Starting things off for 2007 I would like to thank House Atreides for sponsoring our site and in particular my articles. I am hoping 2007 will be a great year for everyone involved with our site. If you haven't checked out House Atreides card database I would really give it a look, they stock many, many games.
The Yokohama qualifiers are just getting started and this brings us to the first Extended tournaments of the year. Now, the 2006 World Championships saw Extended take to the stage and the metagame is shaping up. Current thinking is that Mind's Desire Combo and Boros Deck Wins are the two decks to beat.
Here are the two decks from Matteo's recent article
Mind’s Desire Combo |
||||
4 Geothermal Crevice 21 land 4 Cabal Ritual |
4 Seething Song 39 other spells |
4 Defense Grid 15 sideboard cards |
||
Boros Deck WinsDesigned by Vasily Tsapko |
||||
4 Sacred Foundry 22 land
|
4 Savannah Lions 20 creatures 4 Lava Dart |
4 Molten Rain 19 other spells 3 Pyrite Spellbomb 15 sideboard cards |
||
Beating these two decks would seem on the face of it, to actually be quite a simple problem. We just need to overwhelm the Boros deck with efficient creatures and lifegain to outreach their burn, whilst at the same time prevent the combo deck from beating us. To beat us the combo deck has to target us, with either Tendrils of Agony or Brain Freeze.
So we need a deck with efficient creatures, life gain and atleast one of the following : Gilded Light, True Believer and Ivory Mask.
What I am proposing is a deck designed to protect True Believer against the Mind's Desire deck. With the Cleric on the table Desire cannot win, this means they have to use their Burning Wishes and Chains of Vapour to get rid of it before they can kill you. For this purpose I have brought in Benevolent Bodyguard to give the True Believer protection from Blue. If you do this in response to Mind's Desire going on the stack there is very little they can do about it.
The sideboard gives us Rule of Law, Castigate and Vindicate, which replace the Promise of Brunei, Shining Shoal and Glorious Anthem.
Taking down the Beatdown is trickier, but the key cards are Exalted Angel and its supporters, with backup from Master Apothecary, Benevolent Bodyguard and Shining Shoal you should be able to Unmorph the Angel and protect it for the win.
You also have a lot of life gaining cards, which incidentally happen to be good on their own. Silver Knight and Worship come into help against Red based decks, such as Goblins.
White Deck Refuses to Lose!
By Anthony Skinner 7th January 2007
|
Sideboard 3 Rule of Law 3 Silver Knight 3 Castigate 2 Worship 4 Vindicate |
4 Martyr of Sands, 4 Auriok Champion , 3 Exalted Angel
The life gain element to make sending burn spells to your dome a pointless excerise. May randomly make Tendrils of Agony ineffective.
4 Dark Confident
Four options for the colour to pair with white, the Dark Confident helps you to draw the land you need to cast Battle Screech and Unmorph the Angel. It also draws fire from your main threats.
4 Benevolent Bodyguard, 4 Master Apothecary
This makes it very difficult for your opponents to remove your key cards, whether they be Exalted Angel, the Dark Confident or a Pro-Red creature with Worship on the Board (Pyrite Spellbomb could otherwise wreck your plan.)
3 Shining Shoal
This allows you to keep up on tempo with the Boros Deck, which is difficult otherwise.
3 Promise of Bunrei, 4 Battle Screech, 3 Glorious Anthem
This is pretty much how you win, with 8 Sac Outlets in the main deck there should be no problem triggering the Promise.
The Land
The only thing that really needs explanation is the Sacred Foundry and Hallowed Fountain. These are essentially plains with the ability to fool your opponent into believing your are playing something else.
I would be interested to hear your ideas for developing this deck, there are many options for tweaking it. For example, we could remove the Black and add Blue to give us access to Opposition. Opposition would allow us to tap down all of Desire's lands in their upkeep to prevent them comboing - it would also be strong against any controlling deck. Hokori Dust Drinker would also be an option worth entertaining.
GOTO FORUM
Bonus : This is my latest update for my Standard Gravepact Deck
|
Sideboard 3 Persecute 4 Condemn 2 Adakar Valkerie 3 Plagued Rusalka 3 Proclamation of Rebirth |
||||||||||