The trouble with Fog decks is that they suck. The strategy is inherently flawed: You wait out their gameplan and then kind of incidentally kill them. The problem is that, in order to fuel your Fogs, you need to play Howling Mine effects which makes sure that your opponent has enough gas to finish you off if you ever stumble. So why am I here to tell you to play a TurboFog deck? Because this one is a little different than a traditional Fog deck, but then I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start from the beginning.
Here’s the deck that Joel Calafell played to a 6-0 record at Worlds in Rome.
4 Glacial Fortress
10 Island
4 Kabira Crossroads
6 Plains
4 Angelsong
2 Archive Trap
3 Day of Judgment
4 Flashfreeze
4 Font of Mythos
4 Howling Mine
4 Jace Beleren
4 Safe Passage
4 Time Warp
2 Sunspring Expedition
1 Path to Exile
Sideboard:
4 Baneslayer Angel
3 Negate
2 Pithing Needle
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Sunspring Expedition
1 Tezzeret the Seeker
2 Wall of Denial
The deck was a couple of sets previous, but was the first of this next generation of TurboFog archetypes. The idea is actually quite brilliant; if you can blank however many of their cards with Fogs and use counter-magic to Time Walk them, or just using Time Warp, and making it so it is like you are the only one drawing cards from the Howling Mines. You then use that exponential “card advantage” to chain Walk-esque effects.
The discovery at the PTQ at that same Worlds by Gerry Thompson that Spreading Seas is one of the best anti-Jund cards was quickly added to the deck. They always essentially cycle and are often the equivalent of buying even more time than Flashfreeze would. Silence was also adopted for its Time Walk-like ability.
Wall of Omens is quite obviously the best card in Rise of the Eldrazi, and this is one of, if not the, best home for it.
Brad “FFfreak” Nelson wrote about the deck, giving the following list:
4 Font of Mythos
4 Howling Mine
4 Jace Beleren
4 Angelsong
3 Silence
3 Safe Passage
2 Archive Trap
2 Negate
2 Day of Judgment
4 Time Warp
4 Sejiri Refuge
4 Glacial Fortress
7 Plains
9 Island
Sideboard
3 Into the Roil
3 Flashfreeze
3 Wall of Denial
3 Rest of the Weary
2 Negate
1 Day of Judgment
The Spreading Seas just became the Wall of Omens and the Expeditions became Rest of the Weary. I took a lot of inspiration from these decklists and noticed the direction the deck was moving; it was becoming less of a “life gain” deck and more of a “Time Walk” deck. What I mean by that is that it was cutting the Fog-like effects and the straight life gain for more pseudo-walks. I liked that direction a lot as it was feeling less and less like a classic TurboFog deck and more and more like a combo deck. I like Combo decks. Not so much with Fog decks.
Safe Passage is a bad card. It doesn’t protect Jace and it costs a lot of mana. Dedicated life-gain cards only Fog an early attack, as after a certain point their board gets up to more damage than the life-gain can mitigate. So if Safe Passage and Life-gain spells suck, what do we add in their place? Answer: more Time Walks!
I thought the deck could use a little more push in the direction of Combo, and came up with the following list without having played any games:
4 Font of Mythos
4 Howling Mine
4 Jace Beleren
4 Time Warp
4 Angelsong
4 Silence
4 Spell Pierce
2 Archive Trap
1 Path to Exile
4 Wall of Omens
1 Mnemonic Wall
4 Kabira Crossroads
4 Glacial Fortress
9 Island
7 Plains
The prospective list tried to streamline the aggression of the deck. Yes, you read that correctly: I wanted an aggressive Fog deck. Just because the deck is technically a stalling deck and takes a while to actually kill its opponent doesn’t mean it doesn’t need to have velocity.
You see, by building it more like a combo deck you give it a fundamental turn. There is no way of gauging what a Fog deck does. Aggro decks have a clock, Control decks stabilize and transfer initiative, and combo decks have a fundamental turn. Fog doesn’t stabilize: Stabilization means you are in control of the game and are taking over with superior card advantage. That is not what Fog decks do. They just try and chain Fogs until their opponent kind of rolls over. There is not a specific turn where it turns the tables and starts pushing on the aggressive side; all it does is Fog.
