(Note: This article was delayed from last week. My regular article for this week will be up at its usual time.)
Given that it has been a while since I’ve had the chance to play in a Standard tournament that wasn’t just an FNM, I was pretty excited to play Bloodbraid Elves at the Wizards Play Network event a week ago. Apparently, the winner of these events gets invited to a championship in San Juan, but without any kind of air fare. The store I played at was going to cover the flight if we got enough players, but sadly we definitely didn’t. However, I felt that it would still be worth the trip, so I battled it out anyway.
The night before I just assumed I’d play Jund, because playing the best deck is just my style. While we were testing, though, my friend Jon opened his laptop and noticed that the Top 8 for the StarCityGames.com Atlanta Standard Open was streaming live… and everything changed. That guy had Gideon, Elspeth, and Ajani in play!
Creatures (4)
Planeswalkers (12)
Lands (26)
Spells (18)
Sideboard
Laskin and Stark’s deck is, in short, as exciting as it’s probably going to get in this Standard format. I immediately ran some games with it against Jund, and the results were pretty positive. Or, rather, at first they were very poor — but after looking at the Top 16 decklists for Atlanta, it became apparent that most players weren’t playing Vengevine in their Jund lists, and therefore our Jund list was pretty ahead of the curve when it came to beating the Planeswalker deck.
I took the deck to the WPN event and swiftly made Top 8, but ended up losing in the Top 8 to a Jund player who refused to concede to me even though I’m quite sure he actually won’t go to Puerto Rico. I can’t blame someone for not wanting to concede if they plan to make the trip, but otherwise it seems like a pretty big waste. In the end, I just hope that he actually flies out there…
I played an almost identical list to Stark and Laskin, but I played a second Mountain over an Island in mine. My reasoning was that, in the mirror or even just against UW, if my Mountain was Spreading Seas’d then I’d be unable to cast Ajani Vengeant, and wasting an Oblivion Ring on Spreading Seas is pretty loose in a mirror focused on noncreature, nonland permanents. Other than that, I played a very similar sideboard, and I have nothing but good things to say about the deck.
Your match-ups are fairly good across the board, from where I’m standing. Mythic is a pretty easy match-up if you keep their board clear and land a Jace afterward, and even in the games where you don’t find Jace in time you can keep them off creatures long enough to find Elspeth, who is more than enough to finish the job. If they’re playing Eldrazi Conscription (and they should — that deck is the only way to play Mythic moving forward, in my opinion), it gets a bit trickier because you can’t just chump their annihilator since it has trample. The solution? Hope you either have a Path to Exile or that you dealt with their early creatures well enough that you can untap before finding an answer to their Conscriptioned guy. I think with some tuning the Mythic match-up could be close to a bye.
The UW match-up is one that I have not played yet, but I can only imagine that it is a walk in the park. If Ajani sticks, they lose. Better yet, if most any of your planeswalkers stick they lose, and if such is the case then it should be fairly easy to make that happen given that we have far more than they do. Negates maindeck could make both the UW match-up and the UWR mirror much more stable, however, and I am currently looking into making that happen.
Jund is an odd match-up, because I had a very good record against it at the WPN event, yet failed to beat the same player twice when it really counted (the Swiss and again in Top 8). None of the players were playing Vengevine, but I was getting wrecked by Consuming Vapors from nearly all of them, which seems like a very strong card for Jund in this match-up — it not only eats a Wall of Denial or Omens for a decent chunk of life, but it also prevents us from laying another wall the follow turn for defense, leaving us open to attack for two entire turns. If you are fortunate to land an Elspeth, though, you can sacrifice her tokens rather than your walls, so I’m not sure if Vapors is really the answer — after all, most of this deck’s wins come from Elspeth, at least in my experience.
Here’s the bottom line with the Jund match-up: if they have Vengevine, you’d better start praying. The nature of the UWR deck is that, because all of your spells are able to be attacked, you are very susceptible to haste creatures. I mean, even after sideboard you still only have five instant-speed removal spells, and you can only block with Colonnade so many times. And sure, usually a well-timed Blightning or Lightning Bolt coupled with a Bloodbraid Elf is what kills our planeswalkers more often than not (where Flashfreeze could prevent it rather than a removal spell), but you get the idea. But if you add Vengevine into the equation, every single time they draw a card you could be in a sea of trouble. You MUST Path it to be truly rid of it, because otherwise your sweepers are pretty useless. Wall of Denial is your best defense against it, and that is usually the only thing you can hope to draw when they smash in with Vengevine on the 4th turn.
