One Step Ahead – Blue, Red, Control: Now Put Them Together

Jason Ford and I have an interesting past, even though we’ve only known each other for a few months.

We met at Grand Prix Columbus when we were paired at 7-1. He was energy incarnate, unable to sit still or stop talking. I figured he was another one of those kids who was just excited to have locked up Day 2, so I congratulated him on his accomplishment, assuming that was his goal in the first place. My hope was that his mind wouldn’t be on our match any longer, since he’d already met his goals. To my surprise, he replied with something along the lines of, “I don’t care about Day 2. I’m here to win.”

Hrm.

Now imagine my greater surprise when he revealed himself to be a U/G/B Landstill deck, one of the hardest decks to pilot in the format and proceeded to make few mistakes, if any. He flawlessly navigated his way through my Volrath’s Stronghold plus Eternal Witness “lock” by patiently waiting for a Jace to go with the Wasteland he was sandbagging (a series of plays which left the Witness stranded on the bottom of my library).

Apparently I underestimated him. After the match, he even asked what kinds of mistakes he made, but I couldn’t tell him. I was definitely the one punting that match, not him. It was no shock that he went on to make Top 4 of that Grand Prix.

It was odd that our paths hadn’t crossed until then, as he’d been at all the Pro Tours so far that season, as had I. We shared mutual friends (81 now, according to Facebook), and he even went to college in Minneapolis where I’d been living since January.

However, when it rains, it pours. We ran into each other again at StarCityGames.com Open: Minneapolis. Despite being 6-2, I had an outside shot for Top 8 and was paired against Jason who was sitting on 6-1-1. Unfortunately, we had to play, and he mulliganed to five and four in our games (although I went to five once as well).

Lately, I’ve been trying to organize some live drafts to get everyone prepped for upcoming events. So far, Jason has been the only person who responds with an excited, “Yes, I’m in!” every single time.

My point? Well, first of all, I expect big things from this kid next year, and he’s already accrued seventeen pro points this year. Second, he just took a U/R Control brew of mine and piloted it to the Top 4 of the TCGPlayer.com 5K Tournament in New York, presumably on zero testing.

I got a text from him at about 1 p.m. last Saturday, saying how he liked my brew, but I thought nothing of it and went back to sleep. When I got up for real at 6 p.m., I remembered there was a 5k, turned on GGsLive.com, and saw him battling in the Top 8.

Unfortunately, Jason lost in the Top 4 to Valakut, which admittedly, isn’t a great matchup. I built the deck to crush aggressive strategies and still be solid against ramp decks and U/W Control.

This is what Jason played:

I wanted to build a permission deck like Polymorph or Pyromancer Ascension, a deck that’s pure velocity and has a very light mana curve. Polymorph and Ascension both had outstanding U/W Control and ramp matchups, so it made sense to start there. Unfortunately, Ponder is gone, as are the good combo kills, so you need to load your deck up on removal and finishers. After that, your deck becomes mostly a clunky mess.

Initially, I had Inferno Titans instead of their Frosty compadres, but I cannot stress how much better Frost Titan is. While Inferno Titan is going to crush decks based on weenie creatures, the rest of the deck should do that for you. Frost Titan beats every other Titan in a fight, which is incredibly important with the recent success of the ramp decks.

I said it earlier this week, but Frost Titan is the most underrated card in Standard right now.

Post-board against ramp decks, you’re very much a land destruction deck. Aggressively counter their ramp spells, Tectonic Edge them here and there, and play a Jace to pull ahead. Frost Titan or Destructive Force will probably nail the door shut.

That strategy works well after sideboarding, but game 1 is rough. You really need to win the die roll and be aggressive.

I had more Jace Belerens to fight U/W, as whoever wins the Jace fight will probably win the game. They also allow you to tear through your deck, past those crappy Pyroclasms and Bolts against ramp, and get to the good stuff. Turns out Jason likes Jace 2.0 more than Jace 1.0, I guess.

Preordain is a Chapin favorite, so you can’t go wrong there. Like Jace against the ramp decks, its primary function is to shove those useless Pyroclasms on the bottom and get to the good stuff. Compulsive Research and Careful Consideration were amazing at that, but we have to use what we have.

Burst Lightning instead of Lightning Bolt was strictly because of Celestial Colonnade. Few things die to Bolt that don’t die to Burst, so Burst is almost always better.

The sideboard is a mess. I wanted three Koths to fight the Jace fight against U/W, but I think Jason could only get one. Regardless, he said he didn’t like Koth, or his sideboard in general.