So by uniforming the strategy you are employing and making a conscious effort to build and play it as a combo deck, you are giving it some direction, which it never really had before. Rather than treading water until they incidentally die, you can actually divide the games into segments: Early, you get your draw engine online. Mid-game, you are stalling while you draw some cards. Then you go off, and they never get another real turn.
The win condition was still loose. It seemed like every game the Archive Traps were either irrelevant as Jace was killing them anyway, or I would deck before the Traps could kill them due to either discard or counterspells, or the first Jace would die and there wouldn’t be enough time to get the other one ultimate before running out of cards in the library.
I had thought about using an Emrakul, the Aeons Torn as the win condition, but it didn’t seem viable to get to 15 mana and it wasn’t always lethal, and so on. I tried it out a bit, taking the two Archive Trap slots and making them into an Emrakul and an Everflowing Chalice. Chalice can be cast for 3 into a Warp while you are going off to make the Emrakul more realistic. I gave up on the idea extremely quickly, which turned out to be a mistake. After a little talk about the deck with Ben Hayes who wanted to try it out, I reconsidered the Emrakul kill when he brought it up as a possibility. If we both came up with it individually, maybe it was worth trying more extensively.
Turns out, it is awesome. The problem was that I was trying too hard to cast him when I should have just been shuffling my graveyard back.
I made a few more changes. One, the Chalice needed to go. Two, the mana needed one more Blue source, but I was never going to activate a Colonnade and Sejiri Refuge didn’t do enough. Fieldmist Borderpost was the obvious solution, allowing the deck to get to 8 or 10 mana, which are some of the mana thresholds in the deck, which I will explain momentarily. My third change was the addition of an Into the Roil, which was insane. The last change I made before entering the tournament was that the first Negate was better than the fourth Spell Pierce. When you draw your whole deck every game, having a hard counter for that last burn spell on their upkeep is important. Here is what I registered for a maindeck (I want to hold off until sideboards until after):
4 Font of Mythos
4 Howling Mine
4 Jace Beleren
4 Time Warp
4 Angelsong
4 Silence
3 Spell Pierce
1 Negate
1 Into the Roil
1 Path to Exile
1 Fieldmist Borderpost
4 Wall of Omens
1 Mnemonic Wall
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Kabira Crossroads
4 Glacial Fortress
9 Island
6 Plains
A short report:
Round 1, I lost to a very bad Jund build that was piloted poorly (not that I’m bitter or anything). I would have won game 1 with an Archive Trap in my deck, but I suffered from my deckbuilding error. I won game 2 before mulliganing to 5 in game 3 and getting hit with Leech, Pulse, Blightning and not having Spell Pierce or Flashfreeze.
Round 2, I won the TurboFog mirror in a one-game match, winning that one game in turns. We both had rare Eldrazi, so neither of us could mill each other. I built up a game state where I was drawing my deck exactly every 3 turns, which means that for every 3 turns I was taking, I was casting 4 Time Warps. I was netting a turn every rotation, and I got to the point where I had to calculate how many rotations I would have to do to draw my deck exactly every 4 turns by Into the Roiling a Font of Mythos so that I could keep the rotation going. Then, I had to hope to draw my Emrakul on the first turn of the rotation to have enough attack steps to kill him without decking. Every time I didn’t draw it on the first turn of the four turn rotation, I had to complete the rotation to stay even on turns and not deck. I went about 9 rotations without hitting my 25 percent chance of drawing Emrakul the first turn of the rotation. Finally, I did, and cast it, taking another one of my 6 or so stocked turns (plus the one he gives you), and attacking for 6. I have Spell Pierces and the Negate to keep him from Fogging it. I Into the Roiled another Font to make sure I didn’t deck and killed him on turn 4 of turns.
