Crushing with Koros

I’d much rather be playing Extended at this point, but I had a Midwest Masters Series event in Minneapolis coming up, so I had to switch focus to Standard. A couple articles ago, I mentioned a Standard tournament that I played in with a Boros brew from me and Michael Jacob.

I liked a lot of aspects of the deck and decided to keep working on it. I kept having good results, and I seemed favored vs. everything that wasn’t Jund or Naya, although even those matchups were pretty close.

Here’s what I played at the Masters, which was dubbed “Koros“ by the ggslive.com viewers:

This is not your father’s Boros deck, and by that I mean, it isn’t a suicidal aggressive deck looking to end the game as quickly as possible. Sure, there is certainly that element present with Lynxes and Geopedes, but I’m not packing a lot of burn to finish them off. In the current Standard format, it is far more effective to create a positive board state for yourself rather than deal them damage as quickly as possible with Goblin Guide and Hellspark Elemental.

I use Steppe Lynx, Plated Geopede, and Adventuring Gear to put pressure on my opponent in the first few turns. Should you draw enough fetchlands, they will be forced to chump block relatively early. If they play something that’s too big, you can use Journey to Nowhere or Oblivion Ring to get it out of the way. Ranger of Eos for Goblin Bushwacker and another one drop, usually Kitesail Apprentice, can sneak in the last few points of damage.

However, there aren’t a whole lot of Lynxes or Geopedes in the deck, so sometimes your game plan is a little slower. You cast a Stoneforge Mystic or Gear on turn two and suit it up on turn three, or you can search for Basilisk Collar if you have a Cunning Sparkmage in hand.

The One-Drops

Steppe Lynx is an automatic four-of, and you need the singleton Bushwacker for Ranger of Eos. The rest of my little guys typically get made fun of a lot, but I’ve been reasonably satisfied with them. The Kitesail Apprentice has been pretty awesome, as sometimes you just want to Ranger for a flier.

Kor Duelist isn’t quite an all-star, but in a straight up comparison to Goblin Guide or Elite Vanguard, the Duelist wins. In the first couple turns, doing one damage compared to two damage is comparable, and once the Duelist gets equipped, it’s obviously a much better card. Half their life is gone on the first swing, and then they have to start chumping with every other attack phase past that.

I had one Goblin Guide to Ranger for against Ajani Vengeant or Jace, but with Bushwacker and the fact that those planeswalkers don’t do much against me anyway, I decided I didn’t need it.

Four Ranger of Eos is a must. The post-Ranger Bushwacker turn is responsible for a large percentage of your wins. It’s possible that you might want a second Bushwacker, but they usually just die after the first one and you don‘t really like to draw it. There have been times where I’ve wanted a second, but that’s just because I drew the Bushwacker early and didn’t have enough discipline to hold it, or I moved in on Bushwacker-ing them a turn too early.

The Mystic Package

Initially, I had more Gears, less Mystics, then less Gears, more Mystics, and now I’m somewhere in the middle. I don’t want to naturally draw more than one of each Gear or Mystic in game one which should explain the numbers that I chose.

Sigil of Distinction is my choice for the card I’ll get in the late game. A lot of people like Trusty Machete, but all of those people are wrong. I would much rather have Adventuring Gear or even Hammer of Ruin than the Machete.

Basilisk Collar is overrated and not that great by itself. If it weren’t for how insane Cunning Sparkmage is right now, I wouldn’t even bother playing with it. The fact of the matter is Sparkmage is absurd against all the Green decks right now, and with access to a lot of Collars, your matchups against those decks are great. I sideboard the second Collar in case the first one is destroyed.

One of the reasons I think this deck is so good right now is that the green decks are really skimping on answers to Sparkmage, which leads to a lot of free wins for Koros.

The Removal Suite

I chose a removal package similar to the Boss Naya deck, except eventually I cut Lightning Bolt. There just isn’t anything in this format that I want to Bolt except maybe Cunning Sparkmage. I would rather have Journey to Nowhere or Oblivion Ring than Path to Exile because I still don’t like giving my opponent lands. If my deck were a mindless aggro deck, that would be fine, but I don’t really want to kill their Knight and accelerate them into a Baneslayer.

Earthquake was a late addition, and one that I really liked. It really helps against Naya and the mirror, while being solid against Jund. If they have Siege-Gang, you have a card that can actually trade one for one with it! Sometimes they will play around Lightning Bolt, but not worry about getting Fireballed out, and that definitely works to your advantage.

The Lands

I started with 25, despite most Boros lists having 23 or 24. Especially with Adventuring Gear in your deck, you want to make every single land drop you can. It got to the point where I even added a 26th and I couldn’t be happier about that decision. I even have a pair of Tectonic Edges so that I have a little something to do with my extra lands.

I see a lot of Boros lists with Teetering Peaks, but that’s basically the same thing as Terramorphic Expanse except you can’t get white mana from it.

The Sideboard

I’ve tried a few different Jund plans, mostly land destruction to keep them off of five or six mana, or protection bears to dodge their removal. The problem with siding stuff like White Knight or Kor Firewalker is that they should have Deathmark, Pyroclasm, or Infest, in addition to Lightning Bolt and Maelstrom Pulse. While you might have protection from a third of their deck, Jund has enough varied removal spells that they really shouldn’t threaten Jund all that much. If they were bigger than two power, maybe they have more of an impact, but I’m looking at getting more from my sideboard cards.

So far the land destruction plan has worked the best. Broodmate Dragon is the card I most fear vs. Jund, as I can trade with basically any other threat that they play. I could beat a single 4/4 flier, but two of them is often too much.

Kor Sanctifiers are for opposing Oblivion Rings and equipment. They are just the type of utility you need in order to answer the variety of threats that Standard presents.

The Stingers, Mystic, and Collar are to further solidify the “Build a Visara” against decks like Bant and Naya. I considered Stun Sniper over Vithian Stinger, and probably would have been happier with Sniper overall.

The second Elspeth is for control decks, the Quake is for Naya, the mirror, and other creature decks, and the Baneslayers are brought in against a wide variety of decks. Most opponents underestimate your late game potential, so they will burn early removal spells to save 3-5 damage. They think that if they just reach the late game with a high life total, they should be fine, but then you can start dropping bombs like Ranger of Eos, Baneslayer, or even Cunning Sparkmage, and they are in deep trouble. I had Firewalkers in this spot, but I figured Baneslayer would help against Jund and I’d be able to bring it in in more matchups.

So how did I do? The tournament was over 230 players, which meant 9 rounds. That completely exceeded my expectations for the size of the event.

I was 5-0 until I ran afoul of Julian Booher in a feature match. He was playing Naya, not a great matchup, but his lack of Sejiri Steppe cost him game one. I was pretty deep in the tank. I had a Duelist with Gear, a Mystic, and a Geopede with a fetchland I could play vs. his big, untapped Knight and three other dorks. I also had a Quake in my hand and was trying to figure out the best way to maximize the situation. Maybe I had to attack first and get him to use the Steppe to kill my Duelist, and then I could Quake all his guys away, or maybe I should Quake first, get him to maybe use his Steppe and then attack him.

I eventually decided to Quake first, and then his Knight chumped my double striker. Turns out he didn’t have a Steppe in his deck at all.

Still, game two he got a really fast start with turn two Knight, turn three Bloodbraid and I couldn’t come back. In the final game, I finally drew a fifth land to play Baneslayer and could tell he didn’t have an answer. He cast Bloodbraid with a Mountain open, and hit the sole Lightning Bolt in his deck to go with the one in his hand. I even had Kor Sanctifiers in hand if he hit an Oblivion Ring! Instead, my Angel died and when he peeled a Journey to Nowhere to remove my Collared Sanctifiers, I was dead.

I managed to win out and draw into the Top Eight, where everyone was excitedly talking about the possibility of a split, but I was having none of it. What is the point of playing for 9 rounds only to walk away with $400?

I did my best to make a match out of what I was given against Jund in the Top Eight, but couldn’t cut it. I kept two landers in games one and three and literally never drew a third in each. In game two, I got to four mana and he couldn’t possibly win.

I walked away with only $150, but I don’t regret my decision in the least. I’d rather have the chance to win a lot of money than be forever content with mediocrity.

My Koros list performed pretty well overall, with another two copies in the Top 16, and the person I beat playing for Top 8 finishing in 17th. That’s quite the performance, but I don’t feel like the deck will be good for long. Once you stop getting free wins from Cunning Sparkmage, your matchups become a lot worse.

Jund

The boogeyman, and probably your worst matchup. If they have a whole lot of Deathmarks you are probably in trouble, assuming they are smart enough to keep their Broodmate Dragons in so that, you know, they can actually kill you. Malakir Bloodwitch is another problem card.

From the above list, take out 2 Kor Duelist, 4 Cunning Sparkmage, 1 Basilisk Collar, and 2 Oblivion Rings for 4 Goblin Ruinblaster, 1 Elspeth, 1 Stoneforge Mystic, and 3 Baneslayer Angels. Quakes are fine against Siege-Gang and Thrinax tokens, since they usually chump the first chance they get anyway. It’s also a way to end the game once they have stabilized the board. Maybe you should keep in a split of Ring and Journey since you don’t get them both Pulsed, as that happened to me in the Top 8, although I was pretty dead already.

Boss Naya

Another close one, but I think you’re the slight favorite here. Earthquake is such a gigantic beating against them, and they don’t have nearly as much removal as Jund does. You will likely be a favorite in the early game, but as the game progresses, you run the risk of losing to their card advantage from Bloodbraid and Ranger (if they keep those in).

It’s been mentioned other places, but the turn you cast Cunning Sparkmage, you should probably not use it to kill a Noble Hierarch, as tempting as that may be. If they Sparkmage your Sparkmage, you could be in a world of trouble.

+ 1 Earthquake, 3 Baneslayer Angel, 2 Vithian Stinger, 1 Basilisk Collar, 2 Kor Sanctifiers, 1 Stoneforge Mystic

- 2 Kor Duelist, 2 Adventuring Gear, 1 Goblin Bushwacker, 3 Ranger of Eos, 1 Kitesail Apprentice, 1 Elspeth

I don’t like cutting the Ranger package, but everything else is better. You aren’t really looking to beat down so much as assemble the tinger + Collar combo. Post board, you are almost certainly the control deck, despite having the ability to race.

UW Control

A pretty easy matchup. They can’t deal with your fast starts and have virtually no outs to a post DoJ Ranger for Bushwacker.

+ 2 Kor Sanctifiers, 1 Stoneforge Mystic, 4 Goblin Ruinblaster, 1 Elspeth

- 4 Cunning Sparkmage, 1 Basilisk Collar, 2 Earthquake, 1 Kitesail Apprentice

They have Kor Firewalkers, but they don’t really do a whole lot. Still, potential Baneslayers could get you, so the Journeys probably have to stay. The matchup is good enough where you can keep in a few situational cards to ensure that you don’t get blown out by their random sideboard cards.

Yes, I side in Stoneforge Mystic in nearly every matchup. No, I don’t want four maindeck.

GL!

GerryT

Hello!

This is part two of my San Diego report. Part one can be found here.

When last I left you, I had just gone 4-1 in the Standard portion, which was certainly good but left me somewhat mad, as I had lost on the last round. No matter your record, you always get a taste of sour grapes if you lost the last round – if I had gone 0-1, 4-1, then I would have been delighted with the same record, but as it was I kept thinking about the 5-0 that I had NOT gone.

