Ladies and gentleman, boys and girls, children of all ages! StarCityGames.com proudly brings to you the Magic the Gathering Tag Team Champions of the woooooooooooooooooooooooorld!
The Road Dawg, Oracle of Mul Daya!
The Bad Ass, Primeval Titan!
The New. Age. Outlaws!
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To say that I think Standard is alive and kicking is a gross understatement. I love it, love it, love it, love it!
And why do I love it? Because I finally have a deck with which I have Become One. A deck that I feel is so good that if you don’t play it, you should be admitted to an insane asylum. After this weekend, I cannot imagine playing another deck. Even the legendary Gabe Walls piloted the deck and placed second in a PTQ.
As many of you know, results are flooding in from everywhere, and there is a lot of information to take in. Numerous PTQs took place this past weekend, in addition to a handful of Nationals. There is a ton of information to look over and process.
Today, I am going to tell you exactly what to do with those decklists.
First, I want you study them. I want you to know what those decklists look like without having to actually look at them.
Then, I want you to take the time to understand how those decks function. I want you to do whatever it takes to understand how those decks work.
Once you have done these two things, I want you to take one more good look at the lists. After that final look, I want you to take those decklists and mentally rip them apart.
I want you to ignore the Polymorph deck that Pro Tour: Los Angeles winner Antoine Rule took to a third place finish (and a National Team qualification) at French Nationals.
I want you to ignore the UW Control deck that Pro Tour: Yokohama winner Guillaume Wafo-Tapa took to fourth place at French Nationals.
You see all those Runeflare Trap decks that are doing well in PTQs? Ignore those too! The deck that Michael Pozsgay took to back-to-back PTQ Top 8s over the past weekend? Ignore it!
Why do I want you to ignore all of these decks? Because none of them are b-r-o-k-e-n.
Don’t get it twisted. The top tier decks in Standard are all very good decks. I respect what each of the decks is capable of doing, and the angles along which they attack.
But none of them are b-r-o-k-e-n!
There is only one broken deck in this format, and it’s been in front of us for a while. People have tried to ignore it. People have tried to downplay it. But there is no way to get around it.
Turboland is the best deck in the Standard:
Creatures (15)
- 4 Lotus Cobra
- 4 Oracle of Mul Daya
- 2 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
- 1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
- 4 Primeval Titan
Planeswalkers (4)
Lands (19)
Spells (22)
Sideboard
This is the decklist that Gabe and I played at the Louisville PTQ on Sunday, the deck which took Gabe to a second place finish. Before you begin to analyze what I have presented, let me tell you something about this decklist that you may not already know. Something that I am not ashamed to admit at all.
This decklist above?
It is pretty freaking bad!
Pardon me?
Yes, I kid you not. This decklist was complete garbage, and Gabe was still able to get second place with relative ease. What was wrong with it? To be honest, quite a few things:
Two Kozilek, Butcher of Truths was the first problem. When Turboland originally hit the scene at the StarCityGames.com Open in Philadelphia, it contained a small Eldrazi package in combination with Eldrazi Temple. When I got to working on the deck, I found that the Eldrazi package made the deck clunky and Eldrazi Temple made the mana a lot worse than it needed to be. After that realization, the Eldrazi package was cut and the deck was updated. We should all remember that point in time.
So what made us go back to the Eldrazi package for this particular PTQ? Primeval Titan, of course! We felt that Primeval Titan allowed Turboland to get away with a shakier but more explosive manabase, and, to a certain extent, we were correct. The bigger issue at hand was that Kozilek just wasn’t a powerful enough card.
How is it possible that a 12/12 guy, for ten mana, that draws four cards, isn’t powerful enough?
Well, it is powerful, but a lot of cards are powerful. The problem was that it wasn’t flexible like Mind Spring. In our experiences playing Turboland, four was often the magic number when casting the first Mind Spring. Four also happens to be the number of cards that Kozilek draws, so that parallel made sense to us. We also thought that with Lotus Cobra, Oracle of Mul Daya, and Primeval Titan cheating so much mana into play, Kozilek was a first Mind Spring that demanded an answer.
In reality, Kozilek was an expensive first Mind Spring that died. A lot.
So once we came to the realization that the Eldrazi package should not be back in the deck, the other problems are quite easy to see. Eldrazi Temple can easily be cut from the deck, as it no longer serves a purpose and, in turn, so can Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre.
Ulamog is an interesting case because it’s actually quite good against every deck in the format except for Mono-Red. The ability to destroy a problematic permanent, no questions asked, was huge… but eleven mana, even with Eldrazi Temple, is quite a lot.
Some of you might be saying, “Ced! That’s only six slots that were incorrect. What’s the big deal?” Having six slots wrong is a huge deal! You only get 75 of these things for a reason, folks. Having those six slots wrong led to us having some slots wrong in the sideboard. So, what looks like six wrong slots really turns into eleven or twelve wrong slots. Sounds a lot worse now, doesn’t it?
But of these slots, we had quite a few correct. Some of the biggest progress made was in the sideboard. Obstinate Baloth and counterspells are pretty obvious sideboard cards, but I don’t consider Rampant Growth to be in this category. Rampant Growth was fantastic in the sideboard, and I’m surprised that this hadn’t been adopted a while ago.
When playing Turboland, you have to board out Lotus Cobra against decks like Jund and Naya due to their ability to consistently destroy it via Red removal spells. It’s because of these removal spells that sideboarding into two Rampant Growths is so good. When sideboarding out four Lotus Cobras, you’re bringing Turboland down to six two-mana acceleration spells instead of the ten is previously had. Six is too few, ten is (at times) too many, but eight is just right.
The other slot in the sideboard that was great was All Is Dust. Everyone knows how much I love this card at this point, but it was moved to the sideboard due to how many ramp decks we expected to see at this tournament. Ramp was, indeed, out in full force (pun intended!).
So, with the good and bad highlighted, here is what I would suggest playing moving forward:
Creatures (15)
Planeswalkers (4)
Lands (18)
Spells (23)
Sideboard
A Small Sideboard Rundown:
Obstinate Baloth is for Mono-Red, Jund, and Runeflare Trap. Against Mono-Red and Jund, it is used as a way to stabilize. Against Runeflare Trap decks, it is used as a way to apply pressure and force action on them. It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that this card is as good as expected.
Flashfreeze is for Mono-Red, Runeflare Trap, and other Primeval Titan decks. I don’t find Flashfreeze to be great against Turboland as it only counters half of the relevant spells (the other half being Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Mind Spring), so I don’t bring it in for that matchup.
Deprive is for Turboland and Blue-based Control decks. Deprive is the hard counter that the Turboland mirror needs. Mana Leak is okay, but it can be made irrelevant rather quickly. Deprive is always good, and it has natural synergy within the deck.
Rampant Growth is for any matchup where you don’t expect Lotus Cobra to live. It is fine if Lotus Cobra dies to White removal like Path to Exile (fist pump!) or Oblivion Ring. It is not okay if it dies to things like Lightning Bolt, Forked Bolt, or Cunning Sparkmage.
All Is Dust is for any Blue-based control decks, Naya, and Mythic. Having a catch all in those matchups is wonderful.
The last thing I will say about Turboland is this:
Currently, this deck is unlike any other deck in Standard. I consider Jund and Mythic to be unfair and unfun decks to play against when they are operating properly, but when Turboland is operating properly, it cannot be beaten. I will repeat that:
When Turboland is operating properly, it cannot be beaten!
That said, you must understand how hard this deck is to play. At the PTQ on Sunday, I did not have a very good tournament with the deck because my sequencing was out of order. These were not major mistakes, mind you. Something as simple as predicting what was going to happen on turns 4 through 6? I had this stuff incorrect for most of the day. These are all mistakes that were under my control, mistakes that can easily be fixed with more playtesting. Watching Gabe play the deck for a whole tournament taught me so much, and I wish everyone had the luxury of gaining that much knowledge over the course of the day. I saw a lot of what I was doing incorrectly and I’ve won an eleven round tournament with the deck!
Do not shy away from this deck because it is difficult to play. You should dive head first into the challenge of mastering it, because the reward is truly worth it.
I guess I should mention what defeated Gabe in the finals?
Turboland, of course.
See everyone in Columbus!