Picking up from last week…
Blue
The first key thing worth talking about here is Mono-Blue Control. If you are Gabriel Nassif or similarly gifted, by all means play his version of Mono-Blue as played at the Magic Invitational. For us mere humans, I’m willing to trust the numbers reaped at the Last Chance Qualifier, which told me that Mono-Blue Magpie didn’t have a very good time of it right now, while a more control-oriented Magpie-free deck had at least a more even playing field. The highest-finishing Blue Control deck at the LCQ went 4-3-0, plus a bye in Round Two to put him at a 5-3 record, and was played by Tim Sussino. Given the high number of Tooth and Nail decks in the tournament, some of his choices make a lot of sense, but are otherwise quite radical spinoffs from the “usual” Mono-Blue Control decklists…
Tim Sussino – Mono-Blue Control
20 Island
3 Stalking Stones
2 Blinkmoth Nexus
1 Meloku, the Clouded Mirror
3 Temporal Adept
2 Bribery
2 Sensei’s Divining Top
2 Thirst for Knowledge
3 Inspiration
3 Quash
3 Mana Leak
4 Condescend
4 Hinder
4 Boomerang
4 Vedalken Shackles
Sideboard:
4 Thieving Magpie
3 Rewind
3 Annul
3 Spectral Shift
2 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
As simplistic as it sounds, I’ve come to agree with the Boseiju “answer” to other copies of Boseiju, as Tooth and Nail (and other decks sporting this particularly nasty Legendary Land) is much more manageable when their spells can be countered, evening up an otherwise unbalanced playing field when every copy of Sylvan Scrying or Reap and Sow becomes a “must-counter” spell. This becomes a good deal easier to work with thanks to Shifting Borders, a silly-looking Instant from the new set that actually allows you to pinpoint the threat you’re worried about (the land being controlled by your opponent) instead of requiring a drastic change of strategy (the Temporal Adept plan, or worse yet “going beatdown”). And I disagree with a lot of other things about the Mono-Blue deck, starting with their common choice of card-drawing and a few other odd bits. There’s a core base of cards you can’t do without, and the rest tend to fluctuate wildly (as maindeck Quash can attest, since I otherwise consider that card pretty much unplayable).
Creatures (2)
Lands (25)
Spells (33)
What does this do for us lately?
I’m not sold on Thirst for Knowledge in a deck that just wants to draw cards, so Inspiration fits instead. I’m a big fan of smoothing draws and increasing consistency with Scry, which Serum Visions does excellently and complements Condescend’s bonus nicely. Trade Routes serves two functions, and that’s before you even face another deck that may or may not be interested in destroying your Lands for the sake of their being your Lands; it protects Stalking Stones, which is your key kill card, and it cycles away additional Lands (let’s face it, there are 29 mana sources in this deck!) for more of what you need instead. Mono-Blue is an exhaustion strategy, nullifying threats, trading card for card, all while drawing a few extra to put you away with. The maximum number of Scry effects available in just the one color, plus Trade Routes, push the exhaustion plan on top of the card advantage plan: increase your own card quality, or trade lands for new cards, while your opponent is stuck drawing that extra Forest a couple times too many in between ‘real’ cards.
The choice of countermagic allows for some questioning, and I will believe anyone who tells me they would prefer to have Rewind as another hard-counter against key spells like Tooth and Nail (now that you’ve gone through such a bother to make them counterable, even in game one) where I have put Annul. Without knowledge of how all these proposed decks interact, I can’t say for sure that my gut instinct of going with Annul is correct, but it has a strong suggestion in its favor to say the least. Standard has some very good artifacts, from Sensei’s Divining Top to Sword of Fire and Ice, and a simple cheap counter with enough flexibility to hit Phyrexian Arena (or Jamie Wakefield beloved Blanchwood Armor) is something that works very well for the countermagic suite.
You may not like this decklist, but at least learn a few lessons from it. Trade Routes is exceptional in this deck to begin with, and can even allow you to do something extreme like maindeck Boseiju, Who Shelters All in an environment that will most likely be populated by Tooth and Nail decks. Being able to cycle it away against other decks, and the fact that in a pinch it can tap for mana (even if it hurts to do so) just like any other land suggests that it can cohabitate with the rest of the mana here while doing its job against opposing copies, or just being thrown away for something more important later. Serum Visions is an excellent complement to whichever of Inspiration or Thirst for Knowledge you are playing, as it can find key early land drops, turn 2 countermagic, and Vedalken Shackles that much faster… I’ve loved it so far, and never hesitated to keep it here where it has happily earned its slot. And Miren, the Moaning Well is disgusting with Vedalken Shackles, meaning your Shackles can no longer be overwhelmed easily. Culling Scales in the sideboard is for fast creature decks and a solution to Pithing Needle, which can be quite problematic when naming Vedalken Shackles.
