Swordmasters of the Imperium: A Homebrew Redux

Last summer at U.S. Nationals, Dave Williams played an odd-looking deck the coverage squad dubbed the Mike Long Homebrew. The “Mike Long” part came from the deck designer (guess who) and the “Homebrew” part coming from the… I mean look at the deck. You can still smell the bathtub full of hops six months removed:

To many players’ collective surprise, Dave ended up earning a winning record with the deck. It doesn’t look like anything an experienced player would want to play, which I think is part of the deck’s charm. It has giant spells with insane mana costs… but only 19 lands. Among those 19 lands are full loads of both the dangerous City of Brass (personally, I long ago pledged to try not to play four copies of that card in any deck) and the generally absent Mirrodin’s Core. Beyond the general ugliness of the deck… the inexplicable numbers, the sheer volume of mulligans that should inevitably be forced upon its master, I think I was biased to begin with because the only Homebrew match that I watched involved Dave being mauled by Kate Stavola’s Rats. At the end of the day, a deck like Dave’s, which requires specific mana ramp into huge threats – while playing little or no relevant disruption of its own – would have its worst matchup against an opponent that could Distress, Rend, and Shortfang until it was reanimating Bringer of the Black Dawn with Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni.

Not surprisingly, Dave’s wins were consistently dramatic. He claimed a good matchup against Tooth and Nail; before Nationals that might have been difficult to believe… but that was before we saw the storied deck’s dismal end of tournament win percentage. The best story had to be Willams’s successful Confiscate on Oblivion Stone. “Pop it in response,” said his Pro Tour Champion opponent. “You can’t,” responded Dave, pointing at the Epic spell in his graveyard. “You already passed.”

I started working on updates to the Homebrew for Champs, originally working on a series of Godo-powered versions (oddly, Teddy Card Game was on the exact same wavelength at the same time). Set rotations would rob Long’s design of its five Bringers, and I figured the Bandit Warlord would be a worthy successor, filling deck manipulation and finisher roles simultaneously. However I kept running into this problem of drawing Godo after I no longer had any equipment in my deck and wanting a better beater. Also Godo was a tad slow. In most games where I didn’t hit the Legend on the optimal turn, I would rather just go into Enduring Ideal and that kind of cut away half the value of the deck.

Ultimately, I hit on the Critical Mass Update (or “The Best Threats” as Josh calls it) and the Mono-Blue Control deck. Both of those decks seemed to have greater value in the short term and I shelved the Homebrew for some months.

With Extended over for the time being, I decided to revisit the deck. This time I scrapped Godo and decided to hybridize the semi-successful TOGIT Three-color Control deck from Philadelphia with the Enduring Ideal engine instead:

Swordmasters of the Imperium

Mike Flores

Test deck on 01-01-2006

Standard

Creatures (17)

Lands (23)

Spells (20)

Sideboard

First off, I must say that I kind of hate the numbers on this deck. For the spells, the numbers came off… oddly. I really wanted four copies of Ghost-Lit Stalker, either 1 + 3 or three Arashis, and a few more potential Jitte-bearers… but there just wasn’t room with the Enduring Ideal engine taking up so much room.

As for mana, I think there is room for improvement. I’ve really been proud of my mana bases over the past couple of decks. Just look at the mana bases for U.S. Nationals Kuroda-style Red and especially the Critical Mass Update from Champs. Say what you want, but that U/G mana base could not be more perfect. It gets you exactly the color of mana you need on exactly the turn you want it. Partly because of the additional colors, and partly because of the conflicting sources of mana tutoring, the mana base to Swordmasters is born of compromise. I’ve been playing 23 lands in my polychromatic Green decks with four Sensei’s Divining Tops and eight core land accelerators since Critical Mass, and this deck is no exception. Basically, I tried to count backwards from 23, putting in the minimum number of basic lands for each of the difficult mana costs the deck demands, based on the availability of both Sakura-Tribe Elder and Wood Elves, then filling in the balance with basic Forests. It doesn’t come out perfectly, with the Watery Graves feeling a bit stray and the lone Swamp insufficient to the needs of Ghost-Lit Stalker. That said, the win percentage of this deck indicates that the lands come out well enough often enough (which is not to say that the mana base can’t still be improved). Possibly one Okina over a Forest and one Swamp over one Grave is correct.

4 Sensei’s Divining Top

Dave only played one at Nationals and said it was the worst card in his deck. I still don’t like the Top, but it is foolish to try to minimize the impact that card makes on decks with dedicated shuffling mechanisms, especially decks that have to hit seven or more mana before winning.

