Warning: the article you’re about to read contains lists. It contains a lot of lists. Lists of cards that go in things called”decks” to play a game called”Magic: The Gathering.” If you do not seek lists, then I advise you to look elsewhere. The second part of this article will contain even more lists. Abandon all hope, ye that enter here.
So.
I’ve been testing for Regionals now for about a month, and I’m sorry to report that it’s not a month in my life that I’d choose to relive. For those of you that know me and read my articles consistently, I have enjoyed an excellent track record with building and playing rogue decks in large Constructed tournaments. My usual recipe for success was to distill my basic assumptions and knowledge about the format into a deck that attacked specific angles in the metagame that I hoped few people realized, and to emerge with something that my opponents would be wholly unprepared to play against. I always put a ton of testing behind these decks to make sure that they would be competitive. It takes a lot more to create and test a competitive rogue deck from the ground up than it does to add new tech to an existing archetype, but I believe that you ultimately end up learning a lot more about the format whether you succeed or fail in the endeavor.
I have failed.
For the first time in years, I have not found a satisfactory rogue”solution” to the Standard metagame. Lord knows that I’ve tried. Does this mean that I’m slipping? It might, it might… Does this mean that there’s something inherently wrong with the format? It might, it might… I don’t like to deal in absolutes, but I will say this: this is by far the most frustrating environment for competitive Magic that I’ve seen in a good long while. Some of my more astute readers picked this up in the tone of my last article that discussed what I believe are the three strategy axes (the plural of axis for the non-English majors, not the wood cutting device) of the format: speed, big mana, and single card bombs. One full month of butting my head up against these fundamental truths to find something new, I have come away empty handed. The format’s top tier decks still crush fledgling strategies without remorse, while decks that attempt to exclusively metagame against the top dogs are so painfully reactive in their nature that they can never succeed in the eleven round minefield that is Regionals. In layman’s terms: the good decks are too good to be beaten consistently by rogue tactics right now.
What are the good decks? I’m glad you asked! At last, I can get to some of the lists that I promised! After giving each deck the run through, I’ll briefly discuss why you should or shouldn’t play it at Regionals. As much as I’d like to give matchup analysis and advice, you can find that in a lot of other articles around the net, and well, I’d like to get to sleep sometime today. This isn’t mean to be a comprehensive play-guide, rather it’s more a one-stop shop for examining the decks of Type II and learning a little bit about each in preparation for the big day. Here’s a peep at my dossier, unseen by anyone until this point:
*Cue teletype sound fx*
Ravager Affinity
Date of Birth: Darksteel
Strategy axis: Speed
Known aliases:”Brilo”,”Ravenger” among the illiterate,”that motherf***** DECK!” to opponents
Variants: Numerous, including three and four-color mana bases, Aether Vial, and Slobad, Goblin Artificer
Composition, as commonly found in the wild:
4 Arcbound Worker
4 Disciple of the Vault
4 Arcbound Ravager
4 Frogmite
4 Myr Enforcer
3 Ornithopter
4 Skullclamp
4 Pyrite Spellbomb
4 Thoughtcast
4 Shrapnel Blast
3 Welding Jar
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Great Furnace
4 Vault of Whispers
3 Darksteel Citadel
3 Glimmervoid
Frequent sideboard options: Pyroclasm, Shatter, Mana Leak, Genesis Chamber, Myr Retriever, Shrapnel Blast (if not main), Furnace Dragon, Electrostatic Bolt
Green variant:
4 Arcbound Worker
4 Disciple of the Vault
4 Arcbound Ravager
4 Frogmite
4 Myr Enforcer
2 Myr Retriever
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Skullclamp
4 Pyrite Spellbomb
4 Thoughtcast
4 Oxidize
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Great Furnace
4 Vault of Whispers
4 Tree of Tales
2 Glimmervoid
Frequent sideboard options: Pyroclasm, Naturalize, Mana Leak, Shrapnel Blast, Genesis Chamber, Welding Jar, Electrostatic Bolt
I’m going to go right out on a limb and call Ravager Affinity out for what it is: the best deck. For those of you that don’t believe this statement, have another hit on the crackpipe. Honestly. Dozens of other scribes have documented the ridiculousness of the deck, so I won’t get too far into that. The version listed first is what I consider to be the most no-frills and straightforward build likely to be seen at Regionals. It doesn’t have anything too fancy going on and runs both Ornithopter and Welding Jar to enable super explosive early turns. Welding Jar makes the deck worse against Green decks bearing Oxidize, but better overall against White control and maindecked Red artifact removal, which is a choice I think the majority of players will opt for over the course of a long tournament. The same is true of Shrapnel Blast in the maindeck; I have seen a lot of builds choosing Shatter and boarding Shrapnel Blast, but I think that five damage is probably a better call and players leaning in the direction of straight up artifact removal might simply be better served with the Green version (which I think is indeed stronger in the mirror).
The logic for playing Ravager Affinity on Saturday is simple: It’s extremely fast, it attacks the opponent on all fronts, all of the cards have synergy with each other, and it breaks the fundamental principles to which other decks are forced to adhere (one point of creature power per point of mana spent, a creature which translates board resources into creature power, etc.). It would be difficult for me to dissuade anyone from playing the best deck, but if I had to give reasons then here they are, listed in order of magnitude:
1) It’s actually quite hard to play perfectly.
2) Mulliganing decisions must be excellent.
3) The manabase is tricky.
4) Opponents will board in infinite cards.
5) The mirror can be quite random.
The first four items should be self-explanatory. The randomness of the mirror is a reality that I can easily accept, since it’s true of most mirror matches. If the other guy gets out two Myr Enforcers and two Frogmites on the third turn, there ain’t much to be done. If he draws Skullclamp and you never find yours… you see where this is going. You will play a number of mirror matches if you choose this deck, so be prepared and test the bejeezus out of it.
Goblin Bidding
Date of Birth: Scourge
Strategy axis: Speed + Single Card Bomb
Known aliases:”Bidding”,”Mush’s Revenge”,”The Red Army”
Variants: number of Sparksmiths vs. Gempalm Incinerators main, Black removal, maindeck artifact removal,”Biddingless” variety,”Clampless” variety
Composition, as commonly found in the wild:
4 Gempalm Incinerator
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Sharpshooter
4 Goblin Sledder
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Siege Gang Commander
4 Skirk Prospector
2 Sparksmith
4 Skullclamp
3 Patriarch’s Bidding
13 Mountain
4 Bloodstained Mire
3 City of Brass
3 Swamp
Frequent sideboard options: Shatter, Electrostatic Bolt, Echoing Ruin, Flashfires, Barter in Blood, Dwarven Blastminer, Dark Banishing, Sparksmith
Goblins – so small, yet so hard to keep down. I think if there were a nuclear holocaust, only cockroaches and Goblins would survive. Goblin Bidding doesn’t really have a lot of play room available, as there simply are too many cards that you must include for the deck to be effective. I’ve seen builds that shave on the number of Gempalm Incinerators, Goblin Sledders, and Skirk Prospectors to include things like Goblin Grappler or other randomness, but the list above is most representative of the archetype. Although Goblin Bidding’s raw power is not at the level of Ravager Affinity, it makes up for the gap with better consistency and resiliency. If I had to pick a deck on the morning of the tournament without knowing anything about the metagame or matchups, it would be Goblin Bidding. It is an excellent choice.
Unfortunately, the deck does not have the greatest matchup against Ravager Affinity. I estimate that Ravager will be about 35% of the field, so Goblin Bidding players (20%) should plan on heavily selling out their sideboard against artifacts. With a goodly amount of hate on the sidelines, the Red men should be able to compete with just about anything one might come across at Regionals. As an aside, Dan Paskins‘ mono-Red Goblin build which swaps out the Patriarch’s Bidding plan for Clickslither and Shrapnel Blast among others has tested better against Ravager, however it has a harder time coping with MWC and Tooth and Nail. I like the straight Red deck, but running with Patriarch’s Bidding is likely to be better in a diverse field such as Regionals, given that the card essentially reads”win the game” in a lot of matchups. As I’ve said before, having cards that are good against a wide variety of decks is the path to success in ten-round, five-hundred-person tournaments; I didn’t even face a single U/G Madness deck until round eight last year at Regionals, and it was far and away the most played.