The key card from Saviors for this deck, besides Miren, the Moaning Well, is in the sideboard: Shifting Borders. Blue now has a way of disrupting the opposing Urzatron, and can steal Boseiju to get back in control of a game that might otherwise slip away. Playing legendary Islands instead of real Islands might make Vedalken Shackles a bit less effective, but with sixteen Islands, four Baubles, and the quick Scry provided by Serum Visions I think that you’ll drop Islands consistently enough to steal the early-game creatures you’re worrying about. One legendary Island can double the number of times a turn you can use Miren, the Moaning Well with multiple Shackles, and the other can be used in a tricky fashion with Shifting Borders to steal a land at no cost to yourself… or protect itself from land destruction, all while both also help at least a little against Choke and Boil, or an arbitrarily large number of Sundering Titans.
Another thought came to mind here, which was a potentially annoying strategy for the mirror match, and that was to use Erayo, Soratami Ascendant as an early drop in the mirror; when in play, it doesn’t matter who has stolen it with Vedalken Shackles when the counter-war that will flip it inevitably ensues, as it will return to your ownership once it is an Enchantment. When it flips, it makes your opponents’ life much more difficult, allowing you to accrue card advantage in slow-motion fashion. But, thinking about the mono-Blue control mirror right now may be a waste of brain cells, and looking at Erayo, I wanted to use it to lock up the game completely, and as a rough draft came up with the following “lock” deck:
Creatures (12)
Lands (21)
Spells (27)
The trick is simple: lock your opponent under just one spell a turn, which is countered. Pull out Evacuation to return all creatures in play to their owners’ hands, which means your opponent is looking at any Artifacts and Enchantments they may have already to win the game with, plus man-lands. Aether Vial is not in favor as much as it used to be, so leaving an artifact in play hopefully isn’t a cardinal sin. Casting four spells in a turn isn’t so hard to do when one is Chrome Mox, the second is Serum Visions, the third is Erayo himself, and the fourth is just about anything at all. The question I have yet to see a decisive answer on is whether Erayo flips as a state-based effect or if he has a trigger going on the stack that can be responded to, which would make a big difference to this plan… the first evades creature removal effects thanks to the vagaries of priority, while the second leaves an all-too-wide gap where you are relying on a 1/1 creature not to die for your “combo”. While this deck may be of questionable quality, you know someone is going to try it, and there are likely to be decks that are just unfortunately naturally vulnerable to it… decks trying to rely on an Epic spell, for example, would really hate it if Erayo flipped.
On the topic of other Blue cards, you also have Twincast, a power card without a home, and Ideas Unbound, a powerful dig spell that has the potential to provide card advantage in a deck that goes through cards quickly enough… not a common Blue trait right now, but things can always change in the most unexpected of fashions.
Having talked about Blue decks, and Green decks, the subject of presenting decklists for the major archetypes played at the Last Chance Qualifier came up in the StarCityGames Forums, and while I don’t think it brings much to the discussion I nonetheless wanted to point out the following deck:
Blue/Green Control – Ricardo Ramiao, 6-1-1 at the PT: Philly Last Chance Qualifier
11 Forest
9 Island
1 Plains
1 Okina, Temple of the Grandfathers
4 Eternal Witness
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
3 Iwamori of the Open Fist
2 Meloku, the Clouded Mirror
4 Condescend
4 Plow Under
3 Sense’s Divining Top
3 Vedalken Shackles
3 Sword of Fire and Ice
2 Echoing Truth
2 Kodama’s Reach
Sideboard:
4 Creeping Mold
4 Circle of Protection: Red
3 Naturalize
2 Mana Leak
1 Vedalken Shackles
1 Meloku, the Clouded Mirror
I for one don’t really see how this hybrid Aggro Green plus Control Blue deck has any distinct benefits over either version, except that apparently it was good to not be Mono-Blue Control at that particular tournament (if not in general). There isn’t really anywhere to go from here thanks to Saviors, though there may be somewhere to go from here in general by building it over again from the ground up. As-is, it just seems to be polluting an otherwise good Green deck.
