This is a funny time of year in Madison. It’s called Hippie Christmas by some, Magical Moving Day by others; every year around this time, a huge amount of the leases in the downtown area change over all at the same time, and people throughout the city move into their new places all at once. Of course, for those of us who aren’t moving, it doesn’t necessarily mean we’re sitting on our hands. I know that I actually feel like I’ve injured my arms from helping a friend move, but it seems like a small price to pay.
It’s also possible that this time is going to bring the Madison Magic community some fresh blood. Fresh blood is important in any kind of knowledge community like Magic, if only to stir up the pot and stop people from thinking about things in the same ways that they have been. Like a lot of successful Magic communities, Madison is a large college town, so the fresh blood keeps coming in with the students and recent graduates, drawn by whatever draws them here.
If we think about the community of Magic beyond the borders of a single city, we can think of the community of the Pro Tour and the competitive tournaments that feed into it. Things get shaken up by fresh blood constantly in our game, whether by a new face or by a new deck. Conley Woods is a great example of a new face that has shaken up much of the deckbuilding in the game as of late, and yet, one could not imagine that it would have been arrived at naturally without him. From a deck perspective, the cards that comprise the new decks are there, available, before the decks are discovered. But once they are discovered, they cause waves. Someone certainly would have come to the heavy-counter builds of Blue/White without Wafo-Tapa, but it probably got to us all the sooner because of his efforts.
And now, it is here. Wafo-Tapa’s Blue-White deck has arrived in town, and the world will forever be different, just like always.
Since M11, we have had a slew of National tournaments that have weighed in on the respective merits of cards and decks. One of the loudest voices in the International Caucus of Control Decks has been the return of Blue-White to prominence. Wafo-Tapa’s deck, which may well have won French Nationals if he hadn’t scooped himself twice into Nationals Team alternate, is joined by three other different builds of Blue-White in terms of mega-spotlights. Wafo-Tapa’s was noticed partly because of Wafo-Tapa himself, and also because of the very old-school heavy-control style that characterized it. The other four decks are more noteworthy for being played by the National Champions in Finland, France, and Canada. I’ve already written about two of these decks in detail, the Finnish Champ (basically designed by Shaheen Soorani) and Wafo-Tapa’s more controlling build; the other two decks are less pure than either of those two. Here are the lists:
Creatures (10)
Planeswalkers (7)
Lands (17)
Spells (26)
- 4 Plains
- 4 Island
- 2 Condemn
- 2 Mind Spring
- 1 Martial Coup
- 2 Path to Exile
- 2 Day of Judgment
- 4 Spreading Seas
- 3 Everflowing Chalice
- 2 Deprive
Sideboard
The two latter decks, the French National Champion represent something altogether different than the decks designed by Shaheen Soorani and Guillame Wafo-Tapa. Soorani’s deck design is a pure midrange-control deck, designed to just keep pumping out threats or direct answers. Essentially, it plans on overpowering the opponent with card quality. Wafo-Tapa’s deck is a more traditional control deck, with heavy counter-magic and only a few outright threats of its own.
Julien Parez (the French Champion) and Jasar Elarar (the Canadian Champion) are basically running a control deck in between these two camps. While definitely not pure midrange-control, they are also far less pure than Wafo-Tapa’s build. What they both appear to be is something like the tap-out style that Soorani represents, but modified to not just add Mana Leak to the mix, but also go beyond simply plugging in Mana Leak.
They both have a lot of startling similarities:
4 Wall of Omens
2 Oblivion Ring
4 Mana Leak
3 Path to Exile
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 Jace Beleren
2 Jace, The Mind Sculptor
3 Day of Judgment
21 cards the same out of 34 spells is a lot. What they have as different, are only the small details.
Finisher:
Parez: 2 Sun Titan
Elarar: 4 Baneslayer Angel
Counters:
Parez: 4 Mana Leak, 2 Deprive
Elarar: 4 Mana Leak, 3 Essence Scatter, 1 Negate
Miscellaneous Details:
Parez: 3 Sea Gate Oracle, 2 Mind Spring, 1 Martial Coup, the numbers of Planeswalkers
Elarar: 4 Spreading Seas, the numbers of Planeswalkers
For many intents and purposes, these are the same deck, at least from a strategic archetype sense.
What makes these decks viable alternatives to the Wafo-Tapa style deck?
Parez shares Wafo-Tapa’s long view of the game, but where Wafo-Tapa is dedicating his time to heavier counters, Parez, like Elarar, is more concerned with the board by far. Parez and Wafo-Tapa are both fairly non-dedicated to killing the opponent. Elarar, on the other hand, with his 4 Baneslayer Angels, is more willing to try and kill the opponent. With decks that run Fauna Shaman/Vengevine at their core, access to a card that tries to overpower the opponent like Baneslayer makes a lot of sense. For my money, Parez’s deck is probably better served by either shifting fully towards the decisions that are made by a deck like Elarar’s, or just going all-in like Wafo-Tapa, and more heavily leaning on hard control factors. Both Parez and Elarar are much more clearly set up in their game 1 for a critter field; I just think that if you are going to make that decision, it is better to more fully dedicate yourself to that position, as Elarar has.
Usually, these decisions are dictated by a read of the metagame. Past metagames in standard have been much more settled; this metagame looks like anything but. What are the viable Tier 1 archetypes, for example? A short list might include Blue-White Control, Pyromancer’s Ascension, Jund, Red, Naya, Mythic Conscription, Titan Ramp variants, and who knows what else. I’m pretty sure that the most represented deck at, say, US Nationals, is going to be around one-eighth of the field and probably no higher than 15% of the field. Leaning too hard in any one direction can leave you wide open to a huge portion of the field. Going with a more middle-of-the-road approach between midrange-control and pure-control might be the safest bet right now.
Of course, the recent National Champions are not just Blue-White.
Creatures (11)
Lands (10)
Spells (39)
- 6 Forest
- 12 Mountain
- 4 Rampant Growth
- 4 Harrow
- 4 Khalni Heart Expedition
- 1 Comet Storm
- 4 Explore
- 4 Cultivate
Sideboard
In Australia, we have the first proven Titan Ramp deck in a truly major event (20ish person PTQs don’t count).
When it comes to Ramping, this deck basically isn’t fooling around, with twenty ramp spells, pushing it into Avenger of Zendikar, Siege-Gang Commander, and Mr. Ramp, Primeval Titan. Any of these can win a match on its own, but Valakut supplies the alternate path against decks that are truly dedicated to stopping a creature.
It’s funny, because a while ago I would have told you that a deck like this wasn’t possible, at least, not in a truly competitive sense. Heavy dedicated ramp decks like this just haven’t worked historically. But Primeval Titan is just that powerful.
The problem with the old builds of ramp is that you would push hard, hard, hard, hard to get something into play, and you’d just be overwhelmed as you got there, or they’d stop your threat once it hit play. Siege-Gang Commander and Avenger of Zendikar are both incredibly good at holding the ground the moment they touch the battlefield. If they get wiped out, you’re usually not dead. A Primeval Titan, on the other hand, even answered, usually gets you so far into the Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle plan that just the remainder of your ramping cards can take out a whole slew of the table.
A resolved Primeval Titan usually puts two to three Valakut online the moment it comes into play, and heaven help you if it attacks or if another one joins it. Adam Witton’s deck is so dedicated to getting out a Primeval Titan, it’s incredibly common to have it on the table on turn four.
There are an incredible number of variants of this kind of deck. I’ve seen it with Eldrazi. I’ve seen it with Black. With three colors. It really doesn’t matter, in a certain sense, what the back up elements of the deck are, you’re dealing with the same basic premise: the deck will put something scary down, very fast, and Primeval Titan will be so unfair as to win the game on its own unless you do something similarly unfair. Certain colors might offer certain goodies, but with these style decks in the metagame, you basically have two options: go faster or go stronger.
Creatures (25)
- 2 Birds of Paradise
- 1 Ranger of Eos
- 4 Noble Hierarch
- 4 Knight of the Reliquary
- 2 Sovereigns of Lost Alara
- 4 Vengevine
- 4 Wall of Omens
- 4 Fauna Shaman
Planeswalkers (4)
Lands (18)
Spells (13)
Creatures (32)
- 3 Birds of Paradise
- 1 Realm Razer
- 4 Noble Hierarch
- 4 Knight of the Reliquary
- 1 Qasali Pridemage
- 4 Bloodbraid Elf
- 1 Baneslayer Angel
- 3 Cunning Sparkmage
- 1 Stoneforge Mystic
- 4 Vengevine
- 4 Fauna Shaman
- 1 Obstinate Baloth
- 1 Sun Titan
Planeswalkers (2)
Lands (25)
Spells (1)
In Italy and Spain, it might have been a combination of both answers… Federico Ronchi’s Mythic Conscription update and Anibal Carbonero’s Vengevine Naya don’t look too radically different than their predecessors, except for the inclusion of the Fauna Shaman/Vengevine package.
I’ve played against these decks a lot, and one of the thing that you can say for the Fauna Shaman/Vengevine decks is that they are incredibly consistent. The one thing that is unusual about Ronchi’s deck for this style of archetype is his decision to run as many Planeswalkers as he is in a Vengevine deck; Carbonero’s is more typical in this regard, with only three non-creatures to gum up a Vengevine.
A part of the difference in this strategy comes from their decision about what to rely on. Ronchi’s deck is relying on Fauna Shaman to just consistently have access to Sovereigns of Lost Alara at the player-killing moment, and in the meantime build up Vengevines and Knight of the Reliquary much more lackadaisically. Carbonero’s deck not only has much more of a tutor package, but it is more dedicated to killing you with a Vengevine, with Bloodbraid Elf all-but-assuring that the Vengevine is going to be resurrecting at will.
In this way, these decks can actually be seen as ideologically very different. Ronchi’s is so much more dedicated to a late game that it is running Wall of Omens. Conversely, Carbonero is basically planning on having Bloodbraid/Vengevine get there, with Cunning Sparkmage/Collar as a back-up plan, and Silver Bullets like Realm Razer playing safety. Despite this difference, both can still kill quite quickly, with Ronchi fully capable of a Sovereign-fueled kill on turn 5, and Carbonero’s capable of attacking for 11 or more on turn 4 with remarkable consistency.
Underneath these archetypes, of course, we still have many of the old kids in the neighborhood that haven’t gone away. Jund is still there, waiting to keep us honest. Red is as well, but it needs to do something radically different if it wants to have a shot against the Blue-White menace that seems to be dominating the world (at least as much as that is possible right now). Red-Blue combo decks are also floating around, doing their worst. Here’s the one I’ve been having a lot of initial success with:
Spells (49)
- 4 Lightning Bolt
- 4 Time Warp
- 4 Howling Mine
- 11 Mountain
- 5 Island
- 3 Mana Leak
- 3 Font of Mythos
- 3 Runeflare Trap
- 4 Searing Blaze
- 4 Reverberate
- 4 Temple Bell
Sideboard
Michael Poszgay and I were both discussing our various versions of this deck recently, and though we both ended up going in different directions, I think a deck like this is certainly the real deal.
That’s all for this week. I’m still getting used to the way that Standard seems to be shaping up, but I’m excited for the new developments in the format.
Until next time…
Stay tuned for my Hall of Fame ballot thoughts, coming soon!