Technically, I could have just upped Jace every turn while taking infinite turns and decked him that way, but he had already shuffled back once so he had about 37 cards in his deck and I had to make a quick judgment call about which was faster; upping Jace 38 times while Warping and shuffling back, or hoping to hit my 25 percent chance and attacking for 15 a few times. Even though I missed a bunch, I did hit in time to kill him. The moral of this match is to know your deck’s capabilities and to be aware that the clock is part of the game. I had never played the deck before, so I was fortunate that I was able to figure out the exact loop scenario, do the math to draw my deck exactly every rotation (in both the 3-turn rotation and the 4-turn rotation) so I didn’t leave Emrakul in my deck and mill myself, and to figure out how to win the game before we drew. There was a lot to consider and a lot of math to do, and if I had taken even a minute longer to do it all, I would’ve started this tournament 0-1-1.
Round 3, I beat RDW. I got crushed game 1, as expected. Games 2 and 3, I stalled with removal and walls and fogs until drawing into multiple Firewalkers. Lessons from this round; the sideboard plan works against Red, and the match-up is favorable despite essentially conceding game 1.
Round 4, I beat a R/G Homebrew that used Eldrazi Spawn creators to fuel Coat of Arms and Eldrazi Monument based kills. I messed up one game thinking he was a Warp World deck and didn’t Silence him on his upkeep because he couldn’t cast what I thought was his namesake spell yet, but then he just cast Coat of Arms and killed me. Oops. The other two games were straightforward as he didn’t have much to stop what I was doing. We were going to draw because he was playing painfully slowly. He was going to die in the draw step of what would have been turn 6, so I tried explaining how a draw is the same as a loss and asked for the concession as he had no outs and was dead in 2 phases. In his refusal to concede, he offered to roll a die for the match win, which then resulted in his disqualification as a judge was sitting right there. Lessons from this round; if they are playing slowly against this deck, you need to be kind of a d*ck about speeding them up and calling a judge for slow play if necessary. Also, DON’T ASK TO RANDOMLY DECIDE THE WINNER OF A SANCTIONED MATCH!
Round 5, I beat Time Sieve. It was very easy.
Round 6, I beat a Bant Midrange deck. I dropped game 2 due to thinking it was a Polymorph deck and sideboarding incorrectly.
Round 7, I lost to Jund. Game 1 I went 38 cards deep without hitting a Time Warp that would have won the game. Game 2, I went off. Game 3, I messed up twice and lost to a 4-card hand.
This deck was close to what I wanted. The Path to Exile’s justification was that you can use it on your own Wall of Omens if you need to ramp, and sometimes it acts as an additional Fog when you have 2 Walls and they have 3 guys. The truth is that it is very bad and shouldn’t have been in the deck. The Borderpost was very good, and there should probably be another one. I think there is room for 1 Archive Trap, which I kind of like. It allows you to kill them without going infinite. It is pretty hard to get a loop going once Jund Blightnings you or Pulses a Mine, and it’s hard to kill them without going infinite with just Jace. Especially if they Bolt it a couple of times while you’re going off. Archive Trap also makes it easier to win in a timely fashion, which can be a concern in a tournament setting.
With decks like these, you really need your whole deck to be perfect. With a deck like Jund, you can be a few cards off and your percentages won’t drop off that much, but with this one, since you are drawing most of your deck every game, each slot needs to be spot on. The list I would play now:
Creatures (6)
Planeswalkers (4)
Lands (22)
Spells (28)
Spell Pierce is insane, in case you didn’t know. Protecting a Howling Mine from a Pulse, countering a Blightning, eating a Planeswalker or Open the Vaults, countering countermagic, stopping Polymorph, and the list goes on. Then you use Fog/Blockers in conjunction with Silence/Countermagic to be additional Time Warps to take multiple turns while drawing multiple cards. Mnemonic Wall gets either an Angelsong or Silence back depending on which you already have to be an 8 mana Time Walk, or just gets Warp and is a 10 mana Time Walk. It can be Into the Roiled to be a 12 mana Time Walk. It just adds some more options and another threat while you’re going off. It can also just get back Archive Trap to kill them if you cast one already and need another (for whatever reason), or, more likely, it got Blightninged away early in the game.
