With only a handful of weeks to go before we all wave goodbye to Wild Mongrel, Deep Analysis, and Mirari’s Wake, and say a very big”Hello” to Skyhunters, Bonesplitters, and Spikeshot Goblins, I’ve started to put a test gauntlet together for Champs. To help out, I’ve put a gauntlet together to test the new Mirrodin-based decks against.
The God Hand:
Turn 3: Forest, Deconstruct Cathodion. Tap Mountain. 3GGGR in pool. Cast Seething Song. 1RRRRRGG in pool. Cast Biorhythm with Birds of Paradise in play. Shake hands while she stares in disbelief, since she thought that she was safe tapping out on turn 3.
Whenever a new set comes out, the best first decks tend to be based upon existing decks, and they tend to be aggro – it’s always easier to find ways to deal twenty damage than ways of preventing twenty damage. Case in point: Onslaught Block Goblins. They translate very well to a post-Mirrodin Standard – they don’t get much, but neither do they lose much.
Mirrodin amazes me. Now that I can finally know for sure what it is that I am looking at, I am more eager than ever to tear into the shrink-wrap of a few unopened packs and start building decks. But I need something to test my weirdo decks against! Yeah, I’m looking way ahead all the way to Mirrodin-legal Standard… If Miss Cleo can do it, so can I. But before I can build a rogue deck to beat a metagame, I have to predict what I think that metagame will be….
I consider Mirrodin to be one of the most complex sets I’ve seen in the history of the game – that’s right, the entire game. Some environments are relatively easy to predict; this one is not, and I’d question anyone who says otherwise. So even though I’ll be covering all the cards in a later review, these are the headliner cards that catch my eye at this early stage – the ones that we have to immediately investigate to see if they’ll be good in Standard.
So I ended day two at 10-4 and I went 3-3 on the day, finishing in the top thirty-two and gaining my first pro point. I have absolutely no regrets about what I played at the Grand Prix. I performed much better then I expected and lived out a scrub’s dream on my way to day two. This deck is so fun that it should be illegal by copyright infringement.
In Part I of this article, I discussed the why and how of rogue decks, and provided some general rules for their construction. Now I’ll build one, to provide a practical example of the process. The trick was to find a rogue deck concept that hasn’t been thoroughly discussed in articles and forums already. I think I have one: Intruder Alarm, Squirrel Nest, and something to animate lands, like Vivify. So what happened when I tested this deck in a modern Standard environment, what were the two pitfalls I had to avoid – and how did the deck turn out?
My love for Block Constructed put me in danger of not playing in the Grand Prix. I thought about preparing for the Grand Prix, but decided against because I knew what I wanted to play. A lack of preparation made me think I was not going to do well, so I just wanted to have as much fun as I possibly could. How can you not have fun reanimating big stupid creatures? That is the only reason I went in playing Reanimator! It had some game against Wake with all the disruption main, and with Akroma, Angel of Wrath, Phantom Nishoba, and Visara, it had some game against the aggressive decks of the format like Goblins and U/G. In theory, the deck seemed strong, and in truth the amount of fun I was going to have Stitch Togethering some dorks would outweigh my overall results regardless.
You may notice that it’s basically the same as Gabriel Nassif’s deck from the Standard portion of Worlds, except I took out the Phyrexian Plaguelord and the two Shambling Swarms for three Nekrataals. This is a classic amateur mistake: Net-deck one of the pro’s decks, then”improve” it. This almost always turns out badly, and my case is no exception. Of course the Swarm is the best anti-creature card in Nassif’s deck; the only time Nekrataal is strictly better is if your opponent has a Roar of the Wurm token out, and Wonder in the graveyard, and he’s not holding Circular Logic. The Swarm makes Wild Mongrel cry, turns Gempalm Incinerator into a badly-costed 2/1, refutes an active Sparksmith, and is a major pain in Siege-Gang Commander’s ass. And that’s before I even get started on the nuttiness of Swarm + Cabal Therapy….
Estimates from the wise say that we could break the one thousand person attendance mark on Saturday, which would result in a packed room and nearly infinite rounds of Swiss – nine or ten on Day One alone. If you have no byes, you are essentially attending Ohio Valley Regionals with an additional three hundred players in the mix and a lot more Pros in the room. What does it mean? It means that in order to make Day 2, you will need to have a bullet-proof deck and luck. I can’t help you with the luck, but I can help you with the deck…