As far as a reason to not to play Goblin Bidding, well… I can’t really think of any. Please do play Skullclamp in the deck though; the logic that”everyone has artifact removal so you shouldn’t play it” or”it’s a bad card in x matchups” espoused by a vocal minority may be sound advice for a high level event, but this is Regionals we’re talking about here. Skullclamp is more likely to be good and win you more games over the course of ten rounds than it is to cause occasional agony because your opponent traded an artifact removal spell for it. Oh nos.
Tooth And Nail
Date of Birth: Darksteel
Strategy axis: Big Mana + Single Card Bomb
Known aliases:”Tooth”,”Twelvepost”
Variants: White as secondary color, number and type of Tooth and Nail targets
Composition, as commonly found in the wild:
4 Vine Trellis
4 Sylvan Scrying
4 Reap and Sow
4 Tooth and Nail
4 Solemn Simulacrum
4 Fireball
3 Viridian Shaman
3 Ravenous Baloth
2 Damping Matrix
2 Darksteel Colossus
1 Platinum Angel
1 Leonin Abunas
1 Duplicant
8 Forest
4 Cloudpost
4 Wooded Foothills
3 Temple of the False God
2 Mountain
1 Tranquil Thicket
1 Stalking Stones
Frequent sideboard options: Pyroclasm, Mindslaver, Oxidize, Naturalize, Damping Matrix, Duplicant(s), Stone Rain, Molten Rain, Shatter, Electrostatic Bolt
White variant:
4 Rampant Growth
4 Sylvan Scrying
4 Reap and Sow
4 Tooth and Nail
4 Wrath of God
3 Akroma’s Vengeance
3 Viridian Shaman
3 Solemn Simulacrum
2 Darksteel Colossus
2 Decree of Justice
2 Mindslaver
1 Platinum Angel
1 Leonin Abunas
8 Forest
5 Plains
4 Cloudpost
4 Windswept Heath
2 Temple of the False God
Frequent sideboard options: Mindslaver, Oxidize, Naturalize, Sacred Ground, extra copies of Leonin Abunas and Platinum Angel
The first list is a variation of Antonino De Rosa’s now classically accepted version of Tooth and Nail with Red as the secondary color. The second contains White cards and is a more control-oriented approach, using Wrath of God and Akroma’s Vengeance to wipe the table while ramping up land to cast Tooth and Nail. If I had to choose a version to play (and you would need a gun to my head to make me play Tooth and Nail), I would take the Red pill. I feel like the Red version is more proactive and creates better”outs” to win a game besides casting Tooth and Nail. The White Tooth (the … clean tooth?) trades proactivity for a better matchup with Ravager Affinity, as board sweepers do tend to help the deck survive the attack phase.
For a perceived tier one deck, Tooth and Nail has an awful lot of issues. The first and most glaring is the fact that the deck has no real way to get ahead on anything except for land. When your deck is a mishmash of huge casting costs and accelerants, you run the risk of getting either extremely poor opening hands or getting explosive opening mana development but with nothing to spend the mana on. This puts a lot of pressure on the top card of the library to be exactly what you need it to be for each precise moment. I can’t stand that. The deck consistently ramps up its mana but it’s inconsistent in plucking what it needs to use that mana to win. Tooth and Nail has no native card drawing to solve this dilemma, either.
The deck is great vs. control, as it has the luxury to cast Reap and Sow with entwine and no aggro or control deck for that matter can really handle two copies of Darksteel Colossus once they’re out and about. However, the real question is whether this can happen quickly enough. Besides the potential for getting beat down before ever even getting in the game, Affinity decks are starting to sideboard Mana Leak, which can stunt Tooth and Nail’s critical mana development. Red decks always have some kind of non-basic hoser like Dwarven Blastminer or Molten Rain, both of which cripple Tooth’s tenuous land situation.
