Some countries still have Regionals or JSS qualifiers in the current Standard format, so you should know how to play with or against Heartbeat. This deck is even good in Team PTQ's. Heartbeat will probably remain viable with Dissension in the format, so again, you should know how to play with or against Heartbeat.

Heartbeat of Spring is a card that has been legal since 2004-10-20, but before October of last year, it never was a real force. This card has, since the beginning of the last Extended season, had a place in combo decks. It was first really used (or maybe broken) in Chris “Star Wars Kid” McDaniel’s Mind’s Desire combo deck at Pro Tour Los Angeles, where McDaniel placed fourth.

The basic idea was to abuse Heartbeat of Spring and Early Harvest to generate a lot of mana, then to play a lot of spells via recursion (mainly Nostalgic Dreams), Gifts Ungiven or Mind’s Desire, and finally to kill the opponent through decking via Brain Freeze.

Heartbeat of Spring decks were also designed for post-Ninth Edition Standard, you can see one take on it here at Salvation ("Playing mason.dec" by kingcobweb), but the deck was never a real force.

Heartbeat decks were also built once Ravnica was legal in Standard. There were two versions: One with Gifts and one without Gifts and more transmute cards. The Gifts versions were slow and bad; the transmute version was a lot better. Despite both versions, Heartbeat combo never made a breakthrough.

Until Guildpact was released.


A German crew designed a version of Heartbeat with Red and an interesting sideboard. Maximilian Bracht made the Top 8 at PT Honolulu and Wesimo Al-Bacha placed 19th (although his deck was a bit different, see below) at the PT.

Take a look at this beauty:

Max Bracht: Jomesy’s Savage Heartbeat
lands: 22 10 Forest 10 Island 1 Swamp 1 Mountain creatures: 9 4 Sakura-Tribe Elder 4 Drift of Phantasms 1 Maga, Traitor to Mortals other spells: 29 4 Sensei's Divining Top 4 Remand 4 Muddle the Mixture 4 Heartbeat of Spring 4 Early Harvest 4 Kodama's Reach 1 Compulsive Research 1 Recollect 1 Weird Harvest 1 Invoke the Firemind 1 Boomerang		sideboard cards: 15 1 Umezawa's Jitte 1 Pyroclasm 4 Vinelasher Kudzu 3 Iwamori of the Open Fist 2 Meloku the Clouded Mirror 1 Keiga, the Tide Star 3 Savage Twister

This deck was something completely new. The concept of using creatures in the board to fight hate is nothing new; look at GhaziGlare’s board for example. However, nobody ever thought of using “the man plan”, as it is called now, in Heartbeat. Red was used to have a weapon against creature decks, like Heezy Street and Zoo. Also notice the Muddle the Mixture toolbox. It can get creature kill, Jitte, bounce against stuff like [card]Ivory Mask[card], Tribe Elders for land, and even Remand or Vinelasher Kudzu. It could also be used as a counterspell against counters, Cranial Extractions and a lot of other cards.

As an aside, should anyone of you be able to read German, you can find two great articles about Heartbeat from Bracht right here, here, and a relatively new one
here.

If you're unfamiliar with how Heartbeat works and why it's playing jank like Weird Harvest and Drift of Phantasms, you may want to check out some card explanations, located in the spoiler:


"That’s all nice," you might be thinking, “but how exactly do you play this deck?”

Well, you usually transmute for your combo pieces (Early Harvest, Heartbeat of Spring, Weird Harvest) and accelerate your mana in the early turns. Then you play Heartbeat of Spring, tap all your lands for mana and untap them with Early Harvest. You should now have access to roughly 14 or more mana. With this mana, you cast Weird Harvest for Maga, the rest of the Drift of Phantasms, and maybe some Sakura-Tribe Elders (called STE for the rest of the article). This leaves you with 7 mana left in your pool. You then transmute for an Early Harvest and cast it. This leaves you with 1 mana in your pool and 6-7 untapped lands. You then tap these, let’s say six, lands and you have 13 mana in your pool. With this mana, you can cast and sac STE, so you have 7 tapped lands in play and eleven mana in your pool. You can then transmute for another two Early Harvests, which leaves you with 5 mana. You then cast Early Harvest with two mana in your pool, tap your 7 lands so you end up with 16 mana in your pool, play your last Early Harvest, 13 in your pool, tap all lands, 27 mana in your pool, and cast Maga for up to 24 to kill your opponent.

This is a normal combo kill with this deck. You can normally go off on turn five or six, and, once in a blue moon. even on turn four. Sometimes you go off later because you had to kill some creatures with Savage Twister or because you need counter backup to go off for sure.

And now you may ask, “But how do you kill creatures when all your creature kill is in your sideboard?” Good question. And the answer is: usually some changes are made to Bracht’s list. Not all lists use the “man plan,” some do, some don’t run Red in the main, others do.

The usual change is:
-1 Compulsive Research
+1 Savage Twister

Savage Twister hugely improves the aggro matchup and also allows your men to punch through for damage once you’ve cleared the board. For now, when I talk about the deck, I will assume this change was made. We will get to other options later. Another common change is to cut Boomerang for Train of Thought to give the deck additional card draw. Some players, including Paul Jordan, are advocating this change.


And now some goldfishing so you can see how the deck usually goes off. I will play as if I played in the first game, drew in the second, and played in the third with Savage Twister exchanged for Compulsive Research, but with Boomerang instead of Train of Thought.

Goldfish 1:
Hand: Swamp, Sensei’s Divining Top (for now SDT), STE, Island, Drift, Maga, Recollect.

This hand could be kept, but it's not excellent. You lack a Green source, and although you have Top it's unlikely that the STE will hit on turn two. You have 53 cards left in your deck and 10 Green sources in your deck. So statistically, you should draw one in the next few turns. Depending on the matchup, this hand is keepable. Keepable I say, because against slower decks, you have time to find your Green source. Let’s see how it plays out in goldfishing.

Turn 1: Island, Top.
Turn 2: Top during upkeep, rearrange Forest - Drift - Reach, draw and play Forest, Top again, arrange Muddle - Reach - Drift.
Turn 3: draw Muddle, SDT to draw Reach, Reach for Forest and Island into play.
Turn 4: draw STE, lay Forest, play both STEs, sac for 2x Island.
Turn 5: draw Heartbeat, Transmute for Weird and Early Harvests.
Turn 6: Combo out like described above. Heartbeat, Early, Weird for 4, Early, transmute twice, Early, STE, Early, Maga for lethal.

A normal turn six kill.

Goldfish 2:
Hand: Invoke, Heartbeat, Early, Drift, Muddle, Island, Forest

Keepable? No. It has all the combo pieces, but no mana accel. I would not keep it.

New Hand: Forest, Island, Island, Reach, Reach, Early Harvest

Not exciting, but at least some accel. If you draw something good, you are set.

Turn 1: draw a STE, play Forest.
Turn 2: draw a Reach, play Island, STE, fetch a Forest.
Turn 3: draw a Mountain, Island, Reach for Island + Forest into play.
Turn 4: draw an Island, play Island, 2x Reach, 2x Forest into hand, Island and Swamp into play.
Turn 5: draw Remand, play Forest, Early, Remand Early to draw a Muddle, Early, in pool, tap all lands, in pool, transmute Muddle for Weird, , Weird for 5, search for 4x Drift and 1x Maga.
Turn 6: draw STE, play Island, transmute for Heartbeat, cast it, transmute for Early, cast Early, transmute for 2x Early, cast Early, Early, Maga for lethal.

Another turn six kill, but this one is only possible in goldfishing. In a tournament, giving your opponent 5 creatures is very bad, unless you play against decks with only controllish creatures, like Roxodon Hierarchy (or Triad, as it is known here). But even here it’s suboptimal, as Roxodon Hierarchy should have done something to stop you from going off and giving them some Hierarchs and Angels of Despair isn’t beautiful, either.

Goldfish 3:
Hand: Island, Forest, Swamp, Early, Heartbeat, STE, Remand

Should be kept. You have lands, mana accel and two parts of the combo.

