Faster than a forum flame war, more powerful than an entertainer’s ego, and able to leap tall conclusions in a single bound, look up there! Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Nope, it’s just me. Sorry to disappoint, but really, you should have expected to find me here by now.
Hopefully this should be the last article wherein I write about uneducated guesses regarding Planar Chaos, and next week I should have some more concrete things to say, but for one, I write my articles on the weekends, and two, I’m on a fairly tight budget for Planar Chaos (or really, much of anything right now), so I’m going to get a few cards via drafting a bit and otherwise hold off on purchases until release week prices are gone. This means that my first few PC enabled decks are likely to be fairly budget, no doubt a nice change of pace from these last few offerings. Budgeteers, rejoice!
Now, enough nattering about myself, let us continue to
The Burning Issue
I present this week’s issue as a question and a debate; is it time for a eulogy for aggro in Standard?
According to the old metagame clock, Aggro beats Control beats Combo beats Aggro; according to MTGO results, such as those in Craig’s last article, Aggro is having an uphill battle against both Control and Combo, due to the speed of Dragonstorm and the rampant use of Serrated Arrows, Wrath, and Desert. With Black Hole Sun coming, is Aggro about to fade from the metagame, or will the new crop of aggro toys in Planar Chaos be enough to save it?
From the control perspective, Planar Chaos is full of removal. Ovinize plays nicely with the already used Deserts and Arrows; Pongify is gleeful about any sort of bounce or (most) burn to team up with, and is just fine with wrecking anything bigger than 3/3 for one mana anyhow; Porphyry Nodes could see play alongside any four-plus power creature (like Hierarch) to Abyss aggro decks; and one cannot ignore the impact of BHS or Pyrohemia, either. Frozen Aether may even be a viable tool. Green got uh… Utopia Vow, I guess… okay, that one’s not so stellar (although it has the benefit of neutering either Akroma should they actually be playable), but all the same, creatures don’t seem like a very safe investment in general right now, except for a few brutal powerhouses.
In the other corner, we have contenders like Uktabi Drake, Stingscourger, Timbermare, Groundbreaker, Calciderm, Lavacore Elemental, Blood Knight, Mire Boa, and the removal-fizzling recruits Whitemane Lion and Stonecloaker. Yeah, Blue actually got the shaft here, beyond the debatable Riptide Pilferer, but then I think anything one wanted for Blue Aggro came in Time Spiral anyhow. The question is… will this be enough? Green’s best new beaters all rely on Haste, which can be countered with Frozen Aether, especially in the case of Groundbreaker; already a vulnerable creature in perhaps the most one-toughness-hating Standard environment ever. Admittedly, Desert won’t do much against it, but all sorts of other things will, from Shadow Guildmage to Serrated Arrows, to Piracy Charm and Pyrohemia. If you thought Giant Solifuge was a vulnerable man, wait until you see what it’s like to have one toughness and actually be targetable.
So is Control a clear winner now? I don’t think it’s set in stone, but I think that Aggro is going to have to play tighter decks and tighter games than ever (with the exception of broken formats like Combo Winter and Pro Tour: Tinker) to prevail, and I’m not certain how I feel about that. On one hand, it would be interesting if Aggro were the least "dumb" option for awhile, so far as working out math and having to play skillfully, but on the other hand, I wonder if that’s really what the game (or the players) want. I’ve written before that I enjoy the challenge of pitting the Aggro deck against the Control deck, so I think I’m pretty excited at just how tightly I’ll have to play, but on the other hand, I know a lot of other people aren’t going to look at this as an exercise in increasing playskill.
Where do we go from here? I suppose, ultimately, we just wait out the storm (pun actually not intended for once) and see how things play out; it could be that Aggro really is the underdog, and Control becomes the "dumb" deck. "Dralnu says counter everything," or it may be that I’ve gone and become Chicken Little for no good reason. There may be fuel for a forum debate here, but I doubt I have much to add at this point, as all I can provide any time soon is more speculation… but hey, this whole "having a burning issue without a firm stance" thing is new to me, so let’s see how it works, no?
…
Of course, that means the core of this article will have to be the decklist, so let me begin by saying that I originally constructed this week’s decklist as something of a joke, and then it became more of an experiment. "What, exactly, could I accomplish with mono-White?" Well, according to the tests I ran in the Tourney Practice room of MTGO, apparently it’s not all that bad with the right cards – at least going the control route. I haven’t had time to do exhaustive testing, but the deck wins far more than it loses, including against Boros, Dragonstorm, Dralnu du Louvre, and a smattering of other decks. One thing I haven’t faced is Mono-Green Aggro, which is one of the decks I wouldn’t like my chances against – in fact, several sideboard slots are dedicated to it and Dragonstorm. Those two decks are the ones that make this deck leave a little yellow stain on the table because they have a good chance of destroying this deck before it can set up fortifications. Speaking of which, let’s have a look at the castle grounds here:
Creatures (6)
Lands (25)
Spells (29)
- 1 Sacred Mesa
- 4 Wrath of God
- 2 Worship
- 1 Story Circle
- 3 Ivory Mask
- 4 Faith's Fetters
- 1 Pariah's Shield
- 1 Debtors' Knell
- 4 Condemn
- 1 Evangelize
- 4 Gauntlet of Power
- 3 Thunder Totem
Sideboard
This reminds me of an exercise in an old, old (like single digit, if I recall) issue of The Duelist, way back in the days before the Internet was the primary source for information about Magic. Anyhow, what the article was about was "playing against your pet" – in fact, insofar as I know, this is where the term "goldfishing" came from, because the goldfish literally did nothing. You just played against it to test your kill speed. However, the other "pets" were kind of a pseudo-gauntlet for deck testing; the snake was a constrictor and started with two Black Vise in play, so you had to empty your hand quickly or be murdered by the squeezing grip of the vises. The other animal I distinctly remember was the turtle, which is best explained here, which in fact seems to be a reprint of the article in question. To quote the relevant bit:
A turtle lives in a bowl like a goldfish, but is better at defending itself. If anything bothers it, the turtle just holes up inside its shell. Some Magic decks are like turtles: they don’t really do much, but they have good defenses. The Turtle test measures a deck’s ability to cope with this type of strategy.
For this test, the Turtle starts out with an Ivory Tower and six Circles of Protection in play (one of each color, plus a Circle of Protection: Artifacts). Every time you draw a land (whether you play it or not), the Turtle immediately adds the exact same land to his cards in play, for free. The Turtle never plays any cards other than the free lands, and doesn’t use any non-basic land’s special abilities (for instance, Maze of Ith’s tapping ability or Strip Mine’s land-destruction capability). The Turtle also draws a card every turn, trying to maintain a full hand of seven cards to gain as much life from the Ivory Tower as possible. Discard decks can interfere with this, and Vise decks can take advantage of it, especially if you destroy the Tower. The Turtle will always prevent as much damage as possible.
We won’t even try to give "average" scores for this or the rest of the pet tests, because they vary so widely. The Turtle test is a lot tougher than the Goldfish, and players with decks that have no way of dealing with enchantments may consider it unfair. Fighting a Turtle can be frustrating. You may not have dealt any damage by the time you would have destroyed a Goldfish completely. (But look at the bright side – at least a Turtle won’t replace his Circles once you destroy them, or play Karma or any of the other color-specific spells, like a real opponent might!)
Turtles are far from invulnerable, though, no matter what colors you play. The simple ways to beat a Turtle are: 1) destroy one or more of the appropriate Circles, 2) destroy or tap enough of the Turtle’s lands so he can’t power the Circles, or 3) overrun him with so many sources of damage that he can’t stop them all. Other approaches include using Sleight of Mind (to change the color a Circle protects against), casting Manabarbs or Psychic Venom on his lands (if he taps a land to power a Circle, then he takes additional damage from the enchantment and has to power more Circles) or Feedback and Power Leak on the Circles, and, of course, Gloom and Ghostly Flame. A few anti-artifact cards, to get rid of the Ivory Tower, can keep him from building up too much life before you get past the Circles.*
What the deck does: True, you don’t start with six CoPs in play, (which is a good thing, because only two of them are Standard legal anyhow) but you can set up a similar set of wards through the natural playing of the deck. Ivory Mask stops most discard and burn spells, causing problems for Rack decks, Boros decks, anything that relies on Demonfire, or the Walk the Aeons decks I see now and again that win through aiming draw spells at the opponent and decking them. Story Circle is a good general catch all, and a fine mana sink, the reason for which will become relevant later. As all the creatures in this deck are fairly difficult to kill and / or easy to replace, Worship also earns a place in the deck, which can utterly hammer a lot of decks. In order to neutralize opposing threats, you have Faith’s Fetters, with added lifegain just in case you should actually need it – in fact, this can be one of the key cards in the Dragonstorm matchup if they don’t go off turn 4. Alongside the Fetters are the all-important Wrath and Condemn to stave off the aggro beats, and Evangelize because it can be one of the easier ways to deal with opposing creatures post-Wrath.
What ties this all together, and explains why one would even consider a mono-colored deck in this format, is the mighty Gauntlet of Power. This is the tool which you use to do things like cast Wrath against Teferi and Dralnu, watch it get countered, and then still have mana to go and cast Evangelize with buyback and get to snag one of the opposing deck’s main components. Due to the nature of Evangelize as opposed to, say, Confiscate, there’s nothing to Repeal afterwards to allow them to get their creature back; they’re forced to use their removal to kill their own creatures, and as many post-PC speculative Dralnu du Louvre decks rely almost entirely on BHS as removal, this puts them in a very tight spot. The Gauntlet is also why the Story Circle makes such a nice mana sink, since you can often be getting two or three mana from your basic Plains.
Now, let’s examine the win conditions; Akroma White is a fairly reliable win condition on her own, especially now that few people prepare for her anymore. Assisting her in the air is Blazing Archon, which on a dream draw (turn 3 Totem, turn 4 Gauntlet) can come down turn 5 and wreck a lot of decks in conjunction with Ivory Mask. Your Thunder Totems function as acceleration, a way to produce an odd-numbered amount of mana, mana sinks, and occasionally as a creature either to beat down with, block with, or fulfill Worship’s requirement of having a creature. Sacred Mesa gives you a source of easily replaced creatures which can be created at instant speed to go alongside Worship, and of course Gauntlet of Power assist them in two ways; you get more plentiful tokens, and the tokens come out as 2/2 or larger. Lastly, your ground troops consist of a quartet of Stuffy Doll, one of the best buddies of Worship in the format, despite the fact that Black has about ten thousand ways to kill him. Of course, then there’s Debtor’s Knell, which can keep you perpetually stocked with creatures to assist the Worship soft lock. I also included a singleton copy of Stuffy’s own best buddy, Pariah’s Shield, because while yes, it’s very slow and difficult to pull off, it’s yet another layer of warding to keep the hurting off. Besides, it’s hilarious when it works.
Who the deck is for: This decklist has many applications; it can be on the very strong side of casual decks, has potential in multiplayer, and perhaps most importantly, may be a viable Standard tournament decklist. In order to decide that, let’s examine what Planar Chaos may bring to the deck:
Dawn Charm: The combat damage prevention ability of this ability may be a suitable replacement for the sideboard Wall of Shards in the Mono-Green Aggro matchup, although it has the drawback of lasting but a single turn, whereas the Wall can hold off all but the beefiest of Ledgewalkers, and you’re not too concerned with the opponent’s life total until you’re on your feet in this matchup, which can take awhile.
Magus of the Tabernacle: A 2/6 blocker for four mana, in a deck with a very small amount of its own creatures barring Sacred Mesa tokens. The added upkeep onto other creatures may slow down some aggressive decks, although I’m not sure it’s entirely necessary, between Condemn and Wrath. Probably worth testing, though.
Rebuff the Wicked: Since your general "win" is making yourself practically unable to lose through a series of artifacts and / or enchantments working in tandem, a well-placed Disenchant style effect could cause your castle to fall down around your ears at uncomfortable moments. This card may be able to help protect your fortifications… except against Krosan Grip. Still, depending on what kind of Disenchant effects are popular post-PC, it may earn itself a sideboard slot.
Saltblast: Near-Vindicate could have a use or two, although perhaps not so much: in some fashion or another, you can neutralize any threat most creatures could produce, and Return to Dust is a superb way to handle opposing artifacts and / or enchantments, but there may be times a land is the problem (Academy Ruins comes to mind), so it shouldn’t be forgotten.
Voidstone Gargoyle: When you absolutely, positively, simply must shut down one card, this seems to be the way to go. Could find itself a sideboard slot for dealing with a deck that has only one or two viable late game threats.
I don’t really see much else that could be of any real use to the deck here, so let’s go on to say that this is a very late game deck – in fact, it can do nothing but Condemn prior to turn 3, and most of its plays come later. That’s one of the reasons 25 lands are used; you really, really need to ensure early land drops, even at the risk of flooding later (which your Flagstones can help abate to a point) because if you don’t make your early land drops, there won’t be a late game for you to dominate. This decklist could probably use some fine-tuning (consider four Terramorphic Expanse, or removing less competitive cards like Pariah’s Shield or possibly Evangelize if you really want to try this deck as a contender) but even as is, its array of varying defenses can be difficult to overcome. This deck is pretty much the opposite of any kind of beatdown or burn strategy, so the deck is not for anyone who prefers that style of play.
What to watch out for: First, allow me to explain the sideboard choices as they currently stand:
Fourth Ivory Mask: You’re going to want this against any sort of Rack or Dragonstorm matchup, as drawing and playing this as early as possible can be the difference between life and death. Be aware that in Rack matchups, you can’t necessarily rely on Worship either – Smallpox will kill you through it just fine, so you want to prevent all the damage you can, since you can’t do anything about the life loss.
Second Sacred Mesa: You might need the chump blockers, the extra win condition, the doubled chance of drawing Mesa, or simply a replacement copy if the first is removed, although this is one of the weaker sideboard slots overall and can probably be replaced with other cards you’d like to test.
Second Evangelize: Mostly the same rationale here as with the second Sacred Mesa, except replace "removed" with "countered". Can play a star role against decks with few creature-based win conditions.
Two Tormod’s Crypt: Should possibly be three, but this is of course useful for any graveyard based strategy, like Academy Ruins tricks, dredge / Reanimator, any other decks which rely on Life from the Loam or other such recursive tricks. The presence of Extirpate and Crypt may scare several of these kinds of strategies out of the format, allowing you to replace these slots with something more adapted for the new metagame.
Three Angel’s Grace: This comes in against Dragonstorm and Mono-Green Aggro, both of which are capable of a turn 4 kill, which means going second they might otherwise be able to kill you before you get a single spell off. This seems to answer both decks with one card, thus saving valuable sideboard slots.
Three Return to Dust: So many powerful artifacts – and especially enchantments – are in Standard right now, and going in unprepared to answer them would be tantamount to suicide. Also very useful at multiplayer tables. Don’t forget this removes from game, so it’s perfect for popping Moldervine Cloaks.
Four Wall of Shards: Go on, scratch your head. As stated above though, the purpose of these is to hold off Silhana Ledgewalkers while you wait for Wrath mana. If you’re going second, you have just enough time to drop this before the first swing of an enchanted Ledgewalker. These go the way of the dodo most likely if MGA stops being popular. For the record, if this card sucks, Talen suggested it. If it rules, he still did, but I’ll pretend it was suggested by a small, furry rodent.
Aside from this, your biggest worry is life loss, since that will get around anything you’ve got, so you want to keep your life total high against Black and not rely so much on Worship as you would against other decks. Discard is annoying, but so long as they don’t knock Knell out of your hand, you can just discard critters, confident of getting them back later. Fun trick against Phyrexian Totems; activate a Thunder Totem, let First Strike damage resolve, and then Condemn the totem after they sac 2-4 permanents. They hate that.
Some general sideboard tips if you decide to take the deck seriously (and yet don’t edit it as suggested):
Dralnu: -4 Condemn, -1 Pariah’s Shield, +1 Sacred Mesa, +1 Evangelize, +1 Ivory Mask, +2 Tormod’s Crypt.
MGA: -3 Ivory Mask, -1 Evangelize, -1 Sacred Mesa, -2 Stuffy Doll, +4 Wall of Shards, +3 Angel’s Grace (at least this is my guess, like I said, haven’t actually seen MGA yet)
Dragonstorm: -1 Pariah’s Shield, -3 Condemn, +1 Ivory Mask, +3 Angel’s Grace
Boros: -1 Pariah’s Shield, -1 Evangelize, +1 Ivory Mask, +1 Sacred Mesa
I’ll be back next week exposing Russia’s nuclear secrets, and the hidden message you get when you play heavy metal records backwards. Or… okay, yeah, just the article again. But until then, may your mana never screw!
Signing off,
Rivien Swanson
flawedparadigm a(aye Carumba!)t gmaSPAMSUCKSil d(.)ot co[Draw land.]m
Flawed Paradigm on MTGO (when I actually log in)
* Moursund, Beth. "Playing Your Pet: Rough-Testing a Magic Deck." Duelist Magazine, The.
Online here, cited by archive.org 2001/11/06.
Copyright held by Wizards of the Coast, cited on web as 1999.
Archived by the Internet Archive Wayback Machine here.
Wanted to make sure to get this copyright down here and whatnot, so no one gets sued.