Since the release of M10, I’ve been trying to build decks with one or both of the only two M10 cards I really like:
Aside from testing one of these new decks, I also wanted to try out Kyle Sanchez Colfenor’s Plans deck. I also wanted to try the Time Sieve deck, which was already a lot of fun when I saw Oli playing it in some queues on Magic Online. When I saw the Top 8 of the German Nationals, I couldn’t resist trying out the Quick ‘n Toast build created by Thomas Steeger (who sadly lost in the quarterfinals, playing against Faeries). So I logged onto Oli’s account to get all the cards for the following deck so I could start to play it, even though this meant that Oli couldn’t run his Time Sieve deck anymore. As a reminder, this is the decklist Thomas Steeger played to a successful Top 8 finish.
Creatures (9)
Planeswalkers (4)
Lands (26)
Spells (22)
- 3 Broken Ambitions
- 4 Cryptic Command
- 2 Makeshift Mannequin
- 1 Negate
- 1 Hallowed Burial
- 2 Cruel Ultimatum
- 2 Path to Exile
- 4 Volcanic Fallout
- 1 Doom Blade
- 2 Essence Scatter
Sideboard
Before I will talk about my remix of the deck, I will talk about what I didn’t copy from the list above.
The list is running 61 cards, with 26 of those being lands. This is far too few, even though five additional cards help you to hit your land drops (4 Mulldrifter and 1 Jace Beleren), as it is really beneficial to hit your first five land drops. The usual land/spell ratio of Five-Color Control decks should hit this ratio: 27/60.
Path to Exile is a card I am not a huge fan of, and now, with the reprint of Lightning Bolt, it is not even the most efficient one-mana removal spell anymore. Path to Exile does a much better job against both Mistbind Clique and Chameleon Colossus, but with a decklist like that you shouldn’t have a lot of trouble with the Colossus as a single Siege-Gang Commander can get rid of it for a long enough time, and that’s if he even manages to resolve one. Mistbind Clique – or more realistically, the deck that plays the card – is a huge troublemaker for our deck, and the creator seemed to ignore the matchup. You shouldn’t give away percentage for a matchup which you do not expect to win because you are running cards that are slightly better in this matchup but worse in any other.
Hallowed Burial is simply not necessary in the current metagame. You are weakening your Reveillark/Mannequin engine if you are forced to play it when you have a mere Mulldrifter on the board. There are not a lot of threats around which Hallowed Burial contains and Firespout (or even Volcanic Fallout) doesn’t. Boggart Ram-Gang and Figure of Destiny are both cards you can easily handle with a spot removal spell like Lightning Bolt or Doom Blade, and you shouldn’t have too much trouble against big sorcery-speed threats like Baneslayer Angel. Shriekmaw is another suboptimal card. You will almost never hard-cast the card, which makes it only better than Doom Blade if you draw a Makeshift Mannequin and target the removal spell.
Broken Ambitions is a fine card for most of the Five-Color builds… but not for this one. While in most Five-Color Control decks you are running a fair amount of instant speed cards until you start dropping Broodmate Dragons and Cruel Ultimatums, this version forces you to tap out in the early turns. You need to hit your land drops and therefore evoke Mulldrifter (and not “at end of turn Esper Charm”), and you need to kill your opponent’s single threat with Ajani Vengeant (and not stop it with Plumeveil). In the later turns you have, like most Cruel Control decks, a lot of sorcery speed drops. The main difference is that you have Siege-Gang Commanders over Broodmate Dragons. Essence Scatter and Negate are different in this scenario, as you are able to keep up exactly two mana and you can counter any of the relevant targets.
After tweaking the deck a little, and playing several Magic Online queues with it afterward, I am now running following list.
Creatures (13)
Planeswalkers (4)
Lands (27)
Spells (16)
- 2 Lightning Bolt
- 4 Cryptic Command
- 1 Makeshift Mannequin
- 1 Runed Halo
- 2 Cruel Ultimatum
- 2 Volcanic Fallout
- 1 Doom Blade
- 3 Essence Scatter
Sideboard
The maindeck Runed Halo is mainly there to fight Anathemancers, especially since I added a Liliana Vess in order to tutor up my one-ofs, Commands, and Ultimatums.
