{From Right Field is a column for Magic players on a budget or players who don’t want to play netdecks. The decks are designed to let the budget-conscious player be competitive in local, Saturday tournaments. They are not decks that will qualify a player for The Pro Tour. As such, the decks written about in this column are, almost by necessity, rogue decks. They contain, at most, eight to twelve rares. When they do contain rares, those cards will either be cheap rares or staples of which new players should be trying to collect a set of four, such as Wrath of God, City of Brass, or Birds of Paradise. The decks are also tested by the author, who isn’t very good at playing Magic. His playtest partners, however, are excellent. He will never claim that a deck has an 85% winning percentage against the entire field. He will also let you know when the decks are just plain lousy. Readers should never consider these decks “set in stone” or “done.” If you think you can change some cards to make them better, well, you probably can, and the author encourages you to do so.}
Last week, I started to answer the question:
What Will Dr. Romeo Be Playing at Regionals?
First, though, a response to the most common comments about last week’s piece.
Dear Chris,
Why don’t you use (a) Hokori, Dust Drinker / (b) Eight-and-a-Half-Tails / (c) Pithing Needle / (d) Damping Matrix?
A Concerned Reader
A) I tried Hokori in White Weenie decks right after Betrayers was released. It was less than stellar in a true White Weenie deck. A deck with only twenty or twenty-one lands can not support four-mana creatures. Of course, the Dust Drinker is great to pitch to a Shining Shoal, but I don’t want cards in the deck that I will rarely cast simply because I can pitch them to something. This deck hardly ever hits its fourth land on turn four, a must for Hokori to do what you want it to do: shut down Tooth and Nail, G/B Cloud Control, and MUC. A ninth-turn Hokori isn’t scary to those decks. Hokori is for a White non-weenie deck, one that runs twenty-three or twenty-four lands.
B) 8.5T (sounds more like a cool, German sports car that way) is way, way, way too mana intensive for this deck. Unless the spell or ability targeting the permanent you want to protect is already White, his ability costs three mana to use. White Weenie is Sligh-like in its nature. It does not want to perpetually keep mana up to protect things (unless it’s actually holding an Otherworldly Journey). Like Hokori, 8.5T wants to be used in a twenty-four-land deck.
C) I would gladly drop Pithing Needle into my sideboard if I thought I’d have enough of them before Regionals. This is going to be a huge sideboard card. It can hit and stop Vedalken Shackles before the MUC player ever has the chance to counter it. It keeps Kiki-Jiki from making tokens. It keeps Sensei’s Divining Top from doing anything useful. Of course, it can only do one of those things at once.
D) Damping Matrix does them all at the same time. We haven’t started looking at the sideboard yet, though.
And Now, Back to Our Show!
We’re expected to be using Saviors cards in our Regionals decks. Heck, we’re the folks who get to break the format. We are the first part of the world – strike that – the first part of the entire known universe to get to play with Savior of Kamigawa cards in a major tournament. Of course, the best laid plans of mice and men blah blah blah. After my first two rounds of testing (against Tooth and Nail and Mono-Blue Control, a.k.a. MUC), I found the single Saviors card that seemed to fit into White Skies was lacking. The latest version of White Skies looks like this:
White Skies
21 Lands
21 Plains
22 Creatures
4 Suntail Hawk
4 Lantern Kami
4 Leonin Skyhunter
4 Samurai of the Pale Curtain
3 Diving Griffin
3 Skyhunter Skirmisher
17 Other Spells
4 Glorious Anthem
4 Umezawa’s Jitte
4 Ethereal Haze
2 Shining Shoal
3 Otherworldly Journey
I know that this is going to upset some people. “Where are the Saviors cards? I was promised Saviors cards!” Sorry, folks. I see nothing in Saviors for a White Weenie deck. You can make good arguments for some cards. Promise of Bunrei, for example, does make a lot of 1/1 Spirit tokens that are immediately 2/2 or 3/3 tokens if you have one or two Glorious Anthems out. They don’t fly, though. Plus, they don’t appear until another of your creatures dies. Yeah, okay, you’re probably going to lose somebody at some point. For three mana, though, I can have right now a 2/2 flyer that doesn’t tap to attack or a 1/1 double-striking flyer. Now.
I should probably test it just to make sure. Except that I know that every time I cast a Skyhunter Skirmisher or an Araba Mothrider (whose slot is now taken over by the Diving Griffin), I never once thought, “gee, I wish that was an enchantment that just sat there not attacking.” Having said that, time to get stomped some more.
