Part 1 – the Slow Decks
It probably doesn’t surprise you to know that I’ve been working on new Type II decks since the unveiling of Betrayers of Kamigawa. I have been tooling around with a lot of different kinds of decks, trying to fit in if not break various underplayed cards. One of the obvious archetypes to have come out of States and Extended testing, especially given the new set and the neutering of the previous best aggressive deck, is White Weenie.
Modern White Weenie is a deck at odds with itself; it reminds me very much of Extended Sligh (Blitz, Deadguy Red, whatever you want to call it) in 1999. White Weenie has quick, mana efficient creatures with a good curve… and can play both of the buzz cards that people are talking about, probably better than everyone else. I am talking of course about Aether Vial, arguably the strongest Mirrodin card to remain in Standard, and a certain equipment that certain parties think “might be better than Skullclamp.”
I approached White Weenie two different ways:
Slowdown White Weenie
4 Aether Vial
4 Chrome Mox
3 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
2 Umezawa’s Jitte
4 Hokori, Dust-Drinker
4 Kami of False Hope
4 Lantern Kami
4 Leonin Skyhunter
4 Skyhunter Skirmisher
4 Steelshaper’s Gift
4 Suntail Hawk
1 Eiganjo Castle
17 Plains
Fast White Weenie
4 Aether Vial
4 Bonesplitter
4 Chrome Mox
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
2 Umezawa’s Jitte
2 Isamaru, Hound of Konda
4 Lantern Kami
4 Leonin Skyhunter
4 Savannah Lions
4 Skyhunter Skirmisher
4 Steelshaper’s Gift
4 Suntail Hawk
1 Eiganjo Castle
17 Plains
Believe it or not, the Slow List was actually my first swipe at White Weenie. The first strategic concern that came to my mind was not the availability of two-power creatures for one mana, but how I could beat a Rude Awakening, no lies. After messing around with the deck a little bit, I realized that it might not be the best playtest deck because, well, it didn’t have any Lions. So I made the second, very StOmPy-esque deck with all Bonesplitters and Hounds of Konda.
The focus of both of these decks is clearly equipment. It we posit pre-testing that Umezawa’s Jitte is the best card purely on hype, an interesting question is why we aren’t playing four. The reason is that you don’t really ever want to draw a second (unless, of course, you are fighting another Jitte deck). The answer? With the maximum number of Steelshaper’s Gifts, I actually have “more” Jittes than a deck with four… plus I get to run a bunch of specialty equipment.
With Steelshaper’s Gift in the mix, I decided with both lists to go with equipment rather than Glorious Anthem. Especially considering Bonesplitter and potential Skirmisher interactions, I think that equipment will generally do more damage more quickly, not to mention give us more options for specialization and even hate.
Sword of Fire and Ice is a card that really started to show some legs in this past Extended season, and was a natural addition to our equipment-based aggro deck. The stranger card is Sword of Light and Shadow. Let me explain: the Slowdown deck especially can abuse Sword of Light and Shadow against another attack deck. What happens when you get one of your million flyers, a Sword of Light and Shadow, and the Kami of False Hope? What happens when that flyer is the mighty Dust-Drinker? The combination of Sword of Light and Shadow and Kami of False Hope gives you a soft lock against another attack-based deck.
To a lesser extent, I was building these decks as I usually do, automatically anticipating the mirror match. If I have figured out that Aether Vial and Umezawa’s Jitte are two of the format’s more powerful cards, and that they are powerful in White Weenie, doesn’t it stand to reason that someone else might, too? I didn’t think that another White Weenie player would be able to remove an equipment, especially in game one, so I figured that Steelshaper’s Gift into Sword of Light and Shadow would dramatically help in the race, with or without Kami of False Hope.
From the alpha stage, those are the decks. Now I have this pet peeve about playtesting: I hate testing my decks against my own decks. You may have read a long ago article called “The Wakefield Error.” Basically the reason I hate testing against myself or other roguish cads, with their too-pale skin and kohl-rouged eyes, is that it is pointless. Who cares which of two oddball builds wins? Isn’t it more important to know if either one of them can take on the real Decks to Beat?
