So we had an OBC tournament up at TAG on Saturday, and Friday night as I was assembling my latest version of Quiet Speculation/Roar of the Wurm deck, I had a sudden vision:
Fast white weenie beatdown.
Hmm.
I’d been working with the guys at Diaspora on a version of green/white. It was pretty much an equal split of cards, trying to cram in as many”good stuff” cards from both colors in the format. It was failing miserably. Really, white looked like a pretty lame partner compared to what Ody Block bloo could offer green. But then it occurred to me that a white weenie deck, with a splash of green for beef and tricks might be what the doc ordered – something fast enough to punish slower developing decks, with enough flexibility to handle a wide variety of decks.
So I quick put together this pile to play in the tournament (please note: do not play this version, as a more refined version will appear later in the article):
WW/g v.1
4 Suntail Hawk
4 Benevolent Bodyguard
4 Patrol Hound
4 Phantom Nomad
4 Anurid Brushhopper
3 Pianna
4 Battle Screech
4 Divine Sacrament
1 Valor
3 Glory
3 Genesis
2 Sungrass Prairie
4 Krosan Verge
6 Forest
10 Plains
The sideboard was a horrible mish-mash of random stuff; the major mistake was swapping out the initial four Morningtides with the instant-speed Funeral Pyre. Major, major mistake. Funeral Pyre is horrible; do not try it at home. I initially thought I would use them to do things like instantly remove a problem Wonder from the yard and gang-block the flying green army; instead, I stared in horror as my U/G opponents loaded their graveyard with tons and tons of flashback spells and Wonder, while my lame ‘Pyre sat in my hand and laughed at me. Morningtide would have wrecked them.
Ah well; hindsight is 20/20, after all.
The deck performed reasonably well. I lost to a G/B deck first round to horrific mana screw (due to insufficient shuffling from running late, I think), finally got the deck shuffled up good and beat a G/U/b, then another G/B deck (Braids/Nest), then lost a hard-fought battle against a QS-W deck (a bit different from ours). Due to tiebreakers, I was the only 2-2 to make it into top 4, so I got rematched against QS-W and swept it (he got slow starts both games and I just overwhelmed him). I then met Kid in the finals, wielding my QS-W deck; we battled it out to three games, but he managed to find just enough to kill me the turn before I killed him.
What worked? Glory + quick beats was the main combo that performed as well as I’d hoped. Battle Screech itself was insane – much more powerful than I’d thought. Genesis + Bodyguard recursion was downright broken. And the Brushhopper was amazing simply for his 3/4 for three body. I rarely if ever used his special ability, but I could tell the threat of using it always weighed heavily on my opponent’s mind.
What didn’t work? The mana was a complete mess. Thawing Glaciers doesn’t really work well in a beatdown deck… Duh. The single Valor didn’t come up enough to really matter, and the Sacraments were annoying when your opponent’s Mongrels would pitch a card to attack with a 4/4 white hound. I was about to move the Sacraments to the board when someone suggested that I play with Mongrels myself. Hm. Green beef that can also benefit from the Sacrament – a perfect complement to Brushhopper! So, cleaning up the mana curve to maximize aggression, here’s what I’ll try out at this weekend’s tournament:
WW/g v.2
4 Suntail Hawk
4 Benevolent Bodyguard
2 Tireless Tribe
4 Patrol Hound
4 Wild Mongrel
4 Anurid Brushhopper
2 Pianna
4 Battle Screech
4 Divine Sacrament
3 Glory
2 Genesis
4 Sungrass Prairie
8 Forest
11 Plains
Sideboard:
4 Dogged Hunter
3 Morningtide
3 Roar of the Wurm
1 Genesis
1 Major Teroh
3 Ray of Revelation
The sideboard is still a bit in flux, but I like a lot of it. The Dogged Hunters are positively insane against Quiet Roar if you draw one, so I want four of them to go into the deck. Morningtide is a wrecking ball against people overly concerned about their graveyard – and in OBC, that’s 90% of the decks out there. Major Teroh and another Genesis are there to further strengthen the already decent monoblack matchup. The Roars come in as some fat to fight the more aggressive decks that may show up, and the Rays are my nod to the inevitable Solitary Confinement decks that I expect to show up at any moment. Speaking of which, I’ve considered the possibility of working in a Solitary/Genesis backup plan into the board, but I don’t know if it’s worth it yet. If so I’d probably replace Roars with Solitaries.
So there you have it – in time for Origins if you wanna give it a try!
Bonus Strategy! (and I use”strategy” very loosely here)
As a reward for those who’ve made it this far, I present to you my .02 on a notoriously-bad Judgement card that’s seen some headlines on the net recently….
Yep. Mist of Stagnation.
You see, I think everyone is missing the boat here, but I can’t blame them. On the surface, Mist seems to be a really bad lockdown card – something that tries to be like Stasis or Static Orb but fails miserably. The existence of cards like Grip of Amnesia and other graveyard-attacking cards further muddies the waters, luring you into working harder than you should to try and make it work. Then you have the very name”stagnation,” which suggests that Wizards wants you to play this as a lockdown card.
The problem comes from Mist’s casting cost of five mana, combined with the fact that in the wake of the entire Odyssey block, every deck has tons of ways to load up their graveyard. It’s extremely difficult (if not impossible) to really lock your opponent. This makes Mist of Stagnation a horrible, useless, waste of cardboard.
Right?
Maybe not. Let’s take a look at the card:
Mist of Stagnation
3UU
Enchantment
Permanents don’t untap during their controllers’ untap steps.
At the beginning of each player’s upkeep, that player untaps a permanent for each card in his or her graveyard.
* – When the triggered ability resolves, the player whose turn it is counts the number of cards in his or her graveyard. Then that player chooses that many permanents and untaps them.
* – You may untap an untapped permanent with this ability. If you do, nothing happens to that permanent.
* – You can untap any permanents, not just ones that you control. And you must untap as many permanents as you can. So if the cards in your graveyard outnumber the permanents you control, you must untap some of your opponent’s permanents. You choose which ones to untap.
I think the key towards making a successful Mist deck can be found in that very last paragraph – namely this sentence (that applies to both players since Mist is symmetrical):
“If the cards in your graveyard outnumber the permanents you control, you must untap some of your opponent’s permanents.”
The new Stasis? No, I think Mist of Stagnation could instead be the new Awakening. Can we build a deck that would like to untap during your turn and your opponent’s turn? I think maybe we can. The trick is to make sure your opponent has lots of cards in his graveyard, and that you’ve got something to do with untapped permanents during their turn. I’m thinking of something like this:
Accelerated Stagnation
4x Duress
3x Innocent Blood
4x Chainer’s Edict
4x Counterspell
3x Force Spike
4x Millstone
2x Probe
4x Deep Analysis
3x Ambassador Laquatus
4x Mists of Stagnation
4x Salt Marsh
4x Underground River
4x Darkwater Catacombs
6x Swamp
7x Island
The idea is to help your opponent load up his graveyard (and in this environment, they are already going to do so), and then to benefit from the fact that, with a Mist out, they are going to have to untap your permanents in addition to their own. How nice would it feel to tap out to cast Mist and then get to untap during your opponent’s upkeep with a Counterspell or two in your hand?
For each Mist in play, each player has to target a number of different permanents equal to the number of cards in their graveyard and untap them. With Millstones and Laquatus, they are bound to have a heckuva lot of cards in their yard, so you’ll be able to use all your mana (and Stones) both your turn and their turn. If there’s two Mists out, you can use ’em twice during their turn (stack each Mist effect and tap for mana in between). I’m sure you can see how quickly this situation will”accelerate” and I’d imagine decking would occur just a few turns after a Mist hits the board (especially if Laquatus is out).
In Extended, we might be able to take the old Tradewind Awakening deck, strip out the green and make it monoblue (which should naturally make it better, right?). Capsize could get downright sick.
Is this idea capable of making a Tier 1 deck? Probably not. But I’m willing to bet it could steal some wins and with the right tweaking it might be a competitive rogue deck, and much better than the plethora of sucky Mist decks rolling around.
Bonus Slice Of Life Section!
For those of you with unusual stamina that have actually made it this far, I present you with some great news: July 29th is the scheduled date for my son Aaron to be brought into this world. My daughter Anna Marie ventured into the world via C-section, so Martha gets that option for kid #2. It feels kinda weird to schedule a child’s birthday, but it’s going to be nice to again miss the frantic runaround that labor brings to the childbirth experience.
Due to the chaos that’s sure to come with having two very small children to care for and run after, I imagine my tournament-travelling distance will be cut way back to in-town tourneys for a while. To get in a”last hurrah,” I’m going to venture up to Dream Wizards in Maryland on Sunday to give Team Limited a whirl, so if you’re up there come by my table and introduce yourself. I’ll be teaming up with Star City’s own GP Baglione and the Virginia Juggernaut Skip Potter to try out Team Sealed – and, with any luck, Team Rochester.