s current list) and Snakeform/Persuasion (in GerryT’s Top 8 list from the $5K). Kithkin and B/W are on the rise again, as seen in the GP: São Paulo Top 8, and that could also mean a rise in the popularity of Swans or TurboFog, which generally crush both of those decks. Unfortunately, Swans and TurboFog also have good matchups against Jund Elves, so weigh that as well if you’re deciding whether or not to play the deck.
Speaking of Persuasion, if Persuasion turns out to be a mainstay in Faeries, Maelstrom Pulse becomes a lot more attractive to leave in against Faeries. If I’d played against GerryT and he’d drawn Persuasion in a sideboarded game, I might very easily have been blown out. Persuasion in Faeries is something to be aware of for Chameleon Colossus/Maelstrom Pulse decks, so don’t say you weren’t warned. I think Persuasion is a clever answer to a problematic card, and I wouldn’t at all be surprised if it picked up some popularity as a result.
I think I’ve pretty well covered my general sideboarding strategies for most of the major decks in the environment. None of these strategies are inflexible, but I don’t generally deviate too far from them (although now that I’ve said that, I probably will just to keep ‘em guessing). Unlike in Faeries, for example, there really aren’t that many cards in either the maindeck or the sideboard that substantially increase or decrease in value depending on who’s playing first (what might be called the “Broken Ambitions effect”). For the major players that I missed, here are my general plans and the rationales behind those plans:
G/W Tokens
+2 Terror, +3 Infest, -3 Chameleon Colossus, -2 Anathemancer.
Again, as with Bant G/W Tokens plays a bunch of creatures that are un-Infestable. Wilt-Leaf Liege, Dauntless Escort, and Kitchen Finks all make Infest look a little bit silly. However, Infest is kind of necessary to prevent awkward losses to Overrun. Colossus has very limited utility against a deck with Path to Exiles and zero black creatures, and Anathemancer is less effective as G/W tends to play a pretty fair number of basic lands. This matchup is winnable, but definitely harder than B/W tokens, especially as G/W has Overrun as a trump. Dealing with Wilt-Leaf Liege is crucial, as without the Liege their creatures tend to look a little silly compared to those of Jund Elves (get ‘em, random bears!). Thankfully, though, this deck has dropped off quite a bit in popularity, although it apparently won the Atlanta PTQ the day after the $5K.
G/B Elves
+2 Tower Above, +2 Kitchen Finks, -4 Noble Hierarch
Unlike in the mirror, there’s relatively little overlap between the creatures in Jund Elves and those in G/B Elves (with only Wren’s Run Vanquisher, Putrid Leech, and Chameleon Colossus in common), so Maelstrom Pulse is good enough to leave in against G/B Elves, especially since it can remove an opposing Loxodon Warhammer. However, much like the mirror the games tend to be about Chameleon Colossus, as neither deck has many good ways to remove one on the other side of the board except through blocking. Tower Above excels at eating opposing Colossi and the Kitchen Finks that G/B probably boards in. As good as Noble Hierarch is in general, it’s also the weakest card in the matchup, which is much more about attrition than speed (although Hierarch does a good job of making your Colossi bigger game 1). While Terror is admittedly good against Elves, it’s not good enough to bring in at the expense of a threat. I should also note that versions of Elves that play Terror or Eyeblight’s Ending are slightly better matchups than those that run Nameless Inversion.
TurboFog
+3 Thoughtseize, +1 Pithing Needle, -3 Nameless Inversion, -1 Anathemancer.
Anathemancer loses some of its luster against a deck with 10 basic lands, and Nameless Inversion is utterly irrelevant. Pithing Needle usually names Jace Beleren, but Shelldock Isle is also a potential target. Mainly you should be focused on destroying Howling Mine effects whenever possible, as TurboFog tends to be garbage when it isn’t drawing 3 or 4 cards a turn. Likewise, Thoughtseize should usually hit Howling Mines rather than Fogs. They’ll eventually run out of Fogs if there’s no Howling Mine refueling their hand. While not a good matchup, TurboFog is definitely beatable if you can contain their Howling Mines.
Five-Color (without Bloodbraids)
+2 Terror, +3 Thoughtseize, +2 Kitchen Finks, +2 Cloudthresher, -2 Maelstrom Pulse, -3 Nameless Inversion, -4 Noble Hierarch.
The Pulses are generally junk against Five-Color, but you can pretty much expect them to bring in Runed Halo for Anathemancer, so leaving two in gives you a shot at Pulse plus Anathemancer in the same turn while also not clogging your hand with useless removal. I bring in Terrors primarily because I expect 5-Color to sideboard Plumeveils, and Terror’s the best answer to Plumeveil. I leave Colossus in since it’s at least a decent follow-up to Wrath effects and gets past Plumeveil. I’m also not comfortable with cutting more than 3 tribal components, as I still want to resolve timely Vanquishers and make my lands come into play untapped as much as possible. Hierarchs, on the other hand, are not particularly good in this matchup. Cloudthresher is a pretty reasonable response to a Cruel Ultimatum, as it more than negates the life gain. Five-Color is a pretty good matchup, and it’s one that I generally wish I could play against all day.
Five-Color Bloodbraid
+2 Thoughtseize, +2 Kitchen Finks, -4 Maelstrom Pulse
Thoughtseize is less useful versus Five-Color Bloodbraid than it is against its predecessor, but it’s still okay at doing what it does: stripping Cryptic Commands and other potentially problematic cards. Much like in the mirror, 5CB plays basically the same set of creatures so Maelstrom Pulse is not particularly effective. Kitchen Finks are annoying and efficient as always. Most versions of 5CB have a limited number of answers to Chameleon Colossus (usually 3 or so Path to Exile), and just as in the mirror the Colossi are ridiculous. Your Anathemancers also tend to be better than theirs, as you’re a much more aggressive deck and can generally get more damage through.
Hopefully there’s something in the 8,700 or so words I’ve just written about this deck that you find helpful, either for playing this deck or playing against it. As I said before, I think it’s a good choice for the current metagame. Feel free to let me know what you think in the forums.