Jason played against:

U/W Control
U/W Control
Valakut
Eldrazi Ramp
Boros
Eldrazi Ramp (loss to Tim Landale)
Mono-Red (AJ Sacher)
ID with Eldrazi Ramp
Top 8 vs. Eldrazi Ramp
Top 4 vs. Valakut (loss)

Overall, a success. Jason fought off control, aggro, and some ramp decks, which gives me hope going forward. Ramp looks like the rough matchup, but I’d gladly play against ramp decks all day with my post-board configuration.

My newest list, which I wholeheartedly suggest for States:

I cut down on the non-Frost Titan expensive cards. Most of them are just worse than Titan the majority of the time. Typically, drawing one Volition Reins, one Jace’s Ingenuity, or one Destructive Force is better than drawing two of either, so I like the one-of splits on the “big” cards.

The ramp decks seem like they’re far more popular than the aggro decks, and probably pretty good against them. Therefore, I expect less aggressive decks and can cut a Pyroclasm and a Destructive Force from the maindeck.

I wanted to play Mystifying Maze in the mana base, and told Jason to do the same, but I was going to end up cutting Edges to do it. Jason, instead, compromised his mana by adding another colorless land. He then said that the Maze underperformed for him, which I believe.

He didn’t play against any Vengevine decks, and the colorless lands screwed him more than once from what I saw. The Eldrazi and Valakut matchups would be much worse without Edge, whereas you don’t actually need Maze to beat anything, so Edge gets the nod.

Sideboarding

The sideboard is still largely the same, although I feel like there’s something better I could be doing rather than boarding a bunch of counterspells. Even after boarding in more counterspells, it doesn’t seem like I have that much of an edge. I still feel incredibly vulnerable to Summoning Trap. Dispel used to be my answer for that out of my Pyromancer sideboard, but Dispel is far too narrow now.

I’d bring in the eight counterspells against ramp decks. Flame Slash is great against Eldrazi’s Overgrown Battlements and Joraga Treespeakers, but embarrassing against Valakut. Koth, Reins, and Force are solid, but maybe unnecessary.

Cutting Burst Lightnings and Pyroclasms is easy. Using Preordain to find counterspells is somewhat important, but something needs to go.

Shaving a Frost Titan or two is a possibility against Eldrazi. Drawing a clock is sort of relevant, but drawing cards plus Destructive Force is typically more of a game winner than a Frost Titan. Against Valakut, Frost Titan is useful in shutting down a key green source, so all copies have to stay. In both matchups, Titan is going to be better than Volition Reins.

That leaves me with:

Valakut

+ 4 Flashfreeze, 4 Negate, 1 Destructive Force
– 3 Burst Lightning, 1 Flame Slash, 3 Pyroclasm, 2 Preordain

Eldrazi Ramp

+ 4 Flashfreeze, 4 Negate, 1 Destructive Force, 1 Flame Slash
– 3 Burst Lightning, 3 Pyroclasm, 2 Frost Titan, 1 Volition Reins, 1 Preordain

Some people might think, “Hey, we’re red, and we need to hate out ramp decks — why not just jam in four Tunnel Ignuses?” The problem with Ignus is that it gets blocked by Overgrown Battlement or otherwise useless plant tokens. You don’t have many recurring damage sources until they’re basically already dead, so the damage doesn’t really matter.

In addition, the plan is to control their mana with Frost Titan, Destructive Force, Tectonic Edge, and counterspells. Ignus punishes them by letting their ramp spells resolve, but not in a way that you can benefit from.

U/W Control

+ 4 Negate, 2 Koth of the Hammer, 1 Volition Reins, 1 Destructive Force
– 1 Flame Slash, 3 Pyroclasm, 3 Burst Lightning, 1 Frost Titan

As I said earlier, Burst Lightning was chosen over Lightning Bolt almost strictly because of Celestial Colonnade, but that doesn’t mean you need to keep any in here. Destructive Force should likely keep their land count low enough that they can’t activate it.

Frost Titan is slow and vulnerable to all of their removal that they’ll likely have to keep in. This matchup is more about a battle of the planeswalkers than anything. Frost Titan will likely not matter.

RDW

+ 4 Flashfreeze, 2 Flame Slash

– 1 Volition Reins, 1 Destructive Force, 2 Deprive, 2 Mana Leak

This is just a rough sketch of how I’d sideboard. Obviously how many Pyroclasms and counterspells you want varies depending on what cards they’re playing or what type of red deck they are.