Enter Paris.
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The Paris Regionals Top 8 isn’t what I would call perfect, but it does give us a framework. I actually wouldn’t have built Mono-Blue like either of the finalists, but it warms my heart to see the deck doing well (the official story being that I defer to Nassif).
For the purpose of this article, I ran my two White Weenie decks against the more ponderous half of the Paris Regionals, Mono-Blue and Tooth and Nail. The versions I chose were Mono-Blue by Terence Merle des Isles and Tooth and Nail by Julien Steenkiste. I chose the Mono-Blue version, despite the fact that I think that Nassif is the bee’s knees, because, well, Terence won. I chose Steenkiste because even though there were three Tooth and Nail decks listed, it was the only one that didn’t run three of each Urza’s land or, say, eight basic Swamps starting.
Mono-Blue, 7 over Slowdown White Weenie, 3
This was surprising to me. Even though I rediscovered Mono-Blue for States, I didn’t really like it, at least initially, for the upcoming Standard. One of the reasons was Aether Vial; the other was the Dust-Drinker. Mono-Blue doesn’t really have any very good answer to this guy. If the opponent eventually gets four counters on his Aether Vial, you can’t counter it. If you bounce it, he’ll play it right back down. If you steal it with Vedalken Shackles, you don’t suddenly have the privilege of untapping your lands because you now control the Legendary Spirit in question. I figured that those two cards would mess up Mono-Blue’s ability to feed its mana hungry card drawing and invalidate its counters. I wasn’t wrong.
So why did Mono-Blue win?
Because White Weenie is Sligh 1999. Remember what I said about Aether Vial and Umezawa’s Jitte, how good they are? In 1999 Extended, Sligh had Cursed Scroll, Jackal Pup, and Mogg Fanatic (and potentially Goblin Lackey) on one, and Lighting Bolt and Fireblast for burn. Nice cards, right? More than one has been banned from relevant formats. Yet Sligh wasn’t anywhere near the best deck. When I qualified that season, I beat second turn Goblin Mutant more than once with my Carnophage/Sarcomancy/Flesh Reaver deck, and my deck wasn’t anywhere near the fastest goldfish. Sligh had all the cards in the world… backing up many an unexciting dork.
Now I’m not saying Slowdown White Weenie doesn’t have a lot of tools… far from it, in fact. But it was really frustrating to have to beat Vedalken Shackles. Because of Vedalken Shackles, and ultimately the inability of a White Weenie deck to remove said card, Mono-Blue has a fundamental turn of four. The Nassif version with Chrome Mox probably has a fundamental turn of three point five, if not three. Shackles generates so much card advantage and removes so much tempo that it is uncanny. Say I steal a Leonin Skyhunter, leaving you a Skyhunter Skirmisher and two Lantern Kamis. What is the card advantage involved? I’m not “up one.” If you swing, I’m going to trade with your Skirmisher and then I’m going to take one of your Lantern Kamis to set up a second standoff. An early Vedalken Shackles means White Weenie doesn’t attack at all.
The corollary to this, which is quite odd actually, is that Sword of Light and Shadow is actually much better than Sword of Fire and Ice against Mono-Blue. Mono-Blue, at least Terence’s version, doesn’t have a lot of, how shall we say, Blue cards that are relevant against creatures in play. Unless Meloku resolves, you actually want to brawl with Sword of Light and Shadow… Because It Gets Past Your Own Guy!
Fast White Weenie, 6 over Mono-Blue, 4
I actually borrowed a card from Kyle Boddy recent articles and swapped my second Isamaru, Hound of Konda for a singleton Lightning Greaves. I made this switch after the first game (which White Weenie won anyway). Lightning Greaves helped in the Mono-Blue matchup somewhat, at least compared to the previous. The problem comes from when you already have more than one guy in play and you can’t defend more than one with Lightning Greaves. In addition, Lightning Greaves doesn’t win a fight against multiple Vedalken Shackles. But the Fast White Weenie deck with all the 2/1s and faster beats did better.
That would give us a modified listing of:
Fast White Weenie
4 Aether Vial
4 Bonesplitter
4 Chrome Mox
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
2 Umezawa’s Jitte
1 Isamaru, Hound of Konda
4 Lantern Kami
4 Leonin Skyhunter
4 Savannah Lions
4 Skyhunter Skirmisher
4 Steelshaper’s Gift
4 Suntail Hawk
1 Eiganjo Castle
17 Plains
Yes, because of Bonesplitter.
F**k Lightning Greaves (see “Enter Paris”, above).
The thing about Bonesplitter is that it fits the mana curve so well. It turns any creature into an instant monster, and is one of the most dangerous cards in combination with Aether Vial, just because it never gets bogged down for mana. Bonesplitter isn’t as flashy as Umezawa’s Jitte, but it hits faster and ends games before the opponent can get on his feet, unlike the surprisingly disappointing Jitte, which sits around with no counters a lot of the time.
All of that said, I think that I would side up to four Lightning Greaves purely for the Mono-Blue match. It wasn’t the best card, and there are a lot of games you don’t want to see a second copy, but right now, the best thing in my sideboard is Terashi’s Grasp, which is more or less a joke. Who plays 1-for-1 answers of equal speed to the opponent’s threat… when the opponent is the permission deck?
The best card overall for both decks was Chrome Mox. I think the Fast White Weenie deck just drew more Moxes and got the crazy turn 1 Leonin Skyhunter, turn 2 Skyhunter Skirmisher, turn 3 equipment draws more than the equally capable Slowdown White Weenie. That, and Bonesplitter stole more turns than the much more expensive Dust-Drinker.
On the subject of Chrome Mox, Nassif’s deck would have played out a lot differently from the Paris Champ’s. He has Chrome Mox, which is strong any time in the first four turns of the game and gives the deck a ton of play against the Dust-Drinker. Thieving Magpie seems really mediocre to me, and the presence of Boomerang over Aether Spellbomb probably makes Sword of Fire and Ice better, though I’m not sure… Probably Boomerang is much better in some cases and worse in others.
In winning games with the Mono-Blue, I typically used Gifts Ungiven for Aether Spellbomb, Vedalken Shackles, Thirst for Knowledge, and Gifts Ungiven, knowing I was going to bin Vedalken Shackles and probably Aether Spellbomb, but the Vedalken Shackles I already had in play was so powerful that I could give up the double down just to avalanche more and more cards against an opponent that was just drawing Chrome Mox off the top with no say in the matter. Sometimes I would dig for Meloku, knowing that the Clouded Mirror of Victory would never make it to my hand. You really want a card with Gifts Ungiven? Put it next to Meloku and ask the opponent to choose.
The Mono-Blue matchup made sense, more or less. I was a little disappointed in the Dust-Drinker’s performance, but at the end of the day, the Mono-Blue deck has a fundamental turn of four or less and the White Weenie deck doesn’t have Fireblast. That said, the faster version, with its ability to punch in and exploit a no Shackles draw did better, and the presence of a single new equipment was eye-opening (surprise, surprise, coming from me). Not so the Tooth.
Steenkiste Tooth and Nail, 8 over Fast White Weenie, 2
Of the two games White Weenie won, one of them involved double Bonesplitter on turn 1, Skirmisher on turn 2, and Steelshaper’s Gift on turn 3. The other games were all out of reach for one reason or another. Two games with Skirmisher draws nearly as scripted crumbled to the lucksackery known as Tooth and Nail with the turn 4 Urzatron. Steenkiste’s deck just kept dodging a lethal turn by assembling the Urzatron and going for Mindslaver or Oblivion Stone one turn before White Weenie finished it.
The surprising all star for Tooth and Nail was Umezawa’s Jitte.
Mindslaver you.
Hrm.
Lemme look at my life total. No, that doesn’t kill me.
Attack myself; two counters on Jitte. Remove some counters -COLON- Kill your team.
My turn now?
I’m sure Umezawa’s Jitte is going to do great at PT: Philadelphia, but it was really underwhelming in this Standard testing. The reason is that it is just so slow. Even with a Skyhunter Skirmisher, it isn’t really faster than a Sword. Because I can Gift into a Sword of Fire and Ice essentially the same turn as Umezawa’s Jitte (+ equip), a Sword is just better. One hit with Skirmisher + Fire and Ice does ten and draws two cards. This card costs one more than Umezawa’s Jitte and comes violently online the turn you first attack with it. Just a thought.
All that said, Fast White Weenie won both its draws on pure speed. It may be the case that this deck has to go balls out on aggression and not play Mr. Nice Guy at all. That means four Hounds of Konda and fewer expensive cards, even with Aether Vial help. Heck, Chrome Mox makes this plan a lot more appealing.
Even more surprisingly:
Steenkiste Tooth and Nail, 5 draws with Slowdown White Weenie, 5
Besides getting blown out by Mindslaver and Oblivion Stone, the other way that Tooth and Nail was beating Fast White Weenie was Tooth and Nail for Duplicant + Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker. This wouldn’t work against a Green deck, but because the White Weenie guys are tiny and don’t have any Fireblast support, Duplicant’s slow work is usually just fast enough to eke out narrow wins. Once I realized that the Dust-Drinker would probably be good in this mana hungry matchup, even given the opposing Vine Trellises, I decided I could cut a Sword of Fire and Ice for a Lightning Greaves to defend against the Duplicant defense plan; the result was a draw where the faster deck had a humiliating 2-8 dressing down.
Slowdown White Weenie
4 Aether Vial
4 Chrome Mox
1 Lightning Greaves
2 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
2 Umezawa’s Jitte
4 Hokori, Dust-Drinker
4 Kami of False Hope
4 Lantern Kami
4 Leonin Skyhunter
4 Skyhunter Skirmisher
4 Steelshaper’s Gift
4 Suntail Hawk
1 Eiganjo Castle
17 Plains
So obviously, I went back to the Mono-Blue matchup to see if I could change in the Greaves and get the same kind of benefit. One card difference took the matchup from 3-7 to even.
One of the fun things about a new format is that, especially as the optimal lists haven’t been discovered yet, small changes of even one card can make a huge difference. The four Steelshaper’s Gifts in White Weenie give it a lot of versatility across several matchups… How would Jon have done if we hadn’t added maindeck Persecute to the Regionals list that had already proven so strong and successful?
Lightning Greaves proved an essential part in improving this difficult matchup. From the White Weenie side, I learned to sculpt my turns into a complex interplay of Lightning Greaves, Hokori, one or more Chrome Moxes, and Sword of Light and Shadow against even multiple Vedalken Shackles.
The dance is a maddening one from both sides, especially if Mono-Blue has two Vedalken Shackles and White Weenie has an Aether Vial. Usually if there is relevant equipment in play, the right move is to actually untap the Shackles so that the White Weenie player can’t freely redistribute equipment (almost always the Shackles is controlling an equipped potential blocker because Vedalken Shackles is an instant and equipment is a sorcery and white’s mana, even with Mox, is limited). The White Weenie deck has to fight through Aether Spellbombs with Chrome Mox and Aether Vial to slowly tap down Mono-Blue’s lands and leave itself enough to eventually set up a Sword (or Jitte) and Lightning Greaves on the same guy in order to eventually win the game.
Let me stress something: this fight over mana and the sky is hard. I have found that the weakest element of my own game is Limited ground stalls, specifically knowing how to correctly attack or block when there are multiple creatures on both sides. I tend to do better in Constructed because I can either play decks like Mono-Blue that don’t ever get into ground stalls or decks with lots of removal to eliminate blockers. The interplay between Mono-Blue and White Weenie as the key artifacts develop is notoriously similar to two lines of Gourna or Thragg staring at one another across the Red Zone, with every mana tap a potential disaster… But if you can make it work, the White Weenie deck might just have some legs.
Next time, I’m going to move to the decks that SCG has listed as “beatdown,” namely the two Green decks (which look decidedly mid-range to me). Hopefully White Weenie will be able to better acquit itself against opponents with actual creatures, where Jitte and combat skillz will be more relevant, as opposed to fundamental turn duels where most of the cards on both sides are irrelevant.
LOVE
MIKE