Baneslaying Standard
Now that we have the full format for US Nationals (and other Standard tournaments until Zendikar), it is time to brew! I know it is right before a tournament I will be playing in this exact format, but since I haven’t started testing yet these ideas will be pretty rough.
The alternatives to my untested ramblings are more on old Standard (I did just win a Premiere Event with Faeries that featured 10 sweet one-of’s in the main) or more on SCR draft, which is nearing the end of its lifespan. I still find SCR interesting, but seeing as I am putting up draft videos and all, I figure some speculation about future Standard would be more captivating. Plus, as every writer complains about at length, the time right before a new set blah blah blah let’s get to something interesting!
One of the best (if not the best) cards in M10 is Baneslayer Angel. It has a pretty ridiculous collection of abilities, capped by an impressive power and toughness. At five mana, it really pushes the envelope on how good they can make creatures. Granted it does cost five, a number that will likely restrict it to Standard, but you get quite a deal for that five mana. It doesn’t die to Agony Warp or Bituminous Blast, two of the more common removal spells, and it is almost impossible to race or beat in combat. One of the only creatures in Standard that could bash through it is oddly enough both a demon and a dragon! So yes, Baneslayer Angel is in fact good. As we all know, simply being good card doesn’t make a deck, so what I want to do today is figure out what sort of decks might want Serra Angel’s new boss.
First, the White decks already in Standard:
Kithkin
Kithkin can’t play too many expensive cards, and I doubt Baneslayer will push out Cloudgoat Ranger or Captain of the Watch for any maindeck slots. Honor the Pure and Wizened Cenn demand tokens, and even an awesome 5/5 won’t really get the job done. I can see the Angel fitting in the sideboard here though, since it might be a sick way to fight Red or Black decks that side in a bunch of sweepers. Instead of getting your Cloudgoat mostly neutered by a Fallout, you can drop an enormous Angel and beat the crap out of them.
GW Tokens
The loss of Brushland might hurt this deck enough to force it to reconfigure quite a bit, but either way I expect some incarnation of GW to be viable post-M10. Much like Kithkin, GW will probably only sport Baneslayers after board, although Angel is better here because of the mana acceleration and exalted.
UW Lark
Now we are getting somewhere. Lark is the exact kind of deck that would be interested in a large defensive finisher, since UW is exactly where I would expect the Angel to shine. Unfortunately, UW Lark already has the “five mana board-dominating creature” slot locked up with its namesake, and adding Angel definitely doesn’t help fix the problems caused by the rotation of Wrath of God. Hmm, I don’t really think Angel fits here either.
5-Color Control
Ok, now we are actually getting somewhere. Not only does the poor beleaguered Five Color deck need some help, the Angel might be exactly what it is looking for. When I say 5-C, I specifically don’t mean 5c Blood, since that deck probably doesn’t want the hassle of trying to find double White anyway. The loss of Wrath hurts this kind of 5-C deck as well, but the upgrade from Broodmate to Baneslayer is a nice one, especially given the vulnerability of Dragon to Bituminous Blast. Angel might go a long way towards bringing this deck back.
BW Tokens
Oh wait, we are talking about decks that aren’t utterly dead.
Initial impression: Baneslayer might be a SB card in a few decks, and possibly have a good home in 5-CC. Why, that isn’t nearly exciting enough for an article, and if we are speculating wildly, why not make up a whole new deck?
UW Non-Lark Control (also not to be confused with 5-CC minus Cruel Ultimatum)
The title sums up some of the problems with a classic UW control deck right now. Why aren’t you playing Reveillarks or Cruel Ultimatums? Or, if you really want to brew, why aren’t you playing both? Any potential UW deck will have to address why it is rejecting both of these powerful engines.
First, lets look at a potential sketch:
4 Cryptic Command
4 Broken Ambitions
4 Plumeveil
4 Baneslayer Angel (ok, maybe this can be a 3-of, but I would start at four)
4 Guardian Seraph
4 Mulldrifter
3 Remove Soul
3 Path to Exile
3 Mind Spring
3 Ponder
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Mystic Gate
1 Wanderwine Hub
3 Gargoyle Castle
7 Island
5 Plains
This deck is very similar to Lark, but it cuts some of the weaker two-power guys (Meddling Mage, Sower of Temptation) and the Larks for Baneslayer Angels, Guardian Seraph (which I’ll talk about in a second) and more counterspells in the form of Broken Ambitions and Remove Soul.
I like getting rid of Meddling Mage in particular, as I have been thoroughly unimpressed by Meddling Mage, as it is kind of like a Tidehollow Sculler that can miss. It doesn’t attack or block all that well, and doesn’t really cripple any deck in particular.
Sower is much better, but it still just dies to all sorts of removal, and its replacement (Guardian Seraph) is much tougher. The Seraph is another card that looks pretty interesting, and seems like it is a pain for Red decks to deal with. It only dies to Flame Javelin, and when it is out it gains you a ton of life. Multiples are even sicker! Seraph also seems like a good Wrath-type card against Tokens, insofar as it lessens the impact of their horde. It might not stop them completely when they have some Crusades out, but going Plumeveil into Seraph into Baneslayer should stop almost every opening from Kithkin or WG.
Since you don’t have Larks anymore, Mind Spring should give you a little more gas in the late game. I’m not entirely sure about Mind Spring without Hallowed Burials, since tapping out for a card draw spell when you don’t have the capability to then clear the board might not be the best. I do like that dropping a Baneslayer should completely halt pretty much any offense, since they have to hit you with so many guys to get by the five points you get off killing their best attacker.
The countermagic gives you good early plays, and is one of the best reasons (besides mana) to leave out the Cascade package. I do mean Bloodbraid Elf and Bituminous Blast here, since we aren’t staying UW and playing the sick combo of Stormcaller’s Boon and Ardent Plea. Being able to mess with what your opponent is doing is always nice, and I wasn’t happy that Lark only had the four Cryptics as relevant instants.
The whole idea here is to drop defensive dudes and draw cards, using your countermagic and Path to Exiles to stop anything particularly threatening. Mind Spring and Mulldrifters help you refill, and Baneslayers should finish them off quite rapidly. Ponders should let you get away with only 24 lands, and I even have two Gargoyle Castles to give you a little more gas. The Castle is sick, and most decks need to examine their manabase to see if they can fit some in.
So this is a decent start, but we have some questions to answer. Most new decks have a similar set of questions; namely, what is this deck doing that other decks don’t already do, and why is this deck leaving out some powerful cards or synergies that similar decks often play?
Why not just play all five colors?
This is a pretty valid question, since we have a few more months with Vivid lands, filter lands, and Reflecting Pools to make playing five colors really easy. There are a few advantages to playing straight UW:
-Your lands all come into play untapped, with the exception of the one Wanderwine Hub (since I assume Glacial Fortress comes in untapped past the first turn most of the time).
-You aren’t as vulnerable to Anathemancer and Fulminator Mage. This isn’t that big an advantage, since I expect Anathemancer to be a little less popular now, and you still have enough nonbasics that it will do a few points of damage here and there.
-Your mana is better, since even with all the Vivids and filters, 5-CC sometimes runs into color issues. This UW deck shouldn’t.
-Since you aren’t running Cascade, you aren’t losing that many cards that you want to play. Besides Cruel Ultimatum and Esper Charm, you really only are missing out on Volcanic Fallout.
Verdict: I’m fine going with two colors here, as I still get to play all the cards I really want to play.
Why not play Reveillark?
Like I said earlier, by not playing Lark you get to ditch some of the weaker enablers like Meddling Mage and Sower of Temptation. I also like opening slots to add Broken Ambitions and Remove Soul, since the lack of instants was one of Lark’s weaknesses. Baneslayer definitely has to potential to be a bigger impact play than Lark on turn 5, since it defends much better against a horde of creatures than a Reveillark. Now that Wrath of God is gone, having a card that almost singlehandedly halts an offense seems like a must.
Verdict: I’m less sure about this point, since Lark is one of the better engines available in Standard. I do like the stopping power of Baneslayer, but it doesn’t quite have the longevity of recurring Mulldrifters over and over.
Besides the specific questions like this, there are the general matchup-based ones that every deck has to answer. One bright spot is that M10 looks like it will drive the percentage of Faeries even lower than it was previously, which wasn’t all that high. Lightning Bolt and Great Sable Stag will do their part, and that should make the overall field much better for a deck such as this one. This isn’t the first time people have predicted the demise of Faeries, but it is certainly the first time that I have started to believe it. Just thinking about Great Sable Stag off a Bloodbraid Elf makes me want to leave Bitterblossoms at home.
This has the tools to beat the aggressive decks, although a lot of that hinges on the power of the Angels (both Baneslayer and Seraph). If they are as good as they look, this sort of deck will have a future in Standard, although it is certainly possible for it to look fairly different.
So that is my first brew of a sort of UW Angel control. I don’t advocate just playing this immediately in a tournament, but it is a good place to start, and until I start testing in earnest, it’s what I got. Anytime you try and make a new deck (or evaluate one that someone else is proposing), you should ask these questions, and try and make sure you are doing something either better or different than what is currently being played. If not, well, it’s back to the drawing board!
LSV
Isn’t Baneslayer Angel too vulnerable for current removal? Path to Exile, Maelstrom Pulse, the new Terror.
Basically any deck except Mono-Red has a decent way to get rid of it. I’m not saying that it’s not a very good card, but except this you can’t really put pressure.
Comment by Alexandru Dimitriu — July 6, 2009 @ 2:36 am
[ Later Edit] Doesn’t Finks actually fit really well in this deck ?
Comment by Alexandru Dimitriu — July 6, 2009 @ 2:37 am
For the UW (non-Lark) control did you ever think of maybe Fathom Trawl to replace Tidings. It “draws” one less, but will not give you land. Because i was thinking it a worth testing replacement for Tidings in the deck i had it in.
Comment by Jake — July 6, 2009 @ 2:56 am
I like drawing lands later, and my experiences with Fathom Trawl haven’t been overly positive. It might be ok in a lower curve deck (Gerry used to like it in Fae), but in a deck with fairly pricey cards I think lands are mostly fine. Plus, that’s what Gargoyle Castle is for!
Comment by lsv — July 6, 2009 @ 3:17 am
Testing this deck and it seems quite powerful. It does seem to have a fairly hard time against a resolved planeswalker, especially if your opponent is already pressuring you. Mind spring is really powerful, but finding the right turn to cast it can be tricky. I don’t think hallowed burial would improve it, as the biggest problem after tapping out for mind spring would be a planeswalker or a powerful spell like Cruel Ultimatum. Negates for the sideboard are probably a good idea, perhaps even in the main to protect your creatures from removal. For that reason seraph and baneslayer are definite fours-of, there’s just too much cheap removal around at the moment.
Comment by Thomas Rickarby — July 6, 2009 @ 3:40 am
^ It would be nice if there were more cheap answers to cast on the turn you cast a mind spring.
Comment by Thomas Rickarby — July 6, 2009 @ 3:44 am
I really hope UW Angel Control becomes a staple in the new standard, hopefully getting support in Zendikar. I like how it’s themed and I’ve missed having a good UW Control deck for a long time.
Comment by Lyzl — July 6, 2009 @ 6:34 am
Why am I getting twitter updates on the RSS feed? Is this intentional? Any way for me to turn it off?
Comment by Lifer — July 6, 2009 @ 6:41 am
i put together a list very similar to this a few days ago. a few cards i also tested that weren’t mentioned were:
stillmoon cavalier(good vs. kithkin & leech), wall of rev (seraph), silence(cast after mind spring), jace(alternative to mind spring).
i tested against post m10 kithkin. kithkin can be blazing fast right now… however, the deck seems good. I also went 2 color thinking about mancer and better mana. however, am still thinking about going vivid and playing something like ajaniV maybe? cruel maybe? too early to tell.
good article lsv. thanks!
-john
Comment by scratty — July 6, 2009 @ 8:07 am
Hey did you think about running 4x w/u borderpost and 4x knight of the white orchid. A turn 4 baneslayer would be quite terrifying
Comment by Ralph — July 6, 2009 @ 8:35 am
Wouldn’t Jace Beleren be a better draw spell than Mind Spring? Although it takes a little while to accrue the CA, at least you wouldn’t have to tap completely out to land the thing.
Also… no borderposts? I guess the Hub turns out to be the same most of the time.
Comment by captshetz — July 6, 2009 @ 8:59 am
Yeah my concern looking at a list like this is that your guys are super important and you’re usually going to be looking to them sticking around to justify having tapped out to play them. If your opponent spends W to remove that guy and continue laying the beats, it might be trouble.
I was also thinking about Fathom Trawl but at 3UU you’re getting the same number of cards with Spring yet not showing any of them to your opponent. Plus, sometimes you just gotta play the 1UU Spring or the 6UU Spring at which point it’s far more versatile than Fathom Trawl.
I was also assuming that resolved Planeswalkers would be a pain. Some number of Oblivion Rings might be nice, but another concern I had was that you can’t do anything about something important that’s resolved other than Path it, of which there are only 3. Could something like 2 Planar Cleansing possibly solve these issues? It’s certainly pricey, but the deck is built to withstand a considerable amount of early-game pressure. It might just be nice to have a reset button if something goes wrong on a turn you’ve tapped out.
Comment by Seryph — July 6, 2009 @ 9:09 am
Why not Jace instead of Mind Spring? With Plumeveils and other defensive drops, he seems better than Mind Spring, as he doesn’t require you to tap out.
Comment by Nick — July 6, 2009 @ 9:17 am
what about a mono red burn with Ball lightning and lightning bolt?
Comment by Travis Cullum — July 6, 2009 @ 9:42 am
I was in that standard event with you LSV. Watching some of your replays it was pretty sick vs the mono white kithkin deck when you chamioped sower, traded the clique with figure, got it back, and then took his cloudgoat.
Comment by Jason — July 6, 2009 @ 9:49 am
Now the real question. Why start playing these kind of control decks when you could play Faeries and stomp them? I don’t see any kind of force making Faeries suddenly bad and if your matchup against white aggro was already decent, there’s nothing to gain with these UW concoctions.
I suspect the writers themselves start this claims of “Faeries are dead” just to induce some players to bring their control builds, so then the can pick the winged menace and win while yelling “Who said Faeries are dead, huh? Who dared?”.
Comment by javert — July 6, 2009 @ 12:09 pm
Trust me, I really would like to play fae. But I don’t promote a deck like this in order to make that better, for a few reasons.
I really do think Fae will have a hard time with alot of the new cards, and losing Warhammer certainly doesn’t help.
Also, it isn’t like me writing this article will make a ton of people instantly dismiss Fae and play this, since I expect most people at a tournament like Nationals will do at least a little of their own testing and draw their own conclusions, and if they don’t then they probably didn’t have a great shot anyway.
Comment by lsv — July 6, 2009 @ 2:11 pm
What about maybe 2 Howling mines? dunno just seems like a good idea 2 me.
Comment by meh — July 6, 2009 @ 4:12 pm
Fae is going to still be strong, i can see it going Grixis for Lightning Bolt. Because the bolt can take out the Stable Stag that will be in a lot of sideboards.
And i see what you’re saying about Trawl in decks with a higher curve. I was going to test a variant of your idea. I was thinking Finks, but with the Seraph not sure if they are needed as the Seraph can provide as much, or more, life. But sometimes that one turn can be huge. i might Sideboard them in case i fight a quick red deck, like the Blood-Lightning deck that people are talking about.
Comment by Jake — July 6, 2009 @ 4:16 pm
Trip Noose in Fae SB. Nuff said
Comment by dowjonzechemical — July 6, 2009 @ 4:40 pm
I like your idea, and I concur that those two angels in particular seem solid enough to have a control deck built around them.
I took your initial thoughts, and played around with the numbers a bit. Personally, i’d prefer more actual lands than 24 + 3 ponder. I also feel that Jace is going to be a better fit for the deck than mindspring. Anyways, here is the list i was testing:
// Lands
4 [M10] Glacial Fortress
4 [SHM] Mystic Gate
8 [MI] Island (1)
6 [6E] Plains (3)
3 [M10] Gargoyle Castle
// Creatures
4 [M10] Baneslayer Angel
4 [M10] Guardian Seraph
4 [SHM] Plumeveil
4 [LRW] Mulldrifter
3 [LRW] Jace Beleren
// Spells
4 [LRW] Cryptic Command
4 [LRW] Broken Ambitions
2 [M10] Negate
2 [M10] Essence Scatter
4 [CFX] Path to Exile
// Sideboard
SB: 2 [M10] Negate
SB: 4 [CFX] Celestial Purge
SB: 2 [M10] Planar Cleansing
SB: 3 [CFX] Wall of Reverence
SB: 2 [EVE] Hallowed Burial
SB: 2 [CS] Flashfreeze
Comment by Nicholas Gulledge — July 6, 2009 @ 4:56 pm
what about hindering light? It can’t counter planeswalkers like negate, but it protects your dudes, counters cruel ultimatum and draws a card.
Comment by el — July 6, 2009 @ 7:37 pm
The deck seems pretty solid, I agree that fae will likely see alot of hate for the next 3 months, but they can easily splash white for path and just bring back peppersmoke if ball lightning truly poses a threat..
Comment by tony — July 6, 2009 @ 7:52 pm
“Trip Noose in Fae SB. Nuff said”
id like to comment on this
Thats a horrible idea why?
Fae a tempo based deck does now want to have to spend 2 mana each turn bc then they cant counter and or cast actually threats they need to win
Comment by Ralph — July 6, 2009 @ 9:04 pm
@ Ralph
All ideas are horrible until you try to apply them…
I don’t know what more to say here.
Except Trip Noose, while maybe not being the most tempo of plays, certainly deals with Hellsparks and Ball Lightnings too. Also, SB creates different situations for different decks. I’d think Fae should be audibled to control in g2 because Red decks are faster, whichi means Fae need to get bigger, and this could slow some bleeding.
+ The only ideas I have seen for Fae to deal with the Stag is to
1. Chump with Mutavault + Scion (not definition tempo, and mathematically awkward)
2. Mirrorweave a random dork and chump (see above for tempo analysis)
3. Splash R or W for removal (likely. but, in my experience, splashing a 3rd color in Fae is the worst thing in the world :inconsistent mana bases:)
4. Race (the most likely). Problem with that is that Elves! will bring this in after SB, which can inundate the board enough to get in there for enough damage to put you on an 2 turn clock even if you somewhat stabilize. R/G seems viable now too. See Volcanic Fallout, Bloodbraid Elf, Great Sable Stag, Lightning Bolt, burn, etc, etc
I hope this was clear as to why I would suggest such a horrible card. Fae becomes a little more of a control deck with M10, at least my build will. Good luck with yours!!
Comment by dowjonzechemical — July 6, 2009 @ 10:05 pm
Trip Noose seems too mana intensive, since spending 2 a turn is going to lose you the game pretty fast. I wish I could just play something as loose as Steel Wall..
Jace might be better than Mind Spring, or possibly a mix of the two. I would want at least one Spring, just to have a sick card to topdeck, but maybe three is too many.
Comment by lsv — July 7, 2009 @ 12:38 am
Another thing I have noticed about this deck: if you can bait removal out of their hand with a plumeveil, you are doing pretty well. User Warning: only works against instant speed removal.
Dropping Jace with an empty board and plum[i]evil[/i] mana up might be fun too.
Comment by Thomas Rickarby — July 7, 2009 @ 5:31 am
What about Runed Halo?
Comment by Chris — July 8, 2009 @ 4:01 am
Ever thought about Godhead of Awe…with the Seraph they are never dealing damage to you but you can get beats with godhead not or force removal that would otherwise be used on the Angel
Comment by Kevin — July 8, 2009 @ 6:14 pm
here is a list that I have been testing with. I do really like your additions of the Guardian Seraph, I personally may use them for a SB.
4x Baneslayer Angel
4x Cryptic Command
4x Silence
2x Hallowed Burial
1x Planar Cleansing
4x Harm’s Way
3x Sleep
2x Path to Exile
4x Broken Ambitions
4x Ponder
3x Snakeform
4x Glacial Fortress
4x Mystic Gate
3x Gargoyle Castle
8x Island
6x Plains
Personally I think that Silence in this format if played during the upkeep or at the beginning of the turn is way to good not to play in this environment. The same goes for the underrated Sleep. Sleep is so great. With, Hallowed Burial, Planar Cleansing, Sleep, and the possible Cryptic Command you have a lot of ways to sweep or stall long enough to find actual answers. Personally I think that Snakeform is a poor version or a repulse, but in this case you can wait for your opponent to attack turn it into a snake and block with the angel, or you can combo with Harm’s Way to kill the creature.
I liked the ideas of Jace, Mulldrifter, and Mind Spring. I tested with Jace and Mindspring. I think Jace is the more tempo based card, because as many stated above you can’t afford to tap out that often to Mindspring no matter the turn.
I also think that in a deck with very few creatures like this one, could use a card like Hindering Light to gain advantage to all the removal that will be headed the Baneslayer Angel’s way, but I can’t find a place for them.
Comment by RichMan — July 16, 2009 @ 2:36 pm
Hi,
What do you think of elite vanguard as a turn one to put pressure on 5cc and make him use a removal?
Followed by an orchid knight ?
Comment by Bapt — July 29, 2009 @ 4:42 pm