Hello, my name is Valeriy. I’m PTQ level player from Moscow. It is not Moscow, Ohio, and it is not Moscow, Texas. It is Moscow, Russia. Yes,
that
Moscow. Now try to recall everything you know about Russia… and then forget it forever: there are no bears on the streets, and Magic does not play us.
I belong to the type of players who enjoy deckbuilding more than actually playing Magic. Ideal deck is the ultimate goal, and adapting your deck to the specific metagame is sooooo sweet.
I’ve been playing Valakut (amongst other decks) since Zendikar’s release, and I know a thing or two about this deck. Primeval Titan is (unsurprisingly) strictly better than Expedition Map, so now is the best time to outclass your opponents with land triggers. But the sad news is that, after such a gain from M11, the deck has lost two important cards: Rampant Growth and Siege-Gang Commander. Rampant is the main loss, so let’s start our deckbuilding journey from mana acceleration.
I’ve read many articles and realized that some authors suggest certain things that clearly indicate their unfamiliarity with the deck’s internal mechanism. First, don’t try to play acceleration like Koth or Everflowing Chalice. “Why? Koth is so sweet!” you’ll ask. Yes, it’s sweet, but it’s not acceleration; we’re interested only in his third ability.
Look at Avenger of Zendikar. Look carefully. Yes, I know that he’s just a gigantic vegetable, but I want you to realize that every mana from a non-land source makes him weaker by generating less pretty broccoli tokens. Yes, one less token might not affect the board — but sometimes it will be relevant.
The situation with Titan is more complicated but more important. When you cast Titan you want to have exactly two green mana sources (not more) and four “red lands” — Mountains and Valakuts. Then you’re going to find two more lands with the help of the Titan. At this moment you should have exactly four Mountains and two Valakuts on the board. Next turn Titan attacks, and your opponent receives some sweet twelve damage. But what if you cast the Titan with non-land mana sources?
Growth Spasm is a good example of a spell that though it allows you to cast the Titan early, is quite unsynergistic with Valakut. After resolving the Titan, you have an odd number of lands, which means that you’ve just lost six points of damage due to bad mana acceleration. Is six damage enough for you to realize that you don’t want to play bad mana acceleration? I think it is.
Overgrown Battlement is good acceleration (especially in the world without Rampant Growth) because it’s a green mana source, and it doesn’t affect the Mountain count needed to cast the Titan. But you can guess that I wouldn’t mention it if it were really good. The thing is, Overgrown Battlement dies to removal, and it’s actually not a wall because you don’t block with it anyway — you tap it every turn for mana! And it even can’t find a Mountain instead of a Forest to deal some damage in the late game. Dear Rampant Growth, I miss you so much!
Harrow is good. Actually, it’s
that
good. But forget about it until those pesky Wrath mages realize that their decks are bad, that they can’t ever beat you, and must therefore play some other stuff. Yes, there are some incurable ones, but most can be convinced. Ideally, you can inspire them to play some crappy deck like Myr Combo (which is actually not that bad against ramp) or something with Leonin Arbiter maindeck. And then you pack eight maindeck burn spells and crush them. So, back to Harrow. It’s good; your matchup against control is good, too, but a Mana Leaked Harrow is so nasty that it makes your match against control much worse.
So, I want to play only twelve mana accelerators in my deck, since it’s enough in most situations. Here’s what I’d play:
4 Explore
4 Khalni Heart Expedition
4 Cultivate
I didn’t write anything about these three spells, because they’re just good. You must play two-mana spells that give you additional lands, because that’s what your deck does. Some people don’t play Khalni Heart Expedition, but I think it’s a bad idea. Makihito Mihara played Expedition in old Extended, and the World Champion can’t be wrong, you know. Khalni Heart Expedition gives you a very important boost — the fastest ramping you can demonstrate starts from turn 2 Expedition, turn 3 Explore with Evolving Wilds and other land. Expedition can serve as instant-speed mass removal, and it can pump your small broccoli tokens. Expedition does everything except serve you a cup of tea, so we can forgive her for being bad late-game topdeck.
The second chapter is lands. With four Explores and zero Rampant Growths, you must play 28 lands. Four Valakuts and twelve Mountains are standard, and I have nothing against these counts. Other lands are not as clear.
Terramorphic Expanse and Evolving Wilds. Many authors wrote that they don’t want to have so many tap lands in their decks, but I believe that with all these Explores, Cultivates, and even a little thinking, you can arrange everything so that you’ll have an untapped basic land as your critical sixth of seventh land drop. A huge amount of fetchlands also helps you charge your Khalni Heart Expeditions and simultaneously maximizes the chance to have a green mana source in your starting hand and is a Mountain in late game.
A little spoiler (do not tell anybody in Moscow): I have one Swamp in my sideboard, and it’s another reason to play six fetchlands.
28 – 4 – 12 – 6 = 6 “green” lands
The problem is that you always want a green mana source in your starting hand; you want two green mana to cast your main threats and don’t want more than two green mana for the rest of the game. You have two options (Forest and Raging Ravine) and six slots for them. The answer is simple: if you have a large amount of Tectonic Edges lurking around you, play six Forests. If not — four Forests and two Ravines. Or five Forests and one Ravine — singleton Magic sometimes just works, you know. Why do you need Ravines at all? Because in the late game a Forest is the weakest topdeck you can imagine.
28 — 4 — 12 — 6 — 6 = 0
Hooray, all lands are counted. Now let’s talk about the stuff that’s undeniably good for you, as your mummy said: vegetables!
4 Primeval Titan
4 Avenger of Zendikar
‘Nuff said; they’re your main threats and main paths to victory. I can only say that four Avengers are 4/3 times better than three Avengers.
Now we have 48 cards in the deck and twelve free slots. What can we do? The right answer is “just about everything,” and an even more right answer is “play good cards.” And the Oscar goes to… the best answer: “we can look around and realize that the metagame is pretty wide open.”
Metagaming is cool, trust me. And if you think that you can just put fifteen good cards in your sideboard, you’re wrong. The right maindeck is important, maybe more important than good sideboard. It’s a good idea to have maindeck answers to a large variety of threats and a good plan for siding cards out. You can have six, seven, or even fifteen cards against one bad matchup in your board, but once you try to side fifteen cards out, your deck will fall like a house of cards.
Now, the main threats around us are:
Mirror
Mono-Green Ramp
U/W Control
Fauna Shaman and friends
Mono-Red
Some crappy creature-based decks
With Fauna Shaman, Leonin Arbiter (probably) and other red and white decks around, I really want to have six burn spells maindeck. Burn isn’t bad in the mirror and not useless against U/W (I’ve even seen people playing Leonin Arbiter maindeck in U/W Control). Four cards are Lightning Bolts, but the other two are up to debate. We have Burst Lightning, Pyroclasm, and Arc Trail as options.
My choice is Burst Lightning. It’s better than Arc Trail because of the instant speed (but remember that Arc Trail can kill Fauna Shaman
and
Lotus Cobra) and better than Pyroclasm because of Siege-Ga… Oh! No Siege-Gang anymore. But it’s definitely better! Why? Hmm… Everything looks like you’d like me to explain… I’m not Chapin and can’t just say, “This card is good; believe me.” Pyroclasm is bad if you’re running Oracle of Mul Daya. Better? Okay, let’s try to look if we want to actually play Oracle of Mul Daya.
We have six slots left. I think I want to play three more fatties and three “useful” spells. For you I’d highly recommend having three Summoning Traps maindeck. Punishing Wrath mages for their Mana Leaks is sweet, and hitting your fatty first against ramp decks is good too (but Memoriciding them is probably better). Against control we should maximize the number of our threats, so Summoning Trap is a must in some metagames. But the Moscow meta is pretty aggressive, so I don’t want to play maindeck cards that are blank against red mages. For me I’ll choose three Oracles of Mul Daya — they’re good against a large variety of matches, and they can at least block.
Three fatties. No vegetables anymore; I need meat!
Piece of meat number one: Inferno Titan. No. He isn’t an “I win” card. He actually can be an “I win” card, but we aren’t playing Basilisk Collar, so leave Inferno Titan for Fauna Shaman players.
Piece of meat number two: Gaea’s Revenge. Sorry, but, it’s a vegetable, not meat. In fact, your matchup against blue decks is good, and you don’t want to play maindeck cards that improve your good matchups; you should improve bad matchups instead. “And what about with Summoning Trap?” you can ask. Trap is good not only against control, but against Mono-Green Ramp and the mirror, which is important. Gaea’s Revenge is not versatile. Sorry, but not now.
Piece of meat number three: Koth of the Hammer. He isn’t versatile; he’s a bad mana accelerator (as we learnt a while back); he isn’t an “I win” card in any single matchup. Sorry, bro.
Piece of meat number four: Wurmcoil Engine. Yes, pack three for me, please. It isn’t meat; it’s steel! Engine is a very solid option. It gives you an edge against aggressive decks, it can fight other Titans, and it can survive Destructive Force and Day of Judgment. It even ignores Kabira Evangel! It can’t give you four blockers and deal eight noncombat damage like Siege-Gang could, but Wurmcoil Engine is the best option we have. Still, beware tons of artifact hate. I personally don’t believe in the comeback of “four Oxidizes, fifty-six other cards” decks, but who knows?
And now I can present the whole decklist!
Creatures (11)
Lands (28)
Spells (21)
So, let’s look at the sideboard options.
The first five cards are against decks with Primeval Titan. The Titan mirror looks like a luck-tester. You have four “I win” cards, and your opponent has four “I win” cards. Don’t want to test your luck every second match? Ideas include Tunnel Ignus (who’s funny, but not an “I win” card in the mirror) and a black splash. I have already mentioned a Swamp in my sideboard, so the other four cards are Memoricide. Memoricide for Primeval Titan leaves your opponent naked and roped against the mass of predatory vegetables led by your powerful 6/6 guys. As a deckbuilder, I really like the moment when your opponent realizes that he has just lost to your Super Secret Tech.
And something more about Tunnel Ignus. He’s not very good, but people definitely will try to use it against you in the mirror match, so you should be prepared and maybe not side out Lightning Bolts.
Three Pyroclasm. More hate to the Fauna Shaman!
Four Obstinate Baloth. To make sure that those red mages are kept in check. Later, when the metagame is more stable, we can decrease their count, but every post-rotation Standard is full of fast aggressive decks, so we need to be prepared.
Three Sylvok Replica. I’m a huge fan of Replicas in this deck. It can block, it can crush almost every random deck you can see. Ascension? Crush! Splinter Twin? Crush! Tempered Steel? Block some guy, and crush! Argentum Armor? Not now.
Replica can buy some time against white aggro, and it’s obviously good when you realize that you’re unlucky to be paired against that… lucky guy going 4-0 with a piece of strange crap. Oh, and try to be that guy yourself at the next tournament. If they’re unprepared, they’ll definitely lose. I don’t inspire you to be Conley Woods, but you should try to find some “techs” that will improve your chances before every single tournament.
What cards are outside our sideboard?
Acidic Slime / Mold Shambler / Naturalize, etc. In some cases these cards are better than Replica, but they’re more anti-control and anti-midrange cards, when Replica is good against aggro.
Good-bye, hope you enjoyed this.
From Russia with love,
Valeriy