About a month ago I set up a rough schedule for writing Regionals prep articles. I was going to go through any and all innovations I had for the main decks and quite possibly tell you which deck I was going to play.
Then I found out which weekend my mother-in-law is moving.
I’m really glad that she’s moving. She’s been living in a not-so-nice apartment for years and my wife and I finally convinced her to move into a small (but very nice) condo nearby. The only problem is that she’s moving during Regionals, and Trish is going up to Montreal to help out.
In times past, a weekend with a major tournament in which my partner had to go away would be a bonus round. But this time she’s leaving the adorable-but-high-maintenance Jadester behind. I’m on four days of solo-Dad duty…which doesn’t really leave room for an all-day tournament.
Once I realized that, I changed my testing approach. Instead of doing the smart thing of playing and tweaking each of the best decks until I knew the important matchups and developed an optimal build of the optimal deck (like Flores, only I also planned to play well), I decided to have fun and hopefully break the format from outside by testing out rogue decks.
Regular readers will know that one of my old weaknesses was spending way too much time trying to build my own decks, often sticking with them long after saner heads would realize they weren’t going to make tier one. It’s fun and highly-recommended if winning isn’t your goal, but if you’re trying to win a slot at Nationals (or whatever) it’s something to be avoided. But now that I wasn’t trying to win, I had only upside – maybe I’d find something amazing, and at worst I’d have fun. I think I’ve found one deck that is good, one that is interesting but not good enough and one that is at least entertaining enough to be worth the time spent on it. You’ll have to be the judges.
We’ll start off with the best deck I developed and the least rogue: a Burn Deck.
Hidetsugu Hates the Sakura Tribe (HHST)
2 Genju of the Spires
4 Lava Spike
4 Frostling
4 Akki Avalancher
4 Slith Firewalker
4 Glacial Ray
4 Volcanic Hammer
4 Magma Jet
4 Forge[/author]“]Pulse of the [author name="Forge"]Forge[/author]
3 Hidetsugu’s Second Rite
1 Shrapnel Blast
2 Chrome Mox
4 Blinkmoth Nexus
18 Mountain
This deck is pretty single-minded. It has a lot of early creatures that can get in some damage and that really don’t like Sakura-Tribe Elder. They are backed up with a bunch of spells that (mostly) go straight to the dome. The wild card in the deck, of course, is Hidetsugu’s Second Rite.
Ten damage for four mana at instant speed is obviously insane. The problem, of course, is that if your opponent isn’t at exactly ten life it does nothing. This is naturally a bigger problem in the later rounds of a tournament when people start to hear that you’re running it and can try to avoid being at exactly ten life.
How big a problem is this? That depends. The bad news is that HHST’s creatures are better at doing the first bits of damage than the last bits. If you can put someone to ten during combat, they can’t mana-burn to nine without giving you a window to Rite them out. This deck isn’t often able to do that. Sometimes you can put them at 10 with something and still keep four mana available, but not often. That means that in most games my opponent has had a window to burn himself down to nine, and while most haven’t taken the opportunity I’ve definitely lost a few games for that reason.
That said, having opponents who are willing to take mana burn when at ten life isn’t such a bad thing for a burn deck. While I’ve lost a few games to clever mana burn, there have also been a few where my opponent snuck down to nine and then took nine to the dome – with me not having a Rite in hand.
The Chrome Moxen are a late addition and I’m not at all sure they make anything better. They are naturally sweet when combined with Slith Firewalker and sometimes they speed your kill up by a turn, but burn decks don’t like giving up spells. You need to total up to 20 damage and you’re doing it by having a lot of spells that do a meaningful fraction of the total. Volcanic Hammer on turn 1 isn’t any better than on turn 2, and if you had to give up a spell to cast it you’re not happy. It’s nice to have the boost and it’s nice to be able to justify Shrapnel Blast as a finisher, but replacing them with Mountains and the Blast with a burn spell seems may just be better.
HHST tends to play out in three stages. The first is the early rush, where you will usually have a creature advantage and will push through as much damage as you can – while, of course, killing any Birds of Paradise that happen to show up. Frostling is nice because it can kill BoPs, but can also clear the path for a Slith Firewalker – e.g if you’re on the draw and lead with Frostling and Firewalker, the Frostling can and will take out the hated Elder to get the Slith through.
During this stage there are basically three decisions you have to make. First, “Am I better off using burn on blocking creatures or holding onto it to go to the dome?” In true Sligh style the answer is usually that you should burn away creatures but not always – Vine Trellis, for example, may take more damage to get rid of than is worth it. The second question is, “Should I sacrifice lands to Akki Avalancher?” This is obviously decided by how much mana you have and how likely it is that your burn can go the distance, but it’s hard to give any real rules – test and go by your experience. The decision is whether to force through a couple of points with Blinkmoth Nexus or keep mana open for burn. Again this is a judgment call but in my experience the answer is usually yes against control and no against combo.
The second stage is burnout. This can come from getting them to ten and Riting them out, or it can simply mean unloading as much burn as you can at their faces. This is the phase that makes some people think that burn decks are dumb, but there are a lot of decisions to be made. If you’ve got the Rite (or if you don’t but want their “help” getting them to nine) you have to maneuver your opponent to ten. You have to judge how many turns you have left – can you take the time to attack with Nexus? Do you need to play Lava Spike now or should you wait to splice Glacial Ray? Most of the decisions come down to maximizing total damage vs. efficiency/speed, and thus involve judgement calls on how long it will take your opponent to win the game.
The final stage, which doesn’t come up if stage two went very well or very badly, is the end game. This is where your opponent has stabilized in some form but is at dangerously low life. Against a permission deck this probably means that he’s got mana up and cards in hand; against a Green deck it could mean that he’s got a Troll in play holding off your attackers and you’re out of burn or at least don’t have enough to finish him with.
This phase is one that beginning players don’t fully utilize and this cements their view that burn is an essentially “dumb” strategy. When you’ve pushed your opponent low on life, you don’t just throw whatever you have at their face and hope enough of it sticks. You use their low life total as a strategic advantage.
If your opponent is playing MUC, for example, you have a lot of weapons at your disposal to force through the last bits of damage. You can overwhelm their mana by playing instants during their EOT and then cheap spells like Lava Spike during your turn. You can push through a point here and there with creatures to force them to play (or activate) Shackles or Stalking Stones. Meanwhile they are unable to play their preferred game of doing powerful things during your EoT, because if they do you torch them out.
Against decks with creatures you’ll often find that a lowly Akki Avalancher can hold off a far larger creature…simply because your opponent knows that the 3 damage the Avalancher can dish out is much more important whatever his “fattie” can do. You will often have a few turns before your opponent can safely launch a counter-attack and that gives you an opportunity to draw the burn you need to finish him.
In testing this deck has done quite well and there’s a very good chance I’d be running it at Regionals were I able to play. You’re capable of goldfishing as fast as Tooth and Nail even without a successful Rite, and the MUC matchup is highly favorable. Big Red can be anything from great to awful, depending on their build.
The deck certainly has some glaring problems. Sword of Fire and Ice and Jitte are both potential game-enders. You can sometimes just finish your opponent off with burn after a Sword and against both Equipment you can sometimes burn the target creature before the equip resolves, but if Jitte hits you’re probaly done. This is an argument for maindecking Hearth Kami (nothing wrong with a 2-power beater in Sligh-type decks), although I’m not sure how many or what I would cut. It’s also a strong argument for running Pithing Needle in the sideboard.
Another change that probably makes sense is replacing Forge[/author]“]Pulse of the [author name="Forge"]Forge[/author] with the comparably awful Flames of the Blood Hand. In all my testing I think I’ve “bought back” Pulse only once – this is a deck that almost never has less life than the opponent – if you do have less life, the odds are that you lost control some time ago.
Naturally, Pulse gives you the strategic option of manaburning yourself down and Pulsing them out – but how viable a strategy is this? You don’t have a ton of mana, and Standard is pretty fast, so it’s pretty hard to imagine you’re going to burn yourself down to single digits against Tooth or MUC, for example. Pulse’s only real use seems to be against Sun Droplet, which everyone has finally remembered is good vs. Red decks, but Sun Droplet is actually pretty risky against you since there’s no way to “jump” past ten life once you get them below it. Moreover, if you don’t have a Rite in hand (or sideboarded them out figuring your opponent was going to play around them) a Droplet can also be shut down by Pithing Needle.
At the very least it might make sense to go from four Pulse to two Pulse and two Flames, making it harder for people to get a read on how much burn you’re running as well as reducing the impact of Cranial Extraction*.