For example, if they’re packing the Devastating Summons/Goblin Bushwhacker combo, you probably want more counterspells. Ditto for Koth. If they’re playing Goblins or Kuldotha Rebirth, you might want all the Pyroclasms you can get your hands on.

Jace is kind of sweet in this matchup, since usually it’s better for them to just attack you, allowing you to get Brainstorm or Howling Mine every turn. Keeping in all six might be too many though.

If they have a lot of burn spells, Destructive Force might seem good. Resolving it will likely keep them from killing you for a few turns. However, killing them once you sacrifice five lands is going to difficult unless you have Frost Titan or a planeswalker in play already.

Molten-Tail Masticore is probably awesome against aggro decks, especially red. Putting them on a clock as early at turn 3 forces your opponent to come up with the necessary burn spells quickly. If red becomes popular moving forward, Masticore might be a good sideboard card or even a maindeck card. At this point, I’d rather have cards that are good against a wide variety of decks.

Sideboarding against other aggressive decks will probably be similar, except Destructive Force is a house against decks like White Weenie or Elves that have no reach.

Mass Polymorph

As I said earlier, I wanted to build a Polymorph deck, so naturally I tried making Mass Polymorph work. Antoine Ruel posted a list earlier this week right when I started working on mine:

We agree on a lot of things. I think three creatures is the right amount, and I even had the same configuration he did. Iona and Emperion might seem redundant, but sometimes you Polymorph with less than three creatures. Stormtide Leviathan is better against things like Primeval Titan though.

Treasure Hunt seems awful, although you do need to get to six mana. See Beyond doesn’t seem necessary, as even if you get stuck with a fatty in your hand, it probably won’t matter. There’s still Jace to shuffle them back in, too.

One of the reasons I wanted to build Mass Polymorph is to incorporate counterspells. I can’t imagine not playing with Mana Leak.

Here is my test list:

Stormtide Leviathan and Terastodon are likely in the sideboard. Leviathan replaces Emperion against decks that only damage you through combat, and Terastodon is to kill their Jace, since it bounces Emrakul and Iona.

Growth Spasm is underwhelming, and maybe would be better as more Chalices and Garruks.

Overall, I wasn’t happy with the list. It’s clunky, doesn’t have many ways to stop the opponent from killing me, and even when you combo, you’re somewhat weak to All Is Dust (which is another reason Terastodon is good). There isn’t enough permission to stop the ramp decks either.

I also tried a U/W version, which looked like this:

Elspeth works well with Mass Polymorph, and even allows you to function like a true control deck. Playing Elspeth into Elspeth will win you a decent number of games, whereas Garruk in the U/G version will merely stop the bleeding.

Oust is a fantastic card, and I’m glad that it exists, just for decks like this.

I’d say the U/W version is an upgrade, but I’m not sure. There are certainly improvements that could be made. The mana base contains a number of tap lands. I felt like I wanted the maximum amount because of the shaky mana requirements, but it might hinder the deck too much. Not being able to play Halimar Depths is a shame.

Playing a couple Deprives would be nice as well, perhaps at the expense of a land and an Oust.

It feels like Polymorph could be a contender, but maybe we have to wait until another set is released to see if it gains anything.

Tuning Ramp

For those of you who plan on being the bad guys at States, and ramping all over your opponents, I figured you might want to know how to tune your lists.

From what I’ve seen, Ratchet Bomb is slow and awkward, but probably necessary against Leonin Arbiter and Tunnel Ignus. All Is Dust would be better in most game 1 situations.

This is what I’d run:

The Memoricides are for the mirror, as is the Eye of Ugin. The Eye is also good against U/W or U/R decks that are going to Tectonic Edge you.

Obstinate Baloths are probably enough to fight RDW along with Smothers, although Tim Landale chose to maindeck some Wurmcoil Engines. He even sided up to four of them and some Pelakka Wurms.

With the black spells in the sideboard, I feel like some of the Treespeaker or Chalice ramp spells should be Cultivates or Growth Spasms, another card that Landale used to good effect. Finding black mana early is going to be crucial. Spasm is also the only card that will accelerate you to a turn 4 Primeval Titan on its lonesome, although with so much ramp in the deck, that may or may not be an issue.

Regardless of your deck choice, States is bound to be a ton of fun. There’s something for everyone, and plenty of room to innovate or tune your favorite deck to succeed. If you’re skipping it (like me), you’re an idiot (like me).

GerryT