By Anthony Skinner
Welcome
to my report on the National Qualifier held last week by Space Myth & Magic
at
My
first impression is that the metagame is very
different depending on what part of the country you play in. This is not really
surprising given that most the Magic clubs and communities in the
The
results also show that there is no “dominating archtype”
like Affinity, Goblins or U/G Madness from seasons past. Enduring Ideal has
qualified people, U/R Counterspell decks have won, a Urgatron deck won last week in
I
believe that is because of the combo nature of the Husk deck and it’s inability to drop more than one threatening piece per
turn, and with most of the threats only coming online as late as turn 3. A deck
that can handle one spell per turn will easily break up the dozen or so
mini-combos the Husk deck has to offer and win off the back of it’s more
individually powerful cards.
This
brings me to the first two decks qualifying from
Remand
Mana Leak
Hinder
“With
at least eight counters you should be able to disrupt any opponent planning to
beat you with card combinations”
I
don’t count Remand as being a true counter as it is really a tempo card,
something a controlling deck like these needs in spades, in the early turns
where they don’t have much game. Most the time Remand is “Take
an extra turn after this one, draw a card” for 1U.
Without
any further ado, the deck lists:-
|
Andy Leeder U/R Izzet Control Creatures (4) 2 Meloku the Clouded Mirror 2 Keiga, the Tide Star Spells (32) 2 Pyroclasm 4 Electrolyze 2 Boomerang 4 Compulsive Research 3 Mana Leak 4 Remand 3 Spell Snare 3 Disrupting Shoal 3 Muddle the Mixture 4 Hinder |
Lands (24) 4 Steam Vