BDM recently asked what the impact of Pro Tour: Charleston and its structure had on Standard deck development. Charleston itself was a tournament of compromises. I don’t know if any deck was optimal for singles competition, and we will never know as there was never a PTQ season to serve as the soil in which the ideas would germinate and mature. Almost always a Block Constructed season will feed the following Standard season, but with Charleston we didn’t really have the kind of logical transitions that led to Jushi Blue, Critical Mass Update, Affinity, Accelerated Blue, or Tooth and Nail. Instead we went into Champs a hodgepodge of home brews with oddballs like This Girl and Solar Pox, outdated ‘Vore decks, Black or Blue Firemane Angel controls, and inexplicable Glare decks; going into the World Championships Standard was dominated by decks that were very different from what Champs results would have predicted.
This year we don’t have that problem. There was just a singles Block Constructed Pro Tour, and we can already see the directions Standard will move. Timbermare might be the real thing. I am already formulating a Red Deck – not Boros or Gruul – strategy before Ravnica rotates (Mogg Fantastic!)… But of course it is the polychromatic Black or Blue control decks that are the most interesting to talk about and give us the most room for development.
Two colors?
Three?
Four?
Each of the non-Green colors provides cards that you would want to play in this kind of a deck. Chapin is toying with going all five, but I’m going in the other direction. I will avoid three colors if I can, and there is no way I would go into an amateur tournament like Regionals with four colors. That is just asking to get your butt kicked by someone not as good as you. Which color to cut?
Blue? This is the only one that you absolutely can’t cut, even if it is not the heaviest color. Every worthwhile Standard control strategy revolves around Blue.
Black? Cutting Black your losses are not inconsiderable. The main issue is that you have to go Think Twice or Compulsive Research as the primary card drawing spell because if you cut Black, you have no back side on Mystical Teachings. This makes Pull from Eternity (the only reason you would cut Black is because you are riding White) so much worse. Black has a lot of synergy with Red both on lands (really good!) and with hyper-elegant manipulation combinations. Red is possibly the second most important color after Blue for Standard polychromatic control. If you cut Black, you either get to or have to play Lightning Helix depending on your perspective; with Black you have to play Tendrils or you can’t beat Gruul.
Red? I tried to cut Red repeatedly because B/U/W is the smoothest three color combination. Just think of all those decks named "Solar." The problem is that even if you only have one Red card – and my current version only has the one – it is the most important card for beating control.
White? White gives you a lot of nice singletons (see the decks in the bonus section), but besides Pull, you don’t have a lot of hard hitting incentive. U/W is a fundamentally better operating core than B/U but Black is so much more versatile than White due to Clutch of the Undercity and Mystical Teachings. With U/W you get a good core but with B/U you dominate the pseudo-mirror. The odd thing is that the non-White polychromatic control deck that I will discuss today is a good "dynamite" deck, but is soft against Dragonstorm. My old U/W deck beats beatdown, control, and Dredge, and absolutely spanks Dragonstorm… But I don’t think it would have much chance against the B/U/R strategy that I am developing in this one. If you assume the metagame is moving – and it should make at least one big shift before Regionals – I don’t know that it will be safe to err towards White and just pray that you will draw more Pulls than the other guy draws key Suspends.
So long story less long – and you’ve figured this out by now – the colors I chose were Black, Blue, and Red:
Creatures (6)
Lands (23)
Spells (31)
2 Tendrils of Corruption
I actually just copied this number from Heezy’s Top 4 deck. I assume it is right, and in testing so far, it hasn’t been too hard to get them both against beatdown. You can find one with either Clutch or Teachings.
2 Fellwar Stone
I wish I could just play two more Dimir Signets.
4 Dimir Signet
Did I mention I wish I could just play two more Dimir Signets?
4 Clutch of the Undercity
This card is very good. It gets Teachings (or can be fetched by Teachings), Damnation, Tendrils, or most importantly, Detritivore.
4 Remand
I might cut this. However, it’s gas. The only thing that I don’t like is that when I play my pre-Future Sight version online, I always draw like 2-3 so when someone randomly Extirpates me, it is very annoying.
4 Repeal
I used to hate this card but I came around 180 degrees last summer when Pat Sullivan said it is the best card versus beatdown. It has been really effective against donks like Scab-Clan Mauler. This card blows against Dralnu. You end up like bouncing your own Signets 99% of the time.
4 Damnation
I dunno why you would play this. It doesn’t seem good. I just copied everyone else.
4 Dimir Aqueduct
Obv.
3 Watery Grave
Can this be right?
1 Snow-Covered Island
2 Snow-Covered Swamp
1 Snow-Covered Mountain
See "Mouth of Ronom."
1 Extirpate
This card is not great but it has very big shoes. You can sculpt to it. You can work really hard to use it to win the game or eliminate the opponent’s engine. If you play a million that is pretty good against some strategies.
1 Whispers of the Muse
Julian wants to cut this and play one Persecute main so that we have some shot against Dragonstorm, which we don’t main deck.
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
I had one copy in pre-Future Sight and I showed it to Chapin and he made fun of me… Until I showed him Clutch of the Undercity (his Black was just for Teachings) and now we are Blacker than triple Urza’s Saga.
1 Mouth of Ronom
I kind of want to cut this, but whenever I play against Dralnu this makes their game miserable because of all the Suspends.
4 Tolaria West
This card is too awesome. I completely stole Chapin’s 4/2 Urborgs by the way (to be fair, he had no Urborgs before talking to me).
3 Mystical Teachings
This is like the point of the deck. So obviously you play all three.
1 Urza’s Factory
This is, embarrassingly, a win condition.
4 Graven Cairns
This is the stones.
2 Sudden Death
This has been enough to beat Dralnu, largely because no one games with four Teferis. I kind of hate that I have to compromise and sideboard two to make sure I never lose to Dralnu, because Last Gasp is so much better against beatdown and I don’t have room for Last Gasp. The right sideboard for slowing down Gruul is Last Gasp and Volcanic Hammer, but you do what you’ve got to do.
2 Detritivore
This is the winner that they named winner winner chicken dinner after.
4 Aeon Chronicler
Same.
Sideboard:
2 Detritivore
If you have four, they have no lands!
2 Sudden Death
As above.
4 Persecute
So you can cross your fingers and try to beat Dragonstorm.
1 Nightmare Void
This is actually the better card against Dragonstorm because you can set them up for one of these:
3 Extirpate
This is very good against a Bogardan Hellkite that you steal.
2 Tendrils of Corruption
I haven’t actually tested this yet, but I assume that if two Tendrils are enough required(?) to beat Gruul, increasing the chances of drawing two would be a good idea.
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Because you need another land sometimes, and it might as well be Strip Mine and / or Tendrils enabler.
I absolutely love working on this kind of deck. I love elegant decks with a lot of manipulation. I love controlling the game by tapping on my own turn (especially for big guys like Keiga Aeon Chronicler). I love being clever.
This deck is very clever.
I figured out Clutch for Detritivore something like the first day, and had a four copies of Clutch deck right after Kyoto. Hybridizing it with Mystical Teachings came later.
Clutch for Mystical Teachings. Mystical Teachings for Clutch. Mystical Teachings for… Damnation? Clever! I told you.
I started on some basic matchups, Gruul, Dralnu, and Dragonstorm (allegedly the three most popular in Standard). I thought Gruul would be a coin flip, or possibly slightly unfavorable, Dralnu would be a blowout in favor of B/U/R, and that Dragonstorm would be impossible the way the deck is currently laid out, which is why the sideboard is three Extirpate, one Nightmare Void, and four big Persecutes. Clutch for Void is almost good game on turn 3. They really need to have their reactive Blue or they will give up Fundamental Turn and then almost certainly lose to Extirpate before they can go off. Main deck you really need to hit land drops and draw a Tendrils. You have to either live through a combo turn with Tendrils (meaning Tendrils and Urborg, now that I’ve thought about it), Damnation, and still win, or you can Tendrils and Extirpate the first Dragon… But they need to give you like six turns, plus you have to be a little lucky.
Matchup #1 Gruul; B/U/R plays on odds
For playtest purposes, we used Ben Peebles-Mundy’s version of Gruul, which he posted earlier this week.
1. This one was easy. B/U/R won on double digits managing an Elf draw with Remand and Repeal. There was a 3/3. There was a 3/4. There were Blue spells and Damnation and I think both copies of Tendrils of Corruption. 1-0
2. This one was close, and I think that a lot of it came down to Gruul playing. The last turn I had a giant Chronic to tie up the ground, but Ben’s Timbermare (new addition) killed me. On balance, an Elf got tapped. 1-1
3. This one looked close, but I guess that’s how the Control wins are supposed to look. I made the clutch Clutch and broke Timbermare Echo with of the Undercity on an Elf. Then I stuck two Tendrils, weathered a pair of Elephants with two Repeals and a Remand into Damnation, and finished on eighteen. 2-1
4. Two Kird Apes on the play. Then two Stonewoods. Nice. Deck. 2-2.
5. Gruul was stuck on three all game, so Detritivore was actually good for once. Gruul actually had two Riftsweepers, but I had about 1,000 Suspends (though Detritivore did get cut off after only one land). 3-2
6. Serve is finally broken this set on Gruul’s double mulligan on the play into a one-lander. I think Ben’s deck is a little land light (might need just 1 or 2). The Gruul seemed to mulligan a lot. 4-2
7. I sculpt to two Tendrils again. Won on eighteen again. 5-2
8. Gruul got a great curve draw… so I only won on seven. The little Red and Green men actually did about DI because yet again I had both Tendrils (but only for five apiece); in total, all the library manipulation was awesome, and I ended on Aeon Chronicler and Whispers of the Muse with Buyback going as I had burned all three Mystical Teachings getting, you know, Tendrils. 6-2
9. I mulled into Mouth, Cairn, and Fellwar Stone. Julian and I were talking later and I think maybe cut the Mouth for more colored land. It’s pretty janky, though my original sideboard had three more copies for the Dralnu matchup. However see the next matchup… It’s there for Teferi and does a great job, but when you are three colors and can make none of them with three or four mana sources… 6-3
10. Going over my notes I am actually quite happy because I thought I only won 6-4 but apparently it was 7-3 and I got Game 10 on eight life but with a 10-0 hand advantage, cracking with Chronic. Detritivore randomly got three lands again. 7-3
I have to give credit to Patrick Chapin and your 2007 Resident Genius Mark Herberholz who taught me about using extremes in Time Spiral Block control design. The way this deck works is to dominate control, which it does (see next matchup), and to tune to a specific game plan to beat beatdown. In Japan, Wafo-Tapa played all four Urborgs. With Tolaria West, I can cheat to two copies and set up my Tendrils combo very regularly. I am pretty sure beating Gruul requires both Tendrils on average, but you have all these Repeals and Damnations to buy time until you find one. I am not actually in love with the Gruul matchup, but at least I know how to win it (being draw lots of Tendrils).
Matchup #2 Dralnu; B/U/R plays on odds
We started on Dralnu du Jones due to the pedigree of the Professor.
1. I opened on Signet. I’ve played dozens of games from both sides of the conflict (Signet versus Spell Snare in this matchup and countless others) and I still don’t know how to play turn two. I think that if they play Watery Grave tapped, you stick the Signet even if you have Remand. It’s almost like Signet Boy is happy to stick Signet and happy to trade with Spell Snare and that the control is always happy to trade one mana for two (and a mana advantage). Anyway, I stuck the Signet. Turn 3 was Clutch for Detritivore, followed by Vore for two (it’s right to go for a fast Vore advantage rather than getting greedy especially if you don’t know the opposing version). Chronic for three follows, then West for Factory. A blowout.
2. And…
3. These were the same and caused me to toss the matchup. Jones version has no Persecute main. I don’t think it can really win barring manascrew or a weird tempo sequence. Jones version has Rune Snag, which is much more common in my area. The games go really long, but if the Dralnu has no Persecute, it doesn’t matter because Detritivore comes and gets all the Karoos and storage lands and whatever else it can pick up. Both two and three went really long, more than twenty turns, and B/U/R just killed all the Teferis. It doesn’t seem like permission means very much in this matchup because B/U/R has enough elimination to kill everything (and imagine post boards with all four) and even one Detritivore hit will kill the only Urza’s Factory… On balance, B/U/R can use Tolaria West to get its Factory and win.
To be fair, I got new cards and Dralnu didn’t… I’m not actually sure people will still play Dralnu with Future Sight. It seems a bit outclassed.
Anyway, I switched to the version of Dralnu that Frank Karsten uses in his Deck-O-Pedia on Online Tech, which has multiple Persecutes main.
I played three more games; this time it was 2-1 in favor of B/U/R. B/U/R won the first one easily, same style as versus Dralnu du Jones. Game 2, Dralnu topdecked Persecute the turn I got Detritivore, but I won anyway with a suspended Chronicler that ate three cards on a Commander (just killed it and played another). The third game I actually stuck the Detritivore for two, but double mulled that game and died to a Skeletal Vampire after Extirpating all the Teferis (including one in hand).
Matchup #1 Dragonstorm; B/U/R plays on odds
1. I was slow on lands and lost to an unspectacular Storm for four when I tapped out for Detritivore. I thought about it and I don’t know what kind of draws I would need to win this matchup in Game 1. That’s why there are so many sideboard cards that are applicable.
That said, even on MTGO where Dragonstorm is consistently popular, it shouldn’t be more than a one-time-per-tournament matchup I don’t think. I don’t even think it’s that good of a deck, though it has a good matchup against a lot of the decks I like (does that mean it’s good?).
If Regionals were tomorrow, I’d definitely play B/U/R… crossing my fingers and wondering why I hadn’t tested more.
LOVE
MIKE
Bonus 1 – My U/W deck
I posted this a few columns ago, but it wasn’t the best yet. Chapin fixed it and it became one of the best decks pre-Future Sight, I think. I actually like this deck a lot and would be happy tuning it up for Regionals… The only problem is that it can’t play Detritivore, but even at two colors, it loses to Detritivore.
Creatures (4)
Lands (26)
Spells (30)
This kind of control is so different from the B/U/R. Instead of almost no counters, it has lots and lots of counters. I think that is why it is pretty good against Dragonstorm. Rewind is a master there. Prahv is very good in multiple matchups, including Dragonstorm and single-minded control that only has one threat at a time. I think I was sadder that I wasn’t playing Prahv when I went B/U/R than I was that I lost anything else. Actually Grand Arbiter is very good too. This deck can also use Mouth of Ronom effectively. Stupid Detritivore.
Bonus 2 – Patrick’s deck
Patrick posted this in Evan Erwin forum about two weeks ago. He initially described it to me as a fixed version of my U/W deck. It certainly wins head to head. Mystical Teachings for Lightning Helix is very good. Neither deck has Future Sight, obviously.
Creatures (6)
Lands (22)
Spells (32)