“I can’t remember the last time I won a sanctioned match of Magic.”
Last time we discussed Life and U/G Madness, two decks that seem to have gotten a lot of attention over the past week. Mike Flores recently posted an article dicussing the results of a GP trial that took place at Neutral Ground this past weekend. He mentioned that the finalist of the event was playing Life, but with a very innovative addition: Aether Vials. With more and more RDW players moving away from Nakamura’s list and choosing to run Volcanic Hammer, Daru Spiritualist isn’t nearly as safe as it once was. Being able to put him into play at instant speed to set up your combo not only improves your matchup against Scepter Chant, but helps versus RDW as well. However, your match up against Scepter Chant still proves to be difficult, and the Aether Vials still do not address the decks main problems – combo decks.
With that in mind, as I promised, we will go over the two most popular “combo” decks in the format – Desire and Aluren – and see what their place is in this metagame. Now I know some people consider Life a combo deck, but I don’t. I mean, gaining infinite life is kind of lame, wouldn’t you say?
First, let’s go over Desire, as it’s the more popular of the two thanks to Masashi Oiso. Many people aren’t quite sure whether Black Desire or White Desire is the better deck. Now would be a perfect time for me to say something like, “Always bet on black.” However, I’m not sure that version is actually the best right now, so that sweet line will have to sit it out this time.
Black Desire
4 Brainstorm
4 Accumulated Knowledge
2 Merchant Scroll
4 Sapphire Medallion
4 Mind’s Desire
3 Snap
3 Intuition
3 Cunning Wish
2 Vampiric Tutor
2 Deep Analysis
1 Turnabout
1 Tendril’s of Agony
4 Chrome Mox
2 Nightscape Familiar
4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground River
1 Flooded Strand
7 Islands
1 Swamp
Sideboard
2 Echoing Truth
2 Psychatog
1 Envelop
1 Condescend
1 Coffin Purge
1 Brain Freeze
1 Snap
1 Mana Leak
1 Intuition
1 Rebuild
1 Energy Flux
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Turnabout
Now Black Desire has two things going for it that White Desire does not. For one, against a deck that is packing Cranial Extraction, you have a much easier time going off with access to Tendrils of Agony as a win condition in addition to Brain Freeze. With one maindeck copy, your opponent cannot simply name Cunning Wish and guarantee victory. They must instead name Mind’s Desire, which means you only have to cast nine spells rather than 15-16 to win the game without a Desire. The other benefit, which I feel far outweighs the first one, is that you can board in Psychatogs. Against aggressive decks like RDW and against decks with Cranial Extraction, this card can hold the ground for you and prove to a more effective win condition when your hand is getting stripped.
Oiso ended up losing in the Top 8 to Olivier and his Goblin deck, which admittedly is a bad matchup. However, the interesting thing about that match when I was watching it was that it didn’t seem like Olivier was really putting that much pressure on Oiso. I do think that Oiso should’ve probably lost that match, however I think that particular loss had more to do with the quality of his draws rather than his opponent.
White Desire
4 Brainstorm
4 Accumulated Knowledge
4 Chrome Mox
4 Sapphire Medallion
4 Mind’s Desire
3 Snap
3 Merchant Scroll
2 Deep Analysis
2 Turnabout
2 Intuition
1 Meditate
1 Cunning Wish
1 Brain Freeze
4 Sunscape Familiars
4 Cloud of Fairies
8 Islands
4 Flooded Strand
4 Adarkar Wastes
1 Plains
Sideboard
3 Sphere of Law
3 Brain Freeze
3 Submerge
1 Turnabout
1 Snap
1 Mana Leak
1 Intuition
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Disenchant
As you can see, there isn’t much of a difference between the two lists. The loss of Vampiric Tutor really isn’t that big of a deal… the main loss would be the Psychatog. However, you have an awesome weapon against RDW to compensate that loss in the form of Sphere of Law. The Sphere should give you enough time against RDW to set up your win, as well as handle Pyrostatic Pillar, should they board those in. Without Psychatog you are slightly more vulnerable to hand disruption and Cranial Extraction, however by boarding into three Brain Freezes, your win condition isn’t as cumbersome without Mind’s Desire’s as you might think. With Merchant Scroll, you can search up a second or a third, and suddenly you need fewer spells than Tendrils would need to kill your opponent.
There are some striking differences between the two lists which I feel I should go over. First off, the White Desire only runs one Cunning Wish as opposed to the three that are in the Black Desire list. This difference has nothing to do with color; the Black list could easily run only one Cunning Wish as well if wanted to. The White Desire listing chooses to run only one Cunning Wish. because it allows you to have a more streamlined sideboard that isn’t as reliant on wish targets. This strategy is particularly useful in a field with a set metagame. With PT: Columbus being a wide open meta-game, Oiso was wise to have a varied mix of Cunning Wish targets to help him deal with any variety of situations that might come up. In the current field, the metagame is more or less established, so having a dedicated sideboard against decks like RDW and U/G, which you know you’ll face, has much more appeal. Cunning Wish can also often be too slow, so replacing some maindeck copies with more card drawing or redundancy can prove to be more effective in a combo deck that is trying to go off as fast as possible.
You may also notice that the deck runs four copies of Sunscape Familiar whereas the Black listing runs only two copies of the counterpart, Nightscape Familiar. Now this might be due to the fact that Nightscape is simply more fragile than Sunscape Familiar or maybe they simply feel having eight “Medallions” is too much. From my experience, having a “Medallion” on turn 2 will often be the difference between winning and losing with the deck. Although it’s certainly possible to win without a turn 2 play, I feel that having eight “Medallions” in the deck improves your odds of winning by a lot.
Personally, I like the White Desire list better because it has been doing pretty well for me lately. Even with the Psychatogs of Black Desire, I find myself having a hard time against RDW and U/G Madness. Sideboard options like Sphere of Law and Submerge help to push those matchups in my favor. The main problem the White Desire list has is against decks like Goblins or Rock, which pack a multitude of hand disruption along with Cranial Extraction. However, I find that the Black Desire list has the same problems with those decks. One benefit the Black deck might have (but I haven’t really tested yet), is that you have access to cards like Smother. A card like Smother would be very useful against a deck like U/G Madness and more importantly, Affinity. Obviously killing a Wild Mongrel would be useful, but not really necessary. The main benefit to having access to such a card would be that it gives you an effective answer to Meddling Mage. Meddling Mage on Snap can often prove to be very devastating against you at times from Affinity as they’re clock is often the same as yours, so if they can disrupt you for even a turn it is usually enough.
As it stands, I find that Desire is a solid choice in the current metagame, with some excellent matchups against Life and Reanimator. Your matchups against RDW, U/G and Scepter Chant are more or less even, with you gaining a slight edge after board. Your bad matchups are Goblins and Rock, but it seems like both decks are not that popular right now, so I wouldn’t worry about it. The Rock matchup isn’t even that bad, but it’s certainly something to be concerned about.
Now let us discuss that other combo deck known as Aluren. Aluren has been around for some time now, but I never really see that many people play it in the PTQs. Maybe it has something to due with how hard the deck is to play or how janky it looks, but Aluren is certainly at least a contender in the current PTQ season. Lets take a look at two lists that vary slightly:
Kyle Goodman Aluren deck
4 Wall of Blossoms
4 Birds of Paradise
3 Cavern Harpy
3 Raven Familiar
2 Wirewood Savage
1 Cloud of Fairies
4 Brainstorm
4 Aluren
4 Intuition
4 Living Wish
3 Cabal Therapy
1 Brain Freeze
4 Polluted Delta
4 Yavimaya Coasts
3 Forbidden Orchard
3 City of Brass
6 Forests
2 Islands
1 Swamp
Sideboard
3 Orim’s Chants
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Forbidden Orchard
1 Flametongue Kavu
1 Cavern Harpy
1 Raven Familiar
1 Auriok Champion
1 Maggot Carrier
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Academy Rector
1 Stern Proctor
Frank Karsten’s Aluren deck
4 Brainstorm
4 Living Wish
4 Intuition
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Aluren
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Wall of Blossoms
3 Cavern Harpy
3 Raven Familiar
1 Cloud of Fairies
1 Soul Warden
1 Eternal Witness
4 Havenwood Battleground
4 Polluted Delta
4 Yavimaya Coasts
4 Forests
3 City of Brass
3 Islands
1 Swamp
Sideboard
3 Pernicious Deed
2 Genesis
1 Cavern Harpy
1 Academy Rector
1 Meloku the Clouded Mirror
1 City of Brass
1 Eternal Witness
1 Maggot Carrier
1 Gilded Drake
1 Wirewood Savage
1 Stern Proctor
1 Raven Familiar
At first glance, both decks look very similar and both players seem to agree on certain choices. Although the differences are small, they have a huge impact on the way the deck plays out. For one, Kyle’s list has no plan against Cranial Extraction. I actually played against Kyle round one of the PT and he mentioned that fact to me while we were playing. He managed to end up in the 9th place overall, but I feel that Frank’s list is much more thought out.
I’m not sure if Kyle simply didn’t think of Havenwood Battleground or felt that they weren’t good, but I have had nothing but good experiences with the card. They accelerate the deck and allow you to kill on that all too crucial turn 3. The sideboard is also much more focused with a precise plan. Kyle had three Orim’s Chant’s in his sideboard, which I have yet to find myself boarding in. Against control you want to simply resolve an Intuition and grab three Cabal Therapies. I can see them being useful against combo I suppose, but in all the games I’ve played against Desire, I haven’t found them to be nearly as useful as Cabal Therapy. Meloku and Eternal Witness in Frank’s deck are very solid additions as they help give you an alternate win condition against Cranial Extraction and fight off that early discard you face.
The absence of Genesis in Kyle’s sideboard is also a huge mistake in my opinion. Many games come down to Genesis recursion and I would’ve never had a chance against the Rock without it. One thing that I think Kyle may have had over Frank was the replacement of Soul Warden with Auriok Champion. I think the benefit of having protection from Red and Black will prove to outweigh the negative of being more difficult to hardcast.
Frank’s list is certainly the optimal of the two in my opinion, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good choice. Right now, with RDW and Scepter Chant being very popular, I can’t see myself playing this deck. The fact that you have a good matchup against U/G Madness and Reanimator may certainly appeal to some, and I would certainly consider playing the deck in the right metagame. But where we stand right now, it doesn’t appear like Aluren is a very good choice in the upcoming PTQ’s.
So in conclusion, of the two combo decks we discussed this week, I would tip my hat to Desire, specifically White Desire. I think it has fewer bad matchups than Aluren and has some really effective sideboarding options against the more aggressive decks in the format.
Next time on The Black Perspective . . .
Goblin, Scepter-Chant, and
Could old school Psychatog actually be good again?
Until then,
Osyp “Joe Black” Lebedowicz