Part of the reason for that was that I was much less confident in my Draft performance. Historically speaking I’ve always done better in Constructed than in Limited, and I really think I am much better in the first one, but lately things have just began falling apart – since Shards was released, my Limited record in all the events dropped somewhat dramatically. That did not chance with either M10 or Zendikar. To me, that meant I would like to have a good reserve of wins in the Constructed part so that I could lose my certain losses in the Limited one, so each Constructed loss hurt a little bit more.

That said, 4-1 was not a bad record or anything, so I moved to my draft table, who had some people that I knew and some people that I didn’t.

My first pick was Marsh Casualties over Eldrazi Monument, and my second and third picks were Inferno Trap and Punishing Fire, which felt great because I really like removal and I like BR, but it also put me into the “you already have good removal so you can devalue them now and should look for better creatures”. My fourth pick had nothing in either red or black, so I took a Reckless Scholar that was lying around – it seems I like this card more than most people, and I am not sure why – looters have always been good, and though he is not that good in this format, because it is a little bit faster and you have use for extra lands in landfall, he is still not bad – he has a passable body and a good ability, especially for decks who end up without many landfall cards, such as mine. I got some other black and blue cards, a Heartstabber Mosquito, a Giant Scorpion (that I picked over Surrakar Marauder because my deck felt like it was going to be more defensive than aggressive), Aether Figment, another Scholar, and I ended pack one in the awkward position where I have three colors but don’t really know which one two I am going to use. At this point I think I am almost certainly playing Bx, but I don’t know which other color – my red cards are better and I want to play BR, but I have more blue cards and I might not be able to afford BR, since I don’t have that many black cards to begin with.

My second pack offered me Hideous End, and then I got passed my second Marsh Casualties. I see close to no red, and by the end of pack two I only have the Inferno Trap, the Punishing Fire and a Tuktuk Grunts, which means I am very likely going to be in either UB or UBr. I get passed a pack with an unplayable card, a Steppe Lynx (!) and an Expedition Map as the three cards left, and I pick the Map because I might have to splash something and I have no fixers at that point.

Pack three offers me Smother pack 1, and then pack 2 I have the choice of Tideforce Elemental and Shoreline Salvager. I understand that the Elemental is a more powerful card, and combos especially well with Marsh Casualties, but at this point I thought I had so much removal that the 3/3 Ophidian was going to connect more often than not, and would then draw me into more removal so that he could connect more often. This was a flawed thought, because I still had the mindset I had after my first picks – that I had a lot of removal, and then I got another Marsh Casualties and a Hideous End and a Smother – but that was under the assumption that I was going to play those red cards, which I likely wasn’t. The situation had changed a little bit, but when I made this pick I was still operating with my “old” mindset – I should have picked the Elemental.

After that I got a bunch of good cards, and my deck ended up like this:

I kind of liked my deck – it was not super powerful, but it had some powerful cards and the removal was really solid. It was also somewhat lacking in a curve, with only two drops that cost 2 or less (counting Smother as a drop there), but made up for that with two Marsh Casualties. Overall I thought this was a 2-1 deck.

Round 6: Gaudenis
Gau was by far the most threatening player in the table, so I was not overly pleased to have to play against him, but oh well, I am at the Pro Tour I suppose.

We both start the games fairly slow, and it turns out he is playing BR with a bunch of removal. He pauses on turn three and passes without a play, so I kind of know he has Torch Slinger in his hand, which is bad news since it’s really good against my two Wasp hand. Game one we exchange some removal spells and we are racing, me with an Aether Figment and him with a couple of guys, and I draw about 5 lands in a row. When he attacks, I decide to use my last spell, a Hideous End, to kill his Torch Slinger, because it doesn’t look like I’m going to have many targets and those two points are going to matter. Then he plays Grotag Thrasher, and it looks a bit awkward – I was operating under the assumption that I was going to race him if he didn’t play anything, but if he did then I would always be able to leave my Figment back to block – the Thrasher made neither of this possible, I don’t topdeck anything and die.

Game two he again has Torch Slinger for my first play, and it looks like I am going to win the race when he plays the 5/4 guy that pseudo-propagandas, which means I can’t attack because I have to play something, and then when he attacks I have to trade with two dudes, effectively swinging everything. The dust clears and he has only Torch Slinger in play to my nothing, but then he finds Corrupted Zendikon. I draw Whiplash Trap, which is super awkward because I have to bounce his Torch Slinger as well, which makes it almost sure that the next creature I play is going to die, but I have to do it anyway as my life total is dangerously low. We play draw-go for a while and then he finds Guul Draz Vampire and I Heartstabber Mosquito it, which he Torch Slingers. I finally draw a Mysteries of the Deep, and I play that and find three spells, two of which are 3/3s and the other a removal, and it looks like I am gaining control of the game. Then he plays a seventh Mountain and Spire Barrages me for 7. Frown.

0-2
4-2

Round 7: this round I played against a guy with GW. Game one my Shoreline Salvager gets hit by Pitfall Trap, and I am forced to chump-attack with my Vampire Lacerator into his Nissa’s Chosen so I can clear that plus 2/1 swampwalker with Marsh Casualties for 1. He plays Bestial Menace, but I have Whiplash Trap (for the trap cost no less!) to leave him with only a 1/1, but he just keeps playing more and more guys and I just die.

Game two was very frustrating. I start with Blood Seeker and another guy, followed by a 3/3 Aether Figment, and he keeps playing land after land, but I keep drawing land after land (I know right, every time!). He plays a small guy that trades with my other dude, and then plays a 2/1 swampwalker. I don’t really care that he is going to attack me – I am at 20 – and I figure that if I attack he will just block, and I would rather my Blood Seeker to live, so I attack with just the unblockable 3/3, putting him to 9 life. On his turn he attacks me down to 18 and plays Novablast Wurm, going to 8. On my turn I can do nothing but attack him down to 5, and on his turn he attacks with the Wurm. I immediately draw Aether Tradewinds, but by then it’s too late, as I don’t have anything else and bouncing his guy does nothing but buy me a turn in which I don’t draw removal.

It should be noted that his play of attacking me with his 2/1 – which does not change my clock at all since his only guy that is going to attack for the rest of the game is a 7/7 – is terrible and almost cost him the game. Imagine if I had drawn the bounce spell one turn earlier – or several turns earlier, as I had a bunch of cards in hand and he couldn’t know they were all lands, one of them could well be a bounce spell – then I would be able to bounce his Wurm and attack for four, putting him on four life – which means he cannot replay the Wurm or he dies to Blood Seeker + Figment. If he just holds back his 2/1 to block my 1/1, then I can only attack him down to five, as I did, which means he can play the Wurm, go to four, and wrath with it once he is at one life.

0-2
4-3

Sooo, I had to win my last round. Only one person was not going to make it from our entire table… was that person going to be me?

Round 8 I was on the play, and I had the awesome hand of 3 lands, Vampire Lacerator, Blood Seeker, Reckless Scholar, Reckless Scholar. To make things better, my opponent went Forest, Island, Plains, Oran-Rief Survivalist. I have not drawn a spell yet at this point, but I attack rather than loot, since I just want to get his life total down because of Blood Seeker. He passes with no play either, and I attack him again. Eventually he finds a land and plays a guy, and I get very frustrated because he is very low and I have literally not drawn a spell. I may sound a bit whiny, but there were so many gigantic land clumps in those matches it made me feel very frustrated – it’s not like I drew 3 land in a row once, it’s 5 or more at least once per round.

At some point, after drawing and looting for lands for what seems like forever, I finally draw a removal spell and he dies.

Game two I die with four lands in play and a hand consisting of every 5 and 6 casting cost card in my deck. This is actually not a complaint (unlike the other one), because I knew my deck had a bunch of 5s and that was bound to happen at some point.
Game three I have a hand of 5 lands and two Marsh Casualties, and I think a lot about it. I think most people would have instantly kept this hand (and most people I asked did), and in the end I think I just have to keep – though I can certainly configure a bunch of draw sequences that will leave me demolished. It helps that he had seen no Marsh Casualties and has no particular reason for playing around it, and certainly no reason to play around the second one.

My first draw step is the best possible – Reckless Scholar. That means I am at least very likely not flooding to death. My first Marsh Casualties catches him somewhat off guard, and he says “ooooo”, like the Japanese do all the time. After that he also floods horribly, and I am full of cards in hand, so I know barring something very unusual he can’t realistically win. He plays Wolfbriar Elemental for three, which means he takes four from Blood Seeker, and I Marsh Casualties again, and this time he goes “OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.” Then he reveals his hand of three lands and scoops.

Yay.

So, I was in day 2, although with the worst possible record. As I’ve said, I would probably have been really mad if I had lost the last round to finish 5-3, but since I was 4-3 and had to win I was happy for the moment.

I started day 2 with Turntimber Basilisk over nothing very good (an Elemental Appeal was in the pack), which I believe to be a somewhat underrated card – now with Explore he is even better (though fewer Harrows). I then got a Nissa’s Chosen and just kept getting green cards, though they were not super exciting. By the end of pack 2, my only reason to be mono-green was Primal Bellow, which is clearly not enough reason, but I simply didn’t have cards in any other colors.

I go to pack 3 expecting to pick something like 3 Arbor Elf and 2 Leatherback Baloth, because it seems like no one is green, but I am forced to open the in somewhat overrated but still very good Basilisk Collar. Pack two sees me getting passes Bestial Menace, and pack six (!) another one, kind of confirming that not many people are in green in my table. I fail to get more than one Arbor Elf, but I do get an Explore and an Everflowing Chalice to help with my curve issues – again, I have quite a bit of fives. This is how it ended up:

This has some pretty powerful cards, though it has the obvious flaw of not being able to deal with creatures very well. It does have a Feral Contest, which is not my favorite card in the world but in this deck seems fine, as it curves well with my two and three drops (Oran-Rief Recluse for example is capable of killing most things on turn four as a 2/4), a Basilisk and the two Recluses, as well as the Soaring Seacliffs to enable you to kill anything, so I am not as helpless as it would seem. I do have a but clump of 5 drops, but I can’t really bring myself to cut Territorial Baloth for Joraga Bard, even if it is an Elf and all that. I do have two in the board though, so I keep that in mind for fast decks. I also have a Slingbow Trap.

Round 9: Charles (Aceman) – again I get paired round 1 against the most threatening opponent in the table. He makes some jokes about one of us dying very fast, and that depending on how many Goblin Guides he draws, and I decide that he is actually serious, since I did pass two Elemental Appeal and a Goblin Guide in his direction.

He is on the play and I have an opening hand of Basilisk Collar, Bestial Menace, Everflowing Chalice and four lands, which I keep. He starts with Plated Geopede into Ruinous Minotaur into Shatterskull Giant, when my board is three lands and a Chalice since I drew hits such as Territorial Baloth and Feral Contest. I play my Bestial Menace (and when I do that he exclaims “did you get that 6th pick??”, which shows he was paying attention to the draft – he doesn’t know I have another, though) and he Punishing Fires the 2/2 and attacks with everything, and I kill the Minotaur with my 3/3 and chump the Giant, going to 5. The reason I don’t kill the Giant and chump the Minotaur is that I want to play Territorial Baloth next turn, and I don’t want to block with it – if I don’t kill the Minotaur, then I will have to block with it next turn, whereas the Giant I can afford to take.

Next turn I drop Territorial Baloth and then he attacks with only his Giant, and I don’t block, going to 1. The reason I don’t block is that I have Basilisk Collar in play and Feral Contest in hand, and even if he has Punishing Fire, to kind of prevent Collar from completely turning around the game, I want to connect and kill a guy. He plays Hedron Hover and I draw a great card in Primal Bellow. I play a land, equip my Baloth, Contest it, attack and Primal Bellow to gain 14 life, putting me way out of range. Next turn he plays Goblin Guide and attacks with some stuff, and I don’t attack back because he has Punishing Fire in hand and enough mana to kill my Baloth if I do that – instead I simply play a Baloth Woodcrasher and pass. At the end of the turn he Punishing Fires me, which I think was a mistake – it’s way better for me that he does that, instead of keeping it in his hand to deal with my x/4 guys. On his turn he attacks me with the Giant only, and I reveal the top card of my deck out of habit (because I had done that the last turn for Goblin Guide). I get a warning and then block his guy with my Baloth, and he returns Punishing Fire. On my turn I draw a land, and then he is too far behind.

I board out one Feral Contest and one Territorial Baloth for two Joraga Bards.

Game one I mulligan and as I am shuffling he already has two cards face down in play, one of which is tapping for mana and the other attacking me. I jokingly say it’s probably that multikicker guy, and he says “might be!” As I keep my hand of 6 it turns out it is the Skitter of Lizards, and I take one. I play a Grazing Gladehart on turn three, and on turn four my hand is 2x Bestial Menace, Baloth Cage Trap and Everflowing Chalice. I could play the Chalice for two, but that doesn’t take me anywhere, since I don’t need 6 mana – I would rather play the chalice for one, and keep 2 mana open to play Baloth Cage Trap if he plays an artifact – I know he has at least one, the Hedron Rover, and he might just have equipment, so the option of trapping it seems better than having the mana I don’t need – if I survive, I will probably win with those cards in my hand even if I get stuck on 5 and draw my two six drops.

For that same reason, I block his 2/2 with Gladehart – at this point I already have everything I need to win the game against his mono-red deck, I just have to make sure I don’t die, so since I don’t have any more lands in hand I just block and trade with his guy.
In the end I draw a land each turn for the rest of the game, but it doesn’t matter. When I play my first Bestial Menace, he says he feels like scooping. Next turn I play the second one, and he does that.

2-0
6-3

Round 10: My opponent went Swamp, Swamp, discard Kazandu Blademaster, discard another WW card, die. When will those people learn not to keep those hands?

I didn’t see any fliers, but I boarded in Slingbow Trap, since BW are the colors with the most fliers in the set and he is bound to have some.

Game two he put up a better fight, but in the end couldn’t really beat my bigger guys and just lost. He had a bunch of 2/2 multikicker fliers, and though I didn’t draw my trap it would have been good had that happened, so I was glad with my decision. As it was, my Oran-Rief Recluse was enough to stop all of them.

2-0
7-3

Round 11
My round 11 opponent was playing UB. Game one I have a pressing advantage but hit another gigantic clump of lands, and at some point he has four dudes, one of which is a Sphinx of Jwar Isle. I have Baloth Woodcrasher out and need to draw something good, and I draw Explore, which is great because it makes it so my Baloth cannot be triple blocked. I Explore and play two lands, and attack for 12. We are now at the point where a spell is a good draw and land is a good draw – you know, those situations where you always draw Adventuring Gear or Everflowing Chalice. It does not disappoint and I draw Arbor Elf.

Next turn I draw Primal Bellow, and attack with everything. He blocks all my guys, the Woodcrasher with the Sphinx, so I Primal Bellow just to kill it, which will leave me with a Baloth and him with two 3/3s when the dust is settled, but instead he just scoops his cards. I guess he thought my Baloth had trample, which it does not. Just to clarify before I get random accusations, I at no moment made any motion to imply my guy had trample or that my opponent was dead, I just pointed the pump spell at the Baloth and he scooped – there was even a German (I believe) reporter covering our match.

Whenever something like this happens, I am always torn between telling my opponents they messed up, to try to mega tilt them for the following games, or just not saying anything and hoping the situation comes out again, and if it does it is going to be great for me because I now know that he doesn’t know. In the end, not saying anything always wins out for me, and this time again I remain quiet.

Game two he mulligans to five, and I have a very attractive hand of two lands + Turntimber Basilisk + Harrow. I discard twice and die.

Game three I again get flooded horribly, and my first play of the game is a turn four Territorial Baloth, after Explore. He passes the turn with no play, and play a land and attack, and then he has Hideous End. Now if there was any justice in this world a Vines of Vastwood would have magically appeared in my hand – I mean, why on earth is he waiting for the mono-green to untap before killing the dude he has to kill anyway? What does he think is going to happen, that I am going to Gigantiform it? But that doesn’t happen and my Baloth dies, and he has a turn six Sphinx of Jwar Isle. I believe I manage to successfully convince him that I have Primal Bellow in hand by attacking boldly and counting my lands and his life total in a very amateurish way, which means I get some free attacks past his Sphinx when he is tapped out.

In the end, we get to a point where there are not many matches left, and he passes the turn to me. I have a sequence of hard choices and the judge tells me I have to play faster, so I play something and pass the turn. Next turn I have to do something or I die. We both have a bunch of creatures and I have in hand Soaring Seacliff, Basilisk Collar and Feral Contest. If he doesn’t have anything I am going to win – likely not this turn – but I am going to gain life and then certainly not die, and probably win next turn. It is a very complicated turn, though – al my cards give me a lot of choices. I think that the best play is to Collar one guy, provoke his Surrakar Marauder with another and leave one guy up to block his Nimana Sell-Sword, because this way I give myself the biggest chance of not dying since he needs to stop two of blocker/provoker/lifegainer to kill me (I am at 7 and he still has the Sphinx), but I am very clueless on what to target with all my specific effects. Then the judge interrupts my train of thought to announce I have a warning for slow play. That left me kind of angry, because I didn’t think I was taking that long this particular turn (I was taking long the turn before, when he told me to speed up, but to me not this turn), and it looked like my opponent also took a lot of time in his turns, including looking at the same card multiple times with Sphinx and all that, and the judge never said anything. To me, it honestly felt at the time like the judge didn’t want the tournament to be delayed or anything, and then “preventively” gave me a warning, so I appealed because I thought he was being unreasonable. The HJ came and assured me that was not the case and upheld the warning.

Slow play is always a very tricky business, because sometimes you can’t help feeling like you took half as much time as your opponent during the entire game and then the only moment you pause to think happens to be the one the judge is watching. Having a slow play warning is very annoying, because it makes you rush through all decisions. In this game, I completely lost all my train of thought, and couldn’t really regain it in time, so I thought for a while more and just attacked with everything. He had a bounce spell and I died.

Now it turned out that he also had a Soaring Seacliff, which meant I was dead no matter what I targeted or how I attacked, but I should have made the other play regardless – I’ve been to enough events to not let this kind of thing drive me away from the right play, it’s a shame that I lost all my focus.

After the match I talked to Martin, who was watching the game, and he said I did take a very long time that turn, so if the judge who ruled that happens to be reading, my apologies to you.

1-2
7-4

Losing this round felt especially bad (I know I kind of say that all the rounds I lose, but, hey, losing is always bad) because my opponent simply committed suicide game one, and he just played very awkwardly in many simple situations, like not playing the Hideous End on his turn, or drawing, doing stuff, passing and then, only then, look at the top card of his deck with Sphinx, because, you know, he doesn’t have to know what is on top to make decisions on his turn. It was also frustrating because it effectively threw me out of contention, with my bad breakers and all that.

Well, I was back to Standard, though at this point I knew I had almost no shot of making it even if I won all my matches. That was not really a concern for very long, though…

Round 12: Vampires
Game one I mulligan into Wild Nacatl, Wild Nacatl, Scute Mob, Forest, Misty Rainforest, Misty Rainforest. I figured this gave me a better chance than going to 5, though not really an optimal hand. My opponent was playing Vampires, and went t2 Kalastria Highborn, t3 Vampire Nighthawk, t4 Vampire Nocturnus, and I was stuck with my three 1/1s in play.

-1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
-1 Ajani Vengeant
+1 Baneslayer Angel
+1 Oblivion Ring

Game two was more of a game – he played a Gatekeeper of Malakir for my early guy, and then I dealt with his Vampire Nocturnus with Oblivion Ring. I have a Raging Ravine, but I am 100% sure he has Tendrils of Corruption, so I don’t activate it. I am not actually sure how I was sure he had Tendrils, if it was the way he played or if he showed it to me with the Nocturnus, but I remember I was actively sure. At some point, he played another Nocturnus with a fetchland out, and I consider Tectonic Edging it in response, so that he doesn’t get to filter his draw step or deal me two more damage, but decide that the ability to blow up my Ravine to prevent him from gaining 8ish from his Tendrils is more important. I deal with his Nocturnus, but he just plays another guy and then a Malakir that he was apparently holding I don’t know why, and I just die without playing many things.

0-2
7-5

Round 13: GWb
The first two games are a bit hazy in my mind – I know we split them but I don’t remember how they went. I know that he won a game by Elspething his Knight of the Reliquary.

Game three we both start slowly, but he doesn’t actually play anything, which makes me suspect some sort of Wrath effect. I have in play a Noble Hierarch and a Cunning Sparkmage, but just don’t play anything else, content in dealing two a turn. One turn later, at about 16 life, he plays Day of Judgment. That sent me the message that he definitely had another one, or he would just not have played it in that situation.

Sometime later, I have a Bloodbraid Elf and a Wild Nacatl and he is at 12 and has a Knight of the Reliquary. I can play Oblivion Ring and bash for 6, or I can play Noble Hierarch, Oblivion Ring and then bash for 6. If I just play Ring, it might be that he Paths his own guy in response, and then I will only hit for four – if I play the Hierarch, I can remove that for the ring and still bash for 6. This play has two flaws, though: one is that I am reasonably sure he has another Day of Judgment in hand, and I don’t know if he has Path – if he does not, it looks awkward to play an Hierarch there just do die along with everything else. Two, if he really doesn’t want to take six, he can always let the Ring resolve and Path one of my guys – I don’t need the land and neither does he, and if he does that he only takes three. By playing the Ring first, I ensure at least four damage (because if he has the Path he will definitely path himself) plus I don’t expose my Hierarch to WOG, so it seems like the better play.

I do that, and he Paths his own guy, as “predicted.” I play my Hierarch and he goes to 8. He doesn’t play his Wrath, and we trade some more guys/removal, then he plays Martial Coup, and then Elspeth, and I die. Oops.

Once he played Day of Judgment, it became hard for me to actually play around both of them, though to be honest I don’t know if I could have done anything to prevent it – I don’t think I could, the way things went. Had I known he had both Day of Judgment AND Martial Coup, and also Maelstrom Pulse, maybe I should have boarded in Dauntless Escorts against him, though it’s awkward to overcommit because you have Escort when they can just Path it, so you have to somewhat live in fear anyway, and it’s not really a good threat on its own against them. Basically the reason Escort is good against the UW/r decks is not that they blank Wrath, because they don’t do that, they will just die, the reason they are good is that they add a threat that does not get Wrathed – you can add a guy to the board without worrying that he will be “just another creature that gets Wrathed”, because they have to get rid of him separately anyway. Against GW, all he does is stop Wrath, so he is not that good.

1-2
7-6

Round 14: Shota Yasooka – Jund
Shota is one of the people I like to play against the least, because he always beats me and it’s always very quick and I never have any chance. If you count the team finals in Charleston (though I did not play him), I am 0-4 in matches. He is also one of the most underrated Magic players on the planet – I mean, most people know he is good, but chances are he is much better than you think he is (yes, you).

Game one it looked like we had switched roles, as I played Wild Nacatl, Noble Hierarch, Ajani Vengeant, lock his land and then he scooped without a play.

I sided:
-2 Ajani Vengeant
-3 Lightning Bolt
-1 Path to Exile
+1 Oblivion Ring
+1 Baneslayer Angel
+1 Stoneforge Mystic
+3 Dauntless Escort

Game two was very tricky, and the probable winner kept changing. At some point he played Siege-Gang Commander, but then I played Baneslayer Angel, which trumped it. Then he played Bloodbraid Elf and cascaded into Lightning Bolt, which teamed with a Goblin to kill my Angel and I was suddenly behind again. In the last turn I have to choose between attacking and hope he either panics and kills one of my guys or forgets to attack with his manland, neither of which is very likely, so that then I can topdeck something and kill him next turn, or I can pass and hope he fears I might have something. Basically, both plays require him to make a mistake, but one makes it more likely that I win if he does make a mistake, while at the same time making it much less likely that he makes the mistake, since his decision to attack is much easier if my guys are tapped. Attacking seems just better, though, because with the other play even if he does for some uncanny reason decide not to attack that turn because I have blockers then that is because he is siege-ganging all my guys, and there isn’t much I can reliably draw to beat him once we are in that scenario. I attack, and he makes no mistakes.

Game three I start with a tapland and a Wild Nacatl on turn two, with a Noble Hierarch on three. When I am going to attack he stops me and Terminates my Hierarch, which is much better than killing the Nacatl in this matchup. I then don’t draw a very big amount of lands, and he plays a Master of the Wild Hunt – where are my Bolts now?!

Luckily I have the Oblivion Ring for it, but he has a second one immediately, and when I can’t produce an answer it kills my Birds of Paradise, and that seals the game. I probably sided wrongly here – when we made that board plan, our opposing Jund decks didn’t have Masters. I should have kept something like two Bolts.

1-2
7-7

7-7! I was now playing for perhaps an extra pro point, certainly no money. This was a bit awkward – for the first time in my life, I day 2 a Pro Tour and get no money.

Round 15: WW
My opponent was playing White Weenie.
2-0
8-7

Round 16: Burn
I ask my opponent if he is going to make use of the extra pro point, which is all we are playing for at this point. He asks me if I need it, I say yes. Then he thinks for a bit and says that this is his first pro tour and he wants to play, which I am completely fine with.
I start the game and I have an early Knight of the Reliquary, though I again draw the Sejiri Steppe. I manage to play an Ajani Vengeant, which gets me out of burn range for a while, and then I play Stoneforge Mystic and find a Basilisk Collar and he cannot kill me after that.

-2 Oblivion Ring
-1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
-1 Scute Mob
-3 Ranger of Eos
+4 Cunning Sparkmage
+1 Basilisk Collar
+1 Stoneforge Mystic
+1 Baneslayer Angel

I am not a very big fan of the second Behemoth Sledge here, as it’s kind of clunky and three Stoneforge Mystics should be enough to find one if you really need that – Basilisk Collar is way more efficient here.

Game two he starts with Goblin Guide, but misses his second land drop. I play fetch, Hierarch, which he burns, and then I don’t have a play until turn four, and all of my lands are fetches. I begin to take control of the game, but by then I am already low enough on life that he can just burn me out. I drew Sejiri Steppe this game.

Game three he is stuck on lands a bit again, and I have a powerful draw with Knight of the Reliquary (and its inseparable companion Sejiri Steppe – it almost looks like I glued both together). I also have an Ajani, and once that rules out him burning me out, he is dead. This match is really tough for the burn player, because they don’t have many options other than hoping you don’t have a good draw – if you draw a good mix of lands, creatures and a Lightning Bolt, which is by far your most important card versus them, there isn’t much they can do.

2-1
9-7

So, I ended 9-7, which was good for 94th – battling hard for that last pro point!
After the tournament ended, we went to have dinner, and I was assigned the task of figuring out how Simon would sideboard against Luis. It was somewhat hard to do that, because once I looked at his list it became clear to me that I would take out one of the big guys, since I think 6 is too many, but apparently Simon does not think that, since he was running the 6 in the first place – so what do I do?

In the end, everyone seemed to decide that playing against the Esper deck was more important, because we had no clue what was going on, so I sat by Ben who was piloting it with an all proxy deck against Josh. It was pretty hard to follow up all the proxies, and two people with different styles playing a match does not do much good, so I just wandered away and found a bunch of people playing Catchphrase. I do feel a bit guilty for not having helped more, even if I am not sure what I could have done that would have mattered much in the outcome.

As for the deck, I think it performed well (and numbers clearly indicate that it did), but I don’t think I would play it again if here was another Pro Tour in a week. If I was going to play it, though, I doubt I’d change much in the list.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this, see you next time!

I was recently reacquainted with my original DCI number.

Although I began playing Magic in late 1993, I didn’t hit my first DCI-sanctioned tournament until the Spring of 1996, when I walked into the dorm rec room to play in a Magic tournament and was told that it was “sanctioned” and that I’d need to get a “DCI number.” I stopped playing Magic for a long while soon after, and when I returned to the game, I picked up a new DCI number. Just recently, a friend helped me track down my original number, and I’ve now had the two unified.

I am once again the proud owner of a five-digit DCI number.

One of the fascinating consequences of uniting my old and new DCI numbers is the ability to review my early, early play record. I learned, for example, that my fourth ever opponent in sanctioned play was John Immordino, who just a few months later went on to top eight Pro Tour Columbus. Columbus was the third Pro Tour, and the first done in the Block Constructed format (in that case, Ice Age).

I also clearly recall the decision I had to make the night before the tournament. I’d been thinking of bringing a black/white deck splashing blue for Diabolic Vision, but I didn’t like how the mana was working out. As a consequence, I made the game-day decision to cut the blue, and ended up playing a straight black/white deck featuring Swords to Plowshares and Wrath of God, as well as a creature suite of Nether Shadow, Ashen Ghoul, and at the top of my curve, Serra Angel.

Creatures are so much better now.

My decision to cut the blue segues well into my topic today – building a modern Junk deck.

A word on nomenclature

What is a “Junk” deck?

Although the original Junk deck was a G/W build, these days the term has become shorthand for W/B/G decks generally. We similarly use the shard names, such as “Naya,” as shorthand for those three-color combinations, and the Ravnica guild names as shorthand for color pairings.

This is not an especially useful naming method.

When I refer to a “Jund” deck now, you’re likely to think of something that features Bloodbraid Elf, Bituminous Blast, and Broodmate Dragon. If we roll the timeline back to before the Alara Reborn release, however, a Jund deck is likely to share many of the same cards but work very, very differently. If we allow the loosest possible application of the term Jund – meaning the B/R/G color combination – then we can even roll all the way back to Shota Yasooka’s planeswalker deck from GP Krakow, which rocked the Garruks and Siege-Gangs before anyone outside of Wizards ever heard the word “Jund.”

All of this goes to the point that your idea of what Junk, or Jund, or Naya should be may not align with someone else’s concept of what the archetype is.

In the broadest sense, Junk is simply anything featuring the W/B/G color combination, including Lorwyn-era Doran decks and Daniel Grafensteiner’s deck from PT San Diego.

For many people, a Junk deck is all about high-value threats. The key idea behind this kind of Junk can be summarized as “A continuing stream of must-kill threats.” This is the most common functional definition of Junk, and I think this is why some readers are confused when I run decks in Junk colors that don’t play Baneslayers, as Baneslayer Angel is the ultimate “must-kill threat.”

With that in mind, let’s compare that approach with my design choices in building Stoneforge Mystic Junk.

Balancing power and resilience

The fundamental “tuner” for contemporary Junk decks involves balancing power and resilience. I favor resilience, but power is a perfectly reasonable choice. I’ll address these, and the card selections they favor, in turn.

In picking a high concept description of a power-oriented Junk deck, I would turn to Jamie Wakefield’s idea that “The last fatty kills you.” The idea here is that, as much as possible, each of your creatures is a catastrophe for your opponent, assuming they don’t kill it. In the modern era, we can extend this concept to include planeswalkers.

The obvious catastrophes for this approach are:

There’s a secondary list that focuses on black cards, but I’ll explain later why I think this is a bad idea:

The downside to this approach, from my perspective, is that it lacks durability. Consider Simon Gortzen’s Jund list from PT San Diego:

Gortzen Jund

This is a deck that, after sideboarding, can have fourteen removal spells as well as six “removal creatures” in the form of three copies each of Siege-Gang Commander and Master of the Wild Hunt.

When your opponent has more removal than you have major threats, then the “must kill” strategy can fizzle out pretty disappointingly. However, there are those games where your deck just serves up a third-turn Baneslayer and your opponent doesn’t draw removal in time. In a sense, this is a Standard take on the goldfishing strategy, hoping to reap the rewards of free wins from games where you play a threat that your opponent simply can’t interact with.

As I mentioned above, my preference is for resilience over power. This fits into my play preferences in general, as I love highly interactive games with a great deal of on-board action. If you read last week’s In Development, you know that I had two different matches in which I won 40+ minute-long game ones, taking both matches in just the one game.

Recall that my high concept for Stoneforge Mystic Junk was, “Endure, swarm, win.”

Although Stoneforge Mystic Junk plays many of the same power cards as more typical, power-oriented Junk builds, it approaches matches from a fundamentally different philosophical base. Whereas power-oriented Junk wants a stream of significant threats, resilience-oriented Junk wants the tools to turn all of its cards into threats. This is why I went to three copies of Stoneforge Mystic for my deck, because I wanted to make sure I could land a Basilisk Collar or Behemoth Sledge as soon as possible. With either equipment on the board, any one of my random dorks is a legitimate threat and an opportunity for recovery.

Another reasonable high concept for this deck is, “Every card a threat.”

A 0/1 and a 1/2

Threats

With that in mind, the key cards for resilience-oriented Junk are:

Hopefully the inclusion of the Stoneforge Mystic package is obvious. Emeria Angel and Elspeth, Knight-Errant make the “must have” list because they both generate opportunities for stabilization as well as platforms for Collars and Sledges. Stirring Wildwood is a key card because it dodges a significant portion of opposing removal, and can nonetheless pick up a Collar or Sledge as needed to move you into a winning position. Finally, Thornling wins over Baneslayer Angel by dint of being nigh-unkillable. When we care about resilience, that’s more important than pure offensive power.

I’ll wrap these concepts of power and resilience in some deck lists at the end of today’s piece. Before I get there, however, I want to check in on a key element of any Junk deck.

This portion of the text is brought to you by the color black

So why do Junk decks have black cards?

The original Junk deck was a G/W build. We can have many of the features of a modern Junk deck in pure G/W form. After all, the deck’s acceleration and most of its resilience or power come in the form of green and white cards. Even if we want to maximize our use of fetchlands to power out large Knights and a flock of Angel-generated Birds, we could simply have four copies each of Verdant Catacombs and Marsh Flats without bothering to have a single Swamp.

There’s always the temptation to say, “Well, since I already have these fetchlands, I might as well have a Swamp and some black cards.” Hopefully none of you are autopiloting to that extent. I think that it’s entirely reasonable to just eschew black, especially in the case of a power-oriented Junk build. In my case, however, I want access to one of the best generic removal spells around in the form of Maelstrom Pulse, as well as the ability to play Grim Discovery out of the sideboard. Other reasonable options in black include Deathmark and Doom Blade.

I would discourage you, however, from trying to shoehorn in Putrid Leech, Ob Nixilis, Malakir Bloodwitch, or any number of other cards that require a more intense commitment to black. These are tempting cards to add, especially if you’re already committed to splashing black for Maelstrom Pulse, but they fundamentally screw up an otherwise clean mana base.

Consider the following opening hand:

Verdant Catacombs, Marsh Flats, Sunpetal Grove, Qasali Pridemage, Path to Exile, Elspeth, Knight-Errant, Master of the Wild Hunt

…and this one:

Verdant Catacombs, Marsh Flats, Sunpetal Grove, Putrid Leech, Path to Exile, Elspeth, Knight Errant, Master of the Wild Hunt

So how do you use your fetchlands?

In the case of the deck that isn’t running Putrid Leech, and in most Junk decks whose black cards are limited to Maelstrom Pulse and a few other splashables, you can use your early fetchlands to grab green and white sources. In contrast, to get any real value out of Putrid Leech, you’re going to want to cash in one of your fetchlands for a Swamp to power out a second-turn Leech. This choice dramatically influences the subsequent flow of your deck. If you’ve cashed in the Catacombs to get a Swamp, then a Plains off the top of your library will let you cast Elspeth, but not the Master. Similarly, if you used the Flats to get your Swamp, then a Forest off the top can’t help you cast Elspeth.

The situation is significantly worse if you’re trying to shoehorn in cards that require double black, as this means that the first task for your fetchlands necessarily must be acquiring Swamps to ensure that you’re actually able to cast these spells. If you reflect on how disruptive it was to have to dedicate one of your fetches to grabbing a Swamp, consider how many of your major threat cards you’ll be slowing down by trying to get a second Swamp.

You might point out that Lotus Cobra can help you power out these cards, but that dramatically increases the fragility of the deck without yielding a concomitant increase in power. Ob Nixilis is not nearly so impressive when he’s trapped in your hand because a Bolt burned your Cobra.

Spanning the spectrum

With all these points in mind, I’m going to run out a couple deck lists.

Baneslayer Junk

Baneslayer Junk can generate amazingly explosive starts. For example, one playtest game saw a turn four board that included Elspeth, Lotus Cobra, a Soldier token, Noble Hierarch, and a Master of the Wild Hunt, with the Lotus Cobra swinging for six damage in the air that turn. Against, say, a Jund deck that had its first two lands come into play tapped, this may simply be an unrecoverable situation.

Unfortunately, the sideboarded games against Jund are sort of a circus of Deathmarks, which can easily take the wind completely out of your sails. Once more, it’s high power and low resilience.

The Marshal’s Anthem is the only real “reload” card in the main deck. I think it’s useful in this take on Junk both by dint of powering up your Cobras and Hierarchs and because it lets you bring back your Baneslayer when they kill it. Note that this is a bit of a concession to resilience. The original “all in” plan actually had a pair of Admonition Angels in that space.

Stoneforge Mystic Junk

This update of last week’s Stoneforge Mystic Junk deck makes some changes based on a week of intermittent play. Most notably, the Wolfbriars are out, as they were never the kind of “reload” I wanted them to be. I also tinkered with the Qasali Pridemage count, but decided to return to a full set of four as I still want access to removal for opposing equipment as well as Oblivion Rings and other concerns. In addition, Pridemage is a solid, aggressive creature that wields Behemoth Sledges and Basilisk Collars quite effectively.

Notably, I’ve pulled the Borderland Rangers from the deck entirely. It’s still sufficiently resilient against Jund even without them, and the space opened up by removing the Rangers and Wolfbriar Elementals has let me put in three copies of Master of the Wild Hunt as well as a single Marshal’s Anthem. The Anthem is particularly effective in this Junk variation, as it turns your 0/1s and 1/2s into 1/2s and 2/3s, which is a surprisingly effective jump. Also, pay attention to the fact that you can equip Basilisk Collar to one of the Master’s wolves, giving you the Junk variation on the Cunning Sparkmage-Collar combination.

Hybrid Junk

This is a middle ground deck, and it reflects my current belief that if you are going to include Baneslayer Angels in a Junk deck, you should probably go ahead and include Lotus Cobras as well. Rather than being some kind of wry social commentary on the expense of Mythics, I think this follows from the fact that a Lotus Cobra can serve up a third-turn Baneslayer. If you’re going to run Baneslayers, you want to maximize your likelihood of just “randomly winning” by powering one out before your opponent can respond. This does mean giving up the added resilience intrinsic in having Qasali Pridemages, but I think it’s worth it overall.

This deck maintains a slightly reduced Stoneforge Mystic package as a way of trying to build in added durability. When they kill your Baneslayer, you can still Behemoth Sledge up a Lotus Cobra and try to bring the game home.

How to play Junk decks my way

I think players are more generally familiar with the “power” Junk option, where you roll out a series of big threats and hope to use spot removal to deal with a few problem cards from your opponent. In contrast, my approach may make a deck like Stoneforge Mystic Junk seem underpowered. With that in mind, here are a few key points to keep track of when playing a Junk deck tuned toward resilience:

1. You must play briskly. Games can go long, especially with lifegain on both sides, as is the norm when playing against Junk or Naya. If you play slowly, you will not finish your matches in time (or, on MTGO, risk running out your match clock).

2. You must be able to evaluate in the early stages whether a game should be winnable. This takes some practice and playtesting. Basically, if you’re going to have a long game, you need to know you’re going to win it. My experience is that more games are winnable than people realize…but keep in mind that I have a tendency to win a lot of one-game matches because I’m able to make this evaluation and willing to stick with it.

The corollary to this is that you need to enjoy highly interactive games that might go long. If not, then I’d tend to direct you back in the direction of Lotus Cobras and Baneslayers.

3. You must be able to flexibly plan a few turns ahead so you can make the correct decision to, for example, chump block with one of your creatures while you set up an Emeria Angel and a fetchland to allow additional chump blocking with your Birds until you draw removal for their Baneslayer and go on the offensive. In this example, your opponent may have just gained 15 life while you set up your counterattack. That will happen, and it’s fine.

Fundamentally, there is no “right way” to build a Junk deck. However, there will definitely be a “right way” for your play preferences. If the Baneslayers just aren’t doing it for you, it may be time to bring in the Stoneforge Mystics and experiment with a new way to play.

Follow me on Twitter - parakkum

My last article didn’t quite have the reception I was anticipating, but I probably should have expected it. People seemed to support me in my journey to learn how to play the aggro deck, but they didn’t like that I was changing the sideboard without really knowing what I was up to. Well, I listened. Why only change the sideboard? Let’s revamp the entire deck! Here is my latest creation, Nayascape, piloted to a Top 8 of a PTQ last Saturday:

Can you see the theme? That’s right, it’s land! Every card except Lightning Bolt references land in some way. Even Tarmogoyf has land in the reminder text! Speaking of Tarmogoyf, how can playing only three of them possibly be correct? We’ll get there, but first I want to talk about how I came to this beauty.

Believe it or not, I had a deck very similar to this sometime in late January. The first decklist file in my computer was created January 20th. It’s not that hard of a deck to come across – a friend of mine and awesome deckbuilder Dan Hanson had something similar for one of the early MTGO PTQs. For me the deck came about after seeing Aggro Scapeshift in action. (That RG thing with Bloodbraid Elf and Scapeshift from Dave Yetka and Pat McGregor.) I loved the idea of a deck that could present threats and still have a combo kill in the back pocket, especially one so easy. Scapeshift is almost 2GG “If you control seven lands you win the game”. That’s an incredibly powerful spell!

What I didn’t like about the deck is how one-dimensional the Scapeshift was. You could gain marginal value by using it without seven lands just by setting up manlands or Grove of the Burnwillows or whatever, but it was only a backbreaking spell at seven lands or more. I wanted my Scapeshift to do more, so I looked to Steppe Lynx, Plated Geopede, and Flagstones of Trokair. A Gatherer Search later and I found Knight of the Reliquary (duh!) and Vinelasher Kudzu. Two years ago I tried out Scapeshift, and I even wrote an article about it on tcgplayer, and I was excited about the new possibilities. I actually completely forgot about that article until I did a Google search for “Loucks, Scapeshift” while searching for another one of my articles mentioning Scapeshift. This article still has a paragraph worth quoting:

“Unfortunately there aren’t really any white cards you want to run, but the synergy of Scapeshift and Flagstones of Trokair, along with Greater Gargadon and Devastating Dreams, is good anyway. I think there has to be a way to get this deck to work, I am just not familiar enough with Extended, or the Aggro Loam strategy in general, to get it to work.”

It all seems so familiar, looking back. Well, Extended certainly offered up white cards you want to run! But the quote I was looking for, however, was this:

“I’m still amazed at how good this card is. Being able to give yourself practically any combination of lands you want has to be insane. The lands in Standard aren’t very exciting right now, but give me something like Urza’s Tower and we’ll talk. It’s not a matter of if Scapeshift will be broken, but when.”

I’m not showing you these quotes to say, “Look how smart I am!” but instead to pull back the curtain a little bit and illuminate how I go about deckbuilding. It’s not like a deck just comes to me in a single flash of insight, but instead these things build over time. In Extended this could be a long time. I get a bunch of ideas that just rattle around for awhile, and sometimes something new will trigger a resurgence.

So what made me pull the trigger on Nayascape? Credit here goes to Petr Brozek and his Grand Prix Oakland deck. Seeing somebody have success with Steppe Lynx and Flagstones gave me the confidence to move forward. I don’t know why I didn’t do more with the deck before, I think I just got distracted by shiny 20/20s and a Gifts Ungiven pile.

The deck also solved a problem Brian Kowal and I were talking about, which is how to make Steppe Lynx good. It’s obviously a very good card, but it has the problem of fizzling out in the long game. With Scapeshifts in the deck a Steppe Lynx was lethal at any stage in the game.

Playing the Deck

The best place to start is with the lands. I had the spells I wanted down pretty quickly, but the lands were constantly worrying me. You needed enough saclands to make your creatures scary without Scapeshift, enough Plains for Flagstones of Trokair, enough Mountains for Valakut, enough basics for Ghost Quarter and Path to Exile (your own or the other guy’s), and enough sources of each color – not to mention all the fancy lands you could play.

The one Vesuva is the key. It’s the land most people wanted to cut at first glance, but that’s because it’s hard to notice everything it can do right away. It started off as a second Valakut if you’re at eight lands or a fifth Flagstones to naturally draw (as the list started with four Flagstones). Then somebody pointed out that it could be a Mountain for Valakut as you go off, and I was sold. When we realized that it can become a second Sejiri Steppe I was ecstatic.

(Editor’s Note: To clarify, Scapeshift and Vesuva don’t interact quite as favorably as it may appear. For Vesuva to count as a Valakut, Mountain, or even Sejiri Steppe, the land you want to copy has to be in play before the Scapeshift, since Vesuva evaluates the board before it enters play, and therefore cannot copy another land that you are getting via Scapeshift. Note that you also cannot copy a land you sacrificed to Scapeshift.)

Speaking of Sejiri Steppe, it has become the most powerful part of the combo. It essentially makes one (or sometimes two) of your creatures unblockable in combination with Vesuva. What deck is going to have three different colors of blockers? (Affinity, what a jerk!) Scapeshift is almost always lethal with Steppe Lynx against a tapped out opponent, especially when they can’t even block. You also get a lot of extra value out of your Knight of the Reliquarys when you can fetch up protection. It’s nice being able to go in on a Scapeshift and Plated Geopede with an untapped Knight of the Reliquary and know you have Path to Exile protection.

The Valakut kill is rare, but it provides long-game inevitability in matchups like Zoo or often against Bant. With only eight Mountains in the deck (counting Vesuva) you can’t deal the full 20 very easily, but with such an aggressive deck it’s rare that you’ll need to deal so much. I didn’t get a Valakut kill in my tournament, but there was a game where I should have except I fetched wrong on like the third turn. I’ve found the deck difficult to play because it’s very important to manage your 25 lands. I fetched a basic Forest on the third turn to avoid some damage, and when I didn’t have a basic land to fetch off of my opponent’s second Path to Exile I was a land short on a Valakut kill on the pivotal turn.

The hardest cut to make in the deck was the fourth Flagstones of Trokair. That’s a card you always run four of, right? Especially when it’s got synergy with both Scapeshift and most of your creatures. In testing though, it never came up that you needed to fetch the full set of Flagstones, especially with Vesuva in the deck. In fact, managing your post-Scapeshift lands in case things go wrong is very important, and it’s hard to leave yourself in a good position by grabbing four Flagstones. The most common Scapeshift I made was three Flagstones, Sejiri Steppes, and a Vesuva to copy the Steppe.

By cutting a Flagstones I felt safe cutting the basic Plains count down to one. Four basic lands made managing your lands for Paths and Ghost Quarters a lot easier, but it turned out to be unnecessary. It’s one of those crutches you fall back on during testing but you rarely need if you just play optimally. I can’t stress how important proper fetching is. I’ve screwed up games by grabbing a Forest which didn’t let me Path into a second green source later, or by fetching a Temple Garden and then leaving myself greenless after a Scapeshift into Flagstones later.

I wanted more Ghost Quarters just to have added defense against Dark Depths, and because it combos well with your Flagstones. Ghost Quartering yourself is probably just as common as getting the other guy. There just wasn’t any room left, especially when counting the number of sources for each color, but I was happy with the one maindeck Ghost Quarter throughout the day. Vesuva also acts as a way to disrupt Dark Depths, especially when you snipe an early Urborg.

Stirring Wildwood was the last addition. I wasn’t sure a manland was necessary, but it gives your Knight of the Reliquary a lot of extra value as well as making your Scapeshifts for value (instead of the straight-up win) just better.

The Spells

The four pillars of the deck are Steppe Lynx, Plated Geopede, Vinelasher Kudzu, and Knight of the Reliquary. I hate to pick a favorite child, but Knight of the Reliquary is probably the best card in the deck. Not only does it combo with Scapeshift, but it makes your other landfall creatures still relevant in the long game without your namesake spell. He even grabs silver bullets like Ghost Quarter or Bojuka Bog.

The two Zendikar creatures are your hard kill. A Scapeshift here is worth at least +16/+16 if you have four Flagstones left in your deck. -2 for each missing Flagstones, Plains, or for each Sejiri Steppe you want to grab. +2 for each additional land you have in play. +2 if you played a land that turn, and +2 more if it was a sacland. Usually 10 unblockable damage is enough.

Vinelasher Kudzu and Knight of the Reliquary make for a soft kill. It’s similar math as the above paragraph, but with ones instead of twos. They are often still lethal, but they usually won’t be killing an opponent at 20. However, they are much more resilient going long in the game. Kudzu was a bit of a leap of faith when I put him in the deck, and he far out-performed my expectations. Against Zoo he was getting much bigger than Tarmogoyf and gives the deck another monster that has to be answered.

Countryside Crusher was cut from the deck early on because of how he negatively interacted with the rest of your cards. Steppe Lynx looks pretty feeble when you know no lands are coming anytime soon. He would also occasionally mill lands that you wanted in your library. Still, he was fun while he lasted.

Realizing that Wild Nacatl should be in the deck was my biggest revelation. By playing Nacatl the deck gained arguably the best one-drop ever printed along with tremendous and consistent speed. This deck’s Nacatls aren’t as good as Zoo’s, as they are sometimes a 2/2 due to fancy lands like Flagstones, but they are still great.

This deck uses Path to Exile better than any other deck I’ve seen. Like Ghost Quarter, I feel I’m using it on my own creatures as much as my opponents’. It’s already one of the best cards in the format since Zoo and Dark Depths are top dogs. This deck goes a step further and Paths its own creature as a combat trick, or most often to find a seventh land and Valakut them.

Lightning Bolt fluctuated in number, but it’s just such a good spell that no other card could top it in efficiency.

Speaking of efficiency, how about those three Tarmogoyfs? The $100 bill was actually the last spell added to the deck. For a while I was toying around with Zektar Shrine Expedition, and I was actually very impressed. The Expedition was part of your most brutal draws, but it wasn’t what the deck needed. The deck has a good late game plan in Valakut, so you don’t need to kill them as fast as possible. Against any deck running Tarmogoyf playing your own was much better. However, in testing he still proved to be the worst card in the deck, so he was what gave for the 25th land. I’m still not sure it was correct, but that’s the conclusion I came to while trying to be as un-biased towards pre-conceived notions of ridiculousness as possible. When he’s consistently “just” a 3/4 for 1G and doesn’t kill them with Scapeshift he doesn’t impress me.

Another suggestion that people have made when seeing the deck is to cut a Scapeshift. After playing the deck, though, most games you lose would have been won if you drew a Scapeshift. It’s the exact spell that would have won my match in the Top 8 even through Thopter/Sword combo, but alas the spell did not surface. (Well, a second copy of it, as I had to use the first copy to kill a Dark Depths.)

One Scapeshift is usually easy enough to play, but it’s when you have two Scapeshifts that things get difficult. I constantly lost games in testing by screwing up my manabase beyond repair with my first Scapeshift. The key is that you don’t have to go overboard with the first Scapeshift, you just need enough to kill them. Then, if they have a removal spell, you’ve still got enough lands in your deck to kill them with a second Scapeshift, along with the correct colors of lands to cast your spells.

Sideboard

For reference:

The numbers are a bit wacky, but I’m pretty sure those are the spells that should be in your sideboard. The only other card I was considering was Volcanic Fallout if I expected Elves or Faeries. I would suggest taking theses spells and then tweaking them based on your expected metagame. There are still a few numbers worth explaining:

The one Temporal Isolation was a result of having an extra slot I could board against Zoo. I want to take out 2 Steppe Lynx (as they can still be useful and you want to Ranger of Eos for them if you have a Scapeshift lined up) and Plated Geopede. Your plan is to go long and just out-monster them. You’ve got more threats that need an answer than they’ve got removal spells. They do beat you in the removal spell department, though, so having an extra answer to Tarmogoyf is worth it. Temporal Isolation also serves double duty against 20/20s, but you don’t want more Isolations because there are better cards you can play for that cause, like Ghost Quarter.

I felt relatively safe against Dredge with my hyper-combo kill, giving me a slightly better chance than regular zoo. (I feel the same way about most combo matchups, especially Living End. Zoo hates to get Wrathed, but this deck can present lethal after a Wrath with a single Steppe Lynx.) Bojuka Bog also helped, but I had a little extra room in my sideboard so I added a Ravenous Trap. It looks like I’m just sideboarding one card and crossing my fingers, but it’s really upping the number of impacting cards I can draw against Dredge from something like eight to nine, depending on how much weight you give Scapeshift and Knight.

Rule of Law and Damping Matrix are one-ofs that are pretty good in their relevant matchups, but I don’t like how bad they are in multiples. I hate when I play an aggro deck and I lose to some random creature because my hand is full of specific hate cards that don’t do anything. Still, they are often the best cards you can have in those matchups, but you never want two of them, so I feel like one is the perfect number. It’s not like I’m not sideboarding anything else against Thopter Foundry but I just spread my numbers out by playing one of the best answer that sucks in multiples along with more of the other hate (Ancient Grudge) that works in multiples. Rule of Law also acts like Ravenous Trap by upping the number of relevant cards I can draw.

Elspeth, Knight-Errant was the card I most felt might be unnecessary, and I wouldn’t fault anybody for cutting it.

I don’t actually like Umezawa’s Jitte in the current metagame as Zoo decks are full of Bant Charms and Qasali Pridemage, so you’re just playing into giant wastes of mana. However, it’s also the best card you can sideboard against Umezawa’s Jitte, so it still made the cut.

Ancient Grudge was my best sideboard card all weekend and I might play a third one if I had to do it over, especially if Dark Depths is using Culling Scales.

I only drew Aven Mindcensor once all weekend despite siding it in a lot against Dark Depths, and the jerk still found the card he was looking for in the top four cards! (I say jerk in the nicest possible way; my opponent was a complete gentleman.) I might be tainted by the fact that my opponent still found a card, but I just don’t feel like the Mindcensor is impacting enough to justify sideboard slots. I just like the double duty it serves against Dark Depths and Scapeshift (a matchup you don’t generally have a lot against) so until I find something better I’m stuck with the Mindcensor.

Speaking of Dark Depths, for the curious, I was sideboarding out Lightning Bolt, Stirring Wildwood, and two of either Knight, Tarmogoyf, or one of each. I couldn’t make up my mind on what was more relevant, though I eventually settled on just taking out Tarmogoyf. (Mindcensor, Grudge, Matrix, and Ghost Quarter came in.) I thought about sideboarding in Bojuka Bog to nab a lazy player’s Sword of the Meek, but I didn’t imagine that happening very often. More testing might reveal Stirring Wildwood to actually be useful to fetch in the matchup, especially after sideboard when they are loaded on removal, but it was a late addition so I just sideboarded how I knew.

The Tournament

In my last two PTQs I played Zoo and started off 3-0, only to be dead by round five or six. I was scared of that happening here, but I felt much more comfortable with my deck. I wasn’t always sure how to sideboard with somebody else’s Zoo deck, but when I know more about what my deck is doing sideboarding is much easier.

I also found that somehow I was much better at playing this deck than normal Zoo. I think it has to do with being able to see the end of the game from turn one. With normal Zoo I was just going through the motions hoping to stumble onto a win by incidentally reducing my opponent to 0. As soon as Scapeshift was added I had the ability to see many turns ahead. I could look at my hand and see the different branches – I win here if they tap out, I win here if they have one removal spell, I lose here if they have two removal spells, but I likely win if I draw X lands in Y draws – stuff like that. Not to say that I played perfectly, but I certainly played much better than when I normally play Zoo.

Round 1 – UW Thopter

Before the match even started he told me that he wished he was playing a deck that was less random. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but it was probably a good thing. I got an awesome Steppe Lynx into Plated Geopede draw to win game one, a great way to start the tournament.

In game two he got Thopter Foundry and Sword of the Meek far too quickly, and I didn’t draw any of my hate. I was starting to worry that I didn’t have enough Ancient Grudges in my sideboard. Still, if I had drawn a Scapeshift I would have been able to punch through his blue Thopter tokens for the win.

In game three I drew an Ancient Grudge and it didn’t look like he had any way to stop it from dismantling his deck. I killed a Thopter Foundry and just kept attacking for the win.

1-0

Round 2 – Affinity

I felt like we each had relatively standard draws in game one, though maybe his was a bit slow. I Bolted his turn two Arcbound Ravager, and over his next two turns he played Blinkmoth Nexus, Frogmite, Cranial Plating, and Arcbound Worker, if I remember correctly. There was a turn where he could have put Plating on a Blinkmoth Nexus and brought me to 2, chump blocked, then killed me the next turn. However, he would lose that game handily if I had a removal spell, so he didn’t go for it. Then I played a second Flagstones of Trokair, so he had to chump block with his two creatures and died the next turn. Incidentally I didn’t have the removal spell and would have lost if he went for it.

In game two I played Path to Exile on his Arcbound Worker in response to Springleaf Drum. He didn’t find a land, played a Frogmite, and passed the turn. I looked at my hand of Ancient Grudge and Ghost Quarter and knew things were going to be alright. I played more creatures, then Grudged an Arcbound Ravager, a land, and then Ghost Quartered a land, prompting the concession.

2-0

Round 3 – UB Faeries a la Thopter Foundry

Great, a car-buddy pairing. Too bad he knew my list and I didn’t really know what he was up to. In game one I finished him off with a Vinelasher Kudzu and a Scapeshift into Sejiri Steppes after a decent draw to begin with. Game two turned south when he did indeed have Damnation. He eventually killed me with a Vendilion Clique. I readjusted my sideboard after seeing Umezawa’s Jitte and Thopter Foundry, bringing in my Ancient Grudges.

Game three existed only in the early turns it seemed. I had a Steppe Lynx, Plated Geopede, Plated Geopede, Wild Nacatl draw. He cast Vendilion Clique on my turn, so I Lightning Bolted it, leaving him with just a Spellstutter Sprite. I played a sacland and attacked, and he didn’t block which meant he had Umezawa’s Jitte. I could have saved a sacland, taking him to 8 and soaking a Umezawa’s Jitte counter on his next turn. Unfortunately I would only have six coming back at him unless I drew a sacland. That’s still the plan I should have gone with, but I chose to crack my land and get him to 4 instead. Either way he goes to one, but the way I chose doesn’t give me a sacland as an out. Sure enough Umezawa’s Jitte came down, murdered my Geopedes, and like a champ I drew Lightning Bolt to finish him off after a Nacatl attack.

3-0

Round 4 – Doran

His deck didn’t cooperate in the first game. I could have used Lightning Bolt on my second turn to kill a Noble Hierarch, but I chose to play a Plated Geopede instead. I was a little worried he might be Bant, but I needed to get pressure on the board. Instead he just played Treetop Village and said go. Creatures attacked, Noble Hierarch was killed, and his next turn was just another Treetop Village and a go ahead. Looks like his mono-green draw wasn’t going to get there.

In game two he revealed himself to actually be GWB. He used a Punishment for 2 to kill my two Tarmogoyfs after having a Umezawa’s Jitte active for a few turns. His two Kitchen Finks were able to kill me. I could have won this game except I fetched wrong on something like turn three. I grabbed a basic when I didn’t need to, then couldn’t find my 7th land off of his second Path to Exile later to Valakut him. Oops. Time to bring in Ancient Grudge.

He began game three very strongly with Noble Hierarch into Doran into Umezawa’s Jitte, equip, attack. I led with Wild Nacatl and Tarmogoyf. I had Ancient Grudge, however, so I ended up double blocking and trading my Tarmogoyf for his Doran. He never really recovered from that. I used Ranger of Eos to grab two creatures and he was forced to use Crime on my Tarmogoyf to give himself a blocker. I sacrificed a guy in an attack to bring him down to three, leaving me with Wild Nacatl and Tarmogoyf to his Tarmogoyf and Noble Hierarch. Two turns later I drew a Path to Exile for the win, and he showed me a hand with a land and a second Umezawa’s Jitte that was useless due to Ancient Grudge.

4-0

Round 5 – UB Thopter/Depths

Our first game was one of the weirdest I played all weekend. I kept a bit of an awkward hand with Stomping Ground, Vesuva, Wild Nacatl, Lightning Bolt, Plated Geopede, Vinelasher Kudzu, and another random spell. He then made me feel better by mulliganing to five. He did have turn one Dark Confidant, but that got hit with Lightning Bolt. I was then looking at his Chrome Mox, Urborg, and one card in hand, and decided to use my second land to blow up his Urborg. I didn’t get to another land for a while, so a 2/2 Wild Nacatl beat down while we played draw-go. I had to discard once, then found a sacland just in time to let me start unloading my hand. It was just in time, because he eventually assembled a 20/20 but died when I had the Path to Exile.

Game two was very exciting. He killed my first two guys and cast Thoughtseize, taking a Path to Exile. I played Plated Geopede on my third turn. He used his fourth turn to cast a Culling Scales while he sat at a pretty 18 life. I doubted that he had a one-mana answer to my Plated Geopede, but he could have Slaughter Pact. He knew I had a Scapeshift, but I just don’t think he did the math correctly. I Scapeshifted, found three Flagstones and a random land, and hit him for 19. Nice Thoughtseize.

Unfortunately a bunch of people were watching this match and now everybody knows what my deck is up to, especially since I won in such a showy fashion. Still, it won’t matter until Top 8.

5-0

Round 6 and 7: ID

It’s nice to slide into Top 8 undefeated. You get to enter after two rounds of rest, and without the stress of having to win the previous round to make it in, or not knowing if your tiebreakers are good enough.

It also helps when you don’t mulligan once the entire day. I wouldn’t even say I got that lucky, as I rarely mulliganed in testing either. I’m actually starting to look at the game a different way just by building and playing this deck because by the twentieth test game and still no mulligans I was thinking maybe it wasn’t just luck, maybe it was the deck. Then I looked at the deck and tried to build a bad hand, and it was hard. If you’re land light, it’s ok because you’re Zoo and can cast most of your spells because they are cheap. If you’re land heavy you can put your lands to use. If you’re creature heavy you can beat down quickly. If you’re spell heavy you can control the game and win with a late Scapeshift. The deck is so good at playing whatever role its hand is dealt that you can make almost any hand work.

The Top Eight, from what I can remember, was me, my round 5 Dark Depths opponent, UGR Scapeshift, GR aggro Scapeshift, 2 Mono Red Burn, Tribal Zoo, and another deck I can’t remember. I wasn’t sure what to expect out of blue Scapeshift, and I knew I probably didn’t want to face GR Scapeshift. With the right draw I imagine Mono-Red would be ok, since they have to point their burn at my creatures or just die to a Scapeshift.

Quarterfinals – UB Thopter/Depths

I was also paired against the same Dark Depths opponent I had in the Swiss, though this time he will be more savvy to what I’m doing. He gave me a window in our Swiss match, and I didn’t imagine he’d let me do it again. I still felt good about the matchup, the only thing I was worried about was an early 20/20 when I just don’t draw Path to Exile.

Sure enough, that’s what happened in game one. My hand was the closest I had to a mulligan all day, five lands, Wild Nacatl, and Plated Geopede, but I still kept it because I was on the draw. I couldn’t hope for much better against Dark Depths than a one and a two-drop, and having excess lands isn’t really a bad thing. There wasn’t really a bad spell I could draw, I just couldn’t afford to draw too many lands. I took my chances because the hand wasn’t actually that bad, it was just one spell short. You can’t expect a great hand every time, so I settled for mediocre. It didn’t end up mattering as I was dead by my third turn.

In game two he didn’t have a 20/20, so the games began. He played some removal, even transmuting a Tolaria West for a Slaughter Pact. I drew more threats than he drew removal, and Ancient Grudged a Thopter Foundry. He drew a few too many lands, and two random animals brought it home.

Game three was long and intricate, the universe’s way of making things exciting. My hand was a bit awkward but it had exactly the spells I wanted: Wild Nacatl, Plated Geopede, Path to Exile, Ancient Grudge, and Scapeshift. Unfortunately my lands were Valakut and Stomping Ground, just a little awkward.

Luckily I drew a Ghost Quarter on my second turn, but I think I might have lost the match by not playing Plated Geopede. Instead I played Ghost Quarter and said go. I was afraid of him playing Dark Depths and Vampire Hexmage, especially when I didn’t have white mana for my Path. However, he didn’t have the mana to cast Muddle the Mixture and make a 20/20 on that turn, and I could always Ghost Quarter myself for a Plains. This wouldn’t work if he had a Chrome Mox and a Muddle or a Thoughtseize, (which he hadn’t had an opportunity to play yet) but that’s a very specific hand I don’t think I should be playing around. I was also scared of blowing up one of my lands when I was stuck on three, but I don’t think I should have been. I would only have to do that if he had the combo, and playing the Geopede on turn two would have probably done the extra damage I needed to win. I didn’t see it after the match, but looking back I’m sure that’s the play I should have made.

I didn’t see white as soon as I wanted, but I found a sacland before things got too awkward. My opponent’s draw was slow, so we just traded a few creatures for removal. Eventually he played a Dark Depths and transmuted a Muddle the Mixture. I cast Aven Mindcensor, but he found a Vampire Hexmage anyway. I was then forced to use Scapeshift to find a Vesuva and trade with his Dark Depths because I couldn’t afford him having another Muddle the Mixture for my Path to Exile. He might have had it, as he Muddled a Path to Exile on a Dark Confidant a few turns later. I was also able to use my Scapeshift to find a Ghost Quarter to protect me from another Dark Depths once I untapped, but I also made the only mistake I was able to find this game by not trading a Stomping Ground I had in play for another Stomping Ground out of my deck just to thin and to make future Knights bigger. I was sacrificing Valakut anyway as that plan didn’t seem feasible, especially when I was likely going to be using Ghost Quarter anyway.

Eventually my opponent stuck a Dark Confidant, something I thought most Dark Depths players were sideboarding out against Zoo. Maybe I should have left some Lightning Bolts in, but I wanted my deck to be threat dense because he was surely siding in Deathmarks and Smothers. Ancient Grudge eventually took out a Thopter Foundry after my opponent was able to make a token, and I made the call to use the second half of my Grudge to take out the token. That made my opponent chump block my Knight of the Reliquary with a Vampire Hexmage instead of with the token and removed Dark Depths as an out of his. (I used a Ghost Quarter earlier on a Dimir Aqueduct to cut my opponent’s mana down incase he drew a Muddle, which is only bad if he consecutively draws Dark Depths and Hexmage.) The situation was then my Knight of the Reliquary against his Dark Confidant, empty hand, and four life. Unfortunately his Dark Confidant kept drawing him into blockers (like another Dark Confidant) and eventually found him a Muddle the Mixture for a Thopter Foundry when he had Sword of the Meek.

