“What are you doing here?”
I got that question a lot this past weekend in Nashville. I’d never previously traveled outside California for a StarCityGames.com Open Series event, and yet there I was, clear across the country getting ready to shuffle up. Why? I just really wanted to play Magic!
The time at the very beginning of a new format is my absolute favorite time in Magic. Taking the first shot at figuring things out before the vast data machine that is Magic Online gets ahold of it and churns out lists for the world to copy—that’s the purest time for brewing that there is. Don’t get me wrong—I like trying to “solve” established formats as well, but there’s nothing quite like getting in on a format at the ground floor.
So I had to game, and soon! With Innistrad unavailable on Magic Online and with no local events to speak of, the only way I could get my fix was to fly all the way to Nashville for the Open. I hadn’t travelled for a tournament since GP Montreal and wouldn’t be attending any of the other foreign GPs this season due to time conflicts with Spiel Essen, so I figured I could handle one more flight to get my gaming fix.
My actual Standard testing going into the event was quite limited, and I covered much of it last week. The list I posted in that article was as far as I’d gotten as of Wednesday night, but it’s amazing what a difference a single day can make. I’d spent the better part of an evening losing to Sperling, who played Mono Red and U/B/W Geist Control, and had gotten rather disillusioned with Mayor of Avabruck in the maindeck. I knew he’d be a powerful option against control and that I’d want him in my sideboard, but he just wasn’t high impact enough in most matchups to warrant inclusion in the maindeck. I needed a replacement.
I knew I wanted another cheap creature because I wanted the ability to be proactive. If I could find a creature who could pull double duty on offense and defense like Skinshifter, all the better. I was poring over a list of all of the green, red, and blue cards in Standard—and nearly at the end of it—when I found exactly what I was looking for in Viridian Emissary.
Viridian Emissary is a strange sort of card. People tried playing it in decks like Valakut, but it’s just worse than a ramp spell if that’s what you’re in the market for. It’s not what you want if you’re looking for a particularly efficient creature, either, because you can do a lot better than a 2/1 for two mana these days. It’s neither the best ramp spell around nor the best creature around, and most Magic decks are typically only looking to play with the best in the business.
What Viridian Emissary is, however, is a great value creature in the right environment. Viridian Emissary didn’t see a lot of play in the old Standard, not only because of his shortcomings as a ramp spell or as a creature, but because a 2/1 body on the ground just didn’t matter in a world defined by Squadron Hawks, Primeval Titans, Deceiver Exarchs, and pro-green Swords. Many decks in the old Standard format could just ignore him entirely.
Not so anymore. The new Standard is full of beatdown decks with creatures like Stromkirk Noble, Grand Abolisher, Memnite, and Geist of Saint Traft, all of which run headlong into Viridian Emissary and die. Even control decks are almost universally packing Liliana of the Veil, who gets taken to value town when you sacrifice an Emissary to her -2 ability. And when Viridian Emissary isn’t jumping on the proverbial grenade, he can still beat down!
A lot of people asked why I liked my version of RUG more than the “Draw-Go”-esque counter-Thrun deck Michael Pozsgay played in Indianapolis, and it’s because I want to be able to beat down! Not just to fulfill some kind of desire to play a beatdown deck, but because I think it’s important to have the ability to take a proactive stance in today’s era of Magic. Gone are the days of 32-counterspell decks that have the ability to counter whatever you throw at them—decks these days attack from so many angles that it’s important to be able to advance your own position rather than simply answer what your opponent does. Planeswalkers are the most glaring example of this and the biggest reason it’s important to be able to pressure your opponent. A single Koth slips onto the table, and you’re dead if you can’t attack it, and attacking it is quite a bit harder than it used to be now that manlands are gone.
In addition to dealing with planeswalkers, the ability to take a proactive stance can allow you to dictate the pace of a game. One of the reasons Squadron Hawk was such a powerful card is that it completely transformed the dynamic of the matchup between U/W and U/B Control. Non-Hawk U/W decks had no meaningful way to apply pressure until the later turns of the game, which gave U/B Control all the time in the world to sculpt the perfect hand of discard and countermagic to stick a Jace and take over the game. Squadron Hawk completely changed that and positioned U/W as the aggressor, putting the U/B deck on a relatively slow but very real clock that demanded an answer. None of U/B’s typical answers matched up well against Squadron Hawk itself, always losing value in the process.
Viridian Emissary plays a very similar role. He presents a very real clock that provides value if he’s removed against control decks that can double as a blocker against opposing creature decks in a pinch. He may not be Squadron Hawk, but he’s the closest thing you’ll find in the current format.
In any case, the discovery of Viridian Emissary led me to play the following deck in Nashville:
Creatures (16)
- 1 Inferno Titan
- 2 Thrun, the Last Troll
- 2 Consecrated Sphinx
- 4 Viridian Emissary
- 4 Skinshifter
- 1 Snapcaster Mage
- 2 Daybreak Ranger
Planeswalkers (4)
Lands (25)
Spells (15)
In addition to the Emissaries, the major changes I made before the tournament were the addition of Garruk, Primal Hunter and Brimstone Volley, along with totally reworking the mana base to include far more lands that naturally entered the battlefield untapped. I went 8-2 over the course of the event, missing Top 8 on tiebreakers after losing in round two to a Heartless Summoning/Grand Architect deck and then the eventual champion in round seven.
Big Garruk was absolutely awesome, and I’d go so far as to say I think he might be the best planeswalker in Standard right now—the fact that Brian Sondag winning deck played the full four copies is no coincidence. Garruk was perhaps the most inordinately oppressed of the planeswalkers in the old format, since he matched up so poorly with Celestial Colonnade. Even if you could resolve a five-mana planeswalker through the wall of Mana Leaks and Spell Pierces, you rarely got more than a 3/3 for your trouble, since Caw-Blade could just kill him with a single manland attack.
With the departure of Colonnade (and Squadron Hawk), Garruk is in a much better place. The Beast he makes is much better able to defend his master and is a much more relevant threat as well. While Garruk has the ability to build toward a powerful ultimate, I generally found myself much more inclined to spend his loyalty for his second ability to refill my hand or dig to whatever it is I might need to close out a game. I actually won a game in which my opponent hit with Wurmcoil Engine three times before I found a Thrun to stabilize, and then a Garruk, and then a Sword, and suddenly drew six cards and came back to win a game in which I was trailing in life totals 43 to 2.
I still feel like Garruk Relentless has a place in the deck, if only because a four-cost planeswalker fits a lot better on the curve. The newest Garruk is also much better against non-red creature decks, where the “fight” ability is very powerful. Even against Mono Red, the fact that Garruk can sometimes serve as a removal spell for a bloodthirsty Stormblood Berserker can get you out of a jam, since it’s hard to ever rely on blocking with two creatures against a bunch of burn spells. I liked the 2/2 split, though I’m tempted to add another five-cost Garruk.
The other standout among the new cards in the deck was Brimstone Volley. I’d previously had Geistflames, but found them to be too low impact in a lot of matchups—they just don’t kill a lot of things you really want dead, like Mirran Crusader, Puresteel Paladin, Grand Abolisher, Hero of Oxid Ridge, or opposing Daybreak Rangers. I had Incinerate briefly but decided to try Brimstone Volley to give my removal spells more value against control decks at closing out games.
Brimstone Volley was, in a word, awesome. The ability to go to the face for five damage with a single card gives the deck an incredibly powerful dimension. It makes the early pressure from cards like Viridian Emissary and Skinshifter incredibly relevant and seriously punishes opponents for leaning on Dismember for removal. In combination with Snapcaster Mage, it makes any single-digit life total a dangerous place to be and forces opponents to take awkward lines of play to avoid getting burned out. That’s on top of providing removal that can kill creatures that are otherwise out of range of red removal, like Hero of Bladehold. I was always happy every time I drew Brimstone Volley all day and always wished I had more.
One card that I must confess wasn’t terribly exciting for me throughout the tournament was Daybreak Ranger. I played against a wide range of decks over the course of the event—eight different decks in nine rounds—but only a few of them were decks against which Daybreak Ranger matched up particularly well, and I only drew it once in those matches. I still maintain that Ranger is downright brutal against Birthing Pod, Tempered Steel, and other white creature decks, but it’s possible that those decks don’t make up as much of the metagame as I’d originally anticipated. It might not quite be Daybreak Ranger’s time to shine, but don’t count her out just yet…
I’m almost certainly playing RUG again in States this weekend, and I’m certain that the metagame will shift yet again thanks to the results of Nashville. Brian Sondag Wolf Run Ramp deck is sure to make a splash, and I want to be ready. Here’s what I’m likely to play this weekend:
Creatures (17)
- 1 Inferno Titan
- 2 Thrun, the Last Troll
- 2 Consecrated Sphinx
- 4 Viridian Emissary
- 4 Skinshifter
- 2 Snapcaster Mage
- 2 Daybreak Ranger
Planeswalkers (4)
Lands (25)
Spells (14)
Sideboard
The main differences here are the increase in Brimstone Volleys maindeck and the movement of the Naturalize and Arc Trails to the sideboard. The Brimstone Volleys make Snapcaster more generically good, so the second copy made its way from the bench into the maindeck. I shifted the colored mana somewhat away from red and toward blue to support the addition of two Dissipates to the sideboard, which should shore up the control matchups in general and give the deck more ways to deal with Primeval Titan and Wurmcoil Engine out of the ramp decks. I added Ancient Grudge to the sideboard as a concession to Wurmcoil in particular, though I still feel like I’d rather have Naturalize against Oblivion Ring and friends in a lot of matchups.
None of these changes have been tested, mind you, and I encourage you to try them out for yourself before just copying the list blindly. It’s possible that Dissipate and Flashfreeze are better than Dissipate and Negate if ramp decks become especially popular, but I happen to like hard counters against Solar Flare and the like as well, especially to help keep Mayor around.
In any case, I’m excited to get another chance to play this deck at States this weekend. If you’re in the area, come by the Costa Mesa Women’s Club on Saturday and say hello!
Until next time,
bmk