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The Great White HopeBy George Stephanis on April 8th, 2008 · Filed in Standard (Type 2) · 60 CommentsHookay. So here’s the deal. I just got back into Magic after a 4-year hiatus (yes, college will have that effect upon your life) this past summer. I had always been a passable player in days gone by — nothing tremendous, but I could hold my own pretty well. Played here and there, drafted a bit, played Wonderdog probably more than I should have, and all in all had a good time. So I get back in, and hit the ground cold. "I'm a *****, I'm a lover; I'm a child, I'm a mother..."
Nothing terribly wonderful, but it was fun to play. It had done passably in playtesting, for a pile of junk thrown together. It has a good deal of synergy, between all the Rebels in the deck and Amrou Scout fetching them and the Bound in Silence. So I take it to Regionals. Aaaaand it did horrendously. Regionals went something like this: Round 1 - Red Deck Wins. Lost. Round 2 - Sliver deck, piloted by a younger player. He seemed kinda new, so I can't take any real pride in the win. I tried to be nice and offered any help I could following the match. Round 3 - This was the match I took the most pride in. They were playing Project X. The first two games were split, and my Tormod's Crypts in the sideboard let me win game two. Game three, he comboed off and gained a million life. I elected to play it out. I kept attacking away at his million life. And, when time was called, in the five remaining turns, he couldn't finish me off. Match Draw. Round 4 - Snow White, lost. Not terribly much to say. Game one he laid Story Circle set to White. Same for Game two, except I never could draw any of my Disenchants. Round 5 - Urzatron. This guy had been on a roll, and I imagine they had to power-protect this round, otherwise I don't know how he could have been paired to me, who had just gone 1-2-1. Rolled over me like the deck does. Drop. So, I dropped and stuck around to watch the rest of the tournament. After one of my friends won the entire tournament with his SMR Control Deck (a variant of Glittering Wish Control) and another finished just out of the Top 8, I realized that I had been unknowingly squandering a great opportunity. I had been practicing with some very skilled players without realizing it and was honing my own skills amongst them. (Chris, Mike — for that I’m eternally grateful.) So I figured what the hell. If my cruddy White Weenie incarnation could not get utterly annihilated in playtesting against them as a Time Spiral Block deck, it had to have some merit to it, right? So off I went to continue building it as a Time Spiral Block deck. I scoured the available sets and looked card-by-card to see what White had to offer. Thinking back to old archetypes I was more familiar with, I remembered how powerful fetchlands from Onslaught were for thinning out your deck, so I included Flagstones of Trokair. Also remembering how powerful Nantuko Shade was in old Mono Black Control decks, I saw Shade of Trokair and was immediately struck by its utility. It's an easy  -drop suspend, and it comes in swinging? That sounds useful. Icatian Javelineers? Wow, I already have a playset lying about from the old days. Aggressive decks could always useways of getting pesky blockers out of the way, making Mana Birds die, or dealing that one more point of damage. I remember Blastoderm ... and here's Calciderm! Very useful dude, but it's too bad he has a 3 attack shelf-life. Luckily, there's also the Stonecloaker. And while I do love myself some Dawn Charm, it sadly had to get the axe. Eventually, after a lot of reading through cards, the deck ended up looking something like this:"Fetch us ... A SHRUBBERY!"