Red
On the topic of Last-Chance Qualifier decks, Red/Green Beats did surprisingly well at this tournament, combining beatdown, a touch of utility, and removal to good effect. Red/Green, definitely with Birds of Paradise and possibly with Chrome Mox, is perhaps the best poised to take advantage of one of the key cards in Saviors, that being Thoughts of Ruin. Thinking of this as Armageddon removes some of the key ways that Armageddon was used to benefit its caster, like unloading one’s hand first or destroying an arbitrarily large number of lands your opponent controls. This one is trickier… it’s really more like Tectonic Break than Armageddon, though you won’t notice a difference a fair chunk of the time. Tectonic Break was still pretty damn good, though, so who cares if only three or four lands go to the graveyard… early enough in the game, it is definitely comparable.
Antoine Antsis – 5-3, PT: Philadelphia Last Chance Qualifier
12 Forest
7 Mountain
1 City of Brass
1 Shinka, the Bloodsoaked Keep
1 Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Viridian Zealot
4 Eternal Witness
4 Troll Ascetic
3 Arc-Slogger
1 Kumano, Master Yamabushi
4 Umezawa’s Jitte
4 Sword of Fire and Ice
3 Magma Jet
3 Oxidize
Sideboard:
4 Boil
4 Pyroclasm
3 Grab the Reins
2 Naturalize
1 Oxidize
1 Magma Jet
Following a more classical Ernham-Geddon approach, the plan would be to play Arc-Slogger, and follow it up with Thoughts of Ruin, letting the Red monster unleash itself on a board not developed enough for his large size and cheap removal ability.
Slogger-Ruin
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Viridian Zealot
4 Eternal Witness
4 Troll Ascetic
4 Arc-Slogger
4 Magma Jet
4 Thoughts of Ruin
3 Sword of Fire and Ice
2 Umezawa’s Jitte
13 Forest
8 Mountain
2 Tendo Ice Bridge
Sideboard:
4 Plow Under
4 Pyroclasm
4 Naturalize
2 Umezawa’s Jitte
1 Arashi, the Sky Asunder
This provides you with some solid beatdown, the ability to control permanents on the table thanks to Equipment, Magma Jet, Viridian Zealot, and Arc-Slogger, and an Armageddon-range disruption effect that can be scaled up or down to suit your needs depending on how, exactly, you play it out. Red/Green is pretty capable of handling itself here, and takes good advantage of Armageddon being Red now, rather than having to play Ernham-Geddon without any of the old Ernham-and-Burn’Em strategy that was its contemporary. Between Plow Under and Thoughts of Ruin, decks that want to keep lands in play and develop “fairly” against you might find they are in a bit of trouble.
Considering the trend that showed Red burn decks having a better game than Red land destruction decks, it’s a bit surprising that I think Thoughts of Ruin will have any splash on the metagame at all. My thinking on this is that it is one of the most defining cards of the set, as far as metagame alterations go; that the LD decks were failing seems to me to be because you are trading land destruction one-for-one with lands, expecting to come out on top against decks playing Sakura-Tribe Elder, Kodama’s Reach, and eight cards that search for Land directly (and let’s not forget that some of them have Talismans, Vine Trellis, and other fun). You’re fighting a losing battle strategically, or at least you are against the half of the field that is currently considered to be the most important. Advancements in Red deck technology have leveled the playing field a bit, and this power card can take out your opponents’ lands in a much greater number than one-for-one, potentially reviving the strategy when it comes to fighting Green decks.
4 Slith Firewalker
4 Hearth Kami
4 Vulshok Sorcerer
4 Adamaro, First to Desire
4 Arc-Slogger
4 Thoughts of Ruin
4 Magma Jet
4 Forge[/author]“]Pulse of the [author name="Forge"]Forge[/author]
4 Seething Song
4 Chrome Mox
4 Blinkmoth Nexus
15 Mountain
1 Shinka, the Bloodsoaked Keep
It contains some of the significant advancements in Red tech to have come around recently (namely, Vulshok Sorcerer) and ditches the Stone Rain plan for more burn, even though it would seem to be more complementary to its overall strategy. The numbers have shown that damage to the face is better for this deck overall than trying to play Sped Red with Slith Firewalker plus Molten Rain. This is a deck that loves the Chrome Mox. The decks that this deck wants to beat all like to have lands in play, and so it seems like it is exceptionally well-suited to the general strategy of the deck. Where three-mana spells destroying one land fail, one more mana to hit the whole mess of them can’t help but improve on what was in general a synergistic plan that was not working out because of the nature of Green presently.
