You Lika The Juice? Creative Deckbuilding In Innistrad Standard

Pouring over the results for States is a little disappointing. For years, what I’ve loved about States is the sheer insanity that comes from
people showing up all over the country with a ton of homebrews in a brand new format and seeing what happens when the dust settles. This year has been
dramatically different due to several large Standard tournaments in the weeks between the release of Innistrad and The 2011’s. These went a long way
toward defining what the “best” decks in the format are. So this time, instead of a cascade of funky new decks to immerse myself in,
I’ve got to sift through the mass of Solar Flare, Wolf Run Ramp, Monored, U/W Blade, and G/W Tokens decks to find the interesting nuggets. Before
I get to that though, I’d like to talk about my results.

This is the deck I registered for Virginia Champs:

Schooze Bob-Omb

Bennie Smith

Test deck on 10-23-2011

Standard

Creatures (31)

Lands (24)

Spells (5)

3 Doom Blade
2 Forbidden Alchemy

Sideboard

Friday’s testing went fairly well, though I got there a lot later than I’d hoped and didn’t get to run as many games against as many
decks as I’d hoped. Still, I tested against Mono Red, Wolf Run Ramp, Tempered Steel, and U/W Control, and was fairly happy with how my deck was
running. I made some tweaks along the way that seemed to improve performance and by the end of the night hashed out what I thought was a pretty decent
sideboard. Things I found out from testing:

Spellskite is still amazing in this format. With the Splinter Twin combo deck rotating out of the format, I think people are totally missing that
Spellskite is still very very good at doing what it does best—landing early, blocking the beatdown, and giving protection to creatures your
opponent needs to deal with. In this new metagame it even gives a layer of protection from Kessig Wolf Run, preventing the powerful land from boosting
your opponent’s creatures while also being too tough to Slagstorm away.

Tree of Redemption is a nightmare for aggro and red decks. Sure, this seems obvious enough, but if you haven’t actually played the Tree in this
matchup it’s hard to really grasp just how awful it is to have to punch through a 0/13 Tree with this ability. Every single time I found a Tree
of Redemption I beat the aggro and red decks, so I ended up moving a second one to the maindeck. It does a great job of blocking Primeval and Sun
Titans as well!

Let it be known that Grimgrin, Corpse-Born is another Titan of the format. He was so good in testing and so good in the tournament that he makes me
want to build other decks around him, not just the Ooze combo. Sure, he needs a little more support in your deck than the other Titans who are just
more-or-less standalone great, but if you make sure you can feed him some of your own creatures then he closes out games fast.

Speaking of feeding Grimgrin some of your own creatures, I was pleased with Reassembling Skeletons. They were the lubrication that made this
deck’s engine hum—providing an easy discard to opposing Liliana of the Veil, providing an easy sacrifice to Liliana’s second ability,
providing an early chump blocker you could recoup later on, an “extra” card while digging with Forbidden Alchemy, and a discard to
Civilized Scholar’s loot ability that lets him transform into a beating stick. Not least of all, he provides an endless stream of food to
Grimgrim.

Sadly, my performance at States did not lead up to my expectations. My Round 1 victory against Solar Flare was blunted quite a bit by my Round 2 loss
to Solar Flare. This was particularly heartbreaking when I had to mulligan and keep a fair hand with no blue mana but some decent early pressure and
Memory’s Journey, and then proceeding to never draw any blue mana until my opponent had rightly plundered his graveyard into a vastly superior
board position.

Let me take a moment to sing the praises of Memory’s Journey—in a format chock full of Snapcaster Mages, Sun Titans, and other
graveyard-centric strategies, this is a fantastic sideboard card for any U/G/x deck. In my first round against Solar Flare I lost game 2, then managed
to combo kill him with a gigantic Ooze when he tapped out to cast a Titan. In the last game I had Skeletons and a transformed Scholar beating him down
and he was digging deep with Alchemy. When he tried to cast Unburial Rites to reanimate Sun Titan, I cast Memory’s Journey. He had Mana Leak as
backup, but I just went ahead and flashed it back to shuffle away the Rites target, allowing the Scholar and Skeletons to finish him off.

The next round I played against a Wolf Run Ramp deck that splashed black in it for Doom Blades and Grave Titans, both of which are fairly useless to an
infinitely large trampling Ooze (game 1) or the relentless beatings of a Skeleton-fed Grimgrin (game 3). Grimgrin loved chowing down on a Grave Titan
and Primeval Titan in that game. The mental image of this Zombie Warrior extending his mouth to gigantic size and sucking Titans down his maw was just
hilarious.