I only had a Wild Nacatl and a Knight at that point, and he was at 3 life. He had a Dark Confidant and a Thopter Foundry token, so I couldn’t Knight up a Sejiri Steppe to get my Nacatl through. I forced him to chump block with his two creatures, and then he spend his turn making six tokens and going up to nine life. At this point I could draw Sejiri Steppe to get my lethal Knight through, Ancient Grudge, Damping Matrix, or Scapeshift. I didn’t, so he spent his next turn making six more tokens and attacking me a bit. I then had one draw step to hit Scapeshift to pump my Knight through, but I only drew land. The four turns after it was Knight against Bob I drew land, Nacatl, land, land. If Nacatl was one draw step sooner I could win with Sejiri Steppe, but it was not to be. I’m not saying I got that unlucky or anything, I’m just telling you the way it was.

Better Luck Next Time

I’m not at the point where I’m happy just to top eight anymore. I’m really glad my deck performed well, but I wanted the invite! Luckily good buddy Peter Beckfield avenged me in the finals with Tribal Zoo, so I may be testing for San Juan anyway just to help him out. (Grats P.Becks!) I’ve got my final PTQ here in Seattle in a month, and unless something significant changes by then I’ll probably be playing the same deck. I’ll be honest, I think this deck is really good, and if I can find a MTGO PTQ and some cards online I will probably play this there as well. Wish me luck!

Thanks for reading,

Jonathon Loucks
Loucksj at gmail
JonLoucks on Twitter
Zygonn on Magic Online

Pack 1 pick 1:

Conqueror’s Pledge is excellent. It wins the games where you’re ahead or at parity and allows you to come back in the games where you’re behind. Disfigure and Windborne Charge are the next best cards; both are good, but don’t have the reach that Conqueror’s Pledge does.

My pick:

Pack 1 pick 2:

The options in this pack are awkward. The best cards (Vampire Hexmage, Vines of Vastwood, and Murasa Pyromancer) all have heavy non-white color requirements. The pick is complicated even more by our first pick costing triple white. Both Magma Rift and Pillarfield Ox are options, though mediocre. Magma Rift kills nearly everything, though isn’t very good in the early game depending on what a deck’s curve looks like. However, later on when there is a bunch of lands sitting around doing nothing, it’s quite good. Pillarfield Ox is the safe choice. It doesn’t attack very well because it’s on the expensive side and will most likely trade for a two-drop barring a trick. However, on defense it’s much better especially when Worldwake’s cycles of multi-kicker/five-mana 3/3s are factored in. The non-white cards aren’t alluring enough to take one of them. Pillarfield Ox will help support Conqueror’s Pledge. Also, when you consider the rare was taken from the pack, staying White will prevent us from straying too far off course of what’s being fed to us and pick a second color that will reveal itself within the next few picks.

My pick:

Pack 1 pick 3:

Marsh Flats, Pillarfield Ox, Vines of Vastwood, and Sky Ruin Drake are the better cards. There are less Red and Black cards in this pack which may indicate that it would be better to be in Blue, White, and/or Green. The second Vines of Vastwood is a good indicator that Green might be open, though it’s usually accompanied by a few other Green cards. If Blue is open, then the packs haven’t been kind because there hasn’t been much of it passed. Pillarfield Ox is still a fine pick because this pack still doesn’t directly point to another color to take. Marsh Flats is the other on-color card and is better than Pillarfield Ox for a few reasons. It abuses Landfall and fixes your mana (sometimes). While it doesn’t appear that we’ll be drafting Black now, we may end up doing so in the future despite what we’re seeing now. In that case, having Marsh Flats is amazing because of the color-intensity of both Black and White.

My pick:

Pack 1 pick 4:

What happened here? There are lots of Black and Blue cards; at least in this pack. Kor Sanctifiers is good, but Welkin Tern is better. Certain builds would benefit more from having a Kor Sanctifiers because it’s a better defensive/utility creature. However, the direction that the deck will take is still unclear and picking the more powerful card is going to benefit the deck more in the end.

My pick:

Pack 1 pick 5:

Whiplash Trap isn’t a card that I normally like; it’s really slow. It’s not very good against the decks with low curves which are where the most problems will arise. Sejiri Refuge is obviously fine in a Blue/White deck, though would be better in a version that has a lot of double-White early drops like Kazandu Blademaster. When constructing the manabase for such a deck, it’s necessary to put in a lot of Plains to reliably summon those monsters on turn two. If there are also a lot of Blue spells, then having enough sources to summon Welkin Tern, Kraken Hatchling, and Sejiri Merfolk make Sejiri Refuge crucial. This draft hasn’t developed enough to determine how important Sejiri Refuge will be. It would be better to take a spell in this situation. Stonework Puma is fine because it solves the problem of being unable to block creatures with Intimidate. The Puma would be better if we had an Umara Raptor instead of Welkin Tern, but it’s still fine.

My pick:

Pack 1 pick 6:

Shoal Serpent is too slow to play. It would only be good against some of the slower Red decks with Molten Ravager and Shatterskull Giant and Green decks. Spell Pierce is okay. So much emphasis is placed on the early game where mana is at a premium. Being able to counter a crucial removal spell can change the course of the game. With that said, it’s very easy to pick up Spell Pierce much later on. Explorer’s Scope is the last option. Its usefulness relies on having a low curve with useful Landfall triggers. While our card pool doesn’t have much that benefits yet from Explorer’s Scope besides strapping it onto the Welkin Tern to hit extra land drops, Explorer’s Scope is generally much harder to wheel than the other options. It may be useful later on when the deck has taken shape.

My pick:

Pack 1 pick 7:

Nimbus Wings is usually a card I’m more excited to play because it gives provides additional value from two-drops after they’ve been outclassed on the board by other non-flyers. This deck doesn’t appear to be shaping up to the aggressive deck that wants Nimbus Wings. Khalni Gem would be a better choice because it will help the deck cast Conqueror’s Pledge without having to wreck the deck’s manabase in the case where the majority of its spells are not White.

My pick:

Pack 1 pick 8:

Windrider Eel is the easy choice. While Kraken Hatchling is a good card to have in a deck with a lot of flyers, it’s easy to replace with other creatures like Makindi Shieldmate and Halimar Excavator.

My pick:

Pack 1 pick 9:

My pick:

Pack 1 pick 10:

My pick:

Pack 1 pick 11:

My pick:

Pack 1 pick 12:

My pick:

Pack 1 pick 13:

My pick:

Pack 1 pick 14:

My pick:

Pack 1 pick 15:

Pack one was quite mediocre. There weren’t many cards that would make it to the maindeck (Ondu Cleric, Welkin Tern, Stonework Puma, Pillarfield Ox, Windrider Eel, Khalni Gem, Conqueror’s Pledge, Kabira Crossroads, and Marsh Flats); many of the cards are borderline playable like Ondu Cleric.

Pack 2 pick 1:

This isn’t exactly the pack that we wanted to open. Into the Roil is easily the best card because it won’t wheel whereas Cancel, Shieldmate’s Blessing, Seascape Aerialist, and Bold Defense are quite likely to.

My pick:

Pack 2 pick 2:

Here’s another lackluster pack. Sky Ruin Drake gets the nod over Aether Figment because it’s harder to kill with the new Worldwake cards; Searing Blaze and Tomb Hex both kill Aether Figment but not Sky Ruin Drake. The Drake is also better at blocking.

My pick:

Pack 2 pick 3:

A second Khalni Gem isn’t necessary because we don’t have a lot of expensive, color-intensive spells other than the Conqueror’s Pledge. That leaves Stonework Puma.

My pick:

Pack 2 pick 4:

It would be nice to wheel Spreading Seas to deal with the Valakut deck if we play against it. A second Pillarfield Ox is the only good option.

My pick:

Pack 2 pick 5:

Narrow Escape doesn’t do much in this deck. It would be better with Kor Hookmaster/Journey to Nowhere; sadly we don’t have those awesome cards. If this draft heads south and we get forced out of Blue in pack three, Heartstabber Mosquito is going to be the best starting point compared to Goblin Shortcutter because our deck is more controlling than anything else.

My pick:

Pack 2 pick 6:

Finally, here is a pack with some decent cards. Windborne Charge would be better suited in a more aggressive deck; the card provides a lot of reach. Windrider Eel is a better option because it becomes lethal by itself given time as opposed to Windborne Charge which requires a certain gamestate (them being at 8-10 life).

My pick:

Pack 2 pick 7:

My pick:

Pack 2 pick 8:

Ior Ruin Expedition isn’t the card-drawing of choice, especially with what Worldwake brings. However, if we don’t see any Treasure Hunt/Mysteries of the Deep, then we’ll regret having passed the Expedition for something else. Ior Ruin Expedition isn’t something that I like running because it has a high level of variance like many of the Landfall cards, but it’s fine in a deck that isn’t as focused on attacking as playing better spells than the opponent.

My pick:

Pack 2 pick 9:

Playing the Aerialist doesn’t seem likely unless pack three is very weak (I probably should have hated the Shatterskull Giant).

My pick:

Pack 2 pick 10:

My pick:

Pack 2 pick 11:

My pick:

Pack 2 pick 12:

So many Shatterskull Giants…

My pick:

Pack 2 pick 13:

My pick:

Pack 2 pick 14:

My pick:

Pack 2 pick 15:

Pack two was filled with mediocre picks. There are only thirteen spells that will make the cut which means Worldwake needs to be above average to end up with something that can 2-1/3-0 a pod.

Pack 3 pick 1:

This deck can’t support Jwari Shapeshifter; there simply aren’t enough Allies (let alone good Allies) in the deck. Perimeter Captain is exactly what this deck needs: a Kraken Hatchling on crack. Perimeter Captain will allow the deck to win with a Windrider Eel more easily while not having to worry about racing the opponent.

My pick:

Pack 3 pick 2:

There are quite a few cards that would easily make the cut in the deck (Marshall’s Anthem, Surrakar Banisher, Fledgling Griffin, and Halimar Excavator). The Blue cards are there more for support. However, there are already enough roadblocks present for the deck’s fliers to win to the point of not needing to prioritize Walls higher than threats/good cards. Fledgling Griffin is the ideal two-drop. It functions similarly to Welkin Tern but can block in a pinch. Marshall’s Anthem is an excellent card in every type of deck. Glorious Anthem plus Resurrection is a powerful effect that has an immediate effect on the board.

My pick:

Pack 3 pick 3:

Wind Zendikon is good, but doesn’t work well with the deck’s high curve. It would be better if the deck’s curve topped out at three, but that’s not the case here. Playing the Zendikon early is a liability because of the tempo loss if it gets killed. Join the Ranks and Battle Hurda are options as well. However both are slow. Besides the Ondu Cleric, there aren’t any other cards that have synergy with Join the Ranks in the deck. We’d have to wheel a few Halimar Excavators to make it worthwhile playing the card. Battle Hurda is more likely to make it into our deck, but Join the Ranks is more likely to be problematic for us (depending on the assortment of Allies we’re facing) while having the possibility of being played in our deck.

My pick:

Pack 3 pick 4:

Ruin Ghost is decent in our deck with its three Windrider Eels, Ior Ruin Expedition, and Kabira Crossroads. However, Halimar Excavator is more crucial because it helps stop the initial assault to the point of being able to summon a Pillarfield Ox.

My pick:

Pack 3 pick 5: