 |
| Home Articles Zendikar Spoiler (249/249) Radar Forums Blogs Wiki Writing/Contests Chat About |
Thirst for Knowledge: Where the Wild Things AreBy Chris Jobin on April 30th, 2009 · Filed in Thirst for Knowledge, Standard (Type 2) · 38 CommentsAt the time of this writing, the Prerelease for Alara Reborn is over and the Release events are but days away. Most authors in the Magic community are busy shipping articles filled to the brim with review material concerning the new set, but I don't think that I want to add to the already-ridiculous numbers of such articles. Instead, I'm going to talk about that "sick" deck that I mentioned last week, because I'm pretty excited about it. It makes use of a number of Alara Reborn cards, and is pretty well-positioned in the post-Reborn metagame. Common? Really? Next up was Spellbreaker Behemoth. Considering that this card goes against everything that I currently stand for, I must admit that I really like this card. I mean, I absolutely hate cards that beat on blue (har har I just made an old and rather bad Magic joke), but something about this card makes me smile a bit. I'm inclined to think that it's because when I first started playing this game, this is exactly the kind of card that I would love playing with. He embodies what red and green stand for as a color combination, and he speaks to the savage and overly-aggressive player that hides deep under my control-player facades. He's ridiculously cost-efficient, and he has a pretty relevant ability. I mean, the last time we had a playable 5/5 for only four mana in these colors was Rumbling Slum, and this card is much better in the face of the number of blue decks in the current Standard. I initially didn't like him when he was first spoiled, but that had more to do with his ability rather than his body. After all, how often will his ability matter? Isn't the allure the fact that he's a 5/5 for four that might cause a headache for control decks? He'll likely eat a Terror or something, but if he doesn't you're going to win. Lastly, we have Dauntless Escort. Once again, this is the kind of card that aggro players like to see. In the history of the game, aggressive decks have lost to two things: sweepers and counterspells. Spellbreaker Behemoth does his part to stave off the countermagic, and this guy turns off the Wrath effects. If ever there was a time when Wizards was pushing for a strategy to work, it's now. There are lots of decks that will want to play this guy maindeck, but I think in most cases he's just an amazing sideboard card against Lark and Five Color decks. He's also reasonably-costed for his ability, and he comes with a sturdy (albeit susceptible to Agony Warp) body. Overall, I really like this card too. Where have I seen this guy before...? *** Last year, Manual Bucher wrote about a deck dubbed "Where the Wild Things Are" (obviously named after the wonderful children's book). That deck ended up being BW Tokens, which has absolutely zero relation to Where the Wild Things Are. When I designed the deck I'm about to present, no other name made sense. I mean, after all, the deck totally embodies the title. So, in the name of righteousness, I'm going to call my deck the same thing. Call it unoriginal, or perhaps even thievery. I call it "sounding just right." And without further adieu, the list:
Now, I play this game strictly because I like to win. I'm a Spike through and through, and the only form in which I can tolerate casual is Elder Dragon Highlander, and even then it frustrates me. I'm not a Vorthos by any means, either, but if I was I would expect to enjoy this list. It's everything you'd possibly want from a primal and savage "themed" deck: it has lots of huge beasts, plenty of aggression, and the only noncreature spells it has are fiery salvos and what are effectively "wild men." It also happens to have Uril, the Miststalker, which has an uncanny resemblance to a certain group of creatures from an oh-so-certain children's book (which, by now, you can probably guess is one of the greatest books ever - they're even making a movie, which is just saucy). Well, okay - he doesn't look just like those guys, but more of a really, really angry/mutant version. But isn't that nitpicking? ...oh, that's right. The first thing about the list that bothers me is the fact that I'm playing eight lands that come into play tapped, and then six other filterlands that don't produce mana on the first turn. This means that I've only got ten ways to land a first turn Noble Hierarch, but this is rarely a problem. If your first turn is spent playing a land tapped and your second is spent playing an Exalted guy (either one), that's fine. Your card quality is so high that it rarely matters all that much. Secondly, not having any spot removal is a bit scary. Granted, there's little reason to need it, since your guys are just plain bigger than theirs 95% of the time, but not having an out to Mistbind Clique during your upkeep is kind of rough. I have Path to Exile in the sideboard to help shore up this issue, but I'm not sure how much of a difference it makes overall. In all of my testing with the deck, the only time the lack of spot removal was relevant was when I was Mistbind Cliqued, so I feel confident that the deck is okay without it game one. There are certainly other matches where Path to Exile is good, but it's mostly there for Faeries. Elspeth was initially in the slot that Garruk currently occupies, but I decided that giving my whole team trample was way better than giving one guy +3/+3 and flying (even if that one guy was Uril, the Miststalker). Elspeth still more than made the cut in the sideboard, as she was insane against Five Color while I had her in the maindeck. Ajani Vengeant, the other Planeswalker, gives the deck a needed suite of "spot removal," and also keeps decks off mana for crucial spells like Broodmate Dragon, Cruel Ultimatum, and even Sower of Temptation. Bloodbraid Elf is just sick in this deck. I've purposely been light on the cheap spells because I wanted to narrow down what is hit by the Cascade on this beater. Even if you hit an Exalted man with it, that still adds one power to your attack that turn, which isn't awful. You generally want to get a Volcanic Fallout to clear his way or a Boggart Ram-gang to beat alongside him (this is what I call "living the dream"), but getting a free Woolly Thoctar doesn't suck either. I really like the "living the dream" play, because beating for a surprise six damage when your opponent doesn't expect it is simply savage. Uril, the Miststalker is probably the card I liked least in the deck, but he was relevant a number of times. The deck's greatest foe is arguably Sower of Temptation, and this card just ignores it completely. He's impossibly hard to get rid of for most decks once he resolves, and post-sideboard, even the decks with the tools to do so have to deal with Dauntless Escort before they can even think of killing Uril. *** But now, let's get into the match-ups. Faeries I'll go ahead and say it: this was the one that would either make it or break it. If this deck couldn't beat Faeries with any level of consistency, there was no point in proceeding further. So, considering that I'm writing about this deck, that should tell you that obviously it has some game against Faeries, but I never expected it to be this positive. In preliminary testing, I was 7-1 against Faeries with this list, with my only loss coming from back-to-back Mistbind Cliques. That's only eight games, sure, but I was very pleased nonetheless. After more testing, the match-up evened out to a solid 60%, which I'm more than okay with. The key to winning here is to make good use of Volcanic Fallout and Banefire, and let Bloodbraid Elf do its thing. Spellbreaker Behemoth is pretty insane if they can't answer it, and Qasali Pridemage is typically a "swing for three, destroy Bitterblossom" deal, which I was more than okay with during testing. Bloodbraid Elf becomes a lot weaker after sideboarding (ironically) since you're bringing in a bunch of cards that aren't very good when flipped during a Cascade, but it's a necessary evil that I don't know how to avoid. Sideboarding: -3 Garruk Wildspeaker -3 Ajani Vengeant -2 Noble Hierarch -1 Bloodbraid Elf +3 Path to Exile +3 Guttural Response +1 Volcanic Fallout +2 Banefire Five Color Five Color was decidedly worse than Faeries, but even still I managed to stay mostly 50/50 with the deck. The Planeswalkers are all just stellar against Five Color, and Ajani Vengeant usually keeps them off of Broodmate Dragon mana long enough for you to win. Once they play something game-breaking, though, you just lose. I suppose that is the fate of all decks of this nature, but nonetheless I was a bit put off. After sideboarding, this deck gets a lot of strong anti-control cards like Banefire and Dauntless Escort, which improves the overall match-up by a fair percentage. Sideboarding: -3 Volcanic Fallout -3 Qasali Pridemage -1 Bloodbraid Elf -1 Woolly Thoctar -2 Noble Hierarch +3 Dauntless Escort +2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant +2 Banefire +3 Guttural Response Blightning Of all the aggressive decks, this is the one I was pretty confident that I'd be fine against. I turned out to be right, as nothing short of removal-heavy draws from the Blightning deck could ever match my huge gargantuans. Anathemancer was quite a beating, certainly, but nothing else in their deck was enough to tackle even a Spellbreaker Behemoth. After sideboarding, their deck gets better removal (since my deck was so resilient to their Volcanic Fallouts), and I get very little. I wasn't that concerned about this match-up, but after running through some post-sideboard games it became clear that I might want to have more lifegain if the meta was heavy on the red-based aggro decks. Sideboarding: -3 Volcanic Fallout +2 Path to Exile +1 Loxodon Warhammer BW Tokens This isn't as bad as you probably think it's going to be. Games against this deck go one of two ways: if you see Qasali Pridemage, you're fine. If you don't, you might just lose. Volcanic Fallout is wonderful here, and Garruk Wildspeaker is bonkers, but the idea of 5/5 guys running into 1/1s is only amusing if your huge guys have trample. And, well, mine don't. That being said, the match-up is basically in BW's favor, though I'm not sure by how wide a margin. Most of my testing was against control decks, but what I played of this match-up wasn't overly disappointing , but it wasn't all that optimistic either. Sideboarding: -3 Ajani Vengeant -1 Spellbreaker Behemoth +2 Path to Exile +1 Loxodon Warhammer +1 Volcanic Fallout RW Lark That kills, like, all my guys. Crap. However, winning that fast wasn't too hard in all honesty. Path to Exile out of the sideboard helped to make Reveillark less of a blowout, and Volcanoc Fallout generally did a good job of just destroying their board position. Celestial Purge was a beating most of the time, but overall I'm not too unhappy about this match-up. Game one is pretty rough, but games two and three are a lot better and were responsible for most of my wins against the deck. Pre-board I was a poor 40%, but after I was over 60%. I can't really complain about that, though I still don't know how close those numbers are to being the real, cold-hard truths about the match-up. Sideboarding: -4 Qasali Pridemage -1 Garruk Wildspeaker +1 Loxodon Warhammer +1 Volcanic Fallout +3 Path to Exile *** So there you have it: if you want a deck that beats on Faeries, can hold its own with Five Color, and has a generally positive match-up with the most-played aggro decks, give this deck a spin. Heck, even if you don't want match-ups like that, try this deck anyway. I don't normally go for decks like this, but I was drawn to it, and wanted to see if the strategy could really work. I'm happy to say that it certainly does, and quite well. I don't think it's a stretch, either, to suggest that this deck only gets exponentially better once Lorwyn rotates, as this deck draws heavily from the Block Naya decks* that are tearing up the MTGO queues (and those decks are sick). So even if you're a control player, through and through, give this a shot. Try the other side of the game. Do what I did, and sling red and green spells rather than blue ones. Play with the cards that you absolutely hate being played against you, and get a little aggressive. Or, dare I say it due to the fear of sounding too corny, be a little more wild. Because, remember...there's one in all of us. Until next time, Chris "Shinjutsei" Jobin By Chris Jobin on April 30th, 2009 · Filed in Thirst for Knowledge, Standard (Type 2) · 38 Comments |
|
|||||||
