GET IT!? Thanks to the new card Cavern of Souls, creature types are going to start mattering a lot more post Avacyn Restored. This one card has my mind trying to comprehend what will happen to the Standard metagame. Before this card was spoiled, I imagined the format was going to remain around the same. Delver decks would continue to be very good while R/G Aggro, Naya Pod, Wolf Run decks, and Esper Control decks would also remain a constant force in the metagame. This one card changes all of that.
Before Cavern of Souls was spoiled, Delver decks could play a Delver and ride it to victory while having Mana Leak, Snapcaster Mage, and Vapor Snag all keeping the board clear and the Delver of Secrets (although more than likely an Insectile Aberration) alive. Alternatively it could hope to slam an Invisible Stalker and a piece of equipment and race most threats. Geist of Saint Traft was yet another option of traditional Delver to race decks.
What do all of these cards have in common? They are all cheap cards that can be easily protected by Mana Leak. What happens when Mana Leak can no longer force a player to wait until they have the appropriate mana to play their spell? Titans hit the fan.
This is What It’s Like When Souls Collide
Although I feel like I just wasted a perfect title for a topic on the soulbond mechanic (which I think is very cool for Limited at the very least), this part will be all about Cavern of Souls. With Cavern of Souls, I feel like the new metagame will be Titan decks versus the rest of the world. Hell, even though Esper Control is a control deck, their end game revolves around Sun Titan and Phantasmal Image. So why are Titan decks going to reign supreme? Because there’s no Mana Leak to keep them in check.
Ok, that’s a lie, the card still exists. It just won’t be as effective as it was before. I think everything I want to be doing when Avacyn Restored comes out involves ramping to Titans or other big expensive creatures. When Cavern of Souls hits the table, everything becomes guaranteed to resolve provided you name the right creature type. But how hard is it really to draw multiple Cavern of Souls? Especially if the first one casts a Primeval Titan.
So if the new metagame is going to be all about creatures, what are the best places to look for deckbuilding? Well, this is where the article takes a startling turn, and I brew a deck. Live in front of a studio audience. Ok, so you caught me, it’s technically not “live,” but I’m going to brew a deck based on how I see the metagame. I don’t have a list in front of me. There’s nothing hidden up my sleeves. This is all happening right now. Let’s go!
Brewing a Special Brew
If the metagame is going to be all about ignoring counters, what are the best creatures that we want to resolve? The Titan cycle immediately springs to mind. Thinking about Titans means I want to be playing ramp. If I can play a turn 4 Titan every game consistently and it always resolves, I feel like I should be easily winning those games. The question remains: what colors do I want to be?
Well, blue gives us Frost Titan and Consecrated Sphinx. It also gives us the new U/G land, Alchemist’s Refuge. Now that three mana that was going to be used to pay for Mana Leak can be used to make our Titans have flash and still be uncounterable. Yeah, that seems just about as insane as it sounds. Just imagine your opponent passing the turn only for you to flash in a Frost Titan or Primeval Titan. Even better, imagine you flashing in a Sun Titan and getting back a Phantasmal Image, allowing you to get even more goodies from your graveyard. Hmm, that actually sounds very awesome to me.
Ok, so if we’re Bant ramp, why are we playing Bant and not R/G or Junk ramp?
Well, R/G ramp is pretty straightforward. The main advantage to R/G ramp is that Inferno Titan is a fast clock and Kessig Wolf Run and Inkmoth Nexus is also a fast, evasive clock. It also gets Huntmaster of the Fells; however, I see Huntmaster falling out of favor in the new metagame because of all the turn 4 Titan decks. Red gives access to spot removal and some sweepers, but Day of Judgment is the best sweeper available. I guess the biggest draw of the R/G ramp decks is the Kessig Wolf Run and Inkmoth Nexus package.
What about Junk ramp? That’s a good question! I like Junk Ramp a lot; you get some pretty sweet cards and Vault of the Archangel. Lingering Souls is already insane, but now imagine you can search up your Vault of the Archangel and Gavony Township reliably. And you have a 6/6 in play. How is combat going for your opponent? Sounds pretty terrible for them if you ask me. Oh, and you get an uncounterable Grave Titan?
Why am I leaning towards Bant ramp then? Because allowing my Titans to have flash and be uncounterable seems like it will trump the Esper decks, the other big archetype I’m expecting to rise.
If you’ve been playing on Magic Online lately, there’s a huge surge of popularity in Esper Control. Some play counterspells and some don’t. I’m willing to bet that after the new set comes in, the counterless version will be the most popular due to the printing of Cavern of Souls. Remember how the old U/B mirror used to be about resolving a Grave Titan and also about resolving a Jace, the Mind Sculptor? Now imagine that your Grave Titan is always resolving in the mirror. How are those counters in your hand? Useless? Exactly.
Now imagine that instead of counters you have spot removal, Phantasmal Image, and Sun Titan. You’re much better at dealing with spells that resolve. And trust me, in this new format of Cavern of Souls things are going to resolve. So how do we combat these decks if we’re just casting a Titan a turn and they’re killing them with Doom Blades and the like? Well, we cast them at the end of their turn of course!
Ok, so now that I’ve decided on being a Bant ramp deck (maybe I’ll call it Bantrampmanji), what do I want? Obviously I want to be going the 2-4-6 route. That is to say, ramping on two mana with a Rampant Growth or Sphere of the Suns into four mana and then from four mana into six mana. This leads to the turn 4 Titan idea. If I want to consistently ramp that means I want Rampant Growth, Sphere of the Suns, and Solemn Simulacrum. Those are clearly four-ofs.
The next question is do I want a Green Sun’s Zenith package with a singular Birds of Paradise for additional consistency while ramping? Well, what other targets could I have for a Zenith? Acidic Slime seems really sweet if Titan decks are popping up. Sure, it might not always stop them, but it can nuke an important land. It also blows up equipment and enchantments, which a lot of decks are using to great success nowadays. Zenith also gets me a Primeval Titan in a pinch, although I’m not sure if the added risk of it getting countered is worth it.
Actually, the whole reason Cavern of Souls is good is because it not only fixes colors but stops all of your creatures from getting countered if you name the right types. I think I just sold myself on not having any Zeniths. However, Acidic Slime seems pretty interesting. I definitely want more than one in the deck, but absolutely not four. I feel like three is a reasonable number to start with seeing as we don’t have a deck yet, just ideas. As of right now we’re at…
4 Rampant Growth
4 Sphere of the Suns
4 Solemn Simulacrum
3 Acidic Slime
We know we want some Titans; the question that remains is which ones and in what quantities. Primeval Titan seems like an obvious include in the deck because he can grab our utility lands and will help ramp us up even more. I would definitely start at three of them.
The next question is do we want Sun Titan or Frost Titan? Frost Titan is an obvious trump if the format is all about Titans, however, I feel like Sun Titan is better against the control decks. Sun Titan gets especially good if we’re using Ghost Quarter and Phantasmal Image.
Speaking of Phantasmal Image, that guy seems pretty good. Copying any of the creatures in the deck gets immediate value, and it can also copy an opponent’s Titan if he got one out first. Don’t forget that it also can legend rule out pesky creatures like the new kid on the block, Griselbrand. Sun Titan and Phantasmal Image it is!
If anything, I like Frost Titan in the sideboard.
Speaking of blue six-drops, how is Consecrated Sphinx? Sometimes decks like this one have trouble drawing the right mix of threats and ramp. The Sphinx will allow us to draw out of these holes. I definitely want at least one in the deck. So what have we added to the list now?
3 Primeval Titan
3 Sun Titan
3 Phantasmal Image
1 Consecrated Sphinx
That puts us at 25 cards. 35 more to go! Realistically, we want at least 26 lands, so we have about nine open slots. I think that this deck wants some removal to stop the oncoming hordes of Titans and other menacing creatures slightly less big than a Titan. This means Day of Judgment seems very well positioned. I think I want access to three, so we’ll throw three in the maindeck.
What about some other interactions with Sun Titan? Well, Oblivion Ring seems to be pretty good at interacting with Sun Titan, so let’s toss in a couple of those. Ok, that leaves us with four slots to play with. Know what card is decent at shutting off Inkmoth Nexus and Lingering Souls? Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite. Let’s have one in the maindeck with access to another in the board.
Now we have three slots left. This is so exciting; we almost have a complete deck! Sans the mana base, which I have to admit I’m pretty poor at making. Anyway, three slots. Given that all of our creatures like to enter the battlefield, why not let them do it again? I think Restoration Angel is a fantastic card with a great body.
Even without the blink ability it would still be very reasonably costed. As a 3/4 flyer with flash it can appear midcombat to surprise block something (like a Delver of Secrets). With the blink ability it can reset any creature in the deck (minus Image and itself), and it’s a great combat trick especially if a Sun Titan gets blinked and brings back a Phantasmal Image.
