Hello and welcome back to another edition of Thank God It’s FNM. It’s been a crazy few weeks in Standard over the past month, and the format still seems to be pretty diverse. There is a plethora of deck choices that can win a tournament. For this week, I have a pretty sweet list for you, though I guess I say that every week, don’t I?

A month or two ago, I was watching Dzyl stream a Standard brew, and it looked quite interesting. The basic concept was to use Corpsejack Menace and cards that put +1/+1 counters on your creatures to generate a lot of advantage and then use cards like Fathom Mage or a giant creature and Rancor to shut your opponent out. I took a screenshot of his list, but I had to leave and all but forgot about the deck. Recently, I was going through my pictures and found this gem. For some reason, I had titled the picture "Super Happy Draw Time." Sometimes even I don’t understand myself.

Here’s the screenshot:

While I liked what the deck was doing, I found some big holes. First of all, I discovered that Tree of Redemption is not very good. You could have some cool hands involving Bioshift where you could set your life total really high, but you rarely did much with it. The better plan against aggro decks seemed to be just creating large blockers and then trying to race them once you had a good board presence.

I also noticed that the deck needed a little more ramp, but there wasn’t much room for cards that weren’t really part of the plan. This is where Gyre Sage comes in, but more on that shortly. I also surprisingly did not like Prime Speaker Zegana in this deck. You could draw a lot of cards and create a lot of advantage without it, and it slowed down your hands way too much. I had to make some tough cuts in the list you’re about to see, but I do still like the four Increasing Savagery, especially with Gyre Sage now in the deck.

After having to make some tough decisions, here is the list I settled on for this week:

BUG Awesomeness

AJ Kerrigan

Test deck on 03-17-2013

Standard

Creatures (31)

Lands (22)

Spells (7)

Sideboard

I decided to give both Champion of Lambholt and Master Biomancer a try. Because I cut Prime Speaker, less than four Fathom Mages might be wrong, but I wanted more cards to give the deck less clunky draws. Master Biomancer looked like it could fill that role perfectly. Champion seemed like a card that could give us more game versus annoying creatures like Boros Reckoner without having to clog up the deck with mainboard removal.

I didn’t play any sideboarded games for this article, but I still wanted to show what I consider to be a reasonable sideboard for this deck. This deck plays similarly to Brian Kibler G/B Ooze deck but with a lot cooler of an endgame. Anyway, let’s get to the games.

R Flash

To start off this game, I won the roll and kept:

I started with an Arbor Elf, and he matched me with a tapped Hallowed Fountain. I then jammed two more Arbor Elfs on my turn, and he cast Thought Scour, milling two Supreme Verdict. He played a Steam Vents before passing the turn. On my turn, I cast a Gyre Sage that I drew and followed up with Corpsejack Menace to make it a 3/4. He untapped, played another Steam Vents, and passed the turn back to me. On my turn, I put a Rancor on the Menace, swung for twelve, and passed back. While I was a little weak to Supreme Verdict here, he had already milled two and would need another white source in his hand. Luckily for me, he didn’t have it, and I swung for lethal.

While there wasn’t really any interaction in this game, I just wanted to use it as an example to show the aggressive draws that this deck can have. Even if he did have Supreme Verdict there, I could start to recover with the Fathom Mage and Gyre Sage I had along with the Rancor that would return to my hand.

Round 2: U/B Invisible Stalker

I lost the roll and kept:

This hand needed some lands, especially a green source, to get off the ground. But I was on the draw, and it could do some pretty insane things with the land. My opponent led with a Swamp, and I just played a tapped Overgrown Tomb after drawing a Watery Grave. He played another Swamp, and I played a Watery Grave into Gyre Sage. It met a Devour Flesh on my end step, and he just played a third Swamp before passing. I played an Overgrown Tomb off the top into Champion of Lambholt, and he played an Island into Invisible Stalker.

On my turn, I tried to cast a Fathom Mage, which resolved, but then he cast Devour Flesh. I decided to sacrifice the Champion since the Fathom Mage was going to draw me a lot of cards alongside the Corpsejack Menaces. On his turn, he cast Call of the Nightwing onto Invisible Stalker to make two 1/1s, and I untapped and cast Corpsejack Menace to draw two cards and make a 3/3. He chump blocked my Mage when it attacked.

At this point, my hand was Corpsejack Menace, Strangleroot Geist x2, Arbor Elf x2, and Lotleth Troll. On his turn, he just attacked with Stalker to make a 1/1 and passed. I tried to cast the second Menace, and he Psychic Striked it. I played an Arbor Elf off the Forest I drew, and he chumped the Menace, dropping to seventeen life.

We went back and forth for a few turns, with me casting some creatures and him making 1/1s and casting two Vampire Nighthawks. While they did kill my Corpsejack Menace and Fathom Mage, I still had a pair of 4/3 Strangleroot Geists, a 4/3 Lotleth Troll, and an Arbor Elf. When all he did was make another 1/1 on his turn, I untapped and cast Increasing Savagery on my Lotleth Troll. He had no answer and hit exactly zero life.

This game is an example of how powerful each of the creatures can be on its own. While you do often have to overextend into Wraths a bit, you can beat spot removal pretty easily.

Round 3: G/R Aggro

I won the roll for this game and kept:

I led with a Breeding Pool, and he used an Evolving Wilds to find a Forest. I played Woodland Cemetery and found a Breeding Pool with Farseek. He played a Mountain and passed the turn back to me. I played Woodland Cemetery and cast Master Biomancer. He played another Mountain and a Borderland Ranger to find a second Forest. I played another Overgrown Tomb and second Master Biomancer that I had drawn. If he didn’t kill one of these, this was going to get pretty insane.

He played a Huntmaster on his turn, but it was no match for my two Gyre Sages and Strangleroot Geist. At that point, the game was basically over. He played a Hellrider to chump, and I drew silly amounts of cards with a Fathom Mage off the top. I then used the Gyre Sages and an Increasing Savagery to draw an even sillier amount of cards, but before I could get too crazy, he conceded. I ended the game with some 9/9 Dreg Manglers, a couple 7/7 Arbor Elfs, some 8/7 Strangleroot Geists, and so much more along with an eighteen-card hand.

This game was pretty insane. While he was dead after turn 5, I was able to make him super dead, which is always what I look for in an FNM deck.

That’s my deck for this week. It can have some pretty insane draws, and most hands that you draw will at least do something cool. The Supreme Verdict decks can be a little tough, but sideboarding into Golgari Charm can definitely help solve that problem a bit. Gyre Sage was pretty strong for me, so I might try going up to four. If you are looking to be a little flashier, you should consider trying Bioshift. The card won’t be an MVP in many games, but it can do some pretty sweet stuff, especially when combined with Corpsejack Menace and Fathom Mage. Zameck Guildmage is also a fun one-of to consider. Lotleth Troll is probably one of the more important cards in the deck, and Master Biomancer performed pretty well. Overall, I like where the maindeck 60 is right now.

As usual, I’d love to see your decklists and comments. Feel free to either shoot me an email or post it in the comments. If you are going to Grand Prix Pittsburgh this weekend, I should be there. I’d love to have a quick chat or to talk about your sealed pool. I still haven’t decided if I actually want to play the main event or not though. I only have one bye, so I may just grind win a boxes, probably with Junk Reanimator. It depends on what deck someone wants to lend me. Anyway, it has been a pleasure. Thank god it’s FNM!

AJ Kerrigan
@AJKerrigan55 on Twitter
[email protected]