Kitchen Finks is awesome in the current Magic Online metagame, and I am very close to adding a fourth one to the brew. The major field in the 8 man queues of MTGO is running either a Jund/Blightning list or Reveillark and Five-Color Control. Against the first half of the metagame, Finks is all you want.
I added the two Wall of Reverence when I was running a pair of Reveillarks too. Even though I figured out that one Reveillark is probably enough, I kept on having the two Walls as they really impressed me, even though I am not running any Plumeveils. Blightning Aggro has a lot of trouble dealing with the card, while Jund decks usually have four solutions for it… and they want to board those cards out. Surprisingly, the card wasn’t dead against most Cruel Control and Reveillark builds either. It does a good job in fighting resolved Baneslayer Angels and Reveillarks, especially as you don’t really mind if your opponent gains an extra five life a turn. Also, you’d rather have their Reveillark living.
Versus Blightning Aggro
The Red deck has a lot of trouble fighting through your massive amount of life gain with Kitchen Finks, Wall of Reverence, Ajani Vengeant, and Cruel Ultimatum to top it off. Their best shot in fighting back is Anathemancer. You almost never lose game 1 if you draw Runed Halo, but it can get close otherwise. As always against Anathemancer, don’t overextend your board with non-basic lands.
+2 Deathmark, +1 Runed Halo, +1 Duress
-1 Jace Beleren, -1 Liliana Vess, -2 Volcanic Fallout
As soon as I figured out that Deathmark does a good job against Blightning Aggro too, I exchanged the Purges in my board for Deathmarks. It kills the two sorcery-speed key creatures — Boggart Ram-Gang and Figure of Destiny.
The Duress comes in as it is just better than any other card you could be running. If you have an early Duress, playing the game gets much easier as you know what weapons your opponent is fighting with, and you should be able to easily play around them. It often prevents a fair amount of damage that would sooner or later target your head.
Versus Jund
Jund is very similar to Blightning Aggro. Their Creature base is upgraded by Putrid Leech, Great Sable Stag and Bloodbraid Elf but they don’t have as much burn as the nearly mono Red deck does. Great Sable Stag is a card you shouldn’t have a lot of trouble dealing with it. Kitchen Finks, Lightning Bolt, Wall of Reverence and Ajani Vengeant all take pretty good care of it. Putrid Leech on the other hand is very troublesome. Lightning Bolt can deal with the card more often than not and Kitchen Finks gives you a lot of time against it. Uglier than those guys thou is that the Jund deck is able to deal with your Runed Halos — and you have to play a lot more careful. And they also often have Puppeteer Cliques after boarding.
+2 Deathmark, +1 Runed Halo, +1 Haunting Echoes, +1 Thoughtseize
-2 Volcanic Fallout, -1 Jace Beleren, -1 Liliana Vess, -1 Doom Blade
Haunting Echoes is here to fight Anathemancers as the games against Jund usually go way longer than against Blightning — and they also draw more of the card because of Bloodbraid Elf. As they can deal with Runed Halo you want a better solution to the card than simply hope that hey don’t get there. If you are very close to winning the game the card can also protect you from getting Puppeteer Cliqued.
Versus Elves
With only two Volcanic Fallouts main, the matchup is a lot closer. Most of the Elf players don’t do the math with Infest after board, and feel safe after they played a Forge-Tender, which gives you a huge edge in post-board games. Playing the matchup is pretty simple: just try to kill all the guys the play. If you manage to survive to the mid-game, a Siege-Gang Commander often finishes them off. If they manage to do silly things in the early game, like a turn 3 Primal Command, you often won’t be able to catch up.
+2 Deathmark, +1 Duress, +3 Infest, +1 Volcanic Fallout
-1 Runed Halo, -1 Jace Beleren, -1 Cruel Ultimatum, -2 Wall of Reverence, -2 Kitchen Finks
Versus White Weenie
I’ve only played against the deck once, and both of the games weren’t very close. They have a lot of trouble fighting through your removal and Kitchen Finks, and unlike other control decks – which have trouble finishing the game without Cruel Ultimatum — we have decent threats. White Weenie has a hard time recovering from a Siege-Gang Commander.
