Man, I am so glad that Mirrodin is going to rotate out of Standard in the coming weeks. Gone will be the days that anyone can tap three Urza lands and two Forests and beat you. So long Sword of Fire and Ice, I’ll see you again in Extended season! Goodbye Vedalken Shackles. Two fingers to you, Troll Ascetic!
I look forward to exploring the new format for States this year. This is usually the one tournament I care about more than anything, and seeing that I work now and have become some sort of productive member of society instead of a bum, playing in PTQs and Grand Prix will always take a backseat to paying rent. I get to defend the title of Kentucky State Champion this year, and I want more then anything to add a third Top 8 to my small, practically unnoticeable resume in Magic.
So, how did I start preparing for States this year? I got fired from my job.
Yep, forgot to set my alarm clock, slept until 3pm.
I get off at 4pm.
So to celebrate the fact that I do indeed have some free time, I leapt right back into Magic, looking at the block format plus current Type Two, and tried to figure out what decks will have the most success. I looked right here at Starcitygames.com awesome Forum sections for ideas, and decided what deck I would look at first.
Enduring Ideal became that deck.
The forums were jumping with an idea of how to port Good Form into new Standard, seeing that Seething Song was still legal, and you could play with Fellwar Stone in place of the Talismen. I’m not very excited about the prospects of that deck, so I kinda shrugged it off and hit the deck database looking for any Ideal deck. I had stopped paying attention to block after I left Grand Prix: Minneapolis, so I was rather surprised to see that Hondens had indeed become a playable deck.
This is the list that I started to tinker with.
Hondens
by Yoshinori Oogo
4 Sensei’s Divining Top
4 Sakura-tribe Elder
2 Cage Of Hands
2 Ghostly Prison
1 Genju Of The Realm
2 Honden Of Cleansing Fire
3 Honden Of Infinite Rage
1 Honden Of Life’s Web
2 Honden Of Night’s Reach
2 Honden Of Seeing Winds
1 Meishin, The Mind Cage
4 Enduring Ideal
4 Final Judgment
4 Kodama’s Reach
8 Forest
1 Island
2 Mountain
5 Plains
2 Swamp
1 Cloudcrest Lake
1 Pinecrest Ridge
3 Tendo Ice Bridge
1 Waterveil Cavern
Sideboard:
2 Ghost-lit Raider
3 Ghost-lit Stalker
2 Ghostly Prison
1 Tatsumasa, The Dragon’s Fang
1 Godo, Bandit Warlord
1 Patron Of The Kitsune
1 Genju Of The Realm
2 Honden Of Night’s Reach
2 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
Now, the maindeck really has limited options to win game one, and during block season I can see how this late game control deck had a bit of a problem against the popular Gifts and Mono Blue decks. These two format-defining decks had plenty of answers in the main, either using a spliced Wear Away to get rid of the win conditions, or just countering every Ideal copy after the spell successfully was cast. White Weenie had to run Cleanfall to stand a chance, and well, what exactly does Black Hand have against enchantments? If you played this in a PTQ you have to be careful to not run against the most popular decks. While not entirely unwinnable, the two control decks were an uphill battle (note the transformational sideboard). If you got paired against Aggro all day long, chances are you were gonna go out of that event site with a very good record for the day.
So if the deck has a bad matchup against two of the stronger decks in the undefined format, why should you worry about playing this particular archetype?
- Ninth Edition is never legal for Block Constructed events.
- Form of the Dragon is a better win condition then Honden of Infinite Rage.
- Zur’s Weirding makes sure they never get the answers they need to stop your strategy.
- Ivory Mask means the Red deck can not burn you out.
- Wrath of God costs two less than Final Judgment.
So I tested a few games a new build with Ninth, kind of ignoring the new cards from Ravnica, and man, when this deck rolls, it is fantastic. It is hard to drop games against the unprepared weenie decks, and against the neo-Rock, deck the only real threat from them is the latest pretender of Nevinyrral’s Disk, Plague Boiler.
The deck really did need something else though. I wanted to put Sterling Grove into the deck, and while I was looking at the Ravnica spoiler, I noticed one of those guild mana cards is exactly one half of a Grove at double the cost. Privileged Position found a new home, and this is the build that I have been testing for the past week or so.
Creatures (7)
Lands (22)
Spells (31)
Other main deck enchantments can include:
Confiscate – I left these out of the main as it seems like you will not have to break up the Tron as much anymore
Honden of Infinite Rage – I left these out as Form of the Dragon is just better, however, this could replace the Honden of Life’s Web or maybe the Ivory Mask as another way to win after a Cranial Extraction
Cage of Hands – Pinpoint removal that is reusable is just fine, but I could not make room for these in this build
I’m going to take a look at five sample hands with this deck, explain why or why not you need to mulligan these hands on the play or on the draw.
Hand One
2 Sensei’s Divining Top
1 Island
2 Enduring Ideal
1 Honden of Cleansing Fire
1 Mountain
The only early action you have with the deck is the two Yops, but those two cards will prove their worth when they are fixing the draws that this otherwise poor opening hand have given you. On the play I would keep this hand, but on the draw, I would go ahead and run the risk of having a even worse hand of six. You have a pretty solid draw against the really slow decks of the format but the aggressive decks will eat this opener alive.
Hand Two
1 Enduring Ideal
1 Forest
1 Swamp
1 Zur’s Weirding
2 Wrath of God
1 Temple Garden
I hate hands like this – you have one piece of the lock in hand, but no real way to cast it, you have two Wrath of God, but you still need to draw either the Birds or Plains with which to get them out of your hand, and you have no acceleration to blaze with Ideal. Toss the hand back in both situations.
Hand Three
2 Sakura-Tribe Elder
2 Kodama’s Reach
1 Enduring Ideal
1 Meishin, the Mind Cage
1 Swamp
One land. Toss it back. I would strongly consider this hand if one of the spells had been Top though, and would more then likely keep it as the Elders and Reaches are great to power out that quick epic spell.
Hand Four
1 Swamp
1 Mountain
1 Enduring Ideal
1 Forest
1 Meishin, the Mind Cage
1 Plains
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
This is the best hand I have drawn so far – you get a early blocker and a way to smooth the mana base out. I would keep this hand without batting an eye.
Hand Five
2 Enduring Ideal
1 Tendo Ice Bridge
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Honden of Seeing Winds
1 Mountain
1 Wrath of God
This hand is also solid, however unless you draw a Forest, Tendo is going to have no counters, and the Tribe Elder is going to be forced to sacrifice for a Green mana to make sure you can cast any further accelerants.
On to the matchups of this deck, here I will try to explain sideboarding options, and help work out the harder match ups. As of right now, these are the decks in my Type Two testing.
White Weenie
Black Hand
Critical Mass
Gifts Ungiven
Mono Blue Control
Mono Red Aggro
I do know that this is a pretty simple gauntlet, but over time, testing will show what decks will improve with the addition of Ravinca, and what decks will be rendered unplayable by the rotation of Mirrodin Block.
So here is a quick overview of the deck against the aggressive decks of my testing sessions. This would obviously include Mono Red Aggro, White Weenie, Black Hand and the more aggro tempo Critical Mass. All of these decks are generally the same deck. Beat down with a quick couple of dudes, disrupt a little of the opponent’s strategy, win before the control player can recover and set up his or her long term path to victory.
Ghostly Prison, Meishin, the Mind Cage, Form of the Dragon, and Wrath of God are the MVP cards in these matchups. When relying on Form of the Dragon, make sure you control their flyers first, and of course against the red deck make sure you have Ivory Mask in play before you go to five.
Sideboarding looks a little like this:
Against Black Hand, White Weenie and Critical Mass bring in the two Ghostly Prisons, and take out the Ivory Mask and the Privileged Position.
In the Red deck matchups, you are going to want to leave in the Ivory Mask and take out one of the Forms of the Dragon as well.
Now the control decks are pretty hard to beat. Gifts is not entirely unwinnable, but can be a huge nuisance if they choose to run Nightmare Void and Ghost-lit Stalker. The continued disruption to the hand can make it pretty hard for you to win. If the Gifts player is running Wear Away in the main that can also cause problems. You want to disrupt them as much as you can with the hondens, and gain card advantage in the same way, an early Zur’s Weirding can lock them out of the game for a while.
Sideboarding looks like this for the Gifts matchup:
In:
1 Genju of the Realm
1 Honden of Night’s Reach
2 Godo Bandit Warlord
1 Tatsumasa, The Dragon’s Fang
3 Meloku, the Clouded Mirror
Out:
2 Form of the Dragon,
4 Wrath of God,
4 Enduring Ideal
Mono-Blue is pretty much the most awful matchup one can hope for. They should let Enduring Ideal resolve and just counter every other epic copy that is on the stack. Also, they will cast Boomerang and bounce your enchantment.
Sideboarding In:
2 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
1 Genju of the Realm
1 Honden of Night’s Reach
2 Godo Bandit Warlord
1 Tatsumasa, The Dragon’s Fang
3 Meloku, the Clouded Mirror
Sideboarding Out:
4 Enduring Ideal
4 Wrath of God
1 Meishin the Mind Cage
1 Ghostly Prison
Anyway, I just got a job today at a local card shop here in Louisville, I get to run Magic tournaments, and be around cards all day long! Special thanks to Team Ramrod for editing the article, and for testing with me, and for not putting soap in my drinks.
Thanks for reading!
Joshua Claytor