Last week, I talked a little about the state of Standard. I briefly mentioned how the format has evolved to a place where the person doing the most powerful thing typically wins. While the whole “play good cards and you’ll do well” mantra is true for the most part, your Sphinx of Jwar Isle is going to look silly facing down their Baneslayer Angel.
UW Tap Out Control might not be the best deck in the format, but it’s certainly making a run at that title with its recent finishes in the Magic Online PTQs. With Rise not giving Jund much to work with, UW will be the deck to beat in the first few weeks in the format. So what do you do about that, especially if you want to play UW yourself?
The UW mirror is typically dictated by who gets bottlenecked on mana, as that person is usually not able to keep up with their opponent. Eventually they will start resolving bigger Mind Springs, or even just some planeswalkers, either of which can take over the game.
UW already has an impressive amount of mana acceleration, but c’mon, we can do better. If you really want to out-mana your opponent, you should try Josh Silvestri deck:
Creatures (4)
Planeswalkers (3)
Lands (30)
Spells (23)
Sideboard
This list does a lot of things I like, but I can’t get behind the full amount of Day of Judgments in today’s format. That card is much worse than it was a month ago (which was when this list was made, to be fair). Where are the Nayas, the Koroses, even the Mythics? Instead of DoJ, you could play Spreading Seas maindeck, or simply add additional planewalkers, or maybe even some Time Warps.
The sideboard is kind of loose. I would recommend playing Negates in the board, but maindecking some is fine as well.
I’ve written about the following deck earlier, but I figure I should post it to show a different direction to go with the “Turbo Land” strategy.
Creatures (10)
Lands (29)
Spells (21)
This one was a little rough around the edges. The mana was alright, the spells were fine, and Cruel Ultimatum usually ended the game once it resolved, but Ruinblaster was still a huge issue. Mind Spring was arguably better than Cruel Ultimatum. Time Warp probably would have been useful. It would be like a super Explore at times, but can produce some backbreaking openings where you get to Cruel them before they even have a fourth land.
Tectonic Edge would be amazing in this type of deck, but obviously doesn’t work well with Cruel Ultimatum. Sprouting Thrinax was good against everything and probably should have been maindeck, possibly instead of the Chain Reactions or Bituminous Blasts.
While more modest than the above lists, you should check out this list from a Magic Online Daily Event:
Creatures (3)
Planeswalkers (5)
Lands (26)
Spells (26)
- 2 Rampant Growth
- 3 Mind Spring
- 3 Negate
- 3 Bant Charm
- 3 Martial Coup
- 1 Divination
- 3 Day of Judgment
- 4 Spreading Seas
- 4 Explore
Sideboard
Rampant Growth and Explore are both more consistent than Knight of the White Orchid. They let you ramp from two mana to four mana rather than what is typically three mana to five mana more consistently, which plays well with cards like Day of Judgment and Jace, the Mind Sculptor. Still, I believe that with its six X-spells, it would greatly benefit from Everflowing Chalice, perhaps instead of Rampant Growth. That does make the mana a little rougher on Bant Charm though.
Green isn’t a huge addition to the list, with only some ramps, removal, and Rhox War Monk (who is arguably better than Kor Firewalker). What about taking a page out of Michael Jacob or Brad Nelson book and playing some Lotus Cobras in the sideboard? Most people expect the transformational sideboard plan out of a deck like this, but typically they are expecting Baneslayers. Keeping in Bolts is pretty suspect, but a lot of people do it anyway.
Lotus Cobra is the accelerator that really has me excited. Cobra-fueled Mind Springs are surely going to trump theirs, and you only need a single fetchland untapped to Negate their counterspell. Sure, it’s bad with Day of Judgment, but as I said before, that card is almost useless now.
Could a UG build be viable, potentially with a White splash for Path to Exile or Oblivion Ring to deal with problematic permanents? I’ve seen a couple straight UG builds money recent DEs, including this one piloted by skilled magician Adam Prosak.
Creatures (9)
Planeswalkers (3)
Lands (28)
Spells (20)
Sideboard
While noticeably lacking in the Lotus Cobra and Mind Spring department (although the Springs are in the sideboard), this list intrigues me. FOG? What kind of world do we live in where Fog is the “removal” spell of choice? Probably one where Day of Judgment does nothing versus the team of Bloodbraid Elf, Sprouting Thrinax, and Raging Ravine.