Turn 1: Forest.
Turn 2: draw Forest, play Island, STE, sac for Island.
Turn 3: draw Muddle, play Forest, Muddle for Weird.
Turn 4: draw Drift, play Swamp, transmute for Early Harvest.
Turn 5: draw Forest, play Heartbeat, tap lands, , Early, , tap lands,
, Weird for 5, , get 3x Drift, Maga, STE, play and sac STE for Island, , transmute for and cast Early, no mana in your pool, tap all lands, tap Island and Swamp, transmute for Heartbeat, B in pool, tap Forest, cast Heartbeat, tap all lands, in pool, Early, , tap all lands, 10x G, 11x U and 3 B mana in your pool, Maga for lethal.

A normal turn five kill, nothing special here.

So how exactly do you use the man plan? When do you use it? Do you board out the entire combo? If not, what else can you do?

You usually use the man plan if your opponent has way too many ways too disrupt you. For example, W/B Control has enough disruption to stop you from going off early, so trying to beat down makes sense here. Against good matchups, like Owl, you don’t need to use the man plan.

You can take out the entire combo and board in the entire sideboard, this looks like:
-4 Heartbeat, -4 Early, - 1 Weird, -1 Maga, -1 Boomerang/Recollect, - 4 Drifts,
+everything

If you board this way, your deck becomes CMU (Crictical Mass Update, a U/G/b aggro control deck that made Top 8 at Worlds ‘05). Your goal is to get down a threat and to protect it with your eight counters.

This boarding only works, of course, if you need the additional creatures to get the kill. If not, leave three cards in.

At PT Honolulu, Max Bracht did sometimes board this way, but sometimes, like against Ruel in the Top 8, he boarded in some creatures, but left in cards from the combo. This way, you can still Invoke for the win. You can either leave some Early Harvests and an Invoke in, or you can leave in, roughly, 2 Drifts, 2 Heartbeats, 3 Early Harvests, and the Invoke.

Depending on the matchup, you should then take out some combination of 1-2 Reaches, 1 STE, 2 Muddle’s and 2 Remands, Boomerang/Recollect in addition to the rest of the Drifts, Early Harvests, Heartbeats, the Maga and the Weird.

Again, this is only one way you can do it. This is not always the correct way to board. Depending on what you are facing, different cards need to be boarded out. Doing some testing for yourself and trying out different ways to sideboard will get you a better understanding of sideboarding than my writing, because I cannot tell you how to exactly sideboard against everything. Depending on the exact build your opponent is running, things can change.

Now that you know why which cards are played in the basic version and how the deck roughly works (I say roughly, because it’s not a deck that’s extremely easy to play), we can move on to additional mainboard and sideboard changes, aka what else works.


Let’s start chronologically.

Wesimo Al-Bacha: Weird Harvest
lands: 22 10 Forest 10 Island 1 Swamp 1 Mountain creatures: 8 4 Sakura-Tribe Elder 3 Drift of Phantasms 1 Maga, Traitor to Mortals other spells: 30 4 Remand 4 Muddle the Mixture 4 Heartbeat of Spring 4 Early Harvest 4 Kodama's Reach 3 Sensei's Divining Top 2 Gigadrowse 2 Mana Leak 1 Compulsive Research 1 Recollect 1 Weird Harvest		sideboard cards: 15 2 Mana Leak 1 Invoke the Firemind 3 Rending Vines 3 Savage Twister 3 Shadow of Doubt 2 Wood Elves 1 Dosan the Falling Leaf

This is Wesimo Al-Bacha’s list from PT Honolulu. He got the original list from Bracht, yet ended up with something very different.

His list is tuned against control, with Mana Leak and especially Gigadrowse being major players against control. Gigadrowse can be used to tap your opponent's lands during their end of turn step, denying them the ability to counter your spells.

In the sideboard, he has additional Mana Leaks, the Invoke, which is useful against Extraction and can draw cards, and Rending Vines, which can destroy annoying Jittes and Pithing Needles, while drawing you a card and being tutorable. Savage Twister is good against aggro. Wood Elves accelerate your mana and can block. Shadow of Doubt is great tech. It’s a force against the mirror, since denying Weird Harvests and transmute is powerful. It’s useful against Greater Good Gifts and Cranial Extraction. Hell, it even draws you a card. Dosan is, again, something against control. He’s tutorable and denies countering if he stays in play.

After Honolulu, there were no single-player Standard events, but there’s still Team Constructed. And if you want to go to Charleston, you might want to take a look at Heartbeat.