In short, while a fun deck to play (who doesn’t love dropping The Sickest Kids On The Block?), I find Tooth and Nail to be the poorest of the big four decks for Regionals. I estimate that it will be about 15% of the field simply due to the Timmy factor, so it would pay to be prepared for it regardless.
Mono White Control
Date of Birth: Darksteel
Strategy axis: Big Mana
Known aliases:”MWC”,”Snow White and the Seven Wraths” (just kidding)
Variants: Green splash, see [author name="Mike Flores"]Mike Flores[/author]‘ recent article for details
Composition, as commonly found in the wild:
4 Eternal Dragon
2 Solemn Simulacrum
4 Akroma’s Vengeance
4 Wrath of God
4 Oblivion Stone
4 Renewed Faith
3 Wing Shards
3 Pulse of the Fields
3 Mindslaver
3 Decree of Justice
10 Plains
4 Secluded Steppe
4 Urza’s Mine
4 Urza’s Power Plant
4 Urza’s Tower
Frequent sideboard choices: Silver Knight, Worship, Purge, Darksteel Colossus, Altar’s Light, Sacred Ground, Holy Day, Damping Matrix
I’ll be first in line to offer a mea culpa on Mono White Control. Last month, I pretty much dismissed the deck outright but after testing, I can indeed see that it is viable despite its snail’s pace approach to winning Magic. The build listed above is only a couple cards off from Zvi Mowshowitz version, subbing out what I feel is one Decree of Justice too many for a third Wing Shards in the main. In fact, this build of MWC is Zvi’s best idea since he ganked my”All Things Affinity” title for an article of his about a week ago!
If you choose this deck for Regionals, you get to play with some of the most powerful cards in the format in Wrath of God, Akroma’s Vengeance, and Mindslaver. The deck has plenty of land, so mana should not be a problem (although raw dogging the Urzatron is sometimes a harrowing proposition) and powering out monster Decrees of Justice in the late game or serving up Eternal Dragon over and over are both noble ways to win. Yes, much nobler than dropping eight power on the second or third turn. There are a host of sideboard options to help with the problem children, and you’ll be able to stay in most games. Mono White Control isn’t easily blown out unless it stumbles on mana; with so much life gain and board clearing, how could it? It does have to take some care against an active Skullclamp and be sure to not cycle away Akroma’s Vengeances against decks bearing said card.
As with any deck, MWC is not without its failings. The Tooth and Nail matchup is truly awful, as they can assemble their mana much faster than you can and drop the gruesome twosome (and taking care to attack with only one at a time to avoid a stormed Wing Shards like a good player) on your nugget. The deck is vulnerable to all manner of Red land destruction from Dwarven Blastminer right on down to Flashfires. Decks bearing Death Cloud also give MWC fits, but they shouldn’t be too big of a part of the metagame. However the biggest drawback I see with playing MWC is the potential for a mirror match. It’s like a license for an intentional draw, and it’s about as much fun as a rusty nail through the scrotum (Serpent and the Rainbow styles, folks). The very thought of watching two MWC players duke it out is unthinkable, let alone playing the stupid match.
So these are the good decks in the format. What, just these four? Yes, just these four and any slight variants on their general frameworks. Things don’t seem to have deviated much from what I said a month ago, sadly. I wish things were different – I really do. I understand that this article may not have been all that exciting to those that have done a ton of testing like I have, but it should be useful preparation for the stragglers arriving late to the game. There are a lot more Bad and Ugly decks that I’ll be discussing tomorrow, which should be a more interesting article as well as generate some forum fireworks as I mercilessly cap on the deck that You Thought Was Good Enough To Play But Isn’t. I know a lot of people are probably going to go right up until the last possible moment to choose a deck, and I hope at least that I can unearth some of the mystique behind the losers as well as expose my private deckbuilding and testing hell for all to see.
See you tomorrow – same bat time, same bat channel.
Jim Ferraiolo
jmf2n at Virginia.edu (oh what’s the use, I’ve already been harvested 50000 times over)
Dobbs on MODO and IRC