I won’t be attending StarCityGames.com Open: Baltimore, so the next tournament on the horizon for me is the SCG Charlotte Invitational. With this being the biggest tournament of the year that I will attend, I immediately grabbed two friends and began testing the gauntlet early. We started with a few decks to test, grabbed the proxy fodder, and went to work.
We began with the obvious big names: U/B Control, Wolf Run Ramp varieties, G/W Tokens, and U/W Blade. There were obviously other contenders, but you have to start somewhere when testing. In this article, I’d like to talk about the decks you should be testing with and against if you plan to do well in the Invitational.
Many people overlook decks they won’t be playing at the tournament, but I believe in knowing the enemy. The key to defeating a difficult matchup is to learn its game plan and morph yours around that. As Mike Flores once explained in “Who‘stheBeatdown?”(great read, highly recommended), you need to know how to play against each archetype. What better way to find out who is the aggressor in the matchup than by putting yourself in the shoes of the enemy?
With this in mind, let’s jump into the gauntlet with full force. I will list the decks in order from least important to most important, in case your testing time is limited.
Solar Flare
Creatures (9)
Planeswalkers (2)
Lands (20)
Spells (29)
Everyone remembers Solar Flare from a few months ago. It was the top deck until people found easy and powerful ways to beat it. This caused Solar Flare to recede into the shadows, slowly morphing more around its control aspects over Unburial Rites. AJ Sacher attempted to bring it back in the limelight with a top 8, but ultimately he was one of the few pilots to put up much of a result with the deck.
While I don’t think this is the deck you should be playing, at least not without extensive testing, I do believe that you should play a few games against this deck. When testing for tournaments like the SCG Invitational, you have to remember the higher concentration of strong players compared to your average tournament. This means that people will have very well-tuned lists of whatever deck they choose to play. Knowing the game plan of Solar Flare is one of the best ways to beat it, so a few games shouldn’t hurt. If you don’t have that much testing time, this isn’t the most important to play against, but it is definitely a deck that can come back with full force when no one expects it.
Tempered Steel
Creatures (21)
Lands (10)
Spells (29)
The great players representing ChannelFireball recently put four of their members into the Top 8 of Worlds. They were all sporting Tempered Steel, a deck that seemed like it wouldn’t see the light of day for a while. Many people had dropped their hate out of their sideboards. Ancient Grudge went missing out of Wolf Run Ramp sideboards, and then it came back swinging. While the results of Worlds may disagree with me, I don’t think you should be playing Tempered Steel. If anything, the results of Worlds actually make the deck worse, as people will be packing way too much hate now. Just because you shouldn’t be playing it doesn’t mean some people won’t. You need to know how you fare against this deck and how to fix the matchup if you aren’t favored. Aggressive decks are best at coming back to win when no one is ready for them, and even though Red Deck Wins will not be on this gauntlet list, keep that in mind too.
U/W Humans
Creatures (26)
- 4 Mirran Crusader
- 3 Hero of Bladehold
- 4 Accorder Paladin
- 1 Phyrexian Metamorph
- 4 Grand Abolisher
- 4 Champion of the Parish
- 2 Geist of Saint Traft
- 4 Doomed Traveler
Lands (12)
Spells (22)
Another deck that hasn’t been putting up many results lately, U/W Humans sits in many people’s hearts. I know a lot of people who refuse to put this deck down, and they feel it is the best deck. While I feel inclined to disagree, it is still a good deck. This being said, people will play it, and you need to be aware of that. Study the matchup and understand exactly what makes it tick. If you don’t, you might just be caught in the storm.
U/W Blade
Creatures (17)
Lands (13)
Spells (30)
- 9 Plains
- 4 Island
- 4 Mana Leak
- 2 Oblivion Ring
- 3 Sword of Feast and Famine
- 4 Gitaxian Probe
- 2 Dismember
- 2 Midnight Haunting
Sideboard
In the hands of Adam Boyd, this deck took down an SCG Open. This was my original choice for the SCG Invitational, but in the many lists we tried, it felt like it was missing something. It has decent matchups against a good amount of the decks in the field, but it just didn’t feel strong enough. I would definitely not be disappointed if I had to play this deck, so it should be an option if you have not already picked one yourself. This deck is all about choosing its role early and morphing its game plan around that. Do you want to hold up Mana Leak every turn or start pushing out Blade Splicers and Mirran Crusaders as soon as possible? Not only does this change from matchup to matchup, but also from game to game. This deck is a serious contender, and it is something you need to watch out for.
U/B Control
Creatures (6)
Planeswalkers (3)
Lands (18)
Spells (33)
U/B Control has a lot of hype, and some even thought it would completely destroy at Worlds. It didn’t do so well on the surface of Worlds, but we have to keep in mind that Worlds has multiple formats. Even if it seems like U/B didn’t do so well, that may have been because its pilots fell off in the other formats. This deck is a skill-intensive menace and should be handled with care in a high-profile event. If you want to play this deck, get some serious testing in before stepping on the event site. As Brian Kibler stated in one of his morerecentarticles (Premium only, sorry), you need to be mana efficient. You may have your favorite build of U/B Control, but above all else make sure that you are using your mana wisely.
G/W Tokens
Creatures (20)
- 4 Birds of Paradise
- 4 Mirran Crusader
- 4 Hero of Bladehold
- 3 Thrun, the Last Troll
- 2 Jade Mage
- 3 Avacyn's Pilgrim
Planeswalkers (5)
Lands (11)
Spells (24)
Creatures (22)
- 4 Birds of Paradise
- 4 Mirran Crusader
- 4 Hero of Bladehold
- 2 Blade Splicer
- 2 Mikaeus, the Lunarch
- 4 Avacyn's Pilgrim
- 2 Geist-Honored Monk
Planeswalkers (6)
Lands (12)
Spells (20)
In the hands of Martin Juza, this deck put up some good results. If it weren’t for what I feel is an awkward Wolf Run Ramp matchup (though feel free to tell me I’m wrong), I would probably play this deck. I love the aggressive and the strong late game it provides in each game, through the quick tokens and the game-ending planeswalkers. There are many iterations of this archetype, so try to test against a few of them. I expect this deck to see a good amount of play in the Invitational, and this is one of the few decks I feel that you have to play against. Learning how to fight the token menace could make the difference. Though it seems simple to play against, there are a few intricacies that only testing can show.
Wolf Run Ramp
Creatures (20)
- 4 Solemn Simulacrum
- 1 Birds of Paradise
- 1 Copper Myr
- 4 Primeval Titan
- 3 Wurmcoil Engine
- 4 Palladium Myr
- 2 Myr Battlesphere
- 1 Viridian Emissary
Lands (26)
Spells (14)
Creatures (17)
- 2 Llanowar Elves
- 2 Solemn Simulacrum
- 4 Birds of Paradise
- 1 Acidic Slime
- 4 Primeval Titan
- 4 Dungrove Elder
Planeswalkers (5)
Lands (4)
Spells (34)
Creatures (15)
- 3 Solemn Simulacrum
- 1 Birds of Paradise
- 1 Acidic Slime
- 4 Primeval Titan
- 1 Thrun, the Last Troll
- 4 Viridian Emissary
- 1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
Planeswalkers (6)
Lands (14)
Spells (26)
Oh Primeval Titan, how you love to show your ugly face all the time. While it may seem like Wolf Run Ramp isn’t in favor right now, just look at Worlds. The pilot had a well-tuned list and was able to fight to total victory. There are many different versions of Wolf Run, as shown above, and similar to G/W Tokens, you should test against each if possible. They all have different card choices that change the whole matchup in some cases. Be prepared to have to fight against Wolf Run Ramp, and while it may seem like your deck has a good chance against it, make sure to test first just to be sure. You never know what you might discover in your testing.
U/W Illusions
Creatures (21)
- 4 Phantasmal Bear
- 4 Lord of the Unreal
- 4 Phantasmal Image
- 1 Stitched Drake
- 4 Snapcaster Mage
- 4 Delver of Secrets
Lands (10)
Spells (29)
Sideboard
Oh Todd Anderson, you and your concoctions. In all honesty, this is the deck I was thinking about playing in the Invitational, though that might change. This is what I feel to be one of, if not the, best decks in Standard right now. It has very few bad matchups, and thanks to Moorland Haunt, it has great late game. It can recover nicely from a Day of Judgment while also putting on amazing amounts of pressure. The combination of Phantasmal Image and Lord of the Unreal can be backbreaking. Not only that, but it can play the control role quite nicely if it has too. Thanks to Stitched Drake, even the Red Deck Wins annoyance can be beat, even though that deck isn’t seeing much play right now. This deck is a strong contender, and I highly recommend playing it or even just testing against it, especially if you have limited testing time.
Overall, I hope you enjoyed this article. The Invitational is a very important tournament, so you need to be prepared. This list is not the only decks that will see play or that are seeing play, but these are what I feel to be the main decks right now. As I said earlier, these decks were listed from least important to most important. If you find yourself with very limited testing time, I think that you should at least try to get in testing time against the last four decks in the list. As always, I hope to see you at the Invitational and feel free to come up and say hi. I always love to talk about Magic and meet new people.
Until next time,
AJ Kerrigan
@AJKerrigan55 on Twitter