I then ran into the buzz-saw of two U/W Blade decks that ended any hope of finishing in the prizes. Both seemed to have all the
answers—counterspells at the right time, Oblivion Rings at the right time, Gideon at the right time. It was then that I realized the Mental
Missteps were a gross error—I’d been talked into playing them as protection from graveyard hate hosing my combo, but the reason why I liked
this deck so much is that the combo pieces are just fine all on their own—you can simply play them out and they can win on their own, and if your
opponent destroys them then they have the combo to worry about as well. What I’m fairly certain I needed to have instead were Negates, which
would have been especially helpful against the Celestial Purges that removed my creatures without putting them in the graveyard (or the Oblivion
Rings).

The last U/W Blade matchup was particularly annoying. My opponent had that classic “I’m such a clever control player bored to have to play
against this random scrub” attitude, with added bonus “oh yeah, I built this deck, I know all about it” when it was painfully obvious
from the mistakes he made against me that he didn’t know this deck. Regardless, he had enough answers and I didn’t have Negates in
the board to help me so he pulled out the match. I did however have a great sequence of turns where my Hex Parasite ate a Venser at the end of his
turn, then ate some of Gideon’s loyalty and attacked him to kill him—two planeswalkers crushed by a one-drop 1/1. LOVE IT!

Anyway, after swapping the Missteps for Negates in the board, I quickly signed up for an eight-man Win-a-Box side event because I felt totally
confident in the deck and was positive I could win the box. Sadly, the event never fired off so I didn’t have a chance to test out the upgrade.

A few other thoughts…

The Royal Assassin made it in to give a bit more help against Inkmoth Nexus and any slower creature-based deck, but turned out between the Doom Blades,
Replicas, and Spellskites I needn’t have worried about Inkmoth. It was particularly frustrating to have an Assassin on the board staring down two
Sun Titans with vigilance. If I played this tomorrow I’d probably drop the Assassin for another Replica. The second Tree of Redemption should
probably move back to the sideboard unless you’ve got a particularly aggressive metagame, and I’d probably go ahead and add one more land
that produces a blue mana. This deck doesn’t want to stumble on playing lands and it certainly sucks getting color-screwed.

Interestingly, I ran across another Ooze decklist that finished outside Top 16 at the Florida 2011’s:

Corpse-Born Ooze

Jacob Naccarato

Test deck on 10-23-2011

Standard

Creatures (21)

Lands (24)

Spells (15)

Sideboard

This version is much more aggressive in trying to assemble the Ooze combo kill with a full four copies of Alchemy and four copies of Mulch, with an
extra Merfolk Looter thrown in the mix. Presumably, he then protects it for a turn with Mana Leak and wins the next turn. I’ve never been a big
fan of Mulch outside of when Sylvan Library was around, but maybe I should give it a try. Maindeck counterspells also seem worth trying, though I would
probably go ahead and just play Negate since that protects against just about everything you could possibly want to stop.

I think this deck has a lot of still-untapped potential, and with a little more work could really be a fun and powerful option. I’m not sure
it’s got what it takes to win a StarCityGames.com Open, but if the metagame shifts the right way then who knows? I do know it can easily
terrorize FNMs and score Planeswalker Points.

The Virginia Champs Top 8 really didn’t have anything particularly noteworthy outside of Shaheen Soorani’s Tezzeret deck (no offense to Good Man Shaheen, but not exactly
revolutionary). There were two Township Tokens, two Wolf Run Ramp, Solar Flare, Mono Red, and Bant Birthing Pod. Very much ho-hum and pretty
representative of how the metagame has shaped up so far. Other writers on this site will certainly be dissecting these archetypes and providing
optimized lists for the metagame going forward, but in “classic States” fashion I wanted to take the time to showcase some of the more
interesting rogue builds out there that managed to break through the rapidly tiering metagame.

First up is Mike Chu’s self-milling “dredge” deck that took him to the Top 8 in Maine. I was excited to see his deck because I had a
similar list I had on tap last Friday as my Plan C in case my Ooze deck and Plan B didn’t test well.

