Planar Chaos has arrived, and next week Magic Online will start to show the effects that PC will have on various Constructed formats. Grand Prix Dallas and Singapore featured nine physical Planar Chaos cards out of the 1200 total cards in the two Top 8s. Standard seems as though it will see a similar quantity of Planar Chaos cards in the best decks, but the few cards that do make it are going to be extremely important.
There is nothing to say about Damnation other than that it is format-changing. Before February 20th, the three decks that made up more than ten percent of the Magic Online Premiere Event Top 8s were Mono-Green Aggro, Dralnu du Louvre, and Dragonstorm. MGA was the biggest winner because there was no reason to hold back against the top decks; the plan of action against almost every deck was to simply throw as many creatures as possible into play, and then swing for the fences. Unfortunately for fans of Silhana Ledgewalker, the Number Two (or Number One, depending on who you ask) deck just picked up Wrath of God.
Gone are the days when MGA could simply power through the powerful removal spells that Dralnu could bring to bear against it. Darkblast, Seize the Soul, and Skeletal Vampire all meant multiple dead Green creatures, but there were plenty of games where it didn’t matter that you were getting destroyed by higher-quality spells because your opponent was at zero life. These days, things are very different. It doesn’t matter how fast you can get on the board when your opponent is going to blow the board up the turn before you can kill them. Seize the Soul might not have been good enough to stop MGA when it was the only tool, but when it follows a Damnation, it’s going to be incredible.
Dragonstorm is going to experience similar consequences. Before Damnation, three Bogardan Hellkites were usually enough to seal the deal. Fifteen points to the face followed by a massive attack still punched through Seize the Soul for the full twenty. With the black Wrath in the mix, anything less than twenty damage in one turn risks leaving you with almost no gas left in your deck against the best counterspell deck in the format.
I am not saying that when the dust settles at the end of next week, Dralnu decks will make up 50% of all Top 8s, but I am saying that the faces of many decks will change dramatically. Specifically, Mono-Green Aggro is going to need to be able to play a real threat after a Damnation, and Dragonstorm is going to need to work to make sure that it can get the full twenty damage in easier than it currently can. There is a decent chance that some decks that have fallen in popularity recently will rise again, due to their resilience against a card like Damnation, but we will simply have to wait and see if that is the case.
(Almost) Mono-Green Aggro
Even the face of non-PC Standard has changed since the last time I wrote about this deck. To keep up with the changes, my MGA list evolved into the following:
Creatures (26)
- 4 Llanowar Elves
- 2 Birds of Paradise
- 4 Dryad Sophisticate
- 4 Silhana Ledgewalker
- 4 Scryb Ranger
- 4 Spectral Force
- 4 Yavimaya Dryad
Lands (22)
Spells (12)
Sideboard
The changes are fairly minor: I swapped the Druids out for Birds to facilitate the Blood Moon splash, I cut the Ghost Quarters, and I added an Arena.
Blood Moon is amazing against Dralnu decks, and is also very good against many of the Tier 1.5 and Tier 2 decks, such as U/W Tron and B/W Control. Boros was one of the decks that declined in popularity, so the Spike Feeders were easy cuts for the Enchantments. With the Moon in the mix, Ghost Quarter wasn’t needed anymore.
The Arena is a little bit strange, since it is good in exactly the matchup you wouldn’t expect: Dragonstorm. Arena certainly won’t let you win when they combo off and hit you for twenty on turn 4, but it can let you punch through a fast Hellkite. Many games against Dragonstorm are lost when they wipe your side on turn 3 or 4 with a single Hellkite, and then use it to hold the fort against your army of 1/1s. When this happens, they are usually at a very low life total, and using the Arena to just tap down their Dragon will let you in for the last few points. If you have some pump spells, you might even be able to take the Dragon out instead of just tapping it down.
However, there is little to no chance that this deck would be able to beat a Damnation-equipped Dralnu deck unless it managed to get a Blood Moon into play to keep the opponent off of BB. This is simply because MGA is required to overextend into a Wrath just to get past whatever combination of spot removal the opponent has decided to play. To combat this, MGA needs to be able to play creatures pre-Wrath that are hard to deal with, and creatures post-Wrath that can get damage in even if the Dralnu player is untapping into Seize the Soul.
