Last week I tackled White Weenie. While that deck is out there in the metagame, no one would contend that it’s a major force in the new Standard metagame. Now it’s time to tackle something bigger.
Few things are more fun in Magic than crushing opponents with giant robots. Speaking of which, ever seen the film Iron Giant? It’s a classic animated film about a boy who finds-you’ll never guess-a giant robot!
Iron Giant
9 Forest
1 Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers
4 Urza’s Mine
4 Urza’s Tower
4 Urza’s Power Plant
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
3 Sensei’s Divining Top
3 Talisman of Unity
2 Oblivion Stone
4 Sylvan Scrying
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Eternal Witness
4 Reap and Sow
3 Plow Under
4 Tooth and Nail
1 Duplicant
1 Platinum Angel
1 Tornado Elemental
1 Sundering Titan
1 Darksteel Colossus
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror-Breaker
Sideboard:
4 Heartbeat of Spring
4 Choke
1 Dosan the Falling Leaf
1 Oblivion Stone
1 Plow Under
1 Rude Awakening
1 Leonin Abunas
1 Duplicant
1 Rude Awakening
1 Darksteel Colossus
The new Standard environment poses a number of interesting questions for Tooth and Nail. Which mana accelerator do you use in addition to Sakura-Tribe Elder? What’s the ideal creature toolbox? How do you fill the slots that were formerly occupied by anti-Affinity staples like Oxidize and Viridian Shaman? Can Tooth stand up to all the hate cards flying around? I’ll start with the mana accelerator issue and we’ll go from there.
Solemn Simulacrum
First I tried Solemn Simulacrum (a.k.a. Jens), but it was too slow and clunky. Missing your third or fourth land drop was usually fatal and getting your first Green mana source on turn 4 was almost as bad.
Talisman of Unity
It costs half as much mana as Jens and you gain access to Green mana immediately. The Talisman doesn’t even really cost two mana; you can play it on the third turn and tap it with another land to play Sakura-Tribe Elder or Sylvan Scrying. Unlike Jens, the Talisman is ideal for pumping out Reap and Sow on turn 3.
Wayfarer’s Bauble
If you’re playing the Bauble on your first turn, it’s usually better than the Talisman, since you don’t have any other spells competing as one-drops and sacking the Bauble gets you a land whereas the Talisman is more vulnerable. Later in the game, though, the fact that the Bauble costs more mana than the Talisman and that the land you search out comes into play tapped can really slow you down. The best thing about the Bauble is that it provides a shuffle effect, which is always nice with Sensei’s Divining Top, but raw speed and explosiveness is more important.
Chrome Mox
Your best defense is a good offense and offense means speed. The most extreme example of Chrome Mox is the following:
Turn One: Urza’s Land, Mox, Sakura-Tribe Elder (sacking at opponent’s EOT)
Turn Two: Urza’s Land, Reap and Sow (for the final Urzatron piece)
Turn Three: Tooth and Nail
Yes, that is a God hand, but it can happen. The Mox is great for more subtle reasons, too. Unlike with the Talisman, you can Sylvan Scrying and Reap and Sow by turn three with the help of the Mox. When you’re desperate to topdeck a land (in order to cast a key spell) you don’t have to wait a turn like you would with the Talisman. The Mox is also great for getting a jump against Ponza’s land destruction.
Your best hope in game one against Mono Blue Control (MUC) is to get Boseiju into play ASAP. If you’re on the play, this isn’t too hard, since MUC can’t counter your turn 2 Sylvan Scrying. On the other hand, if you’re on the draw, the evil Blue mage will easily stop the Scrying with Mana Leak or Condescend. Enter Chrome Mox. With the Mox you can squeeze Scrying under countermagic even when you’re on the draw.
The acceleration from the Mox is also huge after sideboarding. There is a tremendous difference between playing Choke or Heartbeat of Spring on turn 2 and playing them on turn 3.
Nevertheless, imprint is a significant disadvantage. At heart, Tooth and Nail is a gigantic mana engine and a small number of business spells. Having to trade business for access to Green mana is dangerous when you’re trying to overwhelm an opponent with threats. Furthermore, with a substantial number of non-Green spells in the deck, sometimes finding a spell to imprint (not to mention one that you don’t want to cast) can be problematic.
Birds of Paradise
Rampant Growth
Kodama’s Reach
Rampant Growth is the best of the bunch since it’s not fragile like the Birds, nor is it as slow as Kodama’s Reach. However, the fundamental problem here is that these mana accelerators all require Green mana. With just ten lands that produce Green mana, color of these spells is a tremendous liability.
Duplicant
Sundering Titan
Darksteel Colossus
Playing these three robots is a given. Sundering Titan punishes other Green decks and is totally insane versus multi-color decks. Darksteel Colossus remains your most unstoppable beatdown machine.
You might think that Duplicant is expendable but you would be mistaken. Duplicant is your most important creature in the mirror match and even against other decks there are times where you need to remove Meloku or Big Slogs before they get out of control.
Platinum Angel
The Angel doesn’t hit opponents that hard and its protector Leonin Abunas is no longer around. So why bother with the Angel at all? There are still some decks in the format (White Weenie, some versions of Mono Green, and even the mirror) that have few, if any, ways to remove the Angel. Consequently, when she hits the table you’ve locked up the game. Plus, you may have heard that in this Affinity-free format artifact destruction is less rampant, making the Angel more likely to stick around.
Then there are the times when you cast Tooth and Nail and you know that you’re one attack step or one topdeck away from demise. At those times, a two-turn clock with Colossus and Kiki-Jiki won’t cut it. You want the Iron Giant and some life insurance.
Tornado Elemental
Using Boseiju to beat MUC takes its toll in life points. Dealing yourself a few Shock’s worth of damage may not seem like a big deal at first, but the evil Blue mage takes it in stride, and something strange happens. The control mage goes aggro.
Meloku the Clouded Mirror is suddenly in the house, and your opponent has plenty of mana. The next turn you cast your precious Tooth and Nail, but it doesn’t matter. Duplicant plus Kiki-Jiki won’t stop Meloku’s army of flying illusions. You settle for Duplicant and Darksteel Colossus, but it’s not enough and you lose a close damage race.
Look closely at the text on Tornado Elemental. It reads: “When Tornado Elemental comes into play, destroy Meloku, all his Illusion tokens, Thieving Magpie, Lantern Kami, Suntail Hawk, Leonin Skyhunter, Kokusho, Birds of Paradise, and Platinum Angel.”
Practically every deck is seems to be using fliers these days, and the ability to play a combination of Tooth targets that set up a two-turn clock and sweep the skies is surprisingly powerful.
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
Apparently, everyone loves this guy in Tooth and Nail, but it took me a long time to warm up to this bizarre Goblin. Hardcasting Kiki-Jiki is impossible, so it’s useless after Cranial Extraction hits you. Kiki-Jiki felt too much like a win more card.
The best reason to play Kiki-Jiki is that combined with Colossus it lets you set up a one-turn clock. The next best reason is flexibility. Duplicating virtually any creature in the deck does something impressive. None of this is breaking news or anything, but it’s taken me a while to appreciate how much that one slot occupied by Kiki-Jiki adds to the deck.
Rude Awakening
It’s no longer in the maindeck. Winning with this just takes too long. Tooth and Nail can’t afford to waste all that time or something really bad will happen. Not that many people are maindecking Cranial Extraction, so Rude Awakening can sit in the sideboard and come in when threats need to be added and/or diversified.
Sensei’s Divining Top
This is the best card that you can play in any Green deck. It’s a colorless way to find that first Green mana source or set up Urzatron, and with sixteen shuffle effects you rarely get stuck with three undesirable cards on top of your library.
Oblivion Stone
I think this card is really underrated right now. The format is still taking shape and remains pretty diverse. Numerous decks, including Mono Green Aggro (MGA), Beacon Green, R/G Beats, and White Weenie get annihilated when you blow up the world. Even Mono Blue can get hit hard by the Stone. Thanks to Gabriel Nassif, Mono Blue Control seems to be moving in a direction that focuses less on countermagic and commits more to the board, with spells like Chrome Mox and Thieving Magpie. A well-timed Stone can be surprisingly devastating.
Plow Under
Tooth cast Plow under on turn 4 pretty easily and there, are few decks that are fast enough to throw down huge threats before their mana gets Plowed. The Plow is also a great card for the mirror and control matches in general. It combines nicely with Boseiju and is a hell of an answer to the Genjus.
Sideboarding
Tooth and Nail is very exposed. Everyone knows about it and there are some really nasty cards it can run into. Some of the villains in the rogues gallery include: Plow Under, Sowing Salt, Cranial Extraction, Temporal Adept, and Bribery. How do you handle the hate? While all these spells are painful, Tooth and Nail is surprisingly resilient and has access to the necessary countermeasures.
Heartbeat of Spring
Even if your opponent isn’t Sowing Salt, the Ponza matchup is terrible. It’s definitely worth devoting four sideboard slots to a spell that helps Tooth and Nail perform miracles. Heartbeat of Spring may look like a flawed card because it is symmetrical. Looks can be deceiving.
With the Spring in play, It becomes impossible for Ponza to contain Tooth and Nail’s mana base. Furthermore, Ponza struggles to put the extra mana provided by the Spring to good use. Arc-Slogger is a notable exception, but that won’t matter when an entwined Tooth and Nail is putting Leonin Abunas and Platinum Angel into play.
Choke
Choke is actually a pretty mediocre hoser. MUC can counter it, bounce it, or hack it with Spectral Shift. Nevertheless, Choke remains the fastest, easiest-to-cast blue hoser in Green’s arsenal. An aggressive Blue mage will sometimes tap out to play Temporal Adept or Bribery. Following up with Choke will punish such foolishness. As for Spectral Shift; you can’t give into the fear. Thanks to twelve colorless lands, four non-Forest Green mana sources, and Oblivion Stone, Tooth and Nail can actually cope when it gets Choked.
Dosan the Falling Leaf
The Blue mage can’t use the usual trick of stealing this creature with Vedalken Shackles so that it’s no longer a threat. Dosan’s “drawback” affects all players. It’s nice to have a little extra oomph versus blue and at worst Dosan is great counter magic bait.
Leonin Abunas
There are some matchups where the Abunas+Angel locks up the game immediately. In other words, Tooth and Nail becomes a card that reads: You win the game. That’s a nice option to have for games two and three.
Duplicant
Its main purpose is for the mirror match, where being able to remove a Colossus or two from the game is really important. Duplicant can also come in against any deck that features fat creatures, since the combination of card advantage and a big threat is so great.
Rude Awakening
Against Cranial Extraction, you need to diversify your threats as much as possible. Against most black decks and mana versions of “mono” green, you can count on getting hit by Extraction after sideboarding. Rude Awakening is your best non-Tooth and Nail win condition. It’s also great versus MUC, since Boseiju pushes it past counters and you can overwhelm whatever creature has been stolen by Bribery.
Darksteel Colossus
Sometimes you need a back-up robot, like when you’re facing Duplicant in the mirror, looking for extra gas versus Cranial Extraction, or want an answer to the other Colossus that’s been stolen by Bribery.
Oblivion Stone
This is a catchall card. Whether you need another board sweeper versus creature-based decks or an answer to artifacts and enchantments, the Stone does it all. It’s so great and so flexible that I’d like to find room for the fourth copy in the sideboard.
Plow Under
Though this card is too expensive to be really good against MUC, it’s great against other control decks and also hits hard in the mirror.
Quick and Dirty Sideboarding:
Sadly I don’t have enough time to go through each individual matchup this week, but here’s a general guide to how you should sideboard some of the popular decks you’ll see.
Mono Blue Control
-3 Plow Under
-1 Oblivion Stone
-1 Kiki-Jiki
-1 Platinum Angel
-1 Duplicant
+4 Choke
+1 Dosan the Falling Leaf
+1 Rude Awakening
+1 Darksteel Colossus
Ponza
-3 Plow Under
-2 Oblivion Stone
-1 Kiki-Jiki
+4 Heartbeat of Spring
+1 Leonin Abunas
+1 Duplicant
Mirror
-2 Oblivion Stone
-1 Platinum Angel
+1 Plow Under
+1 Duplicant
+1 Rude Awakening/Darksteel Colossus
White Weenie
-1 Kiki-Jiki
-1 Sundering Titan
-1 Plow Under
+1 Oblivion Stone
+1 Leonin Abunas
+1 Duplicant
B/G Control
-2 Oblivion Stone
-1 Kiki-Jiki
+1 Plow Under
+1 Rude Awakening
+1 Darksteel Colossus
Mono Green
-1 Kiki-Jiki
-1 Tornado Elemental
-1 Plow Under
-1 Platinum Angel
+1 Oblivion Stone
+1 Duplicant
+1 Rude Awakening
+1 Darksteel Colossus
In general, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how well Tooth and Nail is holding up in the metagame. While it doesn’t seem to have many overwhelmingly favorable matchups, it weathers all the hate surprisingly well. This deck may be getting a little old, but it’s still a serious contender in the metagame.
Take it easy and have fun summoning giant robots,
–Rick
rick at rickrust dot com