The Into the Roil was an ingenious last-minute inspiration. Bouncing a Sprouting Thrinax is equivalent to killing it, it protects a Mine from a Pulse, it counters a Polymorph, it releases a Font of Mythos from an Oblivion Ring, rebuys Mnemonic Wall, bounces a Font you needed to use to go off once you get a chain going so you don’t deck yourself in rotation, and killing random hate cards like Relic of Progenitus and Pithing Needle.
The sideboard I played in Atlanta was:
4 Kor Firewalkers
2 Vedalken Outlander
3 Negate
1 Ravenous Trap
1 Archive Trap
3 Flashfreeze
1 Celestial Purge
The core stays the same, but the Vedalken Outlanders were found to be superfluous and the Archive Trap isn’t needed now that there is one main. Here is what I would play now:
4 Kor Firewalker
3 Negate
1 Ravenous Trap
4 Flashfreeze
2 Unsummon
1 Dispel
Unsummon is a great addition. It is great against Polymorph and Mythic, and has great applications in a lot of other match-ups. It can bounce a Putrid Leech early and for cheap, which means you can still counter the Pulse or Thrinax they play, and bouncing it is usually enough to change the race. You see, it’s like you are gaining 4 life and tapping 2 lands if they recast it, and just killing it outright if they don’t. Plus, if they take the time to recast it and you so choose, you can Flashfreeze it. Yes, you spent 1UU and two cards to kill it, but you were able to split that mana up, and the number of cards you use doesn’t really matter for your deck. After turn 5 or 6, they are never getting another real turn for the rest of the game, so the cheap answer is great. Obviously Celestial Purge would be slightly better, but Unsummon has many more applications. Plus, when you’re going off, Purge is a blank while Unsummon can cycle with a Wall of Omens for 1UW, or rebuy an instant or sorcery for 4UU with Mnemonic Wall.
Even against Red, bouncing a Plated Geopede when they crack a fetchland is a great use of it, and killing half of a Devastating Summons or countering an Unearth is obviously valuable as all you need to do is survive until you have Kor Firewalkers going. It can also protect your Firewalkers against Deathmarks or Doom Blades from the version that still splashes those, though it doesn’t seem like many do anymore.
The Ravenous Trap is for decks with 1 Eldrazi and a clock. What I mean by that is a deck like Polymorph or a control deck with planeswalkers and an Eldrazi. Normally you can kill them by just setting up a loop and eventually casting 15/15 or upping Jace while taking infinite turns, but the Ravenous Trap makes killing them a much faster proposition when time is of the essence. It may not be worth a slot, or maybe you need to play 2 for Polymorph with 2 Emrakul. Without extensive (and timed!) testing, I couldn’t say with any true authority. I feel better being honest about that then making something up and potentially costing someone, so forgive me for pleading ignorance on this issue.
Sideboarding tips:
Against Jund, I just bring in Flashfreezes and Purge/Unsummon rather than trying to Firewalker them out. Their cards cost so much that the combo route is still effective. I take out a few Jaces, as I don’t like my Howling Mines being Boltable. Then I take out the Into the Roil and another card that is usually a Spell Pierce on the play and a Negate on the draw.
Red, you bring in everything but the Ravenous Trap, taking out the win conditions in Emrakul, Mnemonic Wall, and Archive Trap as you just bash with Firewalkers. Silences get the ax as they have a bunch of instants and their creatures are all super cheap anyway so a Silence isn’t the Time Walk it is against some decks. Three Jace get the cut, and the Font of Mythos all take a seat. You would usually have to tap out to cast them, which isn’t really want you want to be doing when your deck is all removal, countermagic, and Fogs.
Against Blue decks, you take out the Fogs and a couple of Silences for the additional countermagic and the Ravenous Trap if necessary. If you need the last few slots, cutting a couple of Wall of Omens is what comes next. I kind of like having a couple so I can play the Land, Go game against the control decks without dying to a Knight of the White Orchid, not to mention the freaks that bring in Telemin Performance.