Admittedly, it doesn’t work the same way the Red deck that made the Top Four of the Philadelphia Last Chance Qualifier did, or even bring most of the same tools to the table – with that being a Stone Rain deck, and this arguably an upgrade from there, things were bound to change. The Red decks start here, and have to evolve to accommodate the sledgehammer tool they’ve been looking for:
Chris McDaniel – Top Four, PT: Philadelphia Last Chance Qualifier
4 Blinkmoth Nexus
18 Mountain
4 Seething Song
4 Chrome Mox
4 Magma Jet
4 Molten Rain
3 Genju of the Spires
3 Stone Rain
2 Volcanic Hammer
1 Forge[/author]“]Pulse of the [author name="Forge"]Forge[/author]
4 Slith Firewalker
4 Hearth Kami
4 Arc-Slogger
1 Kumano, Master Yamabushi
Sideboard:
3 Flamebreak
3 Duplicant
3 Oblivion Stone
3 Boil
2 Sowing Salt
1 Goblin Charbelcher
And now, last but not least, we have…
White
White starts with White Weenie, that gets Hand of Honor added to its retinue of exceptional creatures in the two-mana slot, and the makings of at least two other decks entirely. Not necessarily good decks, but something to start with…
Richie Frangiosa – 4-2, PT: Philadelphia Last Chance Qualifier
10 Plains
4 Blinkmoth Nexus
1 Eiganjo Castle
4 Chrome Mox
4 Aether Vial
4 Steelshaper’s Gift
4 Bonesplitter
3 Umezawa’s Jitte
2 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
4 Skyhunter Skirmisher
4 Leonin Skyhunter
4 Suntail Hawk
4 Lantern Kami
4 Savannah Lions
4 Isamaru, Hound of Konda
Sideboard:
4 Terashi’s Grasp
4 Hokori, Dust Drinker
3 Karma
2 Worship
2 Eight-and-a-Half-Tails
[I’m relatively sure this is an edt creation. – Knut, who talked to edt in Philly before the LCQ about this deck or something very like it]
Frankly, Saviors doesn’t include anything for this deck, unless you want to use a single copy of Mariki-Gusari to “win the Equipment war” against opposing copies of Sword of Fire and Ice or Umezawa’s Jitte. The creatures don’t lend anything to the “White Skies” strategy, nor do you get a new one-drop to actually consider, and we aren’t really sure the all-out aggression this deck offers is actually worth playing in the current Standard. Green decks (you know, the most common color in Standard?) get Arashi, the Sky Asunder as an option if you are actually good enough to be worth considering. You overlap with a credible deck that some people might sideboard it in against, to take out Magpie, Meloku and his tokens against Mono-Blue Control decks, so it will happen more often than “never”. Playing a more ground-based assault, Hand of Honor sits very nicely next to Samurai of the Pale Curtain, but both are being played for their Bushido: 1… and the eight copies of Suntail Hawk actually prove more relevant, especially when the industry standard two-drop is Sakura-Tribe Elder and a 1/1 flier gets through more often than a 2/2 with Bushido: 1 can dream of. The protection from Black is good, but right now doesn’t solve any problems; Hideous Laughter and Kagemaro don’t seem to care about the Hand of Honor’s “benefit”, and we won’t see that change until Black actually cares about targeting or blocking creatures again.
If White Weenie wants to be ambitious, and thinks it can be pulled off, Descendant of Kiyomaro is undercosted for the size it can potentially bring, as a 3/5 creature with built-in lifegain. While the approach currently shuns ground-based attackers, and a three-drop is too high up the curve to really think about, this creature deserves some consideration. Its abilities are much better fit into a control deck, as proved true with Silver Knight in its block’s Mono-White Control deck. White Weenie is not about three-drops, cards in hand, gaining life… “fair” things. Controllish White decks can pull this over much more smoothly, but probably want Blue, and probably try instead to squeeze in Vedalken Shackles… and will continue to do so until that card is no longer legal for Standard play, showing that this option is effectively invalidated by the very cards it would want to play, as Mono-Blue Control does that much more admirably.
Celestial Kirin made me ask some incredibly strange questions, specifically: how the hell can I manage to actually cast Evermind, the spell that cannot be cast? If I put it on an Isochron Scepter, or a Panoptic Mirror, can the spell actually be cast? If it is, does it trigger Celestial Kirin? Why am I trying so hard to turn Evermind into Armageddon?
A control deck that can eliminate permanents on a massive scale can easily outlast most classes of deck, and if White is good at one thing, it’s kicking the crap out of creatures on a massive scale. Even as just a mono-White deck, you get a lot of options to abuse Celestial Kirin, and are just looking for a way to keep up with Tooth and Nail and Black Control… since they play the game on a different level.