Some important things to note — Firstly, it plays very similar to Sligh archetypes. It runs the Icatian Javelineers, Sunlances, and Temporal Isolations to get enemy stuff out of the way. The mana curve is also very low, as is fitting for a White Weenie deck. It runs 4x Flagstones of Trokair to pop your own Flagstones to thin out your deck. Sacred Mesa and Shade of Trokair are your late-game mana-sinks. Griffin Guide is the All-Star Card, though. A turn 2 Knights Who Say Ni, pumped with the Guide on turn 3 generally tends to win games. So, I get it together, trade online at MagicTraders.com to get my play set of Flagstones of Trokair (at the time the hardest bit of the deck to get), and then, suddenly, it hits me. Nobody around here plays block formats. Everyone plays exclusively Type 2. I play test it against some Type 2 decks and it seems to hold its own — remarkable for a block deck, considering that there were five full sets that I didn’t pull anything from (Ravnica Block, Coldsnap, Ninth Edition). Then one night at a local Type 2 Friday Night Magic tournament, Chris encourages me to throw caution to the wind and play my block deck in the Format. I’m a bit uneasy, anticipating that I'd be slightly outclassed, but he manages to talk me into it. Round 1: Red/Green Beats deck, played a bit different from the Gruul decks I'd seen around previously. Won 2-0 Round 2: Dredge. I squeaked out a win in game one by outracing. Sideboarded in 3 Tormod's Crypts for game 2. Games 2 and 3 each saw one Crypt eating his graveyard, but he dredged into more and won. Lesson learned? Wait to pop the Crypt until after he sacrifices the 3 Narcomoebas to flash back Dread Return, since the Bridge triggers only happen if Bridge from Below is still in their graveyard at resolution. Lost 1-2 Round 3: Green beats deck. Possibly had some red. Just won straight out 2-0. Round 4: Momentary Blink deck. Red, White, and Blue. Lightning Angels saw play. Opal Guardian was the star-card post-sideboard. A win game two thanks to a top-decked Temporal Isolation. Won the match 2-0 Round 5: Red/Green Aggro, not typical Gruul build though. He got manascrewed game 1, and I won thanks to Temporal Isolating away his only remaining blocker for the win. Sadly, he walked away pissed and wouldn't shake my hand. I won 2-0. Now I’m very glad Chris talked me into playing, as I ended up going 4-1 and taking third place that night. Were it not for the coordinated tie last round by the two undefeated players, I might have even taken second. Needless to say, people were surprised. I heard everyone calling it things from a 'fluke' to 'beginner’s luck.' Understandable, considering my previous record in the weeks prior. But I just smiled quietly and took my prize packs. By this point I knew my deck had potential. My suspicions had bloomed into confidence. So I stepped back and examined the metagame. I searched the forums here at MTGSalvation.com and discovered what decks were prominent and what I needed to do to beat them. I played more tournaments throughout the course of the next few months prior to Lorwyn phasing in. But, in the end, my build looked something like this: Mana Curve (neglecting suspend costs)
And it regularly won FNM tournaments. It was rare when it didn’t finish at least Top-3, even when lent out to experienced friends. All-in-all, the deck performed 22-5-2 for me match-wise before Lorwyn appeared, and I'm pretty proud of it. So, in the current environment, I decided to try and bring the deck up to a modern incarnation. Searching high-and-low, here are all the changes I made to the deck. Knights of the Holy Nimbus became Knight of Meadowgrain That's it. Now, there are some other changes people will probably give me heck for not making, one of the more blatant is my choice of Shade of Trokair over the Mirror Entity. Well, I have playsets of both and have played with both. Mirror Entity makes you choose between laying more threats or pumping. The Shade of Trokair gains from the - stray mana you have lying about after you account for anything you wanna play that turn, or it can be a big pumper in its own right. Now, if their casting costs were all equal, that would likely mean that you'd be right; but as it is, the Shade suspends for 1, which results in Advantage:Shade for several reasons.Eff-Tee-Dub.  to pump it enough to kill said big angel beastie.) Thirdly, if they want to Incinerate something in response to pumping, the Mirror Entity would be toast, because you need to do all the pumping at once, whereas the Shade of Trokair can be upped bit-by-bit. And fourthly, as I've experienced a great deal over the summer, it's a huge advantage versus control decks. This big threat being played off suspend without paying any mana for it that turn makes them decide whether to counter it or to let it go on the gambit that you're getting ready to drop a Calciderm.Also, it's the second thing in the -drop slot with its suspend cost. -drops are certainly something not to be underestimated, as tempo is a beautiful thing.All-in-all, based on my own experience and the above reasons, I think it's more than earned its spot in the deck. However, I'd be glad to hear any counter-arguments in the feedback thread! So, having played in my local FNM tourney with the deck, here are the results.
Final result: 2-0 If there is one thing that I took away from this matchup, it is that you should always read the cards and not assume that you know what they do. Case in point: Gelid Shackles. It does read, "Enchanted creature cannot Attack, Block, or use any Activated Abilities". Rather, I have to pay  each turn to make it a wall, so that it can't attack. Now, if Andrew had noticed this, the match would have been alot closer. However, it is a common misconception, and I'm not one to disabuse people of this notion.That being said, this was a long, drawn-out matchup, and in the end I found myself thankful for all the flying things that my deck includes. No sideboards for game two. READ YOUR CARDS!!!!!
Final Result: 2-0 Now, this deck may look a bit out of the ordinary, but it's really tight. Chris ended up going 3-1-0 that night, and his was easily the best and most fun match that I played. Chris is also the aforementioned player who won Regionals back when I was getting started again. It was the first time he ran this deck, and he's since made some minor tweaks to it. The games were close. The second game, I won because I topdecked one of my two Mouth of Ronoms to kill his Vesuvan Shapeshifter that was copying a Platinum Angel. Oh, and Hail Storm? Super Secret Tech. No sideboards game two.
Mark never got back to me with his decklist, but he said it was pretty much just the 'good version' of Doran-Rock. Final Result: 2-0 I had the privilege of having my deck be declared "More Obnoxious than Pickles" halfway through the first game. This was a titular feat that ended up carrying through the remainder of the game and the next as well. Just because I run a removal suite of 14 cards in a White Deck (4x Temporal Isolation, 4x Gelid Shackles, 4x Icatian Javelineers, 2x Mouth of Ronom) plus my main-decked Story Circles doesn't make me a bad person ... does it? Anyway, Calciderm brings it to the house, carefully avoiding all the Shriekmaws and Eyeblight's Endings. Unfortunately I didn't have any Stonecloakers in-hand to save them from a painful demise. Game two, I sided in 4x Mana Tithes instead of my Javelineers, but never saw them. Om-nom-nom-nom
Final Result: Intentional Draw After the intentional draw, we decided to play for fun. As it was, going into that round, I had already beaten all three other 2-1 players and got paired down to Dan, who had gone 1-1-1 up to that point, his draw coming from a Reveillark player who didn't seem quite sure how to get his combo to go off properly. But anyways. In the casual playing, I kept several hands I shouldn't have and did badly. So what did I learn from this? I need to build a good sideboard, specifically tailored to what this deck has problems with. In the first three rounds, I only sideboarded once and never saw any of the four Mana Tithes that I brought in. So the deck doesn't really need anything external for to win against those sort of decks. What ought to be included in the sideboard? Based on my experience, I'd probably suggest something along these lines. 4x Sunlance 4x Crib Swap 4x Return to Dust 2x Crovax, Ascendant Hero 1x Stonecloaker Sunlances are there vs. Wort, Boggart Auntie, Sower of Temptation, Ohran Viper, etc. Crib Swap is vs. Reveillark and other random removal necessities (Big Mana Akroma anyone?), plus everything else Sunlance goes for. Return to Dust seems self-evident, be it Loxodon Warhammers you're having a problem with, Teferi's Moats, or a pair of Bitterblossoms. Crovax, Ascendant Hero is a fun pumper and I've found it especially helpful v. aggro matchups. Bitterblossom just turned horrible; and as a plus, he has a combat trick, if need be. Stonecloaker I've just included the fourth of in the sideboard against anything that would call for it. Reveillark, obviously (we had a FNM where nearly half the decks were Project R), but also Reanimator decks and such. So what was the lesson of this story? Be rogue. Build your own deck. Think for yourself! How else are great decks born? I guarantee, the players you face will respect you more for playing your own creation than the latest netdeck. By George Stephanis on April 8th, 2008 · Filed in Standard (Type 2) · 60 Comments |
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