Good evening everyone! Welcome to the premier episode of…
SO YOU THINK YOU CAN BREW!
(Tremendous applause!)
The show where we take a couple of everyday Magic players and see if they have what it takes to brew up a deck that can take down their local FNM—or maybe even ascend to greatness on the SCG Open Series and beyond!
(More tremendous applause!)
Let’s introduce our contestants!
First, hailing from Farmingdale, New York…Gary Fingers come on down!
Everyone give Gary a big hand!
(Applause!)
Let’s take a look at Gary’s bio:
All right all right, and our second contestant, hailing from Rocky Point, New York…Yogi Brown come on down!
Let’s take a look at Yogi’s Bio:
All right, we have met our contestants, now for a quick rundown of the rules. Each contestant will present us with a brewed up deck for the Standard format. We will then discuss the deck, looking at a number of factors, and provide some analysis and feedback to you, the audience! When all is said and done, every one of you will have a chance to cast your vote, and one of the decks will be crowned the winner! The contestant who brewed up the deck that wins the vote will move on to the next round! The loser? Well, that unlucky contestant will have to play FNM the following week wearing clothing of the winner’s choice!
(Ooooos and ahhhhhs from the crowd.)
Sooooooo…DO YOU THINK YOU CAN BREW?!
(Tremendous applause!)
Gary has won the preliminary game of Cee-Lo, and we are off!
Gary’s Deck
Creatures (11)
Lands (23)
Spells (26)
Okay, let’s see what we’ve got here. Gary has brewed up a blue/white/green aggressive tempo deck for us featuring the once dynamic duo of Delver of Secrets and Geist of Saint Traft. Since Ponder rotated out of Standard, Delver has seen very little play; however, this deck has an amazing 26 instants and sorceries in it, which means Delver will naturally be flipping a little under half of the time.
How is this possible while still maintaining enough threat density? By utilizing token generating spells such as Call of the Conclave and the new Advent of the Wurm, Gary can play “creatures” without playing creature cards. The deck features a number of ways to make sure Geist of Saint Traft continues to connect, such as Unsummon for bounce and Simic Charm and Selesnya Charm for pump. He also has a smattering of countermagic in Syncopate and Rewind. All in all, Gary’s brew is an interesting take on an inventive design.
Why Are We Building This Deck?
Now, the biggest question you need ask yourself when you are building a new brew is—yep, you guessed it—why? Why are we making this deck? What is our goal? Are we trying to make a new busted combo deck? Are we trying to make the fastest aggressive deck possible? Are we trying to utilize a certain powerful card? Are we trying to exploit a hole in the metagame?
When it comes to deckbuilding, context is EVERYTHING.
You may build a fast aggressive deck full of creatures and burn, but does it have advantages over Naya Blitz?
You may build a grindy blue/green/red control deck, but can it compete with the control decks that have access to Sphinx’s Revelation?
And, of course, there is the context of the format itself as well. A deck can be very good in the abstract, but it may not be able to survive if the format is unusually hostile towards it. For example, when Affinity was the major deck in Standard, almost every non-Affinity deck was playing maindeck Oxidizes and loads of other artifact removal in their sideboards. Even though the Krark-Clan Ironworks combo decks were a completely different strategy than Affinity and might have even been overpowered in other formats, they were not as good as Affinity and could not complete with Affinity’s success.
Back to Gary’s brew!
Being a mostly aggressive deck, we are going to have to compare it with Naya Blitz (and other Burning-Tree Emissary decks), Bant Hexproof, and The Aristocrats.
While clearly not as fast as Naya Blitz, Gary’s brew is much more resilient. It has many more cards that are capable of winning the game on their own, as a single Geist of Saint Traft or 5/5 Advent of the Wurm token can end a game pretty quickly. It is also more consistent than a deck like Bant Hexproof because for the most part all of its spells are powerful; it can’t draw five creature auras and no creatures. Lastly, the deck has a lot of room to maneuver—this is a deck that will greatly benefit from tight play.
However, what it gains in flexibility and resilience, it loses in raw power. It is unlikely this deck will ever have the turn 4 kills that Naya Blitz is capable of or that it will be able to create the insane board states that Bant Hexproof can create (such as a Geist of Saint Traft enchanted with Unflinching Courage and Ethereal Armor attacking for ten-plus lifelink on turn 3). It also doesn’t have the game-ending power of The Aristocrats’ Blasphemous Act + Boros Reckoner combo.
The other major factor when putting a deck up against the format is to figure out what it’s good and bad matchups are and then decide if the time is right for the deck.
It looks like this is a deck that would do very well against Sphinx’s Revelation decks like U/W/R Control, Esper Control, and Bant Control. It should match up fairly well against Reanimator and the new Jund lists (which skimp on Liliana of the Veil). However, it seems like it is going to have some pretty real problems with the faster aggressive decks in the format, as they are much faster and better at racing.
If we take a look at the most recent SCG Open Series Top 16 from Charlotte , we can see there are a bunch of various aggressive decks in the Top 16 and a grand total of only six copies of Sphinx’s Revelation.
As far the deck itself, it seems the biggest problem is consistency. Despite all the duals, the mana base is a bit rough, as you need blue on turn 1, green + white on turn 2, and green + green + white on turn 4. You would probably rather be playing fewer lands and the fourth Thought Scour, but the mana base just can’t handle it. I also think that the Simic Charms seem very weak because you already have four Selesnya Charms for pump and Unsummon and Azorius Charm provide better bounce effects.
Competitive or Fun?
