I had the perfect idea for my article this week. I was going to just grind Magic Online for a day or two and break the Standard format. Then, I would be able to share the deck online to help me work on it and count on people not just netdecking it, since people seem to just play whatever deck their independent group comes up with. The only problem with that? I kind of…sort of…couldn’t break the format.
But!
Before you throw popcorn and drinks at your computer screen, let me try to give you something to make up for it. I have been researching the format a lot and know what cards I would like to play in Charlotte (at least for Standard, since I am a lost cause for Legacy). The only problem is that they don’t all belong in the same deck and personally, I don’t like just playing what everyone else is expecting. So, here is a nice card analysis article to help out with those last few decisions for your Standard deck.
Birds of Paradise/Avacyn’s Pilgrim/Llanowar Elves
Since I just wrote about G/W Tokens last Friday, I will make this one a quick recap.
Out of all of the things you can do on the first turn, the most powerful things are A) any one-drop in Mono Red, B) any one-drop in Illusions, or C) one of these three. If you are not choosing A or B but you still want to play an aggressive deck, I highly recommend playing with green one-drops. I know that Craig Wescoe U/W Humans deck has a few nice one-drops too, but they aren’t really what I consider powerful.
The thing is that these days, the most powerful cards come out on around turn 3, or occasionally later. Birds of Paradise, Avacyn’s Pilgrim, and Llanowar Elves simply help you get to this point faster. Sure, they might have Gut Shot for your one-drop, but imagine if they don’t kill it!
You get to play your Blade Splicer, Mirran Crusader, or even Geist of Saint Traft on turn 2! If you are on the play, you can slam down your Sword of Feast and Famine or Sword of War and Peace without them having Mana Leak mana up. In fact, part of the reason why I highly recommend playing with these green one-drops is because they can do so much more than just make mana.
If you are a little “mana flooded,” you can just slap on a Sword onto a mana dork. If it dies, that is one less way they have to kill your Hero of Bladehold. It doesn’t even matter if your Birds of Paradise with a Sword on it dies, because you have enough mana to just cast your good spells. Gavony Township helps put this strategy over the top. If you suspect that your opponent is only holding up Mana Leak and/or Midnight Hauntings, feel free to just give your team a nice boost. I have been both on the aggressive side and receiving side of this treatment, and let’s just say you should remember that you don’t have to cast a spell if your board can just win by itself.
Here is an example of a deck that utilizes these mana dorks in a fashion that we haven’t seen for a while:
Creatures (17)
- 4 Birds of Paradise
- 3 Thrun, the Last Troll
- 4 Consecrated Sphinx
- 4 Avacyn's Pilgrim
- 2 Geist of Saint Traft
Planeswalkers (4)
Lands (24)
Spells (15)
Now, let’s check out the card that people have been playing to stop one-drops from fully defining the format.
Gut Shot
I know that I want to play with Gut Shot in Charlotte. This card can completely disrupt your opponent’s curve without hurting your own. It’s been an obvious inclusion in a lot of decks, but we should ask the question “why?”
Besides not sacrificing your one-drop slot, this card is essentially colorless. I remember when this card first came out—it was in a format full of Stoneforge Mystic, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, and Deceiver Exarch. There were simply no good one-toughness creatures to kill with Gut Shot. Why run Gut Shot when you can just play Dismember?
Times have changed. The format is heavily defined by the early game, and being able to “keep up with the Jones’” is exactly what you need to be doing. This card is also preventing Inkmoth Nexus from being as popular as it was before. I recall everyone putting this colorless manland into their decks, since there is no Tectonic Edge. However, are you really willing to Time Walk yourself by animating Inkmoth Nexus and attempting to equip your Sword onto it, only to have the opponent Gut Shot in response? Maybe some Gitaxian Probes are in order…
Now that we at least mentioned a few of the good one-drops, let’s analyze some two-drops that I would like to play in Charlotte.
Phantasmal Image/Snapcaster Mage/Mana Leak
I group these three together because they seem to almost always go into any blue deck. These cards allow blue to thrive right now because they are so versatile. I have seen people be scared to play their Hero of Bladehold, Blade Splicer, Thrun, the Last Troll, and Geist of Saint Traft because of Phantasmal Image. Why should someone be able to get so much value for two mana?
Speaking of value, everyone knew that Snapcaster Mage, Tiago Chan himself, was going to be a value machine. He is completely unfair with the tools we have access to. Let’s think about this quickly: we have Gut Shot, Dismember, Vapor Snag, Mana Leak, Brimstone Volley, Doom Blade, Forbidden Alchemy, etc. This means that my Snapcaster Mage can kill creatures, burn opponents out of the game, draw a card, or counter my opponent’s spell. I always feel so defeated when my opponent Mana Leaks my spell on turn 3 and then passes with four mana up. The blowout of Snapcaster Mage back my Mana Leak just feels inevitable. It’s only a matter of time before we see Snapcaster Mage in Wolf Run Ramp (hint: I’ve seen it on Magic Online).
Mortarpod
Once again, I covered this in my G/W Tokens deck a little bit last week, but I feel like it is worth mentioning again. Mortarpod is perfect in the decks that don’t want to play Gut Shot. This car0d can also give you reach by tossing tokens at them. Lastly, a flipped Garruk Relentless or Elspeth Tirel is just deadly with this sweet equipment.
Desperate Ravings/Think Twice/Forbidden Alchemy
In Magic, there are several forms of card advantage. Some of it comes from the simple comparison of how many it took you to deal with an amount of your opponent’s cards. Everyone knows that Arc Trail is usually a two-for-one, while Timely Reinforcements is an a lot- for-one. However, these three cards help with the other way to generate card advantage.
This one comes just from drawing cards. If your one card can draw you two cards, you just have more access to cards than your opponent. This means that you can potentially have more lands and/or more spell than you should at that point in time. It prevents you from running out of gas.
I don’t think we always know how this specific type of card drawing affects matchups. These being the main source of card draw give aggressive decks the advantage. For example, on the second turn you would like to Think Twice or Desperate Ravings to dig for lands in your land-light hand. However, your opponent played a spell you want to Mana Leak. Either way you are at a loss, since you can’t do both.
To relate this to how Think Twice and Desperate Ravings give aggressive decks the advantage, let’s go back to our good friend Wall of Omens. That card did nothing in the control matchups but replace itself with another card, while it was amazing against aggressive decks. Wall of Omens is in essence the opposite of Think Twice.
How about we consider how Think Twice compares to Divination? In the control matchup, Think Twice is better because it is an instant, and if they counter it with a non-Dissipate spell, you will likely be able to still draw single card out of it. Meanwhile, I would like Divination against aggressive decks (if Forbidden Alchemy wasn’t a card), that way I could dig a lot quicker to my important spells (i.e. Day of Judgment).
One deck list I have been messing around with is Raphael Levy U/W Blade list from this week’s Premium article. One problem I have been having is getting mana flooded and not being able to close out a game against decks like Mono Red. I would stabilize at about 10 life, but remained unable to kill them. My Think Twices and Forbidden Alchemies just weren’t providing me the consistency that a card like Jace Beleren could. Maybe the answer is Druidic Satchel or splashing for Desperate Ravings.
Sword of Feast and Famine
What happened to this card? I feel like it fell off the face of the Earth. However, I think it can make a huge come back right now, courtesy of Midnight Haunting.
Did you realize that we sort of have two Spectral Processions and a Cloudgoat Ranger in this set? We have Midnight Haunting, Timely Reinforcements, and Geist-Honored Monk. The only thing we are really missing is Windbrisk Heights. Oh, the memories, with my friendly rival Corey Mann…
Anyhow, getting back on topic, Midnight Haunting being an instant can really punish your opponent. Consider this sequence of events: You are playing G/W Tokens against some sort of U/W deck. You decide to play your Hero of Bladehold into your opponent’s five mana. Obviously, he has Mana Leak. The kick in the rear is when he plays Midnight Haunting at the end of your turn, untaps, and then slams down Sword of Feast and Famine on one of the Spirit tokens. Not to mention that even if you deal with that, there is always the threat of Snapcaster Mage flashbacking Midnight Haunting.
Once again, upon playing with a version of Levy’s U/W Blade list, I questioned how he was able to deal with Thrun, the Last Troll without Phantasmal Image or Phyrexian Metamorph. Let me just tell you that Sword of Feast and Famine does a very fine job of that!
One last point I wanted to make was that with the importance of the discard ability on Sword of Feast and Famine. I feel like this format can be very fast and people may have very few cards in their hand by the time we reach turn 4 or 5. Sword of Feast and Famine can put pressure on that already small-sized hand. Once your opponent is out of cards, you receive the upper hand.
Next up is a card I have wanted to play in aggro-control decks that aren’t so tempo-oriented for a while, but haven’t been able to:
Chandra’s Phoenix
Yeah, yeah, I know…this card sees play in U/R Tempo as well as Mono Red. The card is particularly powerful in a format that seems to be centered on Gut Shot. In fact, playing a deck with Chandra’s Phoenix begs the question as to why don’t we just run Geistflame? And in fact… you can!
I have been trying to make a deck with Forbidden Alchemy, Chandra’s Phoenix, Geistflame, and Desperate Ravings, but it has been missing something. I feel like it’s not actually accomplishing anything better than the other decks. The Runechanter’s Pike has been very interesting in it. Also, the sideboard Zombie Infestation seems like it can work pretty well in control matchups. Food for thought in Solar Flare sideboards.
Back to the topic at hand, it appears like any sort of recurring threat is really good right now. This explains why Moorland Haunt, Garruk Relentless, Chandra’s Phoenix, and Unburial Rites are so strong. Maybe the Reassembling Skeleton with Sword of Feast and Famine deck will come back again. The reason why recurring threats are good right now is because the format is defined by two characteristics. 1) How much are you taking advantage of the early game? 2) How many more threats and better threats do you have than your opponent?
It feels great to get all of those random thoughts down on paper. I’m sorry if a lot of this information seems obvious to you guys, but it is always important to observe why things are the way they are and how the metagame shifts to make certain cards better or worse. Hopefully I can come up with a sweet list or two for this weekend. Wish me luck!
Thanks for Reading,