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Good Game: Going AggroBy Andrew Hanson on October 2nd, 2009 · Filed in Standard (Type 2), Good Game · 80 Comments Zendikar is here, and that means new decks and a new metagame. Lorwyn is gone, the tribes have left us, and it's time to push on, to dig and tinker, to come up with the next hot item. What route will you take? Will you try to break Harrow, Khalni Heart Expedition, and the landfall mechanic? Will you go tribal Ally (I kind of hope not—it seems good for limited, but there seem to be only a few playable Allies in constructed)? Maybe you'll try to build a classic form of blue/white control, centered around Day of Judgment.Me, I want to capitalize on the lack of Kitchen Finks, Spectral Procession, Knight of Meadowgrain, and Burrenton Forge-Tender in the format. I'm thinking Sligh. If you don't know what a Sligh deck is, it's an aggro deck characterized by cheap efficient creatures and lots of cheap efficient burn. Decks like Red Deck Wins or Blightning Beatdown could be called Sligh decks. Even Extended's Naya Zoo deck is a type of Sligh deck. So what kind of Sligh am I thinking about? Well, that's up for grabs still, though I have an idea where I'll end up. So put on your seat belt and grab the panic handle because I'm driving on this deck construction trip, and I don't believe in speed limits, construction zones, yield signs, stop signs, pedestrian crossing signs, slow children playing signs, deaf kid neighborhood signs...where was I going with this? Oh yeah. Hopefully, if you stick with me to the end, by the end of this trip I'll have a working decklist that I (and you) could take to a store and compete with. Now, you may be thinking to yourself, "If you don't have a decklist, you at least have some cards in mind, right?" And you'd be right. If you were in fact thinking that. So what cards do I have in mind? Well, let's talk about a Sligh deck's mana curve for a second. Typically, decks like this have two to three playsets of one-drop threats it can play. Then it runs a similar number of two-drop threats, capped by a playset of three-drops and maybe another two to four cards at four or five converted mana cost. The rest of the deck is burn/removal. Usually. The hardest part, in my mind, of getting a Sligh list together is finding good one-drops to play. Well, that's usually the case. Zendikar has made that actually quite easy for us. Let's look at all the one-drop creatures the set gave us.
 . Now, we can get that and haste. Why would you want a puppy when you could have Dobby here. Goblin Bushwhacker is also decent. He's only a 1/1 for , but if you get him later in the game, he is a 2/1 that also pumps the front of all your creatures. But, after that, he's just a 1/1 that can't do anything else. Based off the other one-drops, I'd doubt we'd run this guy.Now, we have to decide on the other color of the deck. First, we cut the critters that don't work well with a rush/burn strategy. Caller of Gales is just a 1/1. Sure, she can grant evasion, but for the most part, we want more oomph out of our creatures. Cosi's Trickster could give us that oomph, but it's going to rely on the opponent, and it's going to take time. Time is one thing Sligh decks usually don't have. The other two blue creatures aren't worth talking about. And as there are no interesting blue one-drops in Shards of Alara block or M10, we can rule that color out. In white, the Kor Duelist seems okay with equipment. I mean, if Bonesplitter were viable, I might consider him (note: Extended). The Steppe Lynx could be strong in a deck that could abuse the hell out of landfall, but Sligh decks can run off very few lands (I plan to), and abusing landfall is not likely. Again, in Shards block, there's not much. Only Akrasan Squire gets salty with your opponent, but he wants to do it one creature at a time. That's too slow. That leaves us Elite Vanguard from M10, which is only one card. White