In my last article I introduced my Black-Blue-Green Verminator deck, and talked about how I went about changing it for the new standard. By the end of the article I had assembled the deck and made some changes following some initial testing. The deck list that I took to Friday Night Magic was as follows:
Verminator v2.1Designed by Steve McAleer for Standard |
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4 Shadowmage Infiltrator 9 Creatures4 Remand 28 Other Spells |
4 Terramorphic Expanse 23 Land3 Krosan Grip 15 Sideboard Cards |
Approximate Deck Cost: £201.60
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I'll go briefly over the matches and then focus on what works in the deck, and what improvements we can make.
Round one was against a newer player, and I actually spent most of the round helping him to understand how many of the cards in his deck work. He had a pre-con deck, which he had bought so that he could play along with his son in the tournament. Explaining how the stack works takes a bit of time however, especially since my deck contains 9 counters and another 14 cards that are played at instant speed (ignoring the fact that Teferi increases that count by 7 more). My Good Samaritan act meant that I only won the second game in the fifth turn of extra time at the end of the round, when a Simic Sky Swallower flashed in at the end of his final turn to take the victory. His deck never really caused me any problems, which is as expected since pre-cons are hardly tuned for serious play.
The second round was against a dedicated UR Suspend deck using Errant Ephemeron and Deep-Sea Kraken as win conditions, backed up by counters, burn and bounce spells. I played an early Teferi, which is the last thing a suspend deck wants to face, and he is forced to bounce it with no kill cards in hand. I was able to use the threat of replaying Teferi to upset his game plan, with him barely playing any spells while the counters ticked down on a suspended Kraken. Meanwhile, I used two Careful Consideration to craft my hand in tandem with a Shadowmage Infiltrator plinking for one point a turn. When the Kraken had two counters left on it I finally replayed the Teferi, which he Mana Leaked, leaving one counter left on the Kraken. During his upkeep he played the Kraken and I responded by Remanding it; he Mana Leaked my Remand and I responded by Cancelling the Kraken. Having used up all his counter magic, he was unable to prevent me from flashing in the second copy of Teferi at the end of turn, and then untapping with Spell Burst plus buyback mana to protect him. In the second game a combination of two Shadowmage Infiltrators and some mana problems for my opponent meant that I was in control from the start and picked up an easy win.
Round three was against another three-colour control deck, using mana acceleration to play Simic Sky Swallower and Debtor's Knell. I took the first game in a drawn out end-to-end style match. He got down some early creatures; I killed them with Edict and Putrefy and played Infiltrator and Hypnotic Specter. He takes a couple of hits from the Infiltrator before dealing with it and playing out more creatures. I go low on life from his attacks, before two Ribbons of Night clear his attackers and restore my life total. Eventually Simic Sky Swallower arrives and I am able to take the win. I sideboard out Teferi since he has no counter spells or combat tricks as such, and the Cruel Edicts, and bring in the second Sky Swallower and Voidslime. The second game starts with only 15 minutes left on the round, and seems to be going the same way as the first. He tries an early Muse Vessel, but I have Putrefy in hand to kill it before he can activate it. After some more back and forth he gets Debtor's Knell - I have no way to deal with it and lose to recurring Simic Sky Swallowers. I bring the Krosan Grips in from the sideboard for three Voidslime for the third game, but the round ends before we can finish the game and we are left at a 1-1 draw.
The final round is against Zoo/BDW hybrid, with a heavily white creature base and plenty of burn. In the first game a couple of early Ribbons of Night undoes the early damage from attackers, and Psionic Blast takes out an opposing Paladin en-Vec. Gaea's Blessing then shuffles it back into my library and I redraw it two turns later, just in time to kill off a second Paladin. I get down Hypnotic Specter, and proceed to destroy what is left of his hand. When I demonstrate Spell Burst with buyback mana on his next three spells he concedes the game. I sideboard in Spell Snare for Teferi and a Remand, but the second game sees him get an awesome draw that I can't deal with and he runs me over in short order. Game three starts in a similar fashion, although I am able to hold off the attack for a while. Unfortunately I find myself in a position where I can either kill off the attacker he has on the board, or counter the next threat he plays each turn. Whilst I am controlling his creatures he is able to keep throwing burn at me, and eventually I die having failed to see the single Ribbons of Night that would have given me the chance to stabilise.
Hasta la vista, Teferi
I finish with a 2-1-1 record, which puts me in 5th place out of 15 people, and a relatively successful first outing for the deck. The main lessons learnt from the tournament were:
So the deck is working well, but still has some problem areas to address. I am going to make the following changes to the deck:
As I mentioned above, Teferi is great against control decks, but was lacklustre against aggro. Going down to one copy main deck means that he is still there for game one against control. In his place I can bring in…
As the only actual win condition (other than using Gaea's Blessing to make sure that I don't run out of cards before my opponent) having only one copy of SSS meant that even when I was in control of a game, I often had no way to close it out. The second copy will make it more likely I will draw one when I need it, while keeping the chances of drawing it early fairly low.
With Putrefy, Ribbons of Night and the copy of Psionic Blast also in the main deck, Cruel Edict was often redundant. With Ribbons of Night playing a multi-purpose role, Cruel Edict is the sorcery speed removal spell to get cut.
I'm pretty sure that you could make a nice graph showing the number of times Gaea's Blessing is cast in a game against the probability of you winning it. I was always pleased to draw this, and going up to the maximum number of copies is a no-brainer having seen it working alongside Careful Consideration.
Fed up with enchantments ruining your day? Feeling bad because you had to use your creature kill card to remove some artifact you didn't like the look of? Why not do something about it in your main deck? Krosan Grip shores up the main weakness of the deck, and ensures that a resolved Debtor's Knell is not game over.
The problem with Ghost Quarter is that it isn't land destruction per se, since it allows the controller to replace the land. It can't be used to colour-screw your opponent, so the only time it will really be useful is against Vitu-Ghazi, the City Tree and other such non-basics. At the moment there aren't too many decks running lands like this that we are overly concerned about.
IN: 2 Desert
There are, however, plenty of decks running one toughness creatures that we are concerned about. Desert provides a cheap repeatable removal effect that can help relieve some of the pressure against aggro, particularly any shadow decks that may appear using Soltari Priest, Drifter il-Dal or the like.
The sideboard changes as follows:
These are promoted to the main deck, freeing up some sideboard spaces.
I did bring these in against the Zoo deck, but didn't draw one in the second game, and had no targets for the copy I drew in the third. Against such an aggressive deck I want something more proactive, and that has a chance of saving me from some life loss.
Despite being fairly ineffective against aggro, Teferi is still a house against control decks, so I definitely want to go back up to two copies out of the sideboard.
A great blocker against small creature rushes; it can also give us a slight mana boost, which is never a bad thing in a control deck.
Against decks with Akroma, SSS and Paladin en-Vec this is a star, but it proved less useful when the opponent had multiple creatures out.
All of which changes leave the deck looking like this:
Verminator v2.2Designed by Steve McAleer for Standard |
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4 Shadowmage Infiltrator 9 Creatures4 Remand 28 Other Spells |
4 Terramorphic Expanse 23 Land1 Krosan Grip 15 Sideboard Cards |
Approximate Deck Cost: £209
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I'll have some further updates on how this deck is performing in the future, meanwhile let me know what you think on the forums - is there a killer card I have missed? Or do you disagree with any of my choices?
That's it for now, join me next time when I'll present a brand new deck update and FNM report
Steve McAleer.
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