The final question we need to ask about this deck is “what are we making this deck for?” Are we having fun at FNM? Or are we trying to take this deck to the next level and take down a PTQ or SCG Open with it? FNM is supposed to be fun, and I’ve played some really wacky decks myself at various FNMs in years past (one was a Heartbeat of Spring / Myojin of the Seeing Winds combo deck that took infinite turns with Beacon of Tomorrows).
Regardless of some of the problems this deck has, there is no doubt it seems like a blast to play, so let’s give a hand to Gary and his brew!
(Rowdy applause!)
We are going to take a quick commercial break, so stay tuned for Yogi Brown’s brew coming up right after these messages from our sponsor!
All right, we are back, and we have Yogi Brown and his brew for you!
Yogi’s Deck
Creatures (27)
- 4 Avacyn's Pilgrim
- 4 Thundermaw Hellkite
- 4 Flinthoof Boar
- 4 Loxodon Smiter
- 4 Ghor-Clan Rampager
- 4 Boros Reckoner
- 3 Voice of Resurgence
Lands (23)
Spells (10)
Sideboard
Yogi Brown, whose favorite card is Naya Charm, has brewed us up a beefy number here that would make Brian Kibler proud. Hopefully starting with a turn 1 Avacyn’s Pilgrim, the deck looks to deploy huge monster after huge monster, topping off at five mana with Thundermaw Hellkite. The deck features a number of resilient creatures like Loxodon Smiter and Boros Reckoner and an astounding six pump spells between Selesnya Charm and Ghor-Clan Rampager. Yogi’s deck, while not as fast as Burning-Tree Emissary fueled Blitz decks, looks to go big while still maintaining an aggressive edge.
Why Are We Building This Deck?
As we said before, when it comes to deckbuilding…
(Whole crowd chants in unison.)
CONTEXT. IS. EVERYTHING!
Once again, like Gary’s deck, we have a semi-aggressive deck that is not as blisteringly fast as the two fastest decks in the format: Naya Blitz and Bant Hexproof. However, also like Gary’s deck, Yogi’s brew is much more resilient than either of those pillars of the format. Again, all of its cards are for the most part individually powerful, and it will have no problem presenting a solid threat at any point in the game.
This has a number of effects that are the opposite of Gary’s brew.
Going big is a fantastic way to beat the aggressive decks in the format. Much like Brian Kibler and his Baneslayer Angels at Pro Tour Austin, going big allows your threats to outclass our opponent’s smaller faster threats while still maintaining an aggressive stance. Any Burning-Tree Emissary deck is going to have a lot of trouble fighting through Yogi’s turn 2 Loxodon Smiters and Boros Reckoners.
Versus the midrange decks, Yogi has some gains and some losses. Against a deck like Jund, the resilience of his threats should give him more of a chance of fighting through the endless waves of Huntmaster of the Fells and Thragtusks. Against Reanimator he still has a reasonably fast clock and good answers for Angel of Serenity, but the Naya Blitz’s biggest advantage over G/B/W Reanimator is its raw speed, which Yogi’s deck can’t hope to match.
It is against Sphinx’s Revelation control decks where I feel Yogi loses the most ground. Without the blistering speed of Burning-Tree Emissary, they will have a much easier time of trading one for one with your threats, which plays directly into their strengths.
However, as we said, based on current results Sphinx’s Revelation decks are on the downswing, and there are a number of different aggressive decks currently succeeding in Standard.
Once again though, much like with Gary’s deck, it seems the biggest problem is consistency. One thing that both of these decks makes pretty obvious is that the mana in Standard at the moment, while very good, is not perfect. This deck only has nine ways to cast Avacyn’s Pilgrim on turn 1, and one of those means he can’t cast Boros Reckoner on turn 2. It also only has nine Mountains for Flinthoof Boar.
As far as individual card choices, I question whether Mizzium Mortars is our best removal spell—it can’t go to the face like Searing Spear, we likely won’t be overloading it with only 23 lands, and it is rather clunky at two mana and only sorcery speed. I think Domri Rade might be better in this slot, as it can also provide removal while at the same time providing a source of card advantage in your slower matchups. The combo with Boros Reckoner is also not to be underestimated.
I also question the need for so many Ghor-Clan Rampagers. While a deck like Naya Blitz will often top their curve with them to get their small guys through for damage, most of our creatures are already big enough to win fights on their own. And, perhaps more importantly, we need to spend our later turns casting our even bigger monsters like Advent of the Wurm and Thundermaw Hellkite.
Competitive or Fun?
Regardless, this deck does look like a bunch of fun to play, and it seems like in the right metagame with a bit more tuning it could be a force to be reckoned with. Let’s give a hand to Naya lover Yogi Brown and his brew!
(Enthusiastic applause!)
The Moment of Truth
Well, folks, we are down to it. The moment you’ve all been waiting for, the moment you decide the winner for the very first episode of SO YOU THINK YOU CAN BREW!
(Crowd goes wild with applause!)
Here’s how the voting works. Take your time and pick the brewer and deck that you like the most! Remember, this is subjective—you can think the deck is more competitive, more fun, more something you’d like to play, or just plain like it better for any reason you can think of!
In the comments of the article, I will post one comment for each of our contestants with their name. Simply “like” the one you want to vote for! It’s that simple!
(Applause!)
The winner will be back to defend his title in episode 2. The loser? The loser will have to play his next FNM wearing whatever embarrassing clothing the winner wants!
(Laughter!)
So cast your votes and we will see you next time on the show where we ask everyday Magic players….
SO YOU THINK YOU CAN BREW?!?!?!
(Theme music and applause!)
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