Speaking of Vengevine, could someone explain to me why the Top 16 of the Atlanta Standard Open featured only three? Three? It makes we question whether or not most players are even testing with it, because it makes Jund so much more aggressive that I can’t imagine you would not want it. Last week I talked about Jund a bit, and in that article I suggested that to play Vengevine you could theoretically “build around” it, but that wasn’t even necessary. I mean, if you think of it as a 4/3 haste creature, how is that not just way above the curve? Oh, and if it dies, you might be able to put it right back into play, with haste? It’s simple, really — take the stock Jund list, trim out some cards (maybe a Broodmate Dragon here and a Terminate there), and put in some Vengevines. I promise, you’ll win more. Not only will you win more, you’ll beat the UWR deck more. I would imagine that that is something you’ll want to be doing, especially come Grand Prix DC.
Getting back on topic, the only match-ups where I don’t feel like I’m favored with this deck is against any form of combo and the Red deck. Mono-Red might not actually be that bad, especially if you hold Negate/Flashfreeze for Devastating Summons, but Goblin Guide is a real card and you don’t always get Wall of Omens. With no way to really gain life outside of Ajani, I’m not sure how often we’ll be able to beat Red, but I suppose testing will tell. The other player who played this deck at the WPN event both did very well against Red (I never played against it), so take from that what you will.
Combo, however, is another story. I just can’t imagine that four Negates is going to beat Polymorph or Open the Vaults, and especially not Gerry T’s Turbo Open the Vaults. Laskin had Meddling Mage in his sideboard, and although I never got to use it I feel like it’s the card that could make a big difference in those match-ups. Two is a loose number, but after watching Laskin’s deck tech it’s pretty clear that he didn’t really have much time to consider his options in that regard. When the odds are against even playing Polymorph or Open the Vaults in any given PTQ, I agree that it is hard to justify more than two slots to just those types of decks. Either way, I agree with Meddling Mage as the tool of choice for those decks. It should, if nothing else, buy you enough time to find a Jace and start going to work. Polymorph is probably way easier than Open the Vaults, too, since Polymorph gives you an entire turn to Oblivion Ring/Martial Coup/Day of Judgment/Jace their monster, or even Gideon it if you can block it once.
Oh, yes… Gideon. Before this event, I had not yet had the pleasure of playing with Gideon, and I must say that I will be playing with this card for a long time. If there was ever any doubt that he was the real deal, this deck will showcase brilliantly how awesome he is. In all my rounds, I never used any planeswalker “ultimate” except his (if you want to call it that) — the rest just weren’t necessary. I mean, sure, most of your opponents concede when Ajani is sitting at seven and they can’t deal with it on their last turn, or when Jace is at 11 and you’ve let them keep their top card, but Gideon is a different monster. He’s the only planeswalker in this deck that I’d actually want a full set of, and that’s saying something. I think the most common thing I said all day was “You must attack Gideon” and I’m not sure if there is something more annoying to my opponents that I could have said. He is more of a windmill slam than any of the other three, and his ridiculous loyalty means that even if they have haste creatures he is still likely to survive. The reason I’d play four, though, is mostly because his first ability (the Lure) is so powerful that you want to be able to keep doing it while you dig through your deck with Jace. I mean, you’re playing twelve planeswalkers and he protects your other three with ease. That’s such a boon that I’m wondering why people ever wondered if he was good or not.
But really, what pushes him over the edge? He can attack. In UW, you win a lot of games with Baneslayer Angel or Coup tokens, but in this deck you win with 9/9 flying Gideons, and that to me is infinitely better. If you could have a Baneslayer Angel or a 6/6 that could Fog or Assassinate creatures, which would you choose? It’s honestly hardly even a debate, and Gideon’s current price is no joke: he’s better than his old price made him out to be. I know that $50 is an absurd amount of money for a card, but he’s not that far behind Jace and he’s probably just as good as Elspeth, which is pretty daunting since Elspeth has proven herself to be one of the best White cards in the game. I was asked by a friend of mine last week if I could ever think of a deck that would actually want four copies of Gideon, and at the time I shrugged and told him that I didn’t really think so. Now? Now I am a believer. Gideon is ridiculous.
Last time out I said I wanted to write about White Weenie, and I think that I still will. After I submit this article I am going to test it, and believe me when I say that it will feature Gideon. If I think he’s sick in a control deck, I can’t wait to attack with him alongside Student of Warfare! I’m not sure how good a White-based aggro deck can be right now given the emergence of Laskin and Stark’s deck, but I suppose we’ll see.
UWR impressed me quite a bit, and I don’t think it will disappoint those of you who pick it up. It is hard to play, and even harder to assemble (it’s more mythic than Mythic!), but it’s probably going to end up being worth it. I don’t have too much more to say about it right now without playing with the deck more, though, so I’m going to wrap this one up for now. I don’t think this deck is a surprise factor — it has the staying power of any good control deck, and now it is on the other Standard decks to find a way to combat it. A good starting place? Vengevine.
Until next time…
Chris Jobin
Team RIW
Shinjutsei on MTGO