is probably out. Green is actually kind of tempting. Scythe Tiger is a beast, and one your opponent can't bolt, to boot. He's not the best turn one play, though, as he keeps you from dropping a two-drop. But he could be a great turn three or four monster to drop. Scute Mob has it in him to be a house, but I don't know about in a deck like this. I mean, again, Sligh can run off twenty lands, so getting to five could be tricky. Especially with Scythe Tiger. Shards does give us the Wild Nacatl, who is great. And with Arid Mesa, this deck could even run one Plains to fetch. Really, Nacatl and Bloodbraid Elf would be reasons to go green. Sadly, M10 gives us very little, although I've been intrigued by Mold Adder since its printing. New and improved? But I'm a Zombie! The two one-drops in black need little effort to make great. The Lacerator starts that way, and I don't have to do anything out of the way to make the Guul Draz a monster. I mean, I'm trying to get their life to zero as fast as I can, anyways. Sometimes that includes burning my opponent's face. It seems good. This really draws me to black. But let's look at the two-drops. Two-drops are the meat of the Sligh deck, the fatties, if you will. Well, at least they are in the older formats, like Extended (Tarmogoyf, anyone?). So what we run here is just as important as the one-drops. The one-drops are the Sligh deck's tempo setters. The two drops are the workhorses. You don't want sickly, weak workhorses, right? So let's see what kind of two-drops we can work with. As this category tends to be much bigger than the one-drops, I'm only going to list the two-drops that work for a Sligh strategy. And, since we really ruled out white and blue as their one-drops are uninspiring, I'm only going to include green, red, and/or black creatures: Quite a list. First off, the cards that have the strike through them are not actually playable. I mean, they do follow the Sligh game plan, but there just isn't enough bang for the buck with those cards. The two red ones are actually quite good with pump spells since they have double strike (Colossal Might really makes that double strike work for you), and there have been successful decks based around that principal, like Gaea's Might Get There. But, personally, I'm not a fan. I hate putting my cards out there to get two-for-oned. And without pump, those double strikers are essentially bears with a weak backside. Aah, nobody wants to play with me. Blood Seeker could rack up a lot of damage if the opponent is playing a lot of creatures. But I don't want the value of my cards to rely too much on my opponent. And if I find a 1/1 for 1 to be on the iffy side, a 1/1 for 2 is downright awful. Child of Night can go, too. I'm not looking to beat my opponent on a war of attrition. I'm looking to kill them as fast as possible. Therefore, lifelink really isn't that enticing for me, which makes this guy like a 1 toughness bear. Jund Hackblade is only worth it if I run other multicolored cards. Unless I want to fill my deck up with Goblin Deathraiders and Goblin Outlanders (or Nacatl Outlanders and Rip-Clan Crashers; I don't, either way), he won't be worth it. As for those Outlanders, they're more of a sideboard card. I don't think White Weenie will dominate Standard like it used to (good riddance, Spectral), so the Goblin variant probably wouldn't be worth a maindeck spot. As for the Cat version, it has never seen play, and I'm not really expecting him to be worth it now, either. I firmly believe that Lotus Cobra is going to be really good. He will be free mana acceleration, both in tempo and in cards. That said, I don't really need mana acceleration. Sure, the Cobra could enable some cool turn threes, but it's kind of fragile for one of my two-drops. Nissa's Chosen is just an Elvish Warrior in this deck. Sure, a bit tougher than a bear, but still a vanilla 2/X creature. Not worth runnning. That leaves us with this as potential two-drops.