Round Three vs. Red Deck Wins/French Red
I’m sure that I’ll test against Big Red later. Right now, though, I feel that it’s much more likely that I’ll be facing Red decks that want to swing with the Slith Firewalker on turn 1. Why do I feel that way? ‘Cause I face it on a weekly basis in our local tourneys. Red decks that swing with men are always popular at Regionals and States. I don’t expect 2005 to be any different.
This was an even five and five which is mighty fine for the White Skies deck. Before, it had been running behind Red, but I think I’ve learned how to play it. Throw bodies in front of the oncoming traffic if you don’t have the Haze. Typically, they run out of guys before you do, especially if your blockers wear the Jitte. One of the guys they have, though, is Arc-Slogger. Ugh. One thing that I did learn from this is that we almost surely need Auriok Champion in the sideboard.
The RDW victories were fast and furious. Slith Firewalker would come down quickly and have free reign of the board as potential blockers were burned away. If the ground did get stalled, it was usually too late for White Skies to do anything other than prolong the agony as burn was just thrown directly at me.
White Skies, however, was able to keep up with RDW once an Anthem hit, and that was the key. In each of the five victories, a Glorious Anthem hit on the third or fourth turn. This makes me question the five and five result, especially since, as I said above, White Skies has always had a pre-sideboard problem with RDW. However, the data are what the data are. Still, I’m already penciling in Auriok Champion for four slots in the sideboard.
Round Four vs. G/B Death Cloud Control
The Green and Black Control deck that quickly ramps up to a huge Death Cloud is a funny animal. Like many control decks, it often looks like it’s on the verge of defeat until it turns things around in one fell swoop. Interestingly, many writers, including some on this site, feel that G/B Control is “at best” a tier two deck. I don’t know what they’ve been playing against, but it can’t have been the one that I’ve been facing for the past few months.
Against Cloud Control, White Skies only won three games. All three were won because White Skies was able to use Otherworldly Journey to save a creature from a devastating Death Cloud. That creature finished the game. In other(worldly) words, we may end up with all four O.J.s in the maindeck. All ten games were close. Even in victory, Cloud Control was down to four life or less each game. The same was true when Cloud Control lost. It was at four or less before the final swing. However, a Leonin Skyhunter with a +1/+1 counter on it with a Glorious Anthem out is a 4/4, and that’s game.
This match-up shows why Karma is so important against decks running Black. Once Karma hits, if they have no enchantment removal, it can often finish the game by itself.
Interestingly, I played G/B Control against another member of our group a few nights ago. He was testing his own diabolical little deck for Regionals. His rogue creation did very, very well. After looking back at my notes, however, I found that I didn’t cast a single Death Cloud against him all night. Not surprisingly, G/B Control doesn’t do so well if it never casts a Death Cloud. This strategy – hoping your opponent never gets a Death Cloud – is not recommended.
Round Five vs. Big Red
It must have been the extra burn and the Sensei’s Divining Top, but White Skies was only 4-6 against Big Red when it was 5-5 against RDW. Statistically, that may not be very significant. It’s one game. A bad play here, a missed opportunity there, and a win is a loss.
Of course, as I’ve said before, I knew that Red was a problem for this deck. Red has all of the efficient removal, and White Skies’ creatures are pretty small on the back end even with an Anthem out. Again, this calls for Auriok Champion from the sideboard and possibly the fourth Otherworldly Journey.
I wish I had more to say about this matchup, but playing against Big Red is very straightforward. It hammers your creatures and even your lands until it can drop some very scary beef.
Round Six vs. Beacon Green
Plow Under. Beacon of Creation. Meloku. Sword of Fire and Ice. Eternal Witness. I hate this deck. It’s one of the few decks that can beat White Skies on its own ground: the air. (Hmmmm . . . that seems wrong, somehow.) If Beacon Green can get Meloku active, it’s just bad news for White Skies unless White Skies has gotten a horde of flyers out by then. The things to remember are that they can’t block any of the flyers until Meloku hits and that the Sword and Jitte do not trigger until a creature does combat damage to a player. Sometimes, the best play on turn three is not a Glorious Anthem but another creature. Keep up the pressure, and drop the Anthem when it means a win.
Sadly, this was another 50/50 split. I say “sadly” because I wanted this deck to have a kick aspirin record against at least two of the gauntlet decks. What this means is that, going into sideboarding, I’d have to assess the biggest problems and find answers. Right now, the best answer seems to be another rare: Damping Matrix. Of the decks I’ve looked at over the past two weeks, the Matrix would shut down:
Arc-Slogger
Kumano, Master Yamabushi
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
Viridian Zealot
Meloku, the Clouded Mirror
Sensei’s Divining Top
Vedalken Shackles
Umezawa’s Jitte
Mindslaver
Oblivion Stone
Any Bauble
Any Sword
Troll Ascetic
Triskelion
Hearth Kami
That’s a ton. Seems like the Matrix is a sideboard must. However, we don’t want to jump the gun (although it’s getting close to Regionals). With both the Jitte and the Anthem in White Skies, any deck running Green (that is, almost all of them) will be bringing in cards like Wear Away and Naturalize that can kill either. I don’t want to simply drop the Jitte for the Matrix. That would give them the same number of targets (eight) in game two. (For mono-Red which would only run artifact hate, they’d have the same number of targets – four – as well.) I’d like to overwhelm them. Bring in the Matrix and keep the Jitte. That gives me two ways to stop opposing Jittes while still having the chance to use my own for a short while. Meanwhile, if they kill a Matrix, I can use my Jitte. Finally, the Matrix is not legendary. I could have two in play at once, and a single Naturalize would not hurt it.
Then, it struck me.
Why not play the Damping Matrix main deck?
“Because the rare count would be way too high.”
Not if I drop the Shining Shoals.
“Oh. No. You wouldn’t.”
I might. That’s why it’s called “testing.” Maybe the deck should look like this:
White Skies
22 Lands
22 Plains
22 Creatures
4 Suntail Hawk
4 Lantern Kami
4 Leonin Skyhunter
4 Samurai of the Pale Curtain
3 Diving Griffin
3 Skyhunter Skirmisher
16 Other Spells
4 Glorious Anthem
4 Umezawa’s Jitte
4 Ethereal Haze
4 Damping Matrix
Overkill? I hardly think so. Of course, I could be wrong. I often am. That’s what testing is for. My gut feeling, though, is that I want both the Jitte and the Matrix. Let’s say I run only the Matrix. Should my opponent get an early Jitte while I am unable to find a Matrix, it’s lights out for White Weenie (short of a couple of Ethereal Haze). If, however, I get a Jitte after dropping a Matrix, big deal. I can hold the Jitte or cast it as a proactive answer to my opponent both killing my Matrix and dropping their own Jitte.
I know that the Damping Matrix seems reactive, but it really is offensive. It says, “you can’t use those abilities you wanted to use,” no matter when it comes into play. On the other hand, it’s not as offensive as, say, Umezawa’s Jitte. Let’s call it offensively defensive.
Next week, we’ll see how this version does against the gauntlet and decide if the Shining Shoal and Otherworldly Journey need to come back to the main deck.
A Rules Note on Shining Shoal: There was a lot of discussion on the boards about Shining Shoal working when the “source” of damage was no longer in play. Let’s take a look at what the relevant part of Shining Shoal says:
The next X damage that a source of your choice would deal to you or a creature you control this turn is dealt to target creature or player instead.
Let’s take a simple situation. Your opponent, who’s at three, attacks with a lone Ravenous Baloth. There are no other creatures anywhere on the board. You want to reflect that damage back to your opponent. The “source of your choice” is the Baloth. The “target creature or player” is your opponent. Spells only “fizzle” (i.e. get countered because of a lack of a legal target) if all targets of the spell become illegal or no longer exist when the spell resolves.
The Baloth is not a target.
I’m going to write that again. The Baloth is not a target; it is “a source of your choice.” If it’s gone when the spell resolves, that doesn’t matter. What does matter is that your opponent is still a legal target since your opponent is the only target of the Shining Shoal.
So, you both agree that damage is on the stack. At that point, the Baloth’s four damage is locked in. You then cast the Shoal for four, choosing the Baloth as a source and your opponent as the target. If your opponent is at four or less, s/he will probably sacrifice the Baloth to gain life (if s/he can’t gain life any other way). When the spells resolves, that means that Baloth won’t be there. Big deal? The Baloth isn’t the target. Your opponent is. However, the Baloth will still deal combat damage, even though it’s not in play. The game “remembers” that the source was the Baloth. It knows, because damage is on the stack, that the Baloth will be dealing four damage. When Shining Shoal resolves, the only thing that the game will check is whether or not your opponent is still a legal target for Shining Shoal. If s/he is, the Shoal goes off as usual. (In this case, the opponent would still be at three, having first gained four from the Baloth and then having lost four from the Shoal.)
Just remember this when reading a card: the only targets are the players, permanents, cards, abilities, and spells after the word “target” on the card.
As usual, you’ve been a great audience. Please, hold your applause until all of the nominees have been announced.
Chris Romeo
CBRomeo-at-Travelers-dot-com