Dave looks ahead at what he thinks might get banned in Standard next week, laying odds on what combinations of cards might get the boot and what that will mean for those of us looking forward to playing a fresh, Ravager-free Type Two format.
Dave takes a second look at his updated version of the speedy Standard deck known as “Frog in a Blender”, this time with added Betrayers cards. As if that wasn’t good enough, he also includes a Block Constructed version of the deck and tells the story of his losing ways at the Betrayers of Kamigawa Prerelease.
Is there a super-fast Green/Red deck for Standard done in the style of the old Frog in a Blender decks? Dave Meddish thinks their might be, but he needs your help to know whether or not it’s really any good – just don’t beat him up for playing Lava Spike.
Based upon the powerful Black cards present in Champions of Kamigawa, however, if there was going to be a breakout deck, conventional wisdom stated that it was either going to be a new take on Mono-Black Control or a reprise of the classic Black/Green midgame deck first pioneered by Sol Malka, best known as The Rock. Mono-Black was out there, but it didn’t have the success at States that The Rock did.
For the PTQ recently held in my neck of the woods, I decided to go with Big Red, primarily because I liked that it had game against the entire field, and in the words of teammate Chris Fox, “when in doubt, burn ‘em out.”
I’m watching the match, and I’m thinking, what the hell? Wirewood Symbiote? Vernal Bloom? What in the name of Erik Lauer is going on here? Aside from the fact that Affinity was getting worked, that is. The deck – christened Elf and Nail – would win the Northwest Regionals, piloted to a 9-0-2 finish by Sameer Nelson, and the deck did incredibly well elsewhere. Immediately intrigued, I went home, built a copy and starting throwing it against the gauntlet I’d built for Regionals.
What did I play? I’d been reading tons of articles and had played just about every deck out there, but then I found The Good (Red) Book, Chapter of Paskins, which saith,”And lo, I did smite my enemies with the tiny Red men, and breaketh his artifacts, and there was much rejoicing.” Who am I to argue with that dogma?
Thanks to the recent French and German Regionals, we now have a first glance at what the metagame for the U.S. Regionals may look like, and it’s pretty much what was expected: Ravager-Affinity, R/W Slide, and Goblin Bidding. There are a few other culprits (like the quite fun and imaginative”Rat Deck Wins” coming from the French side of things), but those three aforementioned decks pretty much comprise the foundation of your testing gauntlet. What I want to look at today is a deck that may have game against all three of the decks above: R/G Control.
Brian Kibler recently posited that with the release of Darksteel and the I-can’t-believe-it’s-a-three-dollar-uncommon Skullclamp, White Weenie, or, more accurately,”Equipped White” (somebody find a cool name for the deck!) is primed to take a run at Tier 1-dom. I agree… to a point.
Wirefly Hive – 3
Artifact (U)
3,T: Flip a coin. If you win the flip, put a 2/2 Wirefly creature token with flying into play. If you lose the flip sacrifice all Wireflies.
At long last another card to use with Krark’s Thumb. I’d rather use another appendage for this card, if you catch my drift.
Me and my imaginary friend were having a heated conversation over this card. I said it sucks, that it’s too slow and would only be usable in a control-ish Mirrodin Limited deck, either B/x or U/x. Rodrigo, on the other hand, said it could be very powerful in a W/x weenie deck which doesn’t need more than three lands at any one time. I was winning the argument until Rodrigo pointed out that I originally called Broodstar “one of the worst cards ever printed,” at which point I brained him with a shovel.
I lose more imaginary friends that way.
The Darksteel spoiler has what appears to be a “new” Tinker, Reshape, once again keeping with Wizards’ tradition of taking a broken card and “fixing” it into a virtually unplayable replacement. But if you want a Tinker replacement, what about the underrated and overlooked Trash for Treasure?
Has there been a more apt moniker for a deck than Red Deck Wins? It’s like the flavor text for Goblin Offensive – a perfect fit. All it does is lay a few creatures, lock down your land for a turn or two and beat you about the head and shoulders until dead. In the Extended environment before Pro Tour: New Orleans, this is what passed for”blazing speed.” Then came New Orleans, and suddenly, a deck capable of a turn 4 kill was”too slow.”
Thankfully, the format came to its senses as 21% of the Day 2 participants in Anaheim were running some form of the deck…
Chris, local player and recent addition to my playtesting group the High Plains Drifters, says that affinity is the new madness – and he’s pretty much right on the ball. If you’ve played around with affinity-based decks, they’re much like the aggro-control U/G Madness decks – drop some early threats that are both undercosted and large, back them up with a pinch of countermagic, and win the game before it gets into a war of attrition.
I’ve been playing around with decks built around Isochron Scepter, which may be almost Flametongue Kavu broken – the unusual uncommon you’d trade a good rare for – or just tantalizingly almost-broken. In Standard, it has been pointed out that you have the potential for a hideously broken combo with a first-turn land, Chrome Mox, Isochron Scepter, and Boomerang. The odds of getting that five-card combo in your opening hand are about 1.7%. Not good odds… But I like the concept.