BUG Fright

Mike Chu

Test deck on 10-23-2011

Standard

Creatures (27)

Lands (22)

Spells (11)

Sideboard

I really like the Altar’s Reap, giving the deck some more draw power when combined with Viridian Emissary and Solemn
Simulacrum—particularly since your opponents will often not cooperate in killing them off for you. With the Looters and Alchemy, the Reaps will
pop up more often than the two copies would otherwise indicate.

In the version I was going to test I ran Kessig Cagebreakers, which seemed like a great game-ender, but perhaps the Splinterfrights were big enough
that Cagebreakers were unnecessary? The Noxious Revival and Snapcaster Mage seem like fun surprises.

Next up is a sweet Bant deck by Douglas Hanrion, who made Top 8 in Maryland. His deck is chock full of creatures that are a nightmare for players to
deal with—Invisible Stalker, Geist of Saint Traft, and Thrun, the Last Troll—and gives them Swords and Angelic Destiny to make them even
more painful. He then sprinkles in some very good creatures—Skinshifter, Mirran Crusader—along with an eight-pack of one-drop mana
creatures and some counterspells to maintain the pressure. That sounds like a pretty sweet neo-Fish deck!

Bant Aggro

Douglas Hanrion

5th Place at States on 10-16-2011

Standard

Creatures (24)

Lands (24)

Spells (12)

Sideboard

There have been a couple Premium writers recently who’ve pointed out that Birthing Pod decks have been struggling to meet the demands of the new
metagame, but that the card is powerful and sure to adapt into a force to reckon with eventually. I was pleased to run across the Pod deck by Gregory
Taylor, who made Top 4 in New Mexico by keeping the mana simple and rocking it green and black. He’s even got a couple copies of Glissa, the
Traitor in the deck, so you know I’m pleased!

You may recall a few weeks back that one of the decks I was contemplating running was something I called Medium Green, which ran Dungrove Elders and
splashed Kessig Wolf Run via Primeval Titan. When the Wolf Run Ramp decks exploded onto the metagame I set aside the decklist because I didn’t
relish playing a lot of semi-mirror matches, but if Owen Turtenwald is any indication perhaps I shouldn’t have been so quick to give up on the
idea! I think it’s fascinating that he’s playing six one-drop mana creatures but nothing to fetch up turn 2 with a Green Sun’s Zenith
for two. I’d have thought at least a Viridian Emissary would be mandatory… but maybe he’d just fetch up another one-drop mana
critter, or save the Zenith for later? Instead he’s rocking Rampant Growths, which nearly guarantees he’ll have four mana on turn 3 for the
Solemn Simulacrum.

Wolf Run Green

Owen Turtenwald

1st Place at States on 10-16-2011

Standard

Creatures (20)

Planeswalkers (4)

4 Garruk, Primal Hunter

Lands (24)

Spells (12)

Sideboard

Next up is a fun spin on Infect by Andrew Oyen, who made Top 4 in Ontario. I’d actually been corresponding with Andrew via email in the days
leading up to States on a couple deck ideas, but he ended up calling an audible into this deck that did him well. The infect decks that have been
popular of late have been leaning towards control decks with an infect end-game, but Andrew’s plan is suiting up his infect dudes and winning
fast. I particularly love going all-in on Livewire Lash, four copies!

U/B Infect

Andrew Oyen

Test deck on 10-23-2011

Standard

Creatures (15)

Lands (23)

Spells (22)

Sideboard

The Burning Vengeance decks were a pleasant surprise! The enchantment is obviously a powerful one with enough flashback. I just wasn’t convinced
that there were enough quality flashback cards to make it worthwhile. Apparently there were enough of them to take Andrew Huska to the finals in
Alberta—yep, that’s four Desperate Ravings!

Burning Vengeance

Andrew Huska

Test deck on 10-23-2011

Standard

Creatures (2)

2 Snapcaster Mage

Lands (24)

Spells (34)

Sideboard

Wolf Run fans might want to take a gander at the deck John Lance took to Top 4 in Ohio. Keep in mind that Ohio Champs isn’t the same as Champs
in, say, Idaho. No offense to Idaho, but I imagine the size of Ohio Champs was likely quite big, so when I see a deck within spitting distance of the
finals table rocking Copper and Palladium Myrs it gets my attention. Check out the three Myr Battlespheres! I don’t quite grok how this deck
plays different or better than the more stock Wolf Run decks, but I certainly want to try it out! Did anyone see John’s deck in action in Ohio?
Comment below and let us know what you saw.

