OBC Worlds: Looking At The Top W/G Decks

So Worlds has passed us a few weeks into the PT: Houston qualifying season, and we now get the benefit of seeing what the Pros felt were the best decks in the format. In a lot of ways, it doesn’t look like much has changed since Osaka. Monoblack control and blue/green decks are tops, though the number 1 and number 2 slots have changed – while monoblack more or less ruled Osaka with blue/green nipping on its heels (and eventually taking the top spot), the OBC portion of Worlds had blue/green all over the top tables. Of the nine undefeated decks on Day 3, over half were blue/green. But if we look past those decks, and the two monoblack decks, we see two new archetypes that couldn’t have existed before Judgment.

First we have Team Punisher’s U/W deck. Tomi Walamies played it to a 6-0 record and claimed it beat both U/G and Monoblack. Star City’s own [author name="Geordie Tait"]Geordie Tait[/author] goes on and on about the deck, so I won’t go over the deck too much here, except to say that it sounds to me this deck belongs in the tier 1 category, and was simply missed by a lot of the pro teams.

Then we have the single white/green deck to go undefeated. Only three other white-green decks did better than 50/50: Factor in the other eleven players wielding the archetype, the overall win percentage is 47.7% at 43 wins and 47 losses. Judgment was supposed to usher in white-green power but it didn’t seem to come together. I’m going to go over this archetype with a fine tooth comb to see what went right and what went wrong for white-green, and at the end of it all propose an”ideal” build from the lessons learned.

Let’s kick it off with the undefeated W/G deck:

2002 Worlds (OBC): W/G Madness

Arvi Limpadanai 6/0

Main Deck

10 Forest

9 Plains

4 Sungrass Prairie

4 Anurid Brushhopper

4 Arrogant Wurm

4 Basking Rootwalla

4 Glory

4 Phantom Centaur

4 Tireless Tribe

4 Wild Mongrel

4 Elephant Guide

3 Krosan Reclamation

1 Morningtide

1 Vengeful Dreams

Sideboard:

2 Bearscape

1 Genesis

2 Moment’s Peace

1 Morningtide

2 Ray of Revelation

2 Spellbane Centaur

3 Squirrel Nest

2 Vengeful Dreams

Started OBC 230th place

Won 2-0 vs. W/G Madness

Won 2-0 vs. W/G Madness

Won 2-0 vs. Monoblack Braids

Won 2-0 vs. U/G Threshold

Won 2-1 vs. MBC

Won 2-0 vs. MBC

Arvi started off in the depths of the ranks at 230th place; some people may tell you that starting so far low, it was fairly”easy” to rack up a winning record, but I’m of the opinion that this is Worlds, and even the worst player at Worlds is hardly going to be Mr. Bye.

What is particularly sad is the fact he had to square off against two W/G decks right off the bat, making it slightly more difficult to evaluate this deck’s performance against the expected metagame. He whupped both decks without a game loss, which leads me to think the Elephant Guides and four ways to clear graveyards (i.e. Glories) may have been key. In the Braids matchup, I think the deck just has too many cheap creatures for Braids to ever really be a problem, particularly with the Nests in the board.

Morningtide and Reclamation give the deck some potent weapons against a Threshold strategy, along with the Spellbanes, which may have accounted for the victory over the U/G deck. Lastly, maindeck Brushhopper, Phantom Centaur and Elephant Guide, plus Squirrel Nest and Bearscape give the deck plenty of weapons against MBC.

Now lets get to the 4-2 builds:

2002 Worlds (OBC): W/G Madness

Svend Geertsen 4/2

Main Deck

10 Forest

10 Plains

4 Sungrass Prairie

4 Anurid Brushhopper

4 Arrogant Wurm

4 Basking Rootwalla

4 Glory

4 Phantom Centaur

4 Tireless Tribe

4 Wild Mongrel

4 Elephant Guide

4 Moment’s Peace

Sideboard:

1 Genesis

2 Howling Gale

2 Krosan Reclamation

3 Ray of Revelation

3 Squirrel Nest

2 Still Life

2 Sylvan Safekeeper

Started OBC 135th place

Lost 1-2 vs. U/G Madness

Won 2-1 vs. U/B Braids

Won 2-0 vs. MBC

Won 2-0 vs. U/R Madness

Won 2-1 vs. U/G Threshold

Lost 0-2 vs. MBC

Svend’s version is built for consistency, with four of all the”good stuff” for the archetype, and the most land of all the builds. He also has the interesting choice of four maindecked Moment’s Peace, buying him plenty of time against other fast attack decks. He lost the first round to a U/G Madness deck, but they did go to three games. He also went to three games vs. Threshold U/G, but ended up winning this one; this suggests that the U/G matchup is a struggle for Svend’s build. I’m guessing it probably comes down to who has the fastest start and can cement the lead with their incarnation of choice. Svend pays a little lip service to graveyard control with Reclamations in the board, but he may have been better served with a few more copies and/or Morningtide.