I think two Restoration Angels is reasonable. I like two because I want to have the 60th card be something awesome. Something awesome like Ratchet Bomb! Alright, so Ratchet Bomb isn’t that awesome, but it’s another target for Sun Titan and can deal with any threat when given enough time. Just set it and forget it. So where are we now?
4 Rampant Growth
4 Sphere of the Suns
4 Solemn Simulacrum
3 Acidic Slime
3 Primeval Titan
3 Sun Titan
3 Phantasmal Image
1 Consecrated Sphinx
3 Day of Judgment
2 Oblivion Ring
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
2 Restoration Angel
1 Ratchet Bomb
That’s 34 cards! Now we can safely add 26 lands to the deck and call it a day. Oh, you mean I actually have to think of a mana base? Ok, let’s see. I don’t have a lot of experience making mana bases. (I mean come on; you’ve seen my Frites list. That has Shimmering Grotto for crying out loud.) But I’ll take a stab at it.
For the lands that don’t tap for colors we want to have Alchemist’s Refuge, Cavern of Souls, and Ghost Quarter. I think we can safely have at least two Ghost Quarter, four Cavern of Souls, and two Alchemist’s Refuge. If you look at the list Cedric Phillips posted recently, that had at least as many colorless sources in it. Granted, he was only playing two colors, but the idea in a ramp deck is the same. Base green with a hint of the other colors. Anyways, that gives us eight lands, meaning we want 18 more lands in the deck.
I think it’s safe to run Razorverge Thicket; we want green early and it taps for white mana later. This is definitely a four of. Fourteen more to go. This is looking a lot harder than I thought. It’s fairly obvious that want green mana early and often. The blue mana we want can either be early or late; Image can be played at any point in the game depending on how the decks match up and Sphinx wants to be played on time. Given that those are the only blue cards in the maindeck, I don’t feel it’s worth it to run that many Hinterland Harbors. I think we are safe running one or two; I’ll opt to run two.
Twelve more lands to go and I already just want to jam in twelve forests and be done with it. But no! You, my dear reader, deserve a real mana base. Seeing that we are running Rampant Growth, we definitely want a few basic Islands and Plains. Let’s say we want two Plains so we can cast Day of Judgment reasonably often. I like running one island because Cavern of Souls taps just fine for Consecrated Sphinx and Phantasmal Image. You also only need one island to make Alchemist’s Refuge active.
Nine more lands? We’re almost done! Now the question is if we want to just run nine forests or if we also want to run some Evolving Wilds so our Sun Titans aren’t always lacking a target. I think the best course of action is to run three Evolving Wilds and six forests. I don’t really have a sound reasoning for running three Evolving Wilds; I just feel like we want to see one reasonably often, but we’re not exactly overjoyed to see one on turn 4 when we need an untapped land.
What does this bring our list to?
Creatures (20)
- 4 Solemn Simulacrum
- 3 Acidic Slime
- 3 Primeval Titan
- 3 Sun Titan
- 1 Consecrated Sphinx
- 1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
- 3 Phantasmal Image
- 2 Restoration Angel
Lands (26)
Spells (14)
As far as a board goes, access to blue mana influences what we can board. I definitely like the card Negate because it stops Day of Judgment and all sorts of other troublesome things from control decks. Frost Titan also seems insane for the Titan mirrors which are bound to pop up. Batterskull seems decent as well because all of our lands can tap to cast it and it’s very good versus aggressive decks.
Celestial Purge and Timely Reinforcements are also good against aggressive decks, although Purge is slightly narrower. I was about to suggest Divine Offering, but then I remembered that we have access to green mana and Naturalize doesn’t seem that bad. It hits both equipment from U/W Delver and Intangible Virtue from Esper Delver. If you really want to beat up aggro decks, you could also pack Gideon Jura in the board.
Another good planeswalker is Garruk, Primal Hunter, specifically against control decks. Karn Liberated is also pretty insane against control and ramp decks alike. Beast Within is another fine option in the ramp mirror and against control. Worst-case scenario you blow up a Titan and they get a 3/3 instead. Seems fine to me!
Well there you have it. I literally just built that from scratch. The only idea I had when I was writing this article was that I knew ramp was going to be pretty insane, since just jamming a Titan on turn 4 that’s guaranteed to resolve sounds pretty good. I hope you enjoyed seeing me make a deck from nothing, even if it meant I sounded crazy talking to myself. Until next time, may your Titans always read: “Flash, cannot be countered.”
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