Wolf Run Brown

JJ Lance

4th Place at States on 10-16-2011

Standard

Creatures (22)

Planeswalkers (1)

1 Karn Liberated

Lands (25)

Spells (12)

Sideboard

Above I mentioned that the “dredge” deck was my Plan C, so what was Plan B? Plan B was my Heartless Summoning deck, which I really felt was
a powerful and fun choice and was totally expecting to give it a try Friday night when the Ooze deck fell flat. That never happened, so my Heartless
deck remains untested. I was however pleased to see Kyle Wilson’s Heartless deck break into the Top 8 in Wyoming. While I still can’t get
on board with the Myr Superion plan, he does at least supplement it with Grand Architect plus Ponder and Forbidden Alchemy to find one or the other.
While I was working on my Heartless deck I was wondering what would be best to play at six mana—Wurmcoil Engine and Grave Titan seemed sub-par
with a Heartless Summoning in play, even at a two mana discount, and after toying with Massacre Wurm I’d landed firmly in the Frost Titan camp.
Kyle’s Consecrated Sphinxes reminded me that there’s another back-breaking six worth considering.

Heartless BUG

Kyle Wilson

7th Place at States on 10-16-2011

Standard

Creatures (23)

Lands (22)

Spells (15)

Sideboard

Last up I’d like to shine the light on Barrett Neigel’s Mimic Vat deck that took him to Top 8 in Saskatchewan. Now I’ve recently
jumped back on the Mimic Vat bandwagon—more on that in a minute—so I was really curious to see his take on it. Looking it over, I think
I’d call it a misnomer. With very little card-drawing and only two Mimic Vats, I’d be loathe to call this a Vat deck; I think it would be
more accurately described as Junk Ramp between the Rampant Growths, Emissaries, Solemns, and Primeval Titans. It’s certainly a fascinating
collection of “good-stuff” cards and not lacking in raw power.

Junk Vat

Barrett Neigel

Test deck on 10-23-2011

Standard

Creatures (15)

Planeswalkers (2)

2 Karn Liberated

Lands (25)

Spells (18)

Sideboard

Now I’d like to talk a minute about the new deck I’m working on. It was my “Plan B” for States in case testing didn’t go
well for the Ooze deck, and is a further evolution of my Heartless Creep deck. My friend Jay had been working on a Heartless Summoning deck that he
called “infinite Frost Titans,” featuring Frost Titans and Clones to provide a steady stream of game-ending beats, and I thought it would
be interesting to add Mimic Vat to the mix. After reading Ari Lax’s excellent Premium article on Birthing Pod
this week, I was inspired to tinker with my Plan B deck further. In particular I was fascinated by the idea of Entomber Exarch being part of a
land-destruction Pod-chain, where the Exarch takes the last land out of your opponent’s hand before being sacrificed by Birthing Pod into Acidic
Slime to nuke a land in play. Considering that you can then Pod the Slime into a Frost Titan to further the theme (by effectively taking out another
land), I began incorporating some of those ideas into my funky Heartless deck. Here’s how it looks right now:

Heartless MimicPod

Bennie Smith

Test deck on 10-23-2011

Standard

Creatures (25)

Lands (24)

Spells (11)

I’m not 100% sold on Evil Twin, but since I’m playing black and blue why not? The idea of having an Evil Twin on a Mimic Vat that can come
out at instant speed and kill just about whatever creature your opponent makes seems powerful to me. I still haven’t had a chance to give this a
run yet, but the next Friday Night Magic I’m going to try it out.

So how did you do at States? Did you see any cool new decks or combos that haven’t yet broken through the Top 8 decklists? Comment below!

To my friends and readers who are going to the StarCityGames.com Open Series in Baltimore this weekend—good luck, kick ass, and have fun!

Take care,

Bennie

starcitygeezer AT gmail DOT com

Make sure to follow my Twitter feed (@blairwitchgreen). I check it often so feel free to send me
feedback, ideas, and random thoughts. I’ve also created a Facebook page
where I’ll be posting up deck ideas and will happily discuss Magic, life, or anything else you want to talk about!

I’ve started a blog, it’s not Magic-related but you may find it fun to read and comment on. I update at least once a week so check on it often and let me know what
you think! I recently revamped my blog header with a perfect drawing from the awesome MJ Scott, check it out!

New to Commander?

If you’re just curious about the format, building your first deck, or trying to take your Commander deck up a notch, here are some handy links: