Snake Blade

Joe Soh

Test deck on 08-21-2011

Standard

Creatures (16)

• 2 Solemn Simulacrum
• 3 Birds of Paradise
• 1 Acidic Slime
• 4 Lotus Cobra
• 1 Obstinate Baloth
• 1 Primeval Titan
• 1 Sylvan Ranger
• 1 Thrun, the Last Troll
• 2 Consecrated Sphinx

Planeswalkers (3)

• 3 Garruk, Primal Hunter

Lands (16)

• 4 Misty Rainforest
• 2 Verdant Catacombs
• 4 Khalni Garden
• 4 Tectonic Edge
• 2 Inkmoth Nexus

Spells (25)

• 7 Forest
• 2 Island
• 4 Mana Leak
• 2 Rampant Growth
• 2 Green Sun's Zenith
• 4 Sword of Feast and Famine
• 2 Beast Within
• 2 Dismember

Sideboard

• 2 Acidic Slime
• 3 Nature's Claim
• 2 Obstinate Baloth
• 2 Wurmcoil Engine
• 1 Thrun, the Last Troll
• 3 Creeping Corrosion
• 2 Surgical Extraction

This list is far from perfect, and I believe a lot of tweaks can still be made to the deck. Personally, I don’t even agree with some of the. The deck is actually pretty good against control and has decent games against Tempered Steel and creatures after sideboard. If I were to play this deck tomorrow, here’s what I would be playing:

Snake Blade

Terry Soh

Test deck on 08-21-2011

Standard

Creatures (12)

• 1 Birds of Paradise
• 1 Acidic Slime
• 4 Lotus Cobra
• 1 Oracle of Mul Daya
• 1 Obstinate Baloth
• 1 Primeval Titan
• 1 Thrun, the Last Troll
• 2 Consecrated Sphinx

Planeswalkers (3)

• 3 Garruk, Primal Hunter

Lands (17)

• 4 Misty Rainforest
• 3 Verdant Catacombs
• 4 Khalni Garden
• 4 Tectonic Edge
• 2 Inkmoth Nexus

Spells (28)

• 7 Forest
• 2 Island
• 4 Mana Leak
• 3 Rampant Growth
• 4 Green Sun's Zenith
• 4 Sword of Feast and Famine
• 2 Beast Within
• 2 Dismember

Sideboard

• 2 Acidic Slime
• 2 Spell Pierce
• 3 Nature's Claim
• 3 Obstinate Baloth
• 1 Thrun, the Last Troll
• 3 Creeping Corrosion
• 1 Dismember

4 Lotus Cobra

Just like in RUG, Lotus Cobra is the superstar in this deck. If you ever play a turn 2 Cobra in this deck, turn 3 is always a nightmare for your opponent. A simple play of Sword + equip and untapping with Mana Leak is often game. Lotus Cobra is also one of Caw-Blade’s most feared cards. Squadron Hawks are no fight for the mana-generating Snake. There is a huge difference between games where you have it and games where you don’t. Therefore, there is no doubt we play four copies of Lotus Cobra. But four copies would not be sufficient to make it consistent enough. What about eight copies instead?

4 Green Sun’s Zenith

Enter Green Sun’s Zenith, the most versatile card for green decks. It acts as the 5th-8th Cobra on turn 3, and you can still play your Sword + equip or Garruk on turn 4. It acts as an accelerator on turn 2 (fetching Birds), and it is pure gas whenever you rip it later in the game. It also adjusts accordingly to your hand no matter how mana screwed or flooded you are. Valakut and even Legacy NO Bant players have been banking on the versatility of this card ever since it was printed. 

4 Sword of Feast and Famine

Caw-Blade is notoriously good at using the sword. Well, so is our deck. In fact, Snake Blade is a truly dedicated Blade control deck. The ability to consistently connect with a Sword on turn 3 or 4 is what makes this deck incredibly dangerous. I am not sure if four is overkill, but you really want to have one in your opening grip. Three might be the right number, and if I were to swap it for another card, it has to be Garruk.

3 Garruk, Primal Hunter

Garruk functions as the new Jace in the format for Snake Blade. Making a 3/3 guy while increasing in loyalty functions similarly to bouncing a guy while losing one loyalty. Drawing several raw cards is even better than Brainstorming. Bottom line is if your Garruk survives an untap phase, it gives you the same kind of inevitability as Jace. It is hard to lose in that spot. People have been complaining that Garruk is difficult to cast because of its downside of costing triple green. But if there is a control deck that can fully utilize Garruk, you have found it here. Of course, the difference between having a casting cost of four (Jace) and five (Garruk) is huge, but this is where green compensates. With a dozen accelerators in the deck, your Garruk often comes down on turn 4 instead of the usual 5. The usual Jace play is always to keep “brainstorming” and grind your opponent out. In this case, Garruk’s ability in churning out 3/3s is pretty grindy too, and it increases in loyalty!

3 Rampant Growth

Above all the other cards, Rampant Growth seems a little out of place. Still, it serves pretty well to accelerate you a turn faster (just like Explore in RUG), gets you the crucial blue mana for Mana Leak, and helps you makes land drops to cast your high casting cost spells.

Having Rampant Growth in hand also means that your Zenith incrementally increases in value, since you get to keep it to tutor out better and more expensive creatures later in the game.

The only problem with this deck is it does not have a plan on four mana. Having four mana is the “joker wild card.” When you only have access to four mana in a turn, you play whatever is available in your hand. You play one of your singleton creatures (Thrun, Baloth, Oracle) or Mana Leak a spell, cast Zenith for Cobra, or play a Sword without equipping.

To compensate for this, Joe went with two Rampant Growths and two Solemn Simulacrums. However, I think the early plays are actually more important as well as staying focused on your game plan of ramping into Sword and Garruk. One of the reasons to cut Solemns is he seems to be a little out of place for the current metagame. I see Valakut players have been switching to Oracle and praising how good it is compared to Solemn. It seems wrong not to fit one in a deck that plays four Green Sun’s Zenith and 26 lands. Hence, I took out 2 Solemn for 1 Rampant Growth and 1 Oracle.   

4 Mana Leak

Mana Leak is the blue splash of the deck that makes it hard to play against. The deck is designed to assert pressure with tempo, mana advantage, and card advantage. It is already a difficult task to stop these elements. Add in Mana Leak to the mix. It is a lot harder to stop the deck from doing what it wants to do. Sword of Feast and Famine allows Mana Leak to gain further tempo. Lotus Cobra makes Mana Leak cost one mana with a fetchland in play and gives easy access to instant blue mana even if you don’t have a blue land.

2 Beast Within, 2 Dismember

One of the important aspects of grinding is keeping parity with your opponent’s board so you get to live and let your more powerful spells come online and assert pressure. Removal allows you to just get there. Previously, UG was awful because you had no removal! Now with Dismember, that problem is easily solved. Beast Within is a little trickier. You often sandbag it until the last possible moment to mitigate the effect of giving a 3/3 token to your opponent.

There are a few things that Dismember can’t solve, but Beast Within fills that weakness. Those things are usually Titans and Valakut, which come online really late in the game, and at that point the 3/3 should not be relevant anymore. Furthermore, Snake Blade as a whole is very well equipped to fight a Beast token. The protection from green provided by the Blade ensures you can continue to keep breaking through. Garruk making 3/3 dudes nullifies opposing Beasts. Your random assortment of win conditions also happens to be larger than the 3/3 itself. The point is, when your Sword/Garruk plan gets going, there are very few things that can turn the tide. Beast Within ensures nothing does.   

2 Consecrated Sphinx

When all the control decks such as UB and Caw-Blade are running these, you know it is an obvious choice to run. Ironically there are only two Islands in the deck to cast the 4UU spell. Fortunately, last time I checked, land destruction decks aren’t around, and Tectonic Edge cannot hit your Islands. Consecrated Sphinx also blocks fliers, which is huge in this format filled with Caws holding Blades and Inkmoth Nexuses powered by Tempered Steel. The abundant mana sources in this deck allow us to easily cast bad boys like this.     

1 Birds of Paradise, 1 Oracle of Mul Daya, 1 Thrun, the Last Troll, 1 Obstinate Baloth, 1 Acidic Slime, 1 Primeval Titan

The singletons are primarily for Zenith. Birds makes Zenith a cheap acceleration spell on turn 2; Oracle and Thrun are awesome against control; Baloth for anything with red; and Primeval Titan when you have seven mana. One of the key plays of this deck against Valakut is the singleton Primeval Titan. In the Primeval fight, you will usually end up trading all four of your Tectonic Edges against their Valakuts. After the dust is cleared, their deck is left with nothing but basics and spells to find more lands while you still have a lot of action going.

4 Misty Rainforest, 3 Verdant Catacombs

Fetchlands to get blue mana as well as fuel for Lotus Cobra.

2 Island

That’s pretty much all you need to cast Mana Leak and Consecrated Sphinx!

4 Tectonic Edge

If you are a control deck and you play 26 lands, your list almost certainly has four of these.

2 Inkmoth Nexus, 4 Khalni Garden

Lands like these make your Sword ridiculously brutal and consistent. I really wanted to play the third Nexus, but it is not possible unless I cut a fetch (which weakens Cobra) or a Forest (which is a gamble for such a low count). But overall, I am quite happy with six lands that help carry the Sword. It is quite important to keep your Plant token around instead of going into auto chump block mode from an opposing attacker because of Sword. Remember, the blocking option is always there, but you might not always have the creature to carry a Sword. Tight plays reward tight situations.

7 Forest

Seven Forests are just about the right amount in this deck. Eight are a little too much, and I would rather have the third Nexus any day. Getting to six is a little speculative, since failing to find one with your fetches is a pretty huge downside.

Sideboard

2 Spell Pierce

Against any decks with Island or Valakut.

1 Dismember

Additional removal whenever you need it. Dismember might not be the best card against Mono Red or Vampires, since what you need is a little life management in those matchups, but it is pretty helpful against Tempered Steel and various green decks that can’t burn you off.

3 Obstinate Baloth

Pretty much the most efficient card against Mono Red and Vampires besides Timely Reinforcements. Besides, we still have four Green Sun’s Zeniths, and this card is all we want to get for those matchups. 

2 Acidic Slime

Utility and perfect all-rounder. It gets boarded in against control decks as well as Valakut.

1 Thrun, the Last Troll

Pretty obvious it is for the control matchup. Being able to stick a beater on board and a Sword carrier is never bad. He also happens to fight planeswalkers well since there is nothing they can do about him.

3 Creeping Corrosion

Two words. Tempered Steel. Period.

3 Nature’s Claim

Also against Tempered Steel, but can be boarded in against U/R Twin. I don’t think it’s a good sideboard card against Caw-Blade, since they mostly run just two copies of Sword. Also, you still have Beast Within and Acidic Slime to deal with their Sword if they happen to stick one.

Overall, Snake Blade is pretty hard to played against, since nobody has really playtested against it. Opponents also won’t know what cards you have, and certainly having a Lotus Cobra and breaking a Verdant Catacomb to produce blue and Mana Leaking a spell is a huge catch. They also cannot put you on equipping a Sword on turn 3 or 4, and it is certainly quite a blowout as well. My advice is to take this deck, playtest a bunch, and get a feel for it. One of the advantages of the deck is how well it fights Caw-Blade. This deck fights Caw-Blade by out-tempoing them, which is their primary weapon against the field. Pretty much, we took their best approach, and we apply it back on them.   

My Hall of Fame vote

I am pretty sure by now a lot of you are aware of the stats of each player, so I wouldn’t be going through the “how many PT Top 8s, GP Top 8s, etc.” info. Instead, I will just write a simple explanation on each.

Anton Jonsson

Before I was good at Magic, Anton Johnson was my Magic idol. Obviously Kai and Finkel are the best ever, and it is pretty much meaningless to debate about their ability in the game, as both of them are already in the Hall of Fame. My personal strength in Magic lies in Limited rather than Constructed. So as it speaks to my own strengths (you will see it next year), I have to attribute my learning to Anton Jonsson. That guy is a monster is Limited. He plays so well, knows the format in and out, and his stats are overwhelming. The fact that he still plays occasionally and writes for the games ensures that he’s a lock for this year.  

Shuhei Nakamura

Shuhei is the perfect all-rounder. I was debating between whether he was better in Limited or Constructed. In the end, I have no clue. He is just as good in both formats! He has the perfect stats, been traveling intensively for the game in the past few years, even writes in English now, and is certainly a lock as well. 

Steve OMS

I felt the Steve OMS vote was very unique to me in some ways. To begin with, I don’t even know this guy and have never seen him. The only information I had on him was through Facebook chats among the pros as well as articles with Hall of Fame content in it. In the end, most of the community felt he deserved it, and after some thought, I’m willing to give a lending hand.

Patrick Chapin

Easily one of the best weekly columnists out there, Patrick also has been playing forever. His performance on the Tour has also been pretty consistent. Good writer, good player, adequate stats, and still plays the game well. That makes my vote.   

Mark Herberholz

To begin with, Mark was a narrow choice. There are so many candidates out there that I can vote on. If it wasn’t for his awesome series of Pro Tour adventures, I don’t feel he stands a chance in the debate. I mean, this guy is not even playing on the Pro Tour anymore, for some time! But on the other hand, he does have good stats, wrote an awesomely entertaining series from his PT life, and I actually hope to see him around the PT again should he get voted in. You get my vote.