Since we are approaching this chronologically, let’s continue with GP Madison, where three different Heartbeat lists made the Top 4.

Richard Hoaen
lands: 22 10 Forest 10 Island 1 Swamp 1 Mountain creatures: 9 4 Sakura-Tribe Elder 4 Drift of Phantasms 1 Maga, Traitor to Mortals other spells: 29 4 Remand 4 Muddle the Mixture 4 Heartbeat of Spring 4 Early Harvest 4 Kodama's Reach 4 Sensei's Divining Top 1 Boomerang 1 Savage Twister 1 Recollect 1 Weird Harvest 1 Invoke the Firemind		sideboard cards: 15 2 Savage Twister 2 Rending Vines 4 Shadow of Doubt 3 Bottled Cloister 2 Wood Elves 1 Dosan the Falling Leaf 1 Viridian Shaman

The maindeck is a nearly exact copy from Bracht’s list, with the usual change of removing Compulsive Research in favor of Savage Twister. The sideboard, on the other hand, looks more like Al-Bacha’s board. Rich runs Bottled Cloister as tech against B/W decks with a lot of discard. Viridian Shaman is a tutorable solution to Pithing Needle.

Chris “Star Wars Kid” McDaniel
lands: 22 10 Forest 10 Island 1 Swamp 1 Mountain creatures: 9 4 Sakura-Tribe Elder 4 Drift of Phantasms 1 Maga, Traitor to Mortals other spells: 29 4 Remand 4 Muddle the Mixture 4 Heartbeat of Spring 4 Early Harvest 4 Kodama's Reach 4 Sensei's Divining Top 1 Boomerang 1 Savage Twister 1 Recollect 1 Weird Harvest 1 Invoke the Firemind		sideboard cards: 15 4 Carven Caryatid 2 Gigadrowse 2 Meloku the Clouded Mirror 2 Keiga, the Tide Star 1 Ryusei, the Falling Star 3 Savage Twister 1 Naturalize

The maindeck is, again, nearly a exact copy of Bracht’s list, but the sideboard is different. Star Wars Kid runs Carven Caryatid as a huge blocker against aggro and Gigadrowse against control, but Gigadrowse can also tap hordes of aggro creatures. He also runs the man plan, but only runs Meloku, Keiga and Ryusei, which is also an answer to Kodama of the North Tree. He runs the standard Twisters and Naturalize as a tutorable answer to Pithing Needle.

Brian Ziegler
lands: 22 10 Forest 10 Island 1 Swamp 1 Mountain creatures: 9 4 Sakura-Tribe Elder 4 Drift of Phantasms 1 Maga, Traitor to Mortals other spells: 29 4 Remand 4 Muddle the Mixture 4 Heartbeat of Spring 4 Early Harvest 4 Sensei's Divining Top 3 Kodama's Reach 1 Boomerang 1 Savage Twister 1 Recollect 1 Weird Harvest 1 Invoke the Firemind 1 Compulsive Research		sideboard cards: 15 4 Vinelasher Kudzu 1 Pyroclasm 2 Savage Twister 3 Iwamori of the Open Fist 1 Umezawa's Jitte 2 Meloku the Clouded Mirror 2 Keiga, the Tide Star

Here the maindeck contains additional draw in the form of Compulsive Research. He cut a Reach to make space for a ]Savage Twister. The sideboard is Bracht’s board - 1 Savage Twister and +1 Keiga, the Tide Star, which makes sense, since the Twister is already in the main.

And then, there was GP Hamamatsu, where Japanese genius Akira Asahara ran Heartbeat.

Akira Asahara Heartbeat
lands: 22 12 Forest 9 Island 1 Swamp creatures: 9 4 Sakura-Tribe Elder 4 Drift of Phantasms 1 Maga, Traitor to Mortals other spells: 29 4 Remand 4 Muddle the Mixture 4 Heartbeat of Spring 4 Early Harvest 4 Sensei's Divining Top 4 Kodama's Reach 3 Weird Harvest 2 Rampant Growth		sideboard cards: 15 2 Gigadrowse 1 Mountain 1 Invoke the Firemind 1 Viridian Shaman 4 Vinelasher Kudzu 2 Meloku the Clouded Mirror 3 Savage Twister 1 Pyroclasm

Here, Red was moved to the sideboard and the focus was even more on speed. Instead of a flexible toolbox, we have more speed (+2 [card]Rampant Growth[card]) and even more tutoring (+2 Weird Harvest).
The Red part is in the sideboard, along with six beatdown creatures, the anti-aggro cards, a Viridian Shaman against Pithing Needle and two Gigadrowse against control.