Black Knight is good. A 2/2 with two abilities for 2 isn't really anything to scoff at. But I would like to compare him to Vampire Hexmage. They both cost  , they both have 2 power, and they both have first strike. Now, Black Knight has 2 toughness whereas the Vampire only has 1 toughness, but that's not really important as they both have first strike. How many creatures seeing competitive play could kill the Vampire but not the Knight? Of course, the Knight does have protection from white, as well. But for the same reason I wouldn't maindeck Goblin Outlander anymore, I wouldn't rate that ability over the Vampire's activated ability.Planeswalker? She just shows some cleavage and the 'walker heads home with her. Dregscape Zombie is kind of cool with his recursion antics. But if I were unearthing a creature, I'd rather it be a Hellspark Elemental. At least that thing is one power stronger and has trample. Speaking of 3-power tramplers, there is Goblin Deathraider. I don't know if he's worth it, though. He's so fragile. I really couldn't let him utilize that trample at all, or else he's like a sub-par Hellspark. I mean, part of Sligh's game plan is to keep the opponent's board clear with removal, but you can't always have the removal at hand. I think I need more durability out of my two-drops, either through something like first strike, some kind of recursion, or evasion. Surrakar Marauder can have evasion. But he was one glaring problem—it only happens if I drop a land. In order to swing with this guy, I have to lay a land. If I were laying a land every turn, I'd run Plated Geopede. Really, I probably should have knocked this guy out of the list sooner. This brings us to our final black creature: Gatekeeper of Malakir. He's a bear. Just a bear. Unless he's been kicked. Then he's a murderous bear. Moral of the story: don't kick bears, unless you have someone to put between you and the bear. And that applies to the Gatekeeper. As a two-drop, he's terrible. As a three-drop, he's pretty good. He eats one of your opponent's dudes. What does that mean? It means I won't count him as one of our two-drops; like Hellspark, though, he may still make the deck. Harder to kill than John McClain. Really, between this guy and the one drops, that's almost enough to make me go black. But out of fairness, let's see what we have in green. I actually like Oran-Rief Survivalist quite a bit. He's at least a bear, and he gets bigger when you see more than one of him. Or any other ally. But that's the problem here. He is the only ally candidate for this deck. Most of the time, he's just going to be a bear, and that's not good enough. Now, a green/white deck running him and Kazandu Blademaster—that's something to look into. Rip-Clan Crasher seems to be a card that keeps trying to work his way into competitive decks. He's almost got what it takes. The problem with him, really, is that once he's down and past his first turn, he's just a bear. I don't feel like the slight bump he gives to your tempo is worth his fragility and weakness. Which brings us, finally, to River Boa. This guy is good. He's got 2 power for 2 mana, he's got resilience in his cheap regeneration ability, and he even has a restricted form of evasion. I don't know how prevalent Islands will be in this new Standard, but this guy will be a legit two-drop regardless. In the end, that leaves us with two to three playable black two-drops (Black Knight, Bloodghast, and Vampire Hexmage), and only one playable green two-drop (River Boa). I firmly believe that, even losing out on Bloodbraid Elf, this deck would be better off in black than in green. But oh, if only I could run both, then I could run Putrid Leech, too. I don't think a land base could handle that though (if you think I'm wrong, post your proposed base in the forums—if it's possible, I would love to add green to this!). So, going through the rest of the stuff I could or would play, we have a big ol' stack that looks something like this:
Malakir Bloodwitch would seem really good with all my other Vampires, but if all those other Vampires are still in play, do I need to play the Bloodwitch? Do I want to play her and overextend like that? I mean, I could use her burn as a finisher, but at that point, she's acting like a Lava Axe. I wouldn't run Lava Axe, so I don't think I can run her. Lightning Reaver gets the cut, too. I mean, five-drops are already on notice for Sligh decks, and when presented with other options like Siege-Gang Commander and Ob Nixilis, the Fallen, the Reaver can't compete. Gimme land! More land! More! Magma Spray is a good burn spell, though it's effectiveness is certainly diminishing now that Kitchen Finks is going away. Still, it'd be great against opposing Bloodghasts. I think that means it gets relegated to the board. Even though the speed is great, I don't think I want Ball Lightning and his family. Even the ones with unearth. The card disadvantage is too much for me, I think. I mean, they can't take the spots of creatures, because they can't go the distance against an opponent. I want the cards at 3 mana or higher to be high impact cards—cards that have some kind of big effect when they come down, right away. That said, I think Hypnotic Specter has to go. Sure, if he connects, he's great. But that "if" part has