Here’s the plan. Let’s jump right into the middle of things, giving the appropriate props out to http://mtgthesource.com/, and look at the archetypes of Type 1.5. This article is designed to give players new to the Type 1.5 format a jumping off point, to introduce the basic decks and archetypes, give an idea of what the metagame looks like, and make it easy for you to dive into the murky waters.
Control:
Key Cards: Fact or Fiction, Force of Will, Duress, Cunning Wish
Notable Type One Changes: Fact or Fiction is Unrestricted
Okay, as you can see from that blurb above, Fact or Fiction is unrestricted. For a while a lot of deck builders fought the change, but as you can imagine, Fact or Fiction became an inevitable automatic four-of for all decks that run it (three-of with one in the board for the Wish-based decks).
Misdirection is the other typical pitch counter, but it simply doesn’t do the work in Type 1.5 that it does in Vintage. There’s no Misdirecting Ancestral Recall or Mind Twist, and the matchup that it should shine in, Goblin Sligh, is an incredibly hard matchup for lots of control decks. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Strong Decks (because there is no established Tier 1 yet):
Landstill:
For a while before the Banned and Restricted List changes, Landstill dominated. The tournament results are unclear, but as of writing of this, while the deck is making a strong showing, it only seems to dominate in a few pockets of metagames. It’s interesting to note, though, that with the gain of Fact or Fiction, some decks are actually cutting Teferi’s Response. Also, an increased reliance of Crucible of Worlds and no Mana Drain may mean that Disk loses some value.
Blue Bullsh** (or Smmenen Blue Control):
This deck, while making a showing in Type One, shines in Type 1.5 with a more balanced metagame. Most decks in the format make for slower games, where BBS’s strong draw complement of Ophidian, Fact or Fiction, Impulse and Brainstorm shine. Unfortunately, the deck seems to be having trouble with Goblin Sligh, which may become one of the top decks in the format. This would spell problems, as it is expected everywhere, and unlike in Type One, Sligh is competitive here.
Mono-Black Control:
I’m linking to the Poxicide thread because it’s probably the most developed of the decks out there. Basically, it takes advantage of Black’s powerful disruption (and some decks take advantage of Cranial Extraction; we’ll see if that card makes an impact on the metagame) and wins the game. Some variations run Chalice or various cards, but basically, it’s taking Sui Black and making it good again! (Wait, was Sui Black ever good in Type One?)
There are endless variants of these, such as MBC with a Blue splash, or U/W control.
Aggro-Control:
This archetype is really split in half, so I’ll treat it that way. Let’s try this again:
Survival-based Aggro-Control:
Key Cards: Survival of the Fittest (duh), Goblin Welder, Squee, Goblin Nabob, Masticore, Tradewind Riders, Enlightened Tutor, Eternal Witness
Notable Type One Changes: Survival of the Fittest is a strong card, Enlightened Tutor is Unrestricted
There’s an entire archetype of decks built around Survival of the Fittest as a draw mechanism, using either Goblin Welder, Anger, or Squee, Goblin Nabob to gain advantage.
Strong Decks:
Tools ‘n Tubbies:
This deck has very little in common with its Type One partner except for Survival of the Fittest, Blood Moon, Goblin Welder and artifact fatties. It loses Mishra’s Workshop and is basically reduced to a toolbox of cheap creatures to fetch, Goblin Welder to animate fatties and a weak manabase. However, it has strong potential, in the format, excepting manascrew. It has the ability to dump a hasty Su-Chi on turn 2, and a Sundering Titan + Juggernaut on turn 3 for sixteen points total. And it does so with fair consistency. Enlightened Tutor also opens the deck up to fetching Null Rod, Dense Foliage, and similar cards. If someone can tune this, it has potential.
Angry Tradewind Survival:
This deck is looking to be one of the premier Type 1.5 decks, and briefly, it wins by bouncing all your permanents and attacking with creatures. It features all kinds of creatures like Gilded Drake and Mystic Snake, and it uses Survival of the Fittest to fetch out combo pieces and answers (like Mystic Snake) at instant speed, while taking advantage of creature-based mana. Blue-based control has a lot of problems against this deck, because of its inevitability and threat recursion.
R/G Survival Advantage:
This deck plays out like a combination of the other two Survival based decks, using Survival of the Fittest to get access to fat and creature acceleration while using Squee to gain card advantage out of it.
The rest of Aggro-Control:
Key Cards: Duress, Force of Will, Cunning Wish (and maybe even Burning Wish), Berserk, Null Rod
Notable Type One Changes: Burning Wish is Unrestricted, Bazaar of Baghdad is Banned
Strong Decks:
Some ‘Tog-Based Deck:
I’m linking Hulk Smash because it’s my favorite of them, but it’s basically the Aggro-Control Psychatog we all know and love. Because Berserk is unrestricted, it gets sideboard play to be fetched with a Cunning Wish. This deck might be strong in the new format
Fish:
I wasn’t sure where to file Fish, and I guess aggro-control is good enough. Interestingly enough, U/W Fish is on the rise, making room for Swords to Plowshares and Meddling Mage. This version is much more resilient against Combo, which most players are afraid is on the rise. Most people seem to have abandoned Fish for the moment to play the more new decks, but Fish will be back. Don’t worry.
U/G Madness:
Pretty much what you’d expect from Type One, except we have the ability to trade 4 Bazaar of Baghdad for 4 Lion’s Eye Diamond, although that choice, as well as Fact or Fiction, is still up in debate.
Combo:
Key Cards: Lotus Petal, Chrome Mox, Mox Diamond, Lion’s Eye Diamond, Goblin Welder, Dark Ritual, Goblin Charbelcher, Brain Freeze, Tendrils of Agony
Notable Type One Changes: Burning Wish, Chrome Mox, Lotus Petal, Mox Diamond, Lion’s Eye Diamond are Unrestricted
Now that we’ve gotten to combo, I can explain some of the odder choices in decks and card choices above. At the very birth of the format everyone predicted some sort of Combo Winter that would kill every other deck. This is not the case. As best written in the Belcher thread later, combo seems to roll over to disruption, like Duress, Stifle, Force of Will and other staple control cards. Control, especially in the Black and Blue versions, has strong game against Combo. But what about Aggro? Let’s take that Tools ‘n Tubbies deck above. With the nuts draw, it (or most aggro decks) can expect to win around turns 4-5. Unfortunately, Combo’s critical turn is 2-4. The implication of this would be Aggro > Control > Combo > Aggro. However, don’t forget decks like ATS, which pack countermagic in addition to their complement of aggro. Therefore, decks that can’t compete with Combo tend to get left behind. Onwards, to combo.
Strong Decks:
Belcher:
As many people have said in testing, this deck looks very strong but tends to roll over to disruption. It’s critical turn is around turns 2-3 undisrupted, and packs Welder in addition to the complement of zero-cost mana and Belcher to burn out for game. It tries to block disruption with Duress and Xantid Swarm. I don’t have extensive experience with the deck except losing to it a few times. It has potential in the new format, as probably the fastest combo in the format.
Solidarity:
This deck is rather interesting. The basic premise is to play out land for about 3-4 turns, then use Turnabout and Reset on your opponent’s turn to untap often, draw, untap again, and then end the game with a large Brainfreeze. It has an odd sort of resiliency to hate in that if you try to cast Force of Will on a Reset, they can thank you for the storm count and cast another in response.
Aggro:
Yes, we actually have aggro
Key Cards: Um, burn spells? Creatures?
Strong Decks:
Goblin Sligh:
This deck actually presents some problems in Type 1.5, as do the inevitable burn/sligh variations of it. In fact it’s probably the biggest thing (or Sui Black) keeping Mono-Blue Control from coming out on top. It’s been posting consistent T4 and T8 finishes in various Type 1.5 finishes around the U.S. and online.
The Fast Mana Debate:
This is debating in just about every Type 1.5 thread, as newer deckbuilders get excited to put something with the word “Mox” in their deck as a four-of. The problem is, unlike Type One, our Moxen suck if your deck can’t compensate for them. Chrome Mox requires an Imprint, Chrome Mox requires a land, and Lotus Petal is a one-time use. While at the beginning, they showed up in every deck, they’re making less of a splash now in most decks and I don’t think they’ll effect the metagame the way everyone predicted, except possibly in the piles of combo players.