+2 Deathmark, +3 Infest
-1 Runed Halo, -1 Jace Beleren, -1 Liliana Vess, -1 Makeshift Mannequin, -1 Reveillark
I don’t sideboard in the extra Volcanic Fallout as I don’t want to be too vulnerable to Forge[/author]-Tender”]Burrenton [author name="Forge"]Forge[/author]-Tenders.
Versus Reveillark
This is a matchup where the Siege-Gang Commander list shines compared to the usual Cruel Control list. He is a Swiss Army Knife in the matchup, dealing with most of your opponent’s threats and stabilizing the board. He also deals with the best weapon they have against you: Glen Elendra Archmage. Whenever you get a window to resolve a Siege-Gang Commander, you should take that shot, unless you can resolve a spell with bigger impact on the game (like Cruel Ultimatum, especially if they don’t have a Reveillark). It is only very rarely better to keep countermagic up instead of playing the Commander.
+1 Haunting Echoes, +2 Duress, +1 Thoughtseize, +1 Volcanic Fallout, +1 Jace Beleren, +1 Negate
-1 Runed Halo, -3 Kitchen Finks, -1 Lightning Bolt, -2 Wall of Reverence
If they are running Meddling Mages you might want to board in the Deathmark instead of the Negate. Even though Meddling Mage is not that good against you as you have a wide variety of ways to deal with it, you also don’t want to die to it if they name the only solution you have.
Versus Faeries
This is the matchup you don’t want to see… and happily, I never have. Even though Siege-Gang Commander might be a better threat than Baneslayer Angel or Broodmate Dragon, it usually doesn’t really matter how good a five-mana sorcery speed threat is against Faeries. If there is a fair amount of Fae, I suggest you avoid playing this list, even though I don’t know how devastating the matchup may be.
This is the sideboard plan I’d use for the first time I played the matchup:
Red Fae:
+1 Runed Halo, +2 Duress, +1 Thoughtseize, +1 Volcanic Fallout, +1 Jace Beleren, +2 Negate
-1 Liliana Vess, -2 Lightning Bolt, -2 Ajani Vengeant, -1 Reveillark, -2 Wall of Reverence
UB Fae:
+2 Duress, +1 Thoughtseize, +1 Volcanic Fallout, +1 Jace Beleren, +3 Negate
-1 Runed Halo, -1 Lilana Vess, -2 Lightning Bolt, -2 Ajani Vengeant, -2 Wall of Reverence
Versus Cruel Control
I’ve played the matchup a fair amount, and barely lost a game. You have access to several Planeswalkers pre-board, alongside from a Reveillark engine. Most of my opponents chose Baneslayer Angel as one of their victory conditions, and I was never impressed by the card. The matchup plays very similar to the Cruel Mirror; you try to resolve a Cruel Ultimatum and try to stop your opponent from doing the same. You have less countermagic, but you have more cards they have to handle: mainly the Planeswalkers, but also Reveillark.
+1 Jace Beleren, +3 Negate, +2 Duress, +1 Thoughtseize, +1 Haunting Echoes, +1 Runed Halo
-2 Lightning Bolt, -3 Kitchen Finks, -2 Volcanic Fallout, -2 Wall of Reverence
Even though Siege-Gang Commander is not very good in the matchup, it is just better than anything else you’ve got, especially since they often sideboard out Volcanic Fallout. As I am running a Haunting Echoes, I like the Duress / Thoughtseize plan far more than running Vendilion Cliques, which is the other option. If you manage to hit both Cryptic Command and Cruel Ultimatum with Haunting Echoes, you should win the game easily.
So far, I’ve won a fair amount of the queues in which I’ve played, and I suggest you try this deck if you don’t know what you are running in the next PTQ (or if you are running Cruel Control). I’m not telling you to run it instead of Cruel Control, as it depends a lot on the metagame and your personal preferences. But you should at least try it out if you are on the Cruel Control train.
Thanks for reading, and good luck at the PTQs, and at the StarCityGames.com $5000 Dallas Standard Open this Saturday!
Manu B