me uneasy. I think Ob Nixilis would have to go for the same reason. Besides, this isn't a landfall deck, and if I have enough land to play the Demon, I'm not exactly hoping to draw more. On the same note, Shambling Remains has to go. He's good, but that 3 toughness has me uneasy. This guy is no Ashenmoor Gouger, and even he was eventually deemed subpar. I think there are just better cards I could run over the Remains. An example of a card that does something when he comes down no matter what is Anathamancer. But how prevalent will nonbasics be in this new Standard? I'll tell you right now, this deck will only have four nonbasics that it can't sacrifice in response to an Anathamancer. This guy can't take a maindeck slot, not yet. If the metagame works out that people are still trying to do Five Color Control decks (like Flores' Cascade Control), maybe the Zombie can get a promotion. Der duh. But the Punishing Fire does hate on one mechanic that is probably the hardest thing for Sligh decks to deal with: lifegain. In a deck where you are actively trading cards for your opponent's life, killing him before he can get a real defense online, lifegain is card disadvantage. Why do you think so many non-aggro, midrange decks run Lightning Helix in Extended? It practically two-for-ones Zoo. The Fire would have been much better in the days of Kitchen Finks, but I think it's still good, and worthy of a maindeck space. Plus, I don't really want to shell out 3 mana for something as vanilla as 3 damage. Punishing Fire fits more into the desired mana curve. Resounding Thunder is out. The last question at this step comes down to Doom Blade vs.Hideous End vs. Terminate. Do I want the cheaper cost? Or is the combination of creature kill and opponent life loss worth the extra mana? Really, is Hideous End nutty enough for my three-drop slot? In Sligh, I think mana efficiency takes precedence, at least when looking at removal. So it's Doom Blade vs. Terminate. Terminate can kill anything, no questions asked. Even River Boa. But Doom Blade is easier to cast, which could be important with the creatures I want to run. But it can't kill black creatures. How big will those be in the metagame? I'm thinking they'll actually be pretty big. Monoblack Vampires, anyone? Let's try Terminate.So what do we have now? That's nine sets of four cards in the deck, for a total of 36 cards. This deck can run off twenty lands, so we have four slots left. That means Nyxathid isn't getting slotted for maindeck, as he could only go in if Blightning went in as well. But what about Blightning? It's a good card. It deals an appreciable amount of damage and two-for-ones the opponent. Lord knows that back-to-back Blightnings can end a game as sure as anything. It's a strong possibility that Blightning stays. And the winner is... How about Howling Banshee? Four is affordable. A 3/3 flyer is a decent creature. And it hits the opponent for 3 when it comes down (me, too, but I really don't care about my own life all that much). Sounds good. But is it as good as Blightning? In the end, it can do more damage to an opponent than Blightning, but it's also easier to answer. A Blightning could really screw over a control deck—knock their post-Day of Judgment threats out of their hand, or force them to pitch their spot removal in favor of the mass removal. In the end, no, I don't think Howling Banshee makes it in over the Blightning. Which, finally, brings us back to the Gatekeeper. He comes down and kills a creature (of the opponent's choice, yes, but because of that, he can kill a Great Sable Stag), and leaves a 2/2 on the board. Really, I should have been considering this guy vs. Hideous End. And this guy wins, I think, because his 2 damage could get there, and his kill could be more versatile. But he is just creature kill, and he requires , to boot. I think Blightning wins as it makes the deck more versatile (it gives the deck a better game against decks that don't run many creatures), and it'll be easier to cast.So we have our non-land portion of the deck and a few sideboard cards. The land base won't be too hard to make, though it may require a little tweaking. Let's see the deck:
Huh, wha...? That leaves me with a few slots in the sideboard. Here's a crazy thought: Harm's Way. I could put that and two Plains in the board. With my fetch lands being what they are, it wouldn't be too hard for me to conjure up one Plains. And, oh, would Harm's Way totally screw the mirror in my favor. So how likely is the mirror? If you haven't heard all the buzz about Monoblack Vampires already, then I am deeply surprised you're even reading this. Whereas Monoblack Vamps isn't a straight mirror, it'll be close enough. And against any deck running burn, the Harm's Way is a two-for-one. Burn my creature? No, you burn your creature! Of course, if I use white like this, I may even be able to replace the Magma Sprays with Path to Exiles. But what else should I have in my board? Well, again, what if I'm up against a deck with very few creatures? Some of that removal could come out (mainly, the Terminates). What would be good to replace it? Duress, of course, which only starts to increase this discard subtheme. Let's see what my sideboard looks like now.
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