I deliberately did the sideboarding plans in paragraph form rather than listing ins and outs, hoping that people would read them rather than copy down a cheat-sheet and not know how they are supposed to be playing post-board.
I strongly suggest this deck. It destroys all of the control decks including Open the Vaults, has a favorable match-up against Red, Naya, and Mythic, and is about even against Jund. Polymorph is slightly unfavorable, but the deck’s worst match-up is the clock. The only way it loses is when decks that are good at stealing games steal games. What I mean by that is when decks like Naya land a turn 3 Manabarbs that you don’t have an answer to, or the Allies deck gets Tuktuk Scrapper active. Or you mulligan to 5 because you don’t have a Howling Mine effect and they start with Leech into Pulse into Blightning. Or you go 38 deep without hitting a Time Warp. Or you punt.
You need to practice with the deck, as not only is it somewhat difficult to play, but you must play fairly quickly when there aren’t difficult decisions to be made. It’s okay to take your time in pivotal spots, but when you are essentially goldfishing while going off, you need to know what you are supposed to be doing. A good way to speed up that process is to know the key points in your mana so you can plan out your turns more easily. For example, 7 mana is when you can Howling Mine and Time Warp or Font of Mythos and Silence/Angelsong. 8 mana is Mnemonic Wall and Silence/Song or Jace and Time Warp, 9 mana is Font and Time Warp, and so on. Goldfishing will help you figure out this latter part of the game, but be sure to get some real games in against real opponents with real decks as well, because you need to learn when cycling that Angelsong on turn 4 will equate 17 damage on turn 13 and when it will equate a free card.
Some quick notes to close out the article:
If you draw Emrakul, you want to discard it either as early as possible or as late as possible. What I mean by this is that it is pointless to shuffle back all the crap you discarded over the past few turns. You want to either shuffle back when there aren’t many cards in your yard, or when it is full of goodies. If you shuffle a chunk of discarded land back, you’re just diluting your deck. What you want to do is discard other cards, holding the Emrakul until you the turn where you cast the last Time Warp you have in hand. That way you are shuffling the most of the Time Walks back into your deck before drawing 5 or 6 cards, upping your threat density and greatly increasing your chances of continuing the chain.
Protecting Howling Mine from Maelstrom Pulse with Spell Pierce is important, and often just drawing a card with Jace and getting them to kill it is worth it, like a Reviving Dose. This requires a little Jedi-work and knowledge of when it is right and when it isn’t, though. If in doubt, protecting Jace is usually the correct call. Casting Font of Mythos and Silencing them on their upkeep is often game-over. Sometimes it is correct to Spell Pierce a boardless Jund player when they can pay anyway just so they don’t cast a creature, giving you another pressure-less turn. That is one of the mistakes that cost me in my loss late.
Remember that you can Spell Pierce or Into the Roil Borderposts to set control decks back while you set up and draw some cards.
You can only start your chain when you are drawing at least 3 cards a turn, but 4 is far more safe. Then you can accumulate more Howling Mines as you go.
If you go to turns, you can abuse that tournament setting with Time Warp. For example, if I had drawn a Time Warp on that last turn against the Coat of Arms deck, I could have cast it targeting him, making it so he would have taken turns 4 and 5 and died in his draw step.
Besides that it is really just the basic stuff like don’t burn a Silence when you think you can Spell Pierce what they are going to do that turn. Don’t Angelsong until you need to so you can prevent the most damage (but don’t wait on Angelsong so long that you get burnt out). Mulligan without a Howling Mine effect. Don’t cycle Angelsong just because you have unused mana if you are going to need to cast it later.
I think the only decks worth playing are UWR Planeswalkers, this, or Mythic, with Polymorph being a reasonable alternative option. I think Jund’s time has passed now that Wall of Omens decks and Mythic are everywhere, and nobody plays Naya or Vampires anymore.
I’m done. That was a rambling article, but I decided to follow the stream of consciousness style of last week’s, as this is the deck that came from all of that brewing. If you have any questions or comments about the deck, please direct them to the forums. If not, I’ll see you next week.