Now it may seem awful to run a deck that hates Sakura-Tribe Elder at a time when said creature is perhaps the most-played spell in Standard, but consider the following game in which I wasn’t even on the play:
Opponent | Me |
Forest, Top | |
Urza Piece, Tribe-Elder | Mountain, Firewalker, kill the Elder (he fetches a Forest), hit for one (opponent at 19) |
Search with Top, Eternal Witness for Elder | Blinkmoth Nexus, Lava Spike you splicing Glacial Ray on Witness, hit for two with Firewalker (opponent at 14) |
Search with Top, Elder, Urza Piece | Mountain, Glacial Ray Elder (sacrificed for a Forest), activate Nexus, hit for four with Nexus and Firewalker (opponent at 10) |
Reap and Sow with Entwine to complete the Urzatron | Land, Hidetsugu’s Rite |
Now, my opponent could have burned himself down to nine on turn 4, but that would have meant going to five after the Firewalker hit with me still having multiple cards in hand. He might also have gone off a turn earlier if he’d played less defensively (e.g. Reap and Sow without entwine on turn 3 rather than playing a blocker and getting back the Elder) but that would have meant taking two from the Slith and five from Spike/Ray on turn 3 – if he wasn’t going off on turn 4, that’s a lot of damage to soak up. And if I’d been on the play, I would likely have killed him on turn 4 despite that. So yes, Hidetsugu hates the Sakura-Tribe – but he really likes killing them. [Ha ha, dead elf. – Knut, channeling Paskins]
Oh, one other thing – if you think Hidetsugu hates the Sakura Tribe, you should see how he feels about Rats. The guy must have a phobia or something, but in any case HHST has about a 5% chance of winning any given game against Rats, and that includes the 0.4% chance that your opponent will show up late for the round, fail a deck check or keep a no-land hand. Creatures that make you discard burn spells are the worst thing ever.
Next up: Combo Madness
When Krark-Clan Ironworks first came out the general reaction was, “That’s insanely broken and will dominate Standard, Extended, Block and Vintage.” Okay, not Vintage and maybe not Extended, but people were still pretty mad. Ironworks is the perfect example of a card combo-haters hate: a massive mana explosion that does nothing in an “honest” deck and probably wins the game the turn it’s cast in a “non-honest” deck. With artifact lands and various two-mana accelerators to provide plenty of post-Belcher fuel, as well as Fabricate and Thirst for Knowledge to dig for it, it seems pretty obvious that turn 4 (and occasionally turn 3!) was going to end the game.
Naturally this never happened. People learned to disrupt Ironworks combo decks and, far more importantly, straight Affinity proved to be just as powerful and far more durable. That meant that Ironworks was almost strictly inferior as a deck choice and kept drawing more and more hate that was intended for Affinity but was quite happy to go elsewhere when needed.
Then they banned the artifact lands and it seemed that Ironworks lost any semblance of being interesting. No longer could you generate an obscene amount of mana on turn four and no longer could you rip out enough artifacts to create the necessary army of 1/1s via Myr Incubator. You couldn’t even use the Mana Severance effect of the Incubator to set up a Belcher kill.
Of course, my first thought on Ironworks wasn’t as brutal as the land/Incubator/Belcher combo deck. I thought about infinite loops, primarily via Myr Retriever. Once you’ve got two Retrievers going, you can cast them an infinite number of times and surely that’s good enough to do something? Back before Disciple of the Vault was banned, you could just kill your opponent outright, but Leonin Elder would still allow you to go infinite on life. Genesis Chamber, an undervalued spell that won me a lot of Limited games, would give you an infinite number of 1/1s – take that, Myr Incubator! You could even use Blasting Station to go for the instant kill.
The problem was always assembling the combo. Two-card combos aren’t that bad, but this requires far more – you need one specific card, two copies of another specific card and then a copy of at least one of two other specific cards. If only there was a card that let you tutor for a bunch of different one-ofs, but surely such a gift would never be given to us?
Sixth Wedding Anniversary**:
4 Serum Visions
4 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Fabricate
4 Gifts Ungiven
4 Myr Retriever
4 Aether Vial
3 Talisman of Indulgence
4 Pentad Prism
4 Krark-Clan Ironworks
1 Genesis Chamber
1 Leonin Elder
1 Trash for Treasure
1 Stir the Grave
1 Eternal Witness
12 Island
4 Tendo Ice Bridge
2 Mirrodin’s Core
4 City of Brass
1 Glimmervoid
If HHST was single-minded, this deck has obsessive-compulsive disorder. It has exactly one trick, and that is its biggest problem. A single Cranial Extraction or Night of Soul’s Betrayal will eradicate this deck faster than… well, faster than someone with 11 life and no other answer will Eradicate a Darksteel Colossus staring them down. It is also naturally vulnerable to artifact hate, which seems to be back on the rise, as well as to pinpoint hand-destruction or a good control player. As the other tier one decks have shown they can put MUC into a tough position I was expecting control to fade but now there is UrzaBlue popping up as well.
The good news is that SWA tends to combo out on turn 4 about half the time and by turn 5 the great majority of the time. That isn’t enough to recommend it for someone hoping to go to Nationals, but is enough to offer it up as a fun alternative or for someone who is better at tuning combo decks than I am to find a way to improve it.
The beauty card in the deck is Gifts Ungiven. Assuming the cards you see from your opening hand, Serum Visions and Thirst for Knowledge give you some part of the combo, Gifts Ungiven will usually give you the rest, taking advantage of the fact that Myr Retrievers can pick up artifacts that don’t get handed to you as well as the ability of some cards to duplicate others, e.g. Eternal Witness, Stir the Grave and card X will ultimately guarantee you card X barring mana difficulties.
I’ve found two plays work very well when casting Gifts: picking Ironworks even when I’ve already got one, and making another Gifts the last card – especially if I’m not under much pressure. The first works because almost no one will ever hand you an Ironworks (nor should they unless they’re sure you’ve got one), and the second is your best way to fight through disruption and/or permission.
The basic strategy to bear in mind with Gifts is the rule of three – that is, any three cards which serve the same purpose (or can turn into each other) will guarantee that you get what you want. Witness/Stir/X is one example and Witness/Trash for Treasure/X is another.
The only other card in the deck that might need explanation is Aether Vial. Naturally this lets you “cast” Eternal Witness on turn 4 regardless of mana, which can be useful for setting up a turn 5 win with Gifts, but its main function is to speed up the combo by helping you cast your first Retriever for free and then being sacrificed as a cheap artifact.
To see this in action, consider the following turn 3 kill (naturally requiring an exceptional draw):
Turn 1: Land, Vial (six cards in hand)
Turn 2: Land, Pentad Prism, use a counter to cast Serum Visions (not necessary, but why not?), Vial out Elder (also not necessary but why showcase a demigod hand when a God hand exists?) (four cards in hand)
Turn three: Land, Ironworks. Vial out a Retriever. Sacrifice Vial or Prism to play Incubator. Sacrifice Retriever to play another Retriever. Keep doing that until your opponent concedes in the fact of infinite life and infinite 1/1s.
What’s that? Your opponent was going first and plays Tooth and Nail and happens to be running the Trike/Vampire combo? Poop.
I wish I could recommend this deck. It’s fun, it’s different, and it’s a combo deck that doesn’t give you (or your opponent) that dirty combo feeling. Unfortunately, the trick is too vulnerable to disruption and not quite powerful enough to be tier one.
Now, if that was an ugly combo deck this one is purely for entertainment – although it’s won enough games that you could almost call it tier two.
Who Said These Cards are Bad?***
2 Goryo’s Vengeance
4 Ideas Unbound
4 Footsteps of the Goryo
4 Thirst for Knowledge
3 Zombify
3 Gifts Ungiven
4 Yukora, the Prisoner
2 Keiga, the Tide Star
1 Iname, Death Aspect
3 Kokusho, the Evening Star
4 Iname as One
4 Talisman of Dominance
8 Island
4 Swamp
4 City of Brass
2 Salt Marsh
2 Tendo Ice Bridge
When Iname as One was printed, the first thing I noticed was that her 187 ability only applied if you played her from your hand – in other words, never – but her “goes to the graveyard” ability didn’t care. If only it had been a “leaves play” ability (so you could activate it off of Goryo’s Vengeance) we might have had something here.
Then we have Footsteps of the Goryo – an obviously awful spell that Wizards Development said was too powerful at one mana. Well, whatever – it’s purpose in life is naturally to bring back a creature just long enough for you to benefit from its imminent demise.
The basic trick of the deck is fairly simple – on turn 2 you cast Ideas Unbound, discarding Iname as One and some other fat spirits into the yard. On turn 3 you use Footsteps to bring Iname back, at which point she gets stage fright and removes herself from the game – with one of the other spirits coming back as her understudy. Turn 3 Kokusho isn’t the worst thing in the world, and if you’re lucky you might even have Iname as One bring back Iname as One, suggesting that she might not be appropriately named.
Barring that, Ideas/Thirst plus Zombify can give you a fattie on turn 4, or a Talisman can give you Yukora on turn 3. Once one fattie is out you can keep trying for more, including tricks involving double Legends exploding for fun and profit, like “Swing with Kokusho, Vengeance in a second Kokusho to drain you for ten, Footsteps one of them back… and I’m ready to leave my second main phase.
This isn’t a deck for Regionals. I don’t even think it would be a deck for Regionals if Goryo’s Vengeance made you sacrifice instead of removing from the game. It is, however, a very fun deck that could be worth a run at FNM or the MTGO casual rooms if you’re in a whimsical mood. I’ve had fun playing it and I suspect you will too.
So good luck at Regionals. I wish I could be there to bash heads with you, but my next serious event will have to wait until PT: London.
Hugs ’til next time,
Chad
* Not that any self-respecting burn deck fears Cranial Extraction.
** So-named because Iron(works) is an appropriate gift.
*** Zvi, Kai and pretty much everyone else. Oh, and they’re right.