And now a recent list from the man himself.

Max Bracht: PTQ Utrecht 8-1
lands: 22 10 Forest 10 Island 1 Swamp 1 Mountain creatures: 9 4 Sakura-Tribe Elder 4 Drift of Phantasms 1 Maga, Traitor to Mortals other spells: 29 4 Muddle the Mixture 4 Heartbeat of Springs 4 Early Harvest 4 Sensei's Divining Top 4 Remand 4 Kodama's Reach 1 Boomerang 1 Pyroclasm 1 Recollect 1 Invoke the Firemind 1 Weird Harvest		sideboard cards: 15 4 Hinder 4 Vinelasher Kudzu 1 Meloku the Clouded Mirror 3 Bottled Cloister 3 Savage Twister

This is the most recent list, which Bracht used to finish in the Top 4 of a Team PTQ. He’s running a standard list, with Pyroclasm instead of Savage Twister in the main. To quote Bracht: “You usually tutor for either Pyroclasm or Twister. For Twister to be better than Pyroclasm, you need to spend 5 mana plus three additional mana to tutor for it. Eight mana! Ridiculous!” Of course this is only roughly translated from German, but I guess you get the meaning.

The other difference is that he plays Hinder in the sideboard. It’s excellent in the mirror, as hindering (no pun intended) the other player’s development is important and, hell, a hard counter is still a hard counter.

Now that we have revisited some additional lists, we can look at some other possibilities.


Chord of Calling in the board: It can help you with the man plan. It is tutorable and fetches you every creature if you have enough mana. Some people think it’s nice tech; I haven’t tested it a lot. Try it and see if it works.

Wear Away: Should you decide to play Naturalize in the board, you could play Wear Away instead. Its mana cost is still very manageable in this deck and it can be spliced onto Kodama’s Reach, which is often useful.

Defense Grid: If there is a lot of control in your metagame and Gigadrowse doesn’t satisfy you, try this instead. If it comes down on turn two, counters aren’t really an option against you.

Kodama of the North Tree: If you run the man plan, this is another option. It’s a 6/4 trampler that’s very hard to kill. Definitely something to consider.

Parallectric Feedback: This might work in the mirror. If your opponent goes off and you can win the counter war over this, which will be targeting his Invoke/Maga, you win. Shadow of Doubt is probably better, though.

And now for something completely different:


Warning: Depending on your sideboard, matchups can be hugely different. What I’m saying here is not set in stone; everything depends on the exact builds.

Heezy Street and Zoo: This matchup is a pure race. Other than with Twister or Pyroclasm, you cannot stop them, and only Zoo has those annoying Kamis of Ancient Law. You can only try to be faster than they are, and you should board in additional creature kill. Depending on your board, Carven Caryatid can improve these matchups. Wood Elves can be chump blockers. Watch out when casting a Heartbeat; they can unload a lot of burn onto you, but at some point, you have to cast Heartbeat.

Roxodon Hierarchy: This is a relatively good matchup. They do not have that much disruption and countering their Extractions is key here. Bottled Cloister could help, but then Putrefy can wreck you.

Ghost Dad: Their clock is not that fast, but Kamis of Ancient Law and Pithing Needles are annoying. Needles can be dealt with with a Viridian Shaman in the board, and Kamis can be bounced/killed.

G/W aggro variants: Again, a race. Remand intelligently to gain tempo and use Twister if possible. Watch out for Kamis, Pithing Needle (again, Viridian Shaman) and Naturalize.

B/W Control: Not something I’m happy to see. They have a lot of discard, which you don’t like. However, a quick start with the man plan or Bottled Cloister can win you the game here. Cloister is good because they don’t have good tutorable artifact removal. If they smell your Cloister plan, they will board in 3-4 Terashi’s Grasp, which will cripple you, so when you think that your opponent has read your plan, don’t board them in.

