Hooray! Everyone sure seems hyped up by the newest Magic set, and well… I kinda am, too. To be honest, I have yet to quit playing Magic. I want to quit, but things keep dragging me into the arena, and I keep performing like I have no idea what I am doing with the cards. The last tournament I played in was the prerelease in Louisville, Kentucky where I ended up at 5-2-1 and finished in 20th place. Nothing special. I decided that I still wanted to play, but not so often…
And from that point, my mind has been racing with the thoughts of new Standard decks.
I have not seen anything of interest online yet, so I made some changes to my favorite OBC decks, then took my ball and ran with it. By now, everyone has to have figured out how good Green/Blue will be in the post-Onslaught Standard. I honestly think, like every other writer online, that U/G is the deck to beat, and will be played in droves at States. Green White looks good, Tog looks fine, and Wake with Mobilization could be a great deck. I’m not here to preach about these decks, though: I’ll leave that to some other guy with a keyboard plastered to his hands.
I’m going to discuss Land destruction in type two.
White space to think about how s**t I truly am.
Yeah? So?
The deck I first envisioned kinda looked like the deck David Bachman played at US Nationals a few years ago. The entire Millstone win mechanic, Grafted Skullcap/Ensnaring Bridge combo. Seemed like it could work. Throw in Recoup, Burning Wish, and Mirari, and you should have the best red lock deck ever.
It never played like that. Ever.
So I stuck that fancy little pile in a folder on my Apprentice, and started over again.
The next deck that I looked at was based on Benafel’s Ponza from 2000 Nationals. Yes, I did use Petravark as a new Avalanche Rider…. But that deck misses too many key components I feel to be close to as good as that version was. Masticore and Rishadan Port went a long way towards that deck’s success, and well… Those cards are nothing but distant memories to many Standard players.
Sigh…I went back to the board again, and this time pulled something a little more current.
A quick jot down to the Sideboard archives made me remember about that pretty neato deck that William Jensen played. Here is the list for those of you not in the know:
4 Tainted Peak
3 Mountain
4 Shadowblood Ridge
15 Swamp
26 land
1 Magnivore
1 Mutilate
1 Skeletal Scrying
4 Earth Rift
3 Rancid Earth
2 Mirari
2 Diabolic Tutor
2 Recoup
4 Burning Wish
4 Tainted Pact
3 Innocent Blood
4 Chainer’s Edict
3 Catalyst Stone
33 other spells
Sideboard:
1 Magnivore
1 Recoup
1 Demolish
1 Innocent Blood
3 Overmaster
1 Volcanic Spray
1 Morbid Hunger
2 Mutilate
1 Mind Sludge
1 Haunting Echoes
1 Rancid Earth
1 Tombfire
Hooray. I watched Jensen play the deck at Grand Prix: Cleveland with my own two eyes, and decided to play the deck that Sunday in the PTQ.
I went 2-3 Drop.
Yepper. I’m garbage. I lost my first round against Jarod Burt because of a Match Loss for misregistering my deck…Got a game loss around round four, and then had a bye.
Oh yeah… I’m not writing a report, I’m writing this article.
Anyhoot.
I get the spoiler list from Scrye so I can write an article for the magazine, and begin to notice how some of the new cards could interact with this deck. Yippie! Lay Waste was reprinted… Maybe I can cycle this card late game to get a better card. Yeah, Onslaught did not really add much to the main deck, nor did it add much to the sideboard.
But as I am writing this, I just noticed that Befoul got reprinted in Seventh edition. That might make a difference now.
Let me list the viable Land Destruction spells for this deck…
Rancid Earth
Okay, this card has long been a mainstay in OBC control Black, and it is a potentially game breaking spell. Target a land with Squirrel Nest, and you get to knock out the entire rabid army – assuming you have threshold, of course.
Stone Rain
Is the original really better then everything else? In testing, it has been nothing really golden, so I think it has to be replaced.
Earth Rift
This one has Flashback. I guess using the same spell twice is pretty good right?
Pillage
Two red in the casting cost make it a pretty unreliable spell in the early game. This is better suited as a Wish target.
Demolish
A solid Pillage replacement, but it’s still not versatile enough to include it in the main.
Befoul
Kill a land… Or a nonblack creature. Somehow, I think all of my testing is not invalidated because of the inclusion of this spell. How can I forget about something like this? It gives the deck more creature removal.
Lay Waste
I mentioned this already.
Okay you get seven different spells. Only two of them can be in the main deck to make room for everything else.
I started off with four Rains and three Rancid Earths, mimicking the OBC list with what I felt was a better land destruction spell – or at least a cheaper one. I honestly think that the value of Befoul in such a black-heavy deck makes much more sense. I have since dropped the Stone Rains for a the card that does much more in Befoul. I also added in the fourth Rancid Earth, as I still want to have a semi-reliable third turn spell.
The Deck So Far
4 Rancid Earth
3 Befoul
Creature Removal
You can use a lot of stuff: Smother, Innocent Blood, and Chainer’s Edict are all great plays – but for the purpose of the Magnivore kill method, only Edict and Blood make the cut. Mutilate makes a cameo appearance as a board clearing device and now, I have eight removal spells (since I’m not counting the Befoul).
4 Chainer’s Edict
3 Innocent Blood
1 Mutilate
Card Advantage
Well, sadly, black and red are not two colors known for having incredible card drawing. You have to reach advantage in some other way. Recoup lets you cast your sorceries again. Catalyst Stone lets you recast them cheaper, and gives the bonus of making opponents’ Deep Analysis and Roar of the Wurm cost more. Diabolic Tutor gives you the answer when you need it. Mirari lets you copy everything you cast, and gains you an advantage. Skeletal Scrying and Tainted Pact are instant speed machines…. But the real winner of the deck is Burning Wish. Letting you get a removal spell, or a land kill spell, or a winning spell is pretty much the best part of this wish.
Well that is the best part of every wish but Golden Wish and Death Wish. Ha!
I’m really bad at Magic, by the way.
Anyhoot, here is the next part of the deck list:
2 Diabolic Tutor
4 Tainted Pact
2 Recoup
2 Mirari
3 Catalyst Stone
4 Tainted Pact
1 Skeletal Scrying
4 Burning Wish
3 Duress
Okay; this all adds up to thirty-four cards. Trying to keep with the original, I have added one Magnivore to the deck, and it is often a very large beater. After tying up your opponent’s resources with the LD spells and Duress, a 10/10 hasty guy is not unheard of.
1 Magnivore.
Hooray.
The land mix is really easy to make up. In a base black deck, you want to obviously run swamps. Instead of running the Tainted Peaks though, I am running Bloodstained Mire. Sulfurous Springs is a viable option, but I feel they subtract too much from your life total in aggressive matchups. Shadowblood Ridge takes their place.
So with the lands, this is the total finished product:
14 Swamp
4 Shadowblood Ridge
3 Mountain
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Magnivore
4 Chainer’s Edict
3 Innocent Blood
1 Mutilate
4 Burning Wish
2 Recoup
2 Diabolic Tutor
4 Tainted Pact
3 Duress
1 Skeletal Scrying
3 Catalyst Stone
2 Mirari
4 Rancid Earth
3 Befoul
The sideboard is easily the hardest part of the deck to come up with. I have gone through at least seventeen different versions of the board, ranging from aggressive strategies to more control to just about fifteen different sorceries. I feel that the best version is the one that follows:
1 Pyroclasm
1 Corrupt
1 Duress
1 Recoup
1 Persecute
1 Earth Rift
1 Demolish
1 Morbid Hunger
1 Haunting Echoes
1 Innocent Blood
1 Diabolic Tutor
1 Firecat Blitz
1 Mutilate
2 Overmaster
Pretty much the deck relies on the silver bullet approach in the board. Corrupt, Firecat Blitz and the Morbid Hunger can all be used as the kill mechanic in the deck. Pyroclasm, and Mutilate are board clearers, and Earthquake can be added for another source of removal. The rest of the board is pretty self-explanatory.
Now… On to the matchups.
Monoblack Control
Sigh. What a stupid deck to play against. It was an auto-win 99 percent of the time in OBC, and this format is no different. Just be careful to make sure that you have an answer to their Mirari, and things will be easy for you.
U/G Madness
This match has been made easier with the Corrupt in the sideboard. You have answers to their early critters, and the early-game mana disruption is amazing against this deck. Mutilate is one of the MVPs in the board, along with Pyroclasm.
G/W Beats and Goblin Beatdown
These are the two hardest match ups for the deck. The quick beats from these two decks issue a challenge to this slow deck. Pyroclasm, Mutilate, and Haunting Echoes all prove to be the best answers to this deck.
This is a fairly interesting and challenging deck that is still fun to play.
Thanks for reading,
Joshua X Claytor