Creatures (12)
Lands (24)
Spells (22)
Unfortunately, this deck is really just good at one thing: negating creatures in play. A control deck with White cards can play Reverence to completely invalidate an entire class of decks, making all but a few creatures in their deck unable to attack or reliant upon Equipment to even consider turning sideways. Here, we see Story Circle used for the same idea anyway, to negate Red burn and Black Control’s Consume Spirit, thanks to the deck’s heavy White commitment. Between Wrath of God and Final Judgment, Tooth and Nail cannot present a combination of threats that actually survives this removal suite, especially with Final Judgment clearing out Darksteel Colossus.
For Black discard, you have the option of including Pure Intentions in your sideboard to counteract Nezumi Shortfang, Mind Sludge and Persecute, and you could even use Hail of Arrows, the same way White Control decks in the era of Onslaught-block used Rain of Blades when the opposition allowed. I’m sure that at some point Hail of Arrows will come up as a sideboard card for a White Weenie deck, if nowhere else, complementing Umezawa’s Jitte for removing opposing attackers… but here, the Kirin, Wrath of God, and Final Judgment ought to be enough. Frankly, though, a deck based on Celestial Kirin really wants to be Blue/White, to take advantage of these two colors’ Splice cards.
4 Coastal Tower
4 Stalking Stones
10 Island
7 Plains
1 Eiganjo Castle
4 Celestial Kirin
1 Meloku, the Clouded Mirror
4 Wayfarer’s Bauble
4 Wrath of God
4 Hinder
4 Eerie Procession
4 Peer Through Depths
4 Reach Through Mists
3 Terashi’s Grasp
2 Evermind
1 Dampen Thought
1 Candles’ Glow
…And that leaves us with just one card worth mentioning so far, and that would be the Epic card that actually seems to be worth the investment in, the one that rewards you for actually casting it once and riding it the rest of the game: Enduring Ideal. Seven mana is something you can get if you try, from lands (the Urzatron, or Cloudpost), from fast mana (Seething Song, Krark-Clan Ironworks, Pentad Prism), or from Heartbeat of Spring if you just don’t care. A little bit of column A, a little bit of column B, and we get the following:
4
“>Sakura-Tribe Elder
4
“>Eternal Witness
4
“>Sylvan Scrying
4
“>Kodama’s Reach
4
“>Sensei’s Divining Top
4
“>Enduring Ideal
4
“>Heartbeat of Spring
1
“>Trade Routes
1
“>Seismic Assault
1
“>Night of Souls’ Betrayal
1
“>Meishin, the Mind’s Cage
1
“>Ivory Mask
1
“>Honden of Cleansing Fire
1
“>Zur’s Weirding
1
“>Confiscate
1 Genju of The Realm
9 Forest
4
“>Elfhame Palace
4
“>Cloudpost
2
“>Tendo Ice Bridge
2 Plains
1
“>Boseiju, Who Shelters All
1 Island
Now, silly as this is when you could be playing Tooth and Nail instead, you may not get to play Tooth and Nail forever… so pondering this alternative while you laugh at it is probably for the best, as we file it away into memory. The kill can come from a few credible ways: Confiscate their best creature and attack, or pull out Genju of the Realm to stomp face. If only there were an Enchantment that targeted creatures repeatedly (for a color of mana we’re willing to spend, at least) we could use Cowardice, but instead we can’t. The most likely route is to get Zur’s Weirding and Honden of Cleansing Fire, locking the opponents’ draw, or your choice of Meishin, the Mind’s Cage or Night of Souls’ Betrayal to control the creature situation on the board, giving you enough time to continue the rest of your plans. The Genju can kill your opponent with creature damage, or Trade Routes + Seismic Assault can deal 20 directly if you can do something so simple as find ten Lands in play… perfectly credible, given the land-searchers that are powering us out to this level of mana anyway.
But then, with this degenerate level of mana, you can probably do something more nearly akin to the Gifts Ungiven deck, and this strategy isn’t happy to face off against Cranial Extraction anytime soon. Casting Myojin, wiping the board with Sway of the Stars, all of these can be done once the same kind of investment has been made; Enduring Ideal has the right stuff to work out, but might just be sitting in the wrong format at the moment… which could be prone to change, either thanks to a metagame shift or simple card rotation. Either way, someone will build a deck around it, and take it to Regionals… they always bring the most unlikely things, though having that many people in one room tends to let you see at least one of everything.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, pretty much sums up the options that are available. Next up, we’ll see what the rest of the world seems up to, tweak some numbers, and work to figuring out what the tolerances are on the new Standard we’ll be seeing.