MGA already plays the two creatures that Dralnu can’t just kill with a Darkblast or Last Gasp, but Planar Chaos brings Haste to Green, and Haste is just what you want on your follow-up to a Damnation. If your answer to Wrath is a Spectral Force, there’s no guarantee that it will be able to attack before it is dealt with. If, on the other hand, you answer is Timbermare, you will get at least five damage in before the Dralnu player ruins your dreams. Giant Solifuge is just as good against Damnation from Dralnu as it always was against Wrath from Solar Flare. Groundbreaker is extremely fragile, since it falls to the bane of MGA decks everywhere (Darkblast), but it will do the most damage for the least mana if everything goes right.
Spectral Force and Yavimaya Dryad were always good against other aggro decks. Yavimaya was so good because it gave you a relevant evasive body and kicked your mana ahead a turn. In concert with an Elf, it provided another route to the third-turn Spectral Force. The Force was similarly good against aggro decks, since it was too big to burn out and too big to block well. Unfortunately, the only relevant aggro deck left is MGA. Losing your Forestwalker will hurt in the mirror, but gaining large threats will help you in many other places.
With this in mind, the deck that I plan on running in the coming weeks is:
Creatures (26)
- 2 Llanowar Elves
- 4 Birds of Paradise
- 4 Dryad Sophisticate
- 4 Giant Solifuge
- 4 Silhana Ledgewalker
- 4 Scryb Ranger
- 4 Timbermare
Lands (22)
Spells (12)
Sideboard
I’ve removed the Arena and swapped the numbers on Birds of Paradise and Llanowar Elves due to the loss of maindeck Yavimaya Dryads. The Arena gave you outs to a single Hellkite, but Timbermare does that and attacks for five.
The maindeck has been dramatically re-wired to fight Dralnu du Louvre, which I expect to be the most popular deck. Scryb Ranger and Ledgewalker were always very good threats against them, but they are joined by maindeck Solifuges and the newly-minted Timbermares. Solifuge is good both pre- and post-Damnation, and Timbermare hits for five after both Damnation and Skeletal Vampire. The Blood Moons in the sideboard should come in for Dryad Sophisticates. Dryads are very good against Dralnu, but they are still the least good of all the cards. All of the pump is untouchable, as is the mana. Similarly, Ledgewalker, Solifuge, and Timbermare are at their best against Dralnu. This leaves Scryb Ranger and Sophisticate as potential cuts. The Sophisticate has a better form of attack evasion, but Flash and Protection from Blue mean that the Ranger is more likely to actually deal damage at all. In addition, the untap ability is a strong combo with Timbermare’s tap ability.
Unfortunately, gaining all of that strength against Dralnu has lost MGA a lot of power against the mirror. Yavimaya Dryad and Spectral Force were two of the best cards you could draw in the mirror, but Yavimaya Dryad was certainly the better of the two. Giant Solifuge is fairly unimpressive, but it isn’t the worst card in the world. The MGA mirror is essentially a massive race, so there will be turns where your opponent’s play is a pump spell or two, as opposed to a creature, so the Insect should be able to find an opportunity to get in there without being chumpblocked. Timbermare isn’t as good here as it is in other places, since your opponent may or may not have a Scryb Ranger ready to untap a blocker, but many builds have cut them along with their Spectral Forces.
Sideboarding gives you eight huge cards, though, and while you might be at a slight disadvantage to a pre-PC MGA deck in game 1, you will be at a massive advantage in games 2 and 3. There is nothing scarier than a Forestwalker with a Moldervine Cloak in the mirror, since the only way to stop it is to bounce all of your lands with Scryb Rangers. Meanwhile, you get to cut Dryad Sophisticate (a vanilla 2/1) and Giant Solifuge. With this upgrade in creature quality, all of your threats will be extremely difficult to block, which is a deadly change with Cloaks and Mights in the mix.
Dragonstorm isn’t very different than it once was. You’ve lost your Yavimaya Dryads, who were too slow to really do anything, in exchange for a set of Solifuges that should be able to deal quite a bit more damage. Timbermares, as I’ve said above, might allow you to deal the last few points against a non-combo kill from the opponent. The sideboard includes three Groundbreakers, which are there specifically to deal as much damage as fast as possible. Scryb Ranger only has one power, and without the allure of untapping a Spectral Force, they just aren’t worth leaving in against the combo deck.
Dralnu du Louvre, Briefly
So what does this new Dralnu deck look like? The specifics aren’t very important, but the general idea is. The stock, pre-PC, list comes from Magic Online player Saikyo, and is listed in Frank Karsten’s weekly mtg.com article.
3 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
1 Dralnu, Lich Lord
1 Skeletal Vampire
4 Remand
4 Repeal
4 Rewind
4 Mystical Teachings
4 Rune Snag
4 Think Twice
3 Spell Snare
1 Last Gasp
1 Seize the Soul
1 Commandeer
1 Sudden Death
4 Desert
4 Underground River
4 Watery Grave
3 Dimir Aqueduct
2 Dreadship Reef
7 Snow-Covered Island
Sideboard
4 Bottle Gnomes
3 Persecute
2 Shadow of Doubt
2 Dreadship Reef
1 Darkblast
1 Helldozer
1 Spell Snare
1 Trickbind
This list is old, and doesn’t contain a lot of innovation, but it is the list that nearly everyone has started from. Obviously it was not the first, but it is the last stock list. Many pre-PC lists have found ways to include cards like Darkblast, Cruel Edict, Haunting Hymn, and even Shred Memory. Another common theme is to run more storage lands, since they are amazing in control matchups. Sideboard cards like Deathmark, Annex, Leyline of the Void, and more have become commonplace to address MGA, Tron decks, and even the Green/Black Dredge deck.
Post-Planar Chaos, the big question is what to cut to make room for Damnations. Players on my team have moved away from running four copies of cards like Repeal, Rewind, and Rune Snag/Mana Leak. However, we can’t just shove four Damnations into the deck and Wrath our way to victory on turn four. Tapping out for a sweeper is just asking to get destroyed by something like Giant Solifuge, and as such we need to make sure that we have a plan to deal with their backup. With all of this in mind, and borrowing heavily from JoINrbs, I suggest the following updated list.
Creatures (5)
Lands (25)
Spells (30)
- 2 Rewind
- 3 Mana Leak
- 1 Darkblast
- 4 Remand
- 1 Repeal
- 1 Seize the Soul
- 2 Spell Snare
- 1 Commandeer
- 1 Cancel
- 1 Haunting Hymn
- 4 Mystical Teachings
- 1 Spell Burst
- 1 Sudden Death
- 3 Think Twice
- 4 Damnation
Sideboard
The updates that I’ve made to the stock list are both simple card choice differences that JoINrbs made before Planar Chaos, and trims to fit Damnations. There are fewer Repeals and fewer Rewinds (in the maindeck), since they often clutter your opening hand. There are also more Teachings targets, from the back-breaking against control decks (Haunting Hymn) to the back-breaking against aggro decks (Spell Burst). There is a singleton Cancel to tutor up when you need the cheapest possible hard counter, and a single Darkblast to tear apart MGA’s board. I have also updated the manabase quite a bit. Dreadship Reef is, in fact, that good, so there’s a fifth storage land. Urza’s Factory is similarly strong in control matchups, so it has found its way in as well. The single Swamp is there in deference to various non-basic hosers, and the fact that four double-Black spells just got added.
The sideboard addresses MGA with two Edicts and an extra Vampire and Seize. The Edicts are there to follow up your Damnation, in case you are forced to use it on turn four and they throw a Solifuge at you. There are Persecutes and more hard counters for the mirror and other control matchups. The fight against Dragonstorm is made easier with the extra Rewinds and three hosers. The one card that might seem fairly out of place is Leyline of the Void. These aren’t exactly necessary for every tournament, but the Green/Black Dredge deck is all over the Standard MTGO PEs, and since you usually won’t beat that deck without Leyline, you’ll find it hard to actually win a tournament without them. They also splash damage decks like Angelfire.
When the release events end, there will be plenty of evidence to find out whether or not the specifics of these changes are wise. However, it is undeniable that Damnation is going to change the format and that anyone who isn’t prepared for it is going to find themselves in the drop bracket fairly quickly.
As always, if you have any questions, feel free to contact me in the forums, via email, or on AIM.
Benjamin Peebles-Mundy
ben at mundy dot net
SlickPeebles on AIM