4 Umezawa’s Jitte

The cool thing about this deck is that it can beat the opponent either of two ways. Most games come down to burying the opponent under Enduring Ideal, but you get tons of percentage with any kind of an early Jitte. My position on this card, as with Sensei’s Divining Top hasn’t changed since Kamigawa Block: if you are going to play these cards in a format where half or more of your opponents are going to be packing one or both, you play as many as you can. I don’t have any pity for players who complain losing Jitte fights when they play only three copies.

3 Ghost-Lit Stalker

This is actually the weakest card in the deck. Every time I test, I second-guess its presence despite the Stalker’s playability post-Ideal. Every time I drop one hoping to start the Disrupting Scepter plan, it dies a horrible death to Wrath of God alongside some Wood Elves; I don’t know why I haven’t learned my lesson. The presence of Ghost-Lit Stalker bends the mana of the deck beyond its easy comfort zone, introduces a layer of complexity that isn’t technically necessary, and ultimately wastes valuable space. That said, I wouldn’t consider cutting Black, even if I wanted to cut the Stalkers. Mono-Blue no longer has a stranglehold on Standard, but it is next to impossible to beat that deck without some kind of hammer blow coming down on the permission; this particular threat can’t be countered. I would also consider main-deck Nightmare Void. For the purposes of Team Constructed, many eligible decks play one Nightmare Void so this deck can substitute all three Stalkers for Voids without conflict there… but Nightmare Void doesn’t carry a Jitte.

3 Confiscate

This is another card where four copies would be welcome. I really like hard-casting Confiscate (there is actually nothing like nabbing the opponent’s Vitu-Ghazi, the City Tree on turn 5 and then untapping with the mana for Enduring Ideal immediately afterward). Especially as Zur’s Weirding is usually the first card to come down post-Ideal, three Confiscates tend to be enough to win, but it often feels closer than I’d like.

1 Zur’s Weirding

I won the only game where I hard-cast this in the Casual Room. Usually you get it with the first or second Enduring Ideal copy and then win the game immediately. It is quite easy to deck the opponent by denying all the damage sources in his deck. Remember, if he is even a couple of cards ahead of you, you can use Faith’s Fetters to neutralize essentially three threats while the opponent generally has to play fair.

2 Arashi, the Sky Asunder

I really like this card. As I said before, I would have liked one or three copies main more, but two is a compromise based on having enough big guys, enough threats in general to carry the Jitte, and making room for all the Epic targets.

4 Sakura-Tribe Elder

Are there decks that don’t play four? It’s hard to say whether this guy or Meloku is the best creature in Standard. Part of the reason I liked Critical Mass and its descendents is the double four-pack.

4 Wood Elves

A sharp deviation from Dave’s Kodama’s Reaches, Wood Elves takes a great deal away from the deck when compared with the Champions of Kamigawa land searcher. The original Long Homebrew could survive on 19 lands partly because Kodama’s Reach would ensure the next land drop as well as accelerating in the short term; this deck lacks that safety net (you don’t have to have a lot of lands to topdeck when you search up your next two). However, Wood Elves is appropriate here as with the Critical Mass Update for one simple reason: it carries a Jitte. Better in the sense that the Critical Mass Update didn’t have a dual land to break (while this one plays eight), Wood Elves is worse because it is not boosting Vinelasher Kudzu this time around.

1 Form of the Dragon

I’m hot and cold on this card. It seems to be in my opening hand (both seven- and six-card hands) a disproportionate amount of the time. Moreover, I rarely use it to win. At the same time, it is clearly the right card to get with Enduring Ideal a lot of the time, and serves both offensive and defensive purposes. Believe it or not, I have searched this up a huge number of times against burn / beatdown decks when the opponent had five or more cards in hand. There is nothing less scary than Boros after you’ve borrowed their Red-producing lands.

3 Enduring Ideal

There are many things to consider regarding Enduring Ideal in this deck. The first is that Swordmasters is not “an Enduring Ideal deck.” It is a Kamigawa-style polychromatic Green creature deck that plays an Ideal endgame. This changes the fundamental nature of any matchup (the opponent will not correctly be fighting your Ideals). While it plays many enchantments, Swordmasters can cast almost all of them, and can even cast Form of the Dragon in some games. Enduring Ideal is present in this deck as a finisher, as a compliment to a Dragon and Jitte already in play, not as the singular route to victory. As such, I think three copies of Enduring Ideal is the right number. Because it costs so much, you usually have enough time to find one via shuffle / Top… It’s not like you are powering out Epic with Seething Song or anything.

4 Faith’s Fetters

Ravnica’s main addition to the deck, Faith’s Fetters is the perfect bridge between the TOGIT-style and Long Homebrew decks. It is kind of a Wrath of God that is synergistic with creatures and can also help win Jitte wars and power Zur’s Weirding… I’ve profitably Fettered everything from the City Tree to basic Mountain. Due to the structure of the deck, this card’s long-term synergy with Enduring Ideal cannot be over-emphasized.

4 Yosei, the Morning Star

This card is spectacular in the deck. Yosei gives Swordmasters a crazy curve of powerful threats from turns 4 and 5 through the end of the game. Unless we are talking about a dedicated permission deck, there are few opponents that can handle the multi-pronged attack of Jittes, Dragons, and Epic. Yosei is particularly nasty because most decks capable of dealing with it aren’t expecting Enduring Ideal immediately following.

Sideboard

3 Cranial Extraction

Steve Sadin always raises an eyebrow when I send him a list that has four Cranial Extractions. “You always play three in every sideboard.”

4 Annex

I was high on this card since the emergence of BlueTooth during last summer’s Championship Season. With UrzaTron decks again making headlines, Annex can be really valuable, but I like it as general disruption either way. Annex is faux mana acceleration for a mana hungry deck, can steal win conditions like the City Tree, and is highly synergistic with Enduring Ideal. In any case, it’s not any worse than a disruptive Creeping Mold at the same mana cost.

1 Arashi, the Sky Asunder

I side this in against Blue decks with Meloku and Keiga only.

3 Naturalize

I’m not sure if this is the optimal answer card. I kind of like Seed Spark, but I play against so many horrible Eminent Domain-type decks online it seems that the cheapest enchantment and artifact kill card possible is the right choice.

1 Ivory Mask

I added this fairly recently after playing one million Red-based decks. It is of course the nut high with Form of the Dragon.

1 Worship

I’m not sure when this would be good, exactly; I don’t have any unkillable or regenerating creatures or token generators. Probably a Genju of the Fields or even fourth Confiscate would be better against attack decks. Maybe another Disenchant-type card is right.

2 Wrath of God

I’m not sure if two is the right number on this card. I am less creature heavy than the original TOGIT deck, so Wrath effects should cause less collateral damage. At the same time, I don’t know if this is precisely the response card I want. Myojin of Cleansing Fire might be better than at least one because it carries a Jitte. With a little work on the mana, the deck can probably support Kagemaro, First to Suffer even.

In terms of game play, Swordmasters of the Imperium operates much differently from the decks that I usually build. For one thing, it does about one million things pretty well where I usually like my decks to do only one or two things very well.

Mechanically, the early game offense comes from dorks + Umezawa’s Jitte, but of course it isn’t going to beat any dedicated Jitte deck except maybe for Critical Mass that way. That said, Jitte is Jitte, and people lose to decks with four Jittes and any kind of backup.

The middle turns are usually about resource manipulation. Either Swordmasters is buying time with Faith’s Fetters or making time with the accelerators. Then it comes down to Dragons carrying Jittes or hard-cast Confiscates trading for more time. These turns can be annoying against a more controlling deck, but if you are spinning the Top, you can usually keep the opponent from generating any real card advantage.

This is important because once you hit seven, it’s usually time to go for broke. Depending on how greedy I am, I sometimes wait on the Ideal, but that’s not really necessary. Tim says that Ideal is basically a win in Standard, so unless you’ve been Jester’s Capped or something, there is not usually a good idea to give your opponent time and outs. Remember, the opponent has to respond to the Ideal or its Epic descendent. If he passes, you can do things like Confiscate his Kagemaro and he won’t have an opportunity to respond.

I haven’t done a lot of dedicated matchup testing, but my overall win record with Swordmasters is superb; it is something like 30-2 on MTGO, with one loss being to a real Enduring Ideal deck that was doing things like playing four Enduring Ideals and two main-deck Ivory Masks. Ivory Mask is actually incredible Ideal-on-Ideal… I had to blow all my Confiscates on his Masks and waste tons of time with Form of the Dragon; eventually he just Formed my face. The other loss was an 0-1 in the only 8-man queue when I first tried the deck. The opponent was a B/U weenie deck that, like Kate’s Rats at Nationals, should almost always beat this one. That said, I’ve beaten all kinds of different decks in the Casual Room, from Mono-Red burn up to and including my teammate Tim McKenna piloting Karsten Greater Gifts. Most of the Gifts / control matchups are a breeze in three games; those decks don’t usually have enough win conditions to out-last Confiscate and Cranial Extraction, and the Annexes let you steal lands that you want anyway.

Is this the right deck for Standard? I don’t think Swordmasters is as broken as Wild Gifts or as consistent as Mono-Blue… but it seems to win three game matchups an awful lot. I’d rather play this deck than Wild Gifts against an aggressive opponent because of the main-deck Faith’s Fetters, but there is something to be said for the fact that Wild Gifts has two different dedicated and absurdly powerful engines while Swordmasters gets literally Faith’s Fetters as its action card from the most recent expansion. I suppose it comes down to how broken you consider mana acceleration into Enduring Ideal as opposed to Wildfire or some other kind of mana sanction.

LOVE

MIKE