Here is what I would have played at Grand Prix New Jersey if I would have been able to get my hands on:
A solid $400.00 metagame solution…
Going into a format where it seems that blue decks are so clearly poised at the top of the metagame I really just wanted to build myself a good old
fashioned hate deck. The kind of deck where every opponent who sits down across from me hoping to draw lots of cards and do whatever they want is going to
be sorely disappointed. I wanted to show up to the tournament and be the fun police.
“Oh, you wanted to draw cards? NOT ON MY WATCH.”
“Oh, you wanted to play Islands? NOT ON MY WATCH.”
“Oh, you wanted to counter my spells? NOT ON MY WATCH.”
You get the picture. Good-Old-Fashioned-Hate-Cards.
One of the really neat things that I discovered when I was looking for awesome Death and Taxes style hate cards was that a lot of them were randomly
artifacts and enchantments: Spirit of the Labyrinth, Chains of Mephistopheles, Choke, Phyrexian Revoker. Some of these cards were even artifacts and/or
enchantments in addition to being creatures.
Which, ultimately led me to this neat little card:
One is the loneliest number.
Once I started thinking about it, I realized that I could build a whole deck where the entire point was to eventually “reset” the board with a Cataclysm
where I would be able to have four cards in play nearly every time!
The cool thing is that Cataclysm lets a player choose to save one card of each type (enchantment, land, artifact, and creature) but the card doesn’t
specify that my enchantments and artifacts can’t also be creatures (as is the case with Spirit of the Labyrinth and Phyrexian Revoker).
Creatures (20)
- 2 Gaddock Teeg
- 4 Stoneforge Mystic
- 1 Phyrexian Revoker
- 1 Scavenging Ooze
- 2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
- 4 Deathrite Shaman
- 4 Voice of Resurgence
- 2 Spirit of the Labyrinth
Lands (20)
Spells (20)
My Abzan Cataclysm deck is basically an exercise in being as hateful against blue decks as is humanly possible. In fact, I wouldn’t hesitate to describe
the deck as “75 cards of hate.”
Okay, okay, I’m saying “hate” a lot. So, I should probably be a little bit more specific about what I’m talking about. The point of a hate deck isn’t to be
a “great deck” in a vacuum, but rather to play lots of cards that directly attack important parts of a format’s best deck directly.
For instance, back in the day when Faeries was the best deck, there were lots of green decks just randomly maindecking:
Card was just too OP not to maindeck in Extended…
Great Sable Stag is not a very good Magic card in general. For instance, if you were playing a Zoo mirror match the Stag is basically a 3cc version of Wild
Nacatl! However, the card was insanely good against the Faeries decks because they couldn’t counter it, kill it, or block it profitably.
That is what I mean when I’m talking about playing a hate deck. I want to play a deck with cards that may not be great on their own, but stack up really
favorably against the popular decks that I anticipate lots of people will be playing. In this case, I wanted to play a deck that was going to be good
against various Delver and Blade blue card drawing decks.
The namesake card of the deck, Cataclysm, is actually pretty sweet in the deck because it would wipe the board down to a bare minimum and leave me with
four great cards in play. I also love the interaction in this deck between Cabal Therapy, Cataclysm, Voice of Resurgence and Bitterblossm.
All I can say about this card is WOW.
It’s pretty cool that you can sacrifice Voice of Resurgence to Cataclysm and still end up with the token in play after the spell resolves. It is very
possible to end up with a formidable army in play after casting the powerful sweeper.
It’s also pretty cool that Voice of Resurgence’s Elemental token gets pumped up fairly mightily by Bitterblossom tokens.
The dynamic duo.
The best part of all this Voice of Resurgence conversation is that we haven’t even mentioned the best part of the card! It makes it virtually impossible
for an opponent to use their counterspells during your turn because getting an Elemental is an absolute disaster.
My thinking with Voice of Resurgence is that with so many U/R Delver-style decks floating around that there will be no good way for an opponent to fight
against this card outside countering it, which may not even be an option if you can get an Aether Vial going.
Voice of Resurgence is probably the best card in this deck that combos with the Cataclysm plan because if your opponent counters the powerful sorcery, you
get a giant creature. And if Cataclysm resolves? I’m definitely sacrificing the Voice to add an additional creature to the reset board.
Another really interesting interaction that I kept having come up was this one:
“Protect the king!”
Everybody knows about this combo, but the thing that is pretty sweet about it in this deck is that I can pick up my legendary creatures and then cast
Cataclysm! After my Cataclysm resolves I can simply Aether Vial my legends back into play.
Pretty cool, right?
I like that the deck is using generic good creatures in the maindeck and then backs those creatures up with very powerful hate cards. Depending on the
matchup, the deck can hone in on bringing in even better hate cards to tighten its clamps against nearly any opponent.
Obviously that is kind of a vague thing to say, but it makes sense to me when I’m thinking about a deck like this. For the most part, my cards are cheap,
efficient, and flexible. I have cards like Deathrite Shaman and creatures that have annoying abilities that will always be annoying to my opponents.
However, when I get to go into my sideboard, I can accentuate my annoying cards with silver bullet type cards that are really hard for people to beat.
For instance, against a Burn deck, I get to bring in three copies of Kor Firewalker and four copies of Leyline of Sanctity.
Beat that Patrick Sullivan.
Or against Delver decks I can bring in more blue hate in addition to whichever cards are better against their actual threats–Kor Firewalker against U/R
Delver and Zealous Persecution or Engineered Plague against True-Name Nemesis.
I also am totally loving playing with Containment Priest in Legacy. I wanted to play with Aether Vials in my maindeck, so I’m not starting the card –
however, in the matchups where Priest is good, it is usually the best card in my entire 75. The card is the absolute nuts against Dredge, Sneak and Show,
Reanimator, Tin Fins, and Elves. It’s probably the best hate bear I’ve ever seen in my entire life.
All I can say is: I hope all of my opponents in every single round I play from here until the next B&R Announcement have maindeck copies of Pyroblasts.
Oh, is that maindeck hate you’re playing? How cute.