Worlds 2002 (OBC): W/G Madness

Jason Neale 4/2

Main Deck

11 Forest

8 Plains

4 Sungrass Prairie

4 Anurid Brushhopper

4 Arrogant Wurm

4 Basking Rootwalla

4 Glory

3 Phantom Centaur

2 Spurnmage Advocate

3 Tireless Tribe

4 Wild Mongrel

4 Elephant Guide

2 Krosan Reclamation

2 Roar of the Wurm

1 Vengeful Dreams

Sideboard:

2 Bearscape

1 Genesis

1 Krosan Reclamation

2 Ray of Revelation

2 Roar of the Wurm

2 Spellbane Centaur

3 Squirrel Nest

2 Vengeful Dreams

Started OBC 139th place

Won 2-1 vs. U/G Quiet Spec

Lost 0-2 vs. U/G Threshold

Won 2-1 vs. U/G Quiet Spec

Lost 1-2 vs. U/B UZI

Won 2-0 vs. U/B Braids

Won 2-0 vs. U/G Quiet Spec

Jason dominated the U/G Quiet Speculation matchup, beating three of them, but lost to a U/G Threshold build. Jason’s build is unique of the G/W builds in his use of Spurnmage Advocate, which seemed to be so key in the U/W Quiet Screech deck. Perhaps it gave him the edge against the Quiet Spec decks? In his other matchups with two blue/black decks, he beat the Braids deck (which is not surprising), but struggled with UZI. He didn’t seem to have much maindeck or board that was particularly good against the powerful, but little-seen OBC Upheaval/Zombie Infestation deck. Of course, what is good against that deck anyway besides fast beats?

Worlds 2002 (OBC): W/G Madness

Arnost Zidek 4-2

Main Deck

11 Forest

8 Plains

4 Sungrass Prairie

4 Anurid Brushhopper

4 Arrogant Wurm

4 Basking Rootwalla

4 Glory

3 Phantom Centaur

4 Tireless Tribe

4 Wild Mongrel

4 Elephant Guide

3 Krosan Reclamation

2 Roar of the Wurm

1 Vengeful Dreams

Sideboard:

2 Bearscape

1 Genesis

1 Krosan Reclamation

2 Moment’s Peace

2 Ray of Revelation

2 Spellbane Centaur

3 Squirrel Nest

2 Vengeful Dreams

Started OBC 220nd place

Won 2-1 vs. U/G Quiet Spec

Won 2-1 vs. U/G Madness

Won 2-0 vs. U/G Quiet Spec

Won 2-0 vs. W/G Madness

Lost 1-2 vs. U/G Quiet Spec

Lost 1-2 vs. U/G Quiet Spec

Heh; I bet Arnost got sick of seeing forests on the other side of the board from him! He seemed to beat the madness builds but split against the Quiet Spec decks he faced. He seemed to rely on Vengeful Dreams a little too much, with three between the maindeck and sideboard – and the Dreams are just not all that good against decks packing counterspells. (Also note that he lost more the higher up he got, which suggests that his play skills may not have been up to par – The Ferrett, not meaning to malign the man, but still) His board seemed a little cluttered with cards for the MBC matchup when he already had good maindeck solutions.

Summarizing these winning decks, we get an overall 18-6 record.

Vs. other decks (not counting the mirror):

Monoblack Braids 1-0

U/B Braids 2-0

U/B UZI 0-1

U/G Threshold 2-1

U/G Madness 2-1

U/G Quiet Spec 5-2

U/R Madness 1-0

MBC 3-1

Looking it over, the deck seemed to post decent results against just about all the important decks of the format, though it seems to struggle a tad against the popular and powerful U/G builds. This suggests to me that the deck still needs refining. So what is the correct build? I can’t say for certain, since massive playtesting will tell that tale – but if I were going to play this tomorrow, this is what I’d run with:

W/G Beats

9 Forest

11 Plains

4 Sungrass Prairie

4 Spurnmage Advocate

4 Tireless Tribe

4 Wild Mongrel

4 Beloved Chaplain

4 Anurid Brushhopper

4 Arrogant Wurm

4 Phantom Centaur

4 Glory

4 Elephant Guide

Taking a page from the Punisher U/W deck, I think it’s easy to justify adding Spurnmage Advocates and Beloved Chaplains to our deck. Played correctly, the Spurnmages are a house against the U/G decks – just remember that multiple Spurnmages can activate and target the same cards in the graveyard. I’ve also de-emphasized the madness aspect of the deck with the removal of the Rootwallas, which were simply the weakest link in the deck and were cut to make room. As much as I dislike the non-synergy of Glory/Elephant Guide in an environment thick with green men, I can’t deny the success of the decks wielding both cards. I guess Elephant Guide is simply good enough to warrant the occasional clunkiness.

The Sideboard will depend on the expected metagame, and I’d need to work on that some. I like the Bearscapes and Squirrel Nests, and the Rays seem necessary for the oddball Solitary decks that might show up at a PTQ. The rest are up in the air, though I’m definitely not a fan of Vengeful Dreams.

For those who want to dig a little deeper into the archetype, these are the rest of the W/G players who didn’t post a better than 50% win record. You can find their decklists on www.sideboard.com