Howling Owl: Very good matchup for you. They want you to draw cards, you want to draw your combo pices. Unless they hit you really hard with Exhaustions and Sudden Impacts, it’s a very winnable matchup. And don’t forget that you should use Early Harvest to get out of Exhaustions and if you need to.

Greater Good Combo: Balanced or a good matchup. They do not have a lot of disruption before boarding and your counters and Early Harvests will stop his lock. Both the normal Karsten-style version and the GWB French version are good matchups, but the French version can have boards with a lot of hate, so boarding in roughly 6 creatures to beat down can be very useful.

B/W aggro variants: These are very different from Ghost Dad, so they get their own analysis. There are some different versions: Hand in Hand, Descendant, and B/W Aggro, and then there is Diezel.dec.

non-Diezel: They can race you, so be quick. I have found that the major player in this matchup is Okiba-Gang Shinobi. If it hits you early, it’s hard to win. Bottled Cloister helps.

Diezel.dec aka Husk Promise: This deck was designed by Germany's Michael Diezel and revolves around an early kill using Nantuko Husk and Promise of Bunrei. They can easily outrace you, so key Remands and kill spells are important.

Izzetron: Their counters usually aren’t that hard, so you can punch through with your combo. Gigadrowse and Defense Grid hugely improve this matchup.

Watch out for Wildfire Tron though. An early Wildfire can absolutely wreck you and they usually run Confiscate and Annex to attack your mana base, as well as hard counters in form of Rewind, and after boarding, even Hinder.

Magnivore: This is all about who plays first. If the [card]Magnivore[card] player goes first and gets a good start, you will never get to play your spells. If you play first and either get a STE or a Remand and can follow it up with a Reach, you are in a good position.

Heartbeat: And last, but not least, the mirror. Tempo is important. If you can stop his early acceleration with Remand and/or Muddle, you can easily go off.
If both players develop a good mana base, you need some counters to break through. Shadow of Doubt is great in the mirror and Paralectric Feedback can also be good.


What’s good against us:

Azorius Guildmage: Oh my God, it counters transmute! Help, help, how can we go off? One word (and a dot): Gigadrowse. They need mana to counter your spells, so simply get some lands into play and draw some cards. Then tap them out with Gigadrowse and go off on your turn. Finding Early Harvest and Heartbeat without transmute takes more time, but against control, you should have that time. Bonus points to the guy who answers his opponent's Guildmage by mising his one
Pyroclasm (But no, that doesn’t mean that you should suddenly board creature kill against control).

A lot of discard from Rakdos decks: Should Rakdos aggro be a good deck, we might get into trouble. A lot of early discard, like Delirium Skeins, can make it very hard to go off and a Hellbent Jagged Poppet is like an Okiba-Gang Shinobi on drugs against us. On the other hand, once they’re hellbent, some creature destruction can win us this matchup. Boarding creature kill and the man plan should help, but it all depends on how exactly this deck will see play.

What’s good for us:

Simic Sky Swallower: It’s a bird, it’s a plane! No, it’s Simic Sky Swallower. No seriously, he’s 6/6, he flies, he tramples, and more importantly, he’s untargetable. The only commonly played cards that kill him are Wrath of God and Hit // Run. Perfect for the man plan or as an alternative kill option.

Research // Development: It’s the perfect answer for Cranial Extraction. I know, we can still go off once they’ve Extracted us, but it’s harder. This will be a nice silver bullet, a useful one-of for the sideboard.

Voidslime: Bracht suggest’s using it instead of Hinder. And yes, it’s (nearly) strictly better than Hinder in this deck. It deals with Yosei triggers, Replicate, and even normal spells.

And don’t play Bound // Determined. You might think that it’s good against control, but really, it isn’t. All it does is force you to win a counter war on your turn. Of course, if you win that counter war, you can go off, but if you have the mana to cast Heartbeat of Spring, Early Harvest, Bound // Determined and a few counters in one turn, you could just as well tap ‘em out with Gigadrowse.

By the way, even if they counter replicate with Voidslime, you have still forced them to tap at least three lands, so going off is easier.
For these reasons, don’t play Bound // Determined.

I personally think that there is no definite version of Heartbeat. Take a close look at your meta, choose the right list, test it until you're good with it, and win.

Thanks for reading my article. I hope I've helped you.