A few words about the environment: The environment is mostly slower. Combo is not as strong as MeanDeath or Meandeck Oath or TPS and what have you. The decks are more vulnerable to disruption. Lots of times you play grueling battles of card advantage, or you win quickly with a decisive play. I guess Type 1.5 is like Vintage without all the brokenness.
Quote of the Day: “Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.” ~ Groucho Marx
So what I want to do with the rest of this series is feature a different deck or decks, and give possible strategies. I want to start with a deck I showed on the Survival page: Tools ‘n Tubbies. I’ve tested this deck more than any other, and I evolved it from a modified Type One list to something more like this:
NAME: Tools ‘n Tubbies
Tools
4 Survival of the Fittest
4 Enlightened Tutor
1 Blood Moon
1 Dense Foliage
1 Null Rod
Tubbies
4 Goblin Welder
4 Su-Chi
3 Juggernaut
2 Triskelion
1 Sundering Titan
1 Duplicant
1 Ornithopter
1 Anger
1 Genesis
1 Xantid Swarm
1 Uktabi Orangutan
1 Elvish Lyrist
1 Bloodfire Dwarf
Mana
4 Wooded Foothills
3 Taiga
3 Savannah
3 Plateau
3 Forest
3 Tree of Tales
4 Mox Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
Sideboard
4 Pyroblast
4 Red Elemental Blast
4 Naturalize
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Dense Foliage
1 Platinum Angel
(I’d rather not give out the list I started with, it’s embarrassingly bad). Anyone who’s played Type One TnT will notice an immediate difference. The goal of this deck is to get out a quick Welder/Survival of the Fittest and do broken things. In Type One, the goal of the deck is to get out mana and do broken things.
So let’s start with the manabase. You’ll notice that despite my arguments above, I run 4 of both Lotus Petal and Mox Diamond. These are essential. If you can resolve it, a turn 1 Survival of the Fittest, especially off the Mox, is game over. Next turn you will swing for at least four, and then turn after probably in the arena of 10+ damage. We also run the artifact mana to be able to Welder it away.
The Tree of Tales is there for the same purpose, to serve as artifact mana.
The rest of the mana is the appropriate duals, and the basic Forests are to be able to operate Survival of the Fittest under a Blood Moon. The manabase is weak though, and tends to roll over to a serious land disruption strategy like Fish prefers. Without Strip Mines, and with Crucible + Waste losing favor (we don’t have any dangerous lands like Bazaar or Workshop), the manabase might be okay. However, it’s not safe to free up any more land slots. The land issue is a problem, but probably not as much of a problem as it seems. Often, either through opponent’s disruption or Sundering Titan, we’ll end the game with just a few lands, or none at all and just some artifact mana out. However, those games we’ll often win. Because the manabase is weak, most of my attention was paid to winning in circumstances where we are low on mana. As I explain later, I no longer maindeck REB, even though control is expected in high numbers. One reason for this is we simply don’t have the mana to spare.
Tools:
Originally we just ran 4 Survival of the Fittest, 4 Red Elemental Blast. 3 Sylvan Library. 3 Blood Moon. This is where the deck has evolved the most. The REB tend to be overkill and underkill – we never draw them when we need them, we tend to be good against control anyway, and they are dead in at least 1/3 of your matchups. The four Survival of the Fittest are a must – it lets you get all the kill cards, and can win the game alone (resolving a Welder is not always game, Survival almost always is). When we finally tried out Enlightened Tutor, it lets us give five slots to Sylvan and Blood Moon instead of 3, and run Null Rod, as well as fetching creatures, at the cost of one draw. That’s all we need our draws for because we can operate our draw engine separately.
Tubbies:
This is the portion of the deck I struggle most with. TnT in Vintage runs a fraction of the creatures, and frees up slots for other stuff. Without any Workshops, we can’t resolve a turn 1 Crucible nearly as easily, or a turn 1 Trinisphere. The cards don’t exist to play a more controllish game, so we have to play straight out aggro. The main gameplan is to get out a Su-Chi, Weld it for some random artifact fattie, and use the four floating for a Juggernaut. Normally we’d like to go for a Sundering Titan, but our manabase is weak, and more decks play creatures (and therefore blockers), meaning a Sundering Titan isn’t always game. Often, you need to get Triskelion and kill blockers – in fact, we added a second Trike in order to be able to swap them.
Because we have Survival as a draw engine, we get all kinds of other cheap support creatures to be able to fetch out and cast easily. The main difference is no Flametongue Kavu. We can’t afford it without mana acceleration, and Triskelion/Duplicant is just as good.
No Squee, Goblin Nabob? We can’t afford to try and wear away opponents with card advantage over the long term while fetching out creatures. Also, we want our artifact creatures in the graveyard, to be able to animate them with Goblin Welder. We always want to drop Anger and an artifact fatty into the graveyard.
No Masticore? Masticore is great, but it requires lots of mana, which lots of times you won’t have. You’ll often only have enough mana to squeeze out Survival and go nuts, and in those circumstances, Duplicant or Triskelion is better.
No Waste effects? We have to play aggro-control, not control-aggro. Because we can’t flip up Moxen/Workshop and resolve a turn 1 Crucible like Vintage TnT can, we don’t have a reason to try and weaken the manabase even more. And because we’re not planning on casting any artifact creatures, we need all the colored mana we can get.
No two-mana colorless lands (City of Traitors/Ancient Tomb)? With Welder costing R and Survival costing 1G and requiring an activation of G, we need all the colored mana we can get, and the two-mana colorless lands just get in the way of that. Also, the only acceleration would be dropping the third land as one of those to get out a Juggernaut/Su-Chi to go from 2-4, which is an inferior plan to what we do now.
What’s up with that maindeck Ornithopter? This slot used to be Arcbound Ravager actually, just for a bit of flair and the ability to possibly win games on its own. Unfortunately it doesn’t, although the ability to put a +1/+1 counter on a fattie always amused me. This is an attempt to compensate for something Vintage TnT doesn’t have – an easy way to go off. Often with TnT in Type One I’d be stuck with no creatures to fetch and animate. Here, if you don’t have any artifact mana or lands on the table, you can still fetch an Ornithopter to go off with. It’s a bad idea because they can always Bolt the Ornithopter in response, but it’s better than nothing.
No Karn? Karn really isn’t that good here. In Type One he’s a mox killer and also a dump for Su-Chi mana. Here, too often he’ll get blocked and just be worthless. I’d much rather have a better toolkit creature or another fattie. We also don’t have the fast artifact mana to worry about killing, and even if we did, we don’t have the mana to activate him.
So how do you play the deck?
Let’s start with the nuts. The ideal play is
Turn 1: Taiga (Wooded Foothills), Mox Diamond, Survival of the Fittest
Turn 2: Use Survival, dump Anger, Su-Chi, get and cast Welder, animate and swing with Su-Chi
Turn 3: Turn Su-Chi into Sundering Titan+Juggernaut and swing for twelve.
If you don’t get the nuts hand the draw slows down by a turn or more to get out Survival of the Fittest.
The goal of the deck is to resolve a Survival of the Fittest, get a Welder and start attacking with animated fatties. You also have a host of toolbox creatures in case you need to fetch an answer (Bloodfire Dwarf versus Fish, for instance). The biggest problem is be careful of using Sundering Titan in a bad situation. If you can’t get Green mana to use Survival after a Sundering Titan, don’t do it. You’ll need at least GG from whatever you draw to dump a random creature, get the creature you need, and probably dump it into the graveyard.
Versus control
Don’t be afraid to try and just go all out. You have a lot of threats, and control can’t deal with them all. Genesis gives you inevitably, for the ability to recast Welders. If you can get Survival on the table, you’ve probably won. I’d go for Anger and Welder first. If that fails, depending on your mana situation, you either want to go for more Welders, or Genesis first to bring them back. The worst situation you can be in is no Welders left in your library. Fortunately, in all my games of testing, that’s never happened to me. Once you get that inevitably going for you, anything they do to kill your creatures doesn’t matter. And you can always Enlightened Tutor for Dense Foliage, Blood Moon or Null Rod to shut them down. Blood Moon is especially effective against the dual heavy control decks (like Tog).
The absolute worst playing situation you can be in is to be sitting with no Survival in hand, and maybe a Welder on the table with no artifacts on the table, or without a Welder. Fortunately, you have a lot of outs:
If your hand is playable with a Welder but no Survival (artifact mana or Ornithopter), then you want to hold back completely until you can discard your animation target from having 8 cards, then the next turn drop the mana, Welder, and be ready to start swinging. It’s a bad position to be in, but not unwinnable.
This is the reason Sylvan Library was originally in the deck. Now, you have nine slots to help you out (4x Enlightened Tutor, 1x Sylvan Library, 4x Survival of the Fittest). Just wait it out in topdeck mode if you have to, and wait for an answer.
So why is Sylvan Library still in the deck, if we’re using Enlightened Tutor? Sometimes, even with a Survival on the table, you’ll still have no creatures in hand, and need to see three at a time. You can gradually wear away decks by finding better answers. It may be that the card has no place, and if so, what should it be replaced with? More land? Maindeck Platinum Angel?
You’ll notice also that the creature count is really high compared to Type One, and the land count is low. Type One TnT often wins games in the first few turns, either in actuality or a soft lock – Trinisphere + Crucible + Waste is game over, and often comes out turns 2-3. Here, we’re more often reduced to topdeck mode with a Survival on the table, and so we need to be able to pull a creature in order to go nuts.
The deck has a surprisingly good matchup against control, even pre-board before you cut some superfluous creatures to bring in cards like Angel (depending on build) and some number of REB. One resolved creature is often game over, and even before that, we just have to slip one spell through a counterwall and it’s often fatal, especially for the ability to replay threats from the graveyard with Genesis and Goblin Welder. If Hinder or Cranial Extraction makes a greater impact on Type 1.5 than it has up til now, then control would have a much better matchup, but that’s not expected. Beyond that, you always have the option to pull out Blood Moon/Dense Foliage and screw their strategy completely.
The deck actually fares better against MBC than most other decks. The reason is the only thing that hurts it is a Duress or Hymn hitting Survival (or an Extraction on Welder). The rest of the time, you’re only feeding the graveyard, especially since all the threats are creatures. The land destruction hurts, but you only need 1 to win…
Versus Aggro:
Here, we also have a pretty good matchup. It all depends on the relative draws and whose clock is shorter. You have very few ways to disrupt them, so it mostly comes down to Triskelion and fatties to clear the way for lots of damage. Sometimes you win, and sometimes they win, but Dense Foliage is great here. And sometimes when you bring in Platinum Angel, they can’t deal with it and you win.
Versus Combo:
Here is the main problem with the deck. Decks like Belcher walk all over you. Their clock is much much faster, and you’ll very rarely get a Null Rod out when you need it. Maybe if more came in from the board you’d have a better chance. Still, unless you get an early something out to disrupt their strategy, they’ll probably win.
If you’re not a fan of the White splash, this is my refined R/G list:
NAME: Tools ‘n Tubbies
Tools
4 Survival of the Fittest
4 Red Elemental Blast
3 Sylvan Library
3 Blood Moon
Tubbies
4 Goblin Welder
4 Su-Chi
4 Juggernaut
2 Triskelion
1 Sundering Titan
1 Anger
1 Genesis
1 Duplicant
1 Xantid Swarm
1 Uktabi Orangutan
1 Elvish Lyrist
1 Bloodfire Dwarf
Mana
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Taiga
4 Karplusan Forest
2 Forest
1 Tree of Tales
1 Great Furnace
4 Mox Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
Sideboard
4 Pyroblast
1 Blood Moon
4 Naturalize
4 Dense Foliage
1 Platinum Angel
That’s all I’ve got for this week. Join us next week when we explore the wonderful land of blue!