No one actually knows the complete history of the deck known as Project X. It’s a lot like the mutants in Marvel’s X-Comics: no one how they came about or who was responsible. Its origins have been lost in the Sands of Time. All I can do is tell you what I know.
Our story begins almost eight months ago, when an enterprising gentleman named Steven Birklid was deciding upon a deck for Constructed Champs States in Alaska. In his tournament report, Steven claims that he was intending to play Zoo, when his unnamed “Pro Tour connection” pointed out that Saffi Eriksdotter plus Crypt Champion forms an infinite loop:
(1) Play Crypt Champion. Saffi will either already be in the graveyard, or you can sacrifice her targeting something right now if she’s in play.
(2) Put the Crypt Champion’s “sacrifice Crypt Champion if you did not pay R to play it” trigger on the bottom of the stack, and its “each player returns a creature of casting cost 3 or less from his graveyard to play” trigger on top of it.
(3) The “return” trigger resolves first. Saffi Eriksdotter returns to play, and as long as the opponent hasn’t returned a Saffi of his own, you have time to…
(4) …Sacrifice Saffi to use her ability, targeting Crypt Champion, while the “sacrifice Crypt Champion” trigger is still on the stack.
(5) The Crypt Champion’s “sacrifice Crypt Champion” ability resolves. Crypt Champion dies, and is returned to play via Saffi’s ability. You’re now back at step 1. Lather, rinse, repeat.
At that time Essence Warden hadn’t been printed yet, but Soul Warden was in Ninth Edition. If you have either Warden in play, entering this loop generates infinite life. Birklid and one of his friends both made Top 8 of Alaskan Champs with a G/W Glare of Subdual deck built around this combo:
Creatures (25)
- 4 Llanowar Elves
- 3 Birds of Paradise
- 1 Soul Warden
- 4 Loxodon Hierarch
- 4 Selesnya Guildmage
- 1 Crypt Champion
- 2 Saffi Eriksdotter
- 3 Thelonite Hermit
- 3 Yavimaya Dryad
Lands (23)
Spells (12)
Birklid himself won the title, defeating one of his teammates in the mirror during the Top 8.
No offense to those folks who play Magic in Alaska, but it’s not surprising that this deck flew under the radar. Alaska States was only five rounds of Swiss (i.e. between 24 and 32 people), so no one might have thought that its results were relevant given that sample size. Plus, States just generally doesn’t quite have the tech that the Pro Tour does; it’s not unusual for decks to do well in Champs and then drop off the face of the earth. I could find no mention of any deck running the Saffi / Champion combo in the online coverage from last year’s Worlds.
Apparently, though, the Japanese were listening. Oh, yes, they were. Well, maybe they were listening to a guy who was translating and listening at the same time. Or maybe they were reading a translation instead of listening. Or maybe they were listening perfectly well because they understand English and I am a damn moron for thinking otherwise and Craig should fire my butt posthaste if he wants to retain your business and…
Um, yeah. Back to the deck history.
In March, Yuuske Iwasaki made the Top 8 of Grand Prix: Kyoto with a decklist that he had dubbed Project X. He lost in the finals to Yuuya Watanabe’s U/R Tron deck, but not before his decklist had circled the virtual globe:
Creatures (32)
- 4 Birds of Paradise
- 2 Elves of Deep Shadow
- 4 Wall of Roots
- 4 Dark Confidant
- 4 Loxodon Hierarch
- 1 Ghost Council of Orzhova
- 1 Orzhov Pontiff
- 2 Teysa, Orzhov Scion
- 3 Crypt Champion
- 4 Saffi Eriksdotter
- 3 Essence Warden
Lands (20)
Spells (8)
Sideboard
As often happens when the Japanese deckbuilders attack an idea, the result is a much more sophisticated version of the combo. It can use Chord of Calling to combo off at instant speed, and it can use Castigate to protect itself from countermagic or other forms of hate. Most importantly, it has a secondary combo which helps speed up the win: with Teysa, Orzhov Scion in play, each death of the Champion puts a 1/1 flying White token into play, resulting in infinite 1/1s. Those creatures can be sacrificed to Teysa to remove any blockers, but blocking doesn’t really matter because there are, after all, an infinite number of 1/1s in play.
By this time I was already playing more heavily on Magic Online than in person, so I don’t know if this deck had taken hold at FNMs and such. In fact, this deck continued to fly under the radar with pro players and aspiring pros, precisely because many people do their testing on Magic Online. You can play this deck on MTGO – thanks to the Teysa combo, you can kill most opponents long before you have to do “infinite” things – but it’s just about the most frustrating thing possible. You’re just clicking over and over, needing to make sure you click on the correct effect each time, knowing that you might lose on time if you aren’t working fast enough. One opponent in an 8-man queue told me, “I could never play this in a [Premiere Event], I would want to kill myself.” While I was testing the pre-Future Sight version of this deck online, I wanted to kill myself many times, especially after I punted utterly won games by misclicking.
The thing is, even with those misclicks, I’ve still made it to the finals of more than half of the 8-man queues I’ve played with the deck. I have yet to beat this deck, no matter what I’m playing. Part of this is simply that I don’t own the dual lands to play the decks that are bad matchups for it, but part of it is that it might be really, really good. Finally, the deck has received a few very gassy cards in Future Sight. So, with all that in mind, meet the next iteration of Project X:
Creatures (29)
- 4 Birds of Paradise
- 2 Elves of Deep Shadow
- 4 Wall of Roots
- 4 Dark Confidant
- 4 Loxodon Hierarch
- 1 Teysa, Orzhov Scion
- 2 Crypt Champion
- 4 Saffi Eriksdotter
- 3 Essence Warden
- 1 Teneb, the Harvester
Lands (22)
Spells (9)
I normally hate doing card-by-card breakdowns, but it behooves us to take a quick look at certain numbers to see why they are the way they are:
The gas that makes the deck go. Both you and I are likely not to match Iwasaki in play skill (apologies if any GP winners just read that sentence, but you know what I mean), so to play this deck we would like to have two things: a few more lands to make our mulligan decisions are easier, and some tutors for our key combo parts. Glittering Wish provides both. You can just straight-up Wish for Saffi or Teysa, and you can Wish for Congregation at Dawn to find Crypt Champion if you can’t just Chord him into play. Moving Putrefy to the sideboard as a Wish target opens slots for extra land.
Note that in addition to every other great thing she does for your deck, she’s also your best out against Bridge From Below. Man, she’s awesome. All I want to know is, what’s up with her name? I guess Erik Lauer has a child named Saffi or something?
I haven’t gotten in much work with the post-Future Sight version of the deck, so if you have and you consider Summoner’s Pact to be better, more power to you. However, I like this card simply because getting the creature in play at instant speed is very important; note that if Essence Warden or Teysa is already in play, you can completely combo off at instant speed with a Chord. It’s not just about the combo, either. Many a game against Dralnu has been decided by getting Dark Confidant into play in response to them tapping low for a charge counter or a Mystical Teachings, and it’s very useful against Red-based aggro to get a Loxodon Hierarch into play during the combat phase.
You have two because sometimes you will need to combo off multiple times. For example, you might need to get infinite life, but your opponent tries to clog the ground and deck you, so you need infinite guys. Sometimes when you’re playing on Magic Online, you could get infinite guys but you don’t have time, but you may need to make a bunch of guys at some later date, so you need another Teysa. You get the idea. Iwasaki actually had three, but I’m trying to save a slot by running…
Iwasaki had Ghost Council of Orzhova, but that has the odd drawback of being near-impossible to cast normally. It can also take a while to kill people if they have blockers, which can be a factor on MTGO. Then I was watching Premiere Event replays and I saw someone (lost the name or I would credit you, sorry) summon Teneb, and it made perfect sense. Aside from simply being a giant flying badass, he can get a dead or discarded Crypt Champion back into play, which is not always easy for this deck to do. I imagine that someone, somewhere, sometime, will use this guy to get a Teferi into play against a Dralnu deck. Just thinking about that makes me feel a little funny.
I actually like this card as a win condition – otherwise, Urza’s Factory decks like Dralnu will try to deck you if they can make enough creatures and fight over your Teysa – but I haven’t had any time to try it out. It will probably make it into the maindeck of every single version of the deck on Magic Online, just because it takes so freakin’ long to win otherwise.
I really love this card in Birklid’s sideboard, and wanted to make room for it as a Wish target, but I decided that I really wanted two copies of Putrefy and Mortify instead.
Playing the Matchups
The nice thing about this deck is that in addition to the combo finish, it makes for decent beatdown. Saffi, Dark Confidant, and the Hierarchs all give you power equal to casting cost, and Castigate is a pretty good way to make a hole for them.
Although the deck has a Wish package, you’ll want to take a page from Extended of seasons past and board out your Wishes for the cards you would be Wishing for. The reason for this is simple: Wishing for something is slow, and the opponent can see it coming. In post-sideboard games, you’re usually better off waiting to draw the card normally; the only cards that it’s very important to draw early are Saffi, the Hierarchs, and Castigate, and you’ll have them all as four-ofs in the post-SB games anyway.
Dralnu and U/B Pickles
It might seem like these decks are similar, but you actually need quite different strategies to beat them. The difference is the possibility of a Brine Elemental plus Vesuvan Shapeshifter lockdown. If Dralnu resolves a Teferi, you have problems, but not unsolvable ones. If Pickles resolves a Teferi, you have to be immediately concerned that the morphs in play might be one part of the Pickles lock, with the other part tutorable by Mystical Teachings and playable at instant speed after you tap low for anything. On the flip side, in post-board games against Dralnu you have to worry about Damnation, but Pickles does not always bring that card in.
In both matchups you’ll want Dark Confidant, but playing him on turn 2 is a problem since they both will likely run Spell Snare as a four-of. As I mentioned above, I like Chording him into play on a later turn, in response to them tapping low on their turn to charge a Dreadship Reef, play Mystical Teachings, make a Urza’s factory token, whatever. You board out Wishes for Castigate, the two Mortifies (in addition to randomly nailing Teferi, they might board in Leyline of the Void against you), and either Teysa or Mystic Enforcer (Teysa against morphs, Enforcer against Dralnu).
In short, these are your toughest matchups, especially if a strong player is sitting across the table. However, they are not unwinnable; you just need experience playing the beatdown against this type of deck.
Dredge
Given time, you win easily because they cannot really disrupt your combo. The obvious problem is that Bridge From Below has made them much faster, so that you may not get that time. Thus you really need Saffi on turn 2, softening the impact of their Bridges. Now, before the supporters of the Dredge deck get all hot and bothered and remind me that their deck can kill on turn 2 on the play (i.e., before a Project X deck could even play Saffi), let me say that you just have to live with that possibility. I don’t think it’s a high-probability event.
You board out Wishes and Chords for Putrefy, Mortify, and Bottle Gnomes. In all cases the intention is to either blow away their Dredge enablers or kill your own men to turn off their Bridges. Other ways to hose them that are not in my board, but could be added if you fear the Dredge deck turning out in large numbers, include Withered Wretch, Jotun Grunt, Loaming Shaman, and Bitter Ordeal.
Gruul and Mono-Green Aggro
Have you ever used Saffi Eriksdotter to resurrect a Loxodon Hierarch? Believe me, once you have, you’ll never worry about losing to Char again. Also, you have Essence Warden, whom they will not want to waste a burn spell on since they know you have many bigger threats. You can’t always plan on comboing off because they might kill your Crypt Champion in response to your targeting it with Saffi, but as long as you manage your creatures and life total you should be okay. Your only real concern is Blood Moon (some Gruul decks even run this in the main); you’ll notice that I run more basic lands than Iwasaki did, and that’s exactly the reason. You bring in Mortify, Putrefy, and the Gnomes for Castigates and Wishes.
Your bigger concern is Mono-Green, because a Silhana Ledgewalker with Moldervine Cloak is a quick, evasive clock. It’s a big threat to kill you before you can combo out, even with Loxodon Hierarchs in your deck. Also, I’ve seen some R/G decks lately that have tried the Ledgewalker plus Cloak combo in addition to their burn, which would pose a problem for the same reason. You leave in the Wishes here, because you need to tutor up Orzhov Pontiff; just cut three Dark Confidants for Gnomes.
Dragonstorm and Hatching Plans combo
I don’t like this matchup very much right now, because I wish my board were better prepared for them. It just seems like three Aven Mindcensors and a Castigate (which come out for the Wishes) are not enough against Dragonstorm. The real problem is that you don’t have many outs to them simply hard-casting a Bogardan Hellkite; for example, a single Essence Warden or Hierarch can give you enough life to prevent their simple “Storm for four” plan from killing you, but they don’t stop four gigantic fliers. You either have to combo off fast, or disrupt their Dragonstorms and try to win with Teneb. You might also want to board in the Orzhov Pontiff somehow, because some of these decks have Empty the Warrens either in their board or the maindeck as a backup win.
Hatching Plans combo is even more obnoxious because Mindcensors are obviously useless against them. On the other hand, have you ever answered one of their dumb Empty the Warrens turns with a Pontiff? You might have to change your shorts afterward. You actually don’t board out the Wishes in this matchup, because you want to have the Pontiff at your fingertips on any given turn. You just cut Teneb for a Castigate.
Until next time, just remember that your opponents aren’t obligated to scoop when you go infinite.
mmyoungster at aim dot com
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PS: As I was finishing this article, I received the results of last weekend’s StarCityGames.com $1,000 Standard tournament. Scott Rogers took second place with this list, which I sadly do not have time to comment on:
Creatures (30)
- 4 Birds of Paradise
- 2 Elves of Deep Shadow
- 4 Wall of Roots
- 4 Dark Confidant
- 3 Loxodon Hierarch
- 1 Ghost Council of Orzhova
- 1 Orzhov Pontiff
- 1 Teysa, Orzhov Scion
- 3 Crypt Champion
- 1 Loaming Shaman
- 3 Saffi Eriksdotter
- 3 Essence Warden
Lands (21)
Spells (9)