Avenger of Zendikar is truly interesting. Jund has a difficult time killing it to begin with. UW having Wraths is problematic, but it shouldn’t be hard for you to set up Avenger + Time Warp.
You could also build a deck like this to sideboard Polymorph, or have Polymorph sideboard into Rampaging Baloths.dec if that’s the sort of thing you’re interested in.
If I weren’t completely dead set on Opening some Vaults in the StarCityGames.com Atlanta Open this weekend, I would probably be playing something that tries to make a ton of mana and then cast Mind Spring. While many, and I mean many, have openly mocked Open the Vaults for not putting up big finishes, this is all I have to say:
LSV: I 2-2ed a DE with UW… beat 2 mirror, lost to two 75 your article.
GerryT: Lol… how’s that taste?
LSV: I almost won one, but yeah… I couldn’t beat him
Seriously though, there aren’t very many people playing OTV, and as I said last week, there are a lot of people who can’t seem to duplicate the success I’ve been having. They simply bemoan their luck, bad matchups, or problems with the deck rather than working with me to try and fix the problems.
Open the Vaults is a powerful card, one that has no rival in Standard. Rather than say things like “this deck can’t beat Putrid Leech,” how about you add things that beat Leech or make it less of an issue? Seems like a much better plan than just scrapping a deck with one of the most powerful cards in the format.
Yes, I know the format tends to shift quickly, and therefore it’s a lot of work to keep up with stuff like that, but guess what? Sometimes you need to work hard to be successful.
Anyway, moving on. I’m excited for this SCG Open this weekend, for a few reasons, the least of which is that I finally get to play OTV in a real tournament. Granted, my list is kind of a brew, but that’s to be expected with me these days…
I’m staying with very good man Joseph Crosby, and I get to hang out with the fine people of the Atlanta Magic community. I also get to see Cedric Phillips, the Hollands, and maybe Calosso Fuentes if I’m lucky enough. If that’s not reason enough to come to these Open events, then I don’t know what is.
But the real reason I’m excited to play? I don’t think Jund with be very popular, at least compared to recently.
It’s been extremely interesting watching this Standard format evolve. Right after Llorwyn rotated out, everyone knew Jund was going to be the best. Still, it wasn’t like everyone just hopped on the bandwagon and played the best deck. There were new cards to be played with, and there was brewing to be done!
At Worlds, Jund was popular, but it didn’t make it out of the quarterfinals. You see, we are professionals, and that means that brewing is our job. If we finally cave and admit that we couldn’t build a deck that beat Jund, it’s like we’ve failed. Obviously there are those who just jam the best deck at every tournament (PV, Sam Black), and they generally do pretty well for themselves, but that isn’t how most pros operate.
After Worlds, the “brewing period” continued for a little bit longer, but it was becoming incredibly clear that Jund was the way to go. If you wanted to win, you had to play Jund and hope for the best, and that’s what most people figured out and did.
Worldwake was released, but sadly, not much brewing was to be had. UW Control became a reasonable deck, and there were some flashes in the pan like Mythic, Naya, and Boros, but in the end it all came full circle. Jund was the best.
Guess what time it is? Brewing time! You know you’ve been brewing, don’t lie. You also think your brew is good, but it isn’t. The bad news is that you’d have a better chance of winning the tournament if you just played Jund. The good news is, everyone else thinks like you. You just busted some packs, had some fun drafting, and now you want to play with some fattie boom booms in Constructed. Just pretend Jund isn’t there. There’s only nine rounds in the Atlanta Open… how many times you can really play against Jund, right?
This is a great time for Magic. Not only is Rise of the Eldrazi excellent for Limited, but it shakes up Standard just the right amount. UW gets some upgrades, and Jund basically gets nothing, but there are some suboptimal cards that people are going to want to try, and there’s plenty of stuff that lead to new archetypes or new spins on old ones. Also, any set with Wall of Blossoms, no matter what color it is, is going to be one near and dear to my heart.
Check back next week for all of my Atlanta adventures. I’ve only been in town for a day so far, but it’s been excellent!
GerryT