Gerry Thompson did it again.
Gerry built the Naya aggro deck that stormed U.S. National Qualifiers. Recognizing that Vengevine is completely insane against Jund and U/W control decks, Gerry built an aggressive deck designed such that Bloodbraid Elf cascades nearly always triggered Vengevine. Then he added the combination of Cunning Sparkmage and Basilisk Collar to fight other creature-based strategies. After sending the list to a bunch of people who qualified for Nationals with it, Gerry came in tenth at GP: DC with a slightly updated version of the deck. Steven Birklid had played Naya at National Qualifiers as well as a Seattle PTQ, and was urging me to help him tune it for a PTQ across the border in Vancouver.
Naya was pretty sweet against Jund and Mythic, but Steven and I weren’t super happy with the matchup against U/W Day of Judgment decks. Vengevine is obviously awesome against the U/W decks, but once they hit your angry plant with Path to Exile or Oblivion Ring, it became pretty hard to beat all of their sweepers and planeswalkers. Steven tried to shore up the matchup by splashing Duress in the Seattle PTQ on May 22nd, but we weren’t super happy with Duress in the midgame. The U/W matchup is mostly about getting threats to stick and not losing to Baneslayer Angel. Because you also have to bring in removal for Angel, having Duress plus a few removal spells in lieu of gigantic animals means you risk just not having any pressure and giving them room to set up a devastating Mind Spring. Gerry liked Ajani Vengeant, but I was having trouble going ultimate in the face of Elspeth, Gideon, and Colonnade, and without his ultimate, Ajani was essentially Demolish.
Steven and I got to talking about potential cards for the U/W matchup. I mentioned Thornling, which had been awesome for me, Gavin Verhey, and Sam Black in PT: Honolulu, and he was immediately sold. We got to talking about how awesome Thornling was against Elspeth tokens and Day of Judgment and began cackling over how their Paths on our Vengevines would send us straight to Thornling mana. I mentioned that you’d probably have to have another land because Thornling effectively costs six (because playing Thornling on five and getting Wrathed is pretty embarrassing) and Steven interrupted me, saying that you’d never want to play Thornling without a Green up to make him indestructible.
Pause.
“Yeah… that was my point.”
“No, no, I mean, Thornling’s actual converted mana cost is six… right?”
“… Thornling costs five.”
Until that moment, I had never heard anyone actually say “Wowowowowowowow” before. I had assumed it was limited to mIRC and ggslive chat rooms. You learn new things every day!
In addition to being awesome against control decks, Thornling is also a huge beating against Jund and in the Naya mirror. Steven and I were pretty excited to Rhino people.
The other major change to the sideboard came fairly late. Steven and I had gone up to Vancouver, BC with Dan Hanson, and we were going back and forth on Linvala, Keeper of Silence. Using Linvala to shut off Cunning Sparkmage and Knight of the Reliquary in the mirror is pretty devastating, and Linvala is also pretty good against all of the mana creatures in Mythic. We were pretty happy with using Linvala to gain Sparkmage advantage in the mirror, but we were basically only ever losing to Mythic when they got Baneslayer Angel or Sovereigns of Lost Alara going. The best way to trump their creatures going long is with Cunning Sparkmage/Basilisk Collar, and their best answer to Sparkmage was Linvala. We could run Linvala to answer Mythic’s Linvalas, but we also wanted some extra ammo against the top of their curve.
Dan looked up. “What about Chandra Nalaar?”
Hmm. Chandra was an answer to Linvala against both the mirror and Mythic, but also happened to be awesome against Baneslayer, Sovereigns, and Sparkmage. Sweet.
This is what we ended up with:
Creatures (26)
- 4 Noble Hierarch
- 4 Knight of the Reliquary
- 4 Bloodbraid Elf
- 4 Lotus Cobra
- 4 Cunning Sparkmage
- 2 Stoneforge Mystic
- 4 Vengevine
Planeswalkers (6)
Lands (26)
Spells (2)
Sideboard
Steven and I both went 6-2 at the Vancouver PTQ. I lost to Open the Vaults, which is a pretty atrocious matchup, and Mythic, which is a good matchup when you don’t mulligan to five and get blown out by Knight into Elspeth. Steven got outdrawn pretty badly in the mirror and lost to Jeff Cunningham playing Jund. Both of us would have cheerfully run it back with the same 75.
The departures from Gerry’s maindeck are pretty minor. We have an extra fetchland to power up Lotus Cobra, and we have more planeswalkers instead of a spare Birds and a random Oblivion Ring.
The maindeck is pretty basic. The only tricky things the deck really does is combine Cunning Sparkmage with Basilisk Collar, use Knight of the Reliquary to get Sejiri Steppe, and virtually always trigger Vengevine when it casts Bloodbraid Elf. Other than that, you mostly just play spells and attack your opponent with them. I will note that the sideboard is configured such that even after sideboarding you are still well equipped to trigger Vengevine in matchups where Vengevine stays in.
Matchups:
Jund: The Jund matchup is pretty good. Their best plans tend to involve around getting an early Leech or Thrinax to get a lot of damage in while sending removal at all of your creatures before closing with a Dragon. This means that they tend to want to go after Hierarchs and Cobras, but if they do that, they don’t have any removal for your Knights in the midgame, and once you get up to four and five mana you are casting better spells than they are. With Vengevine and planeswalkers, you are very well equipped to fight a war of attrition. Behemoth Sledge is also completely nuts against Jund. Sparkmage/Collar is sweet if they are running Plated Geopede, but you still generally have to keep it in to keep Sarkhan the Mad and Broodmate Dragon under control.
Sideboarding: -3 Elspeth, Knight-Errant, -1 Cunning Sparkmage, +3 Thornling, +1 Behemoth Sledge
If they leave in Geopede, tag Sparkmage back in for the third Thornling. Usually, they will board out creatures and try to overwhelm you with removal. That plan is not terribly effective against Bloodbraid Elf and Vengevine, and Sledge makes even Noble Hierarch pretty hard for them to deal with.
(And yeah, Thornling plus Sledge is sweet.)
Also, Vengevine: Cool Blightning, bro.
Mythic: In game 1, having Sparkmage/Collar is very important; most Mythic lists have no outs to Sparkmage in their maindeck. Sparkmage is still sick against them without Collar, incidentally; you can pick off their mana dorks and keep them from ramping up to Baneslayer or Sovereigns. In game 1, you are an overwhelming favorite if you have Sparkmage and a moderate dog if you don’t.
Sideboarding: -3 Elspeth, Knight-Errant, -4 Vengevine, -1 Behemoth Sledge, -1 Bloodbraid Elf, +4 Path to Exile, +2 Oblivion Ring, +1 Basilisk Collar, +2 Chandra Nalaar
Vengevine comes out because, as awesome as Vengevine is in ground-based attrition fights or against Day of Judgment, it isn’t that good if a 4/3 isn’t relevant in the matchup. You’re the control deck against Mythic, and Vengevine doesn’t really contribute to the plan of “kill all of Mythic’s creatures.” You’re mostly concerned about Baneslayer, Sovereigns, and Linvala. As a corollary, Knight of the Reliquary is a problem because it can protect their best creatures with Sejiri Steppe; you’d really rather they not untap with Knight.
U/W and U/W/r: Game 1s against U/W are generally blowouts one way or another. Either you get an explosive Vengevine draw and have a Bloodbraid Elf after they get you with Day of Judgment, or they park Wall of Omens in front of an impotent Bloodbraid Elf and cast a few Days before closing with Baneslayer Angel or Martial Coup. The games where they Path your Vengevine and have a couple of mass removal spells are pretty hard, but you also have some draws where you have Vengevine on turn 3, Elspeth on turn 4, and you kill them on turn 5e through Day of Judgment with Bloodbraid Elf.
The U/W/r Planeswalker decks tend to be much easier because they can’t just steal games from you with Baneslayer Angel.
Sideboarding: -4 Lotus Cobra, -4 Cunning Sparkmage, -1 Basilisk Collar, +3 Path to Exile, +2 Oblivion Ring, +3 Thornling, +1 Behemoth Sledge
In game 1, you’ll probably have to use Sparkmage/Collar to keep Baneslayer Angel off of your back, but you don’t really want Sparkmage except for that particular circumstance. Similarly, you don’t want the fourth Path because you really can’t afford to have multiples stranded in your hand without targets. Behemoth Sledge helps make all of your creatures awesome threats after a sweeper, and lets you punch through Soldier tokens with ease. Cobra comes out because you want to board out some of your acceleration because of how long the games go and Noble Hierarch’s exalted ability is important against Wall of Omens. Thornling is an absolute boss, and you want to try to bait their Paths with Knights and Vengevines if at all possible.
(If you’re up against Wall of Denial, you probably need the Basilisk Collar instead of the second Sledge.)
Mirror: Whoever has Cunning Sparkmage going with Collar is probably winning. In game one, most people will only have Gideon as an answer to Sparkmage, so you want to prioritize those cards accordingly. If the other guy has Sparkmage/Collar and you don’t, in order to win you’ll probably have to have a very aggressive draw that can overwhelm their pinger before it completely takes over the game. Note that if you play a Sparkmage on three, and the other guy has two lands and either Cobra or Hierarch in play, you probably don’t want to shoot their mana dork because if they play Sparkmage and shoot yours, you will probably lose.
Sideboarding: -4 Vengevine, -3 Elspeth, Knight-Errant, -1 Behemoth Sledge, -2 Noble Hierarch, -1 Plains, +4 Path to Exile, +2 Oblivion Ring, +1 Basilisk Collar, +2 Thornling, +1 Bojuka Bog, +2 Chandra Nalaar
After boarding, the other guy will probably have a bunch of spot removal spells for Sparkmage. This makes Knight of the Reliquary more important. Most people will also have Linvala, but you have a million removal spells for her. Sparkmage/Collar and Knight make Vengevine obsolete pretty quickly, so he hits the bench for removal spells and trumps to Collar. Chandra comes in as a ticking time bomb that can also off Knight, Linvala, and multiple Sparkmages.
Polymorph: This matchup is not as good as most people assume. Sure, Cunning Sparkmage is sweet against Polymorph, but they have Into the Roil, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, and potentially Pithing Needle to stop your Sparkmage. You can protect Sparkmage with Knight, sure, and you still have a pretty quick clock (and can sometimes just bin six lands when they attack with Emrakul and get them with a huge Knight) but don’t expect to just slam down Sparkmage and extend the hand.
Sideboarding: -3 Gideon Jura, -1 Behemoth Sledge, -2 Stoneforge Mystic, -1 Basilisk Collar, +4 Path to Exile, +2 Oblivion Ring, +1 Pithing Needle
After boarding, they get Narcolepsy and it becomes even harder to dominate them with Sparkmage, but you get Path to break up their combo and gain Oblivion Ring and Needle for Jace.
Red: If they come out of the gates quickly with a Goblin Guide/Plated Geopede draw, you’ll need a pretty fast start to combat it. Still, Sparkmage kills Geopede and can team up with Collar to wreck a Kargan Dragonlord that the other guy was probably pretty invested in. You want to set up lifelink on a large animal as quickly as possible, but be sure you’re not wasting too much time setting up Collar or Sledge when you could just be saving damage by blocking and whatnot.
Sideboarding: -4 Vengevine, -3 Elspeth, Knight-Errant, -1 Gideon Jura, +4 Path to Exile, +2 Oblivion Ring, +1 Basilisk Collar, +1 Pithing Needle
Essentially, after boarding you want to lower your curve slightly and make sure you’re not dead on turn four so that your card quality can take over. Pithing Needle comes in to ace unearth creatures and Kargan Dragonlord. The second Sledge stays on the bench because Basilisk Collar serves a similar function and Behemoth Sledge is unbelievably slow if you spend six mana and get blown out by Lightning Bolt.
…
Naya is pretty awesome; good matchups against Mythic and Jund with a reasonable matchup against Wall of Omens make for a sweet deck. I am pretty disappointed that I will be taking finals during all of this week’s online PTQs, or I would certainly be battling with it. Good luck to those who are.
max dot mccall at gmail dot com
(Do people prefer more primer-ish style articles or would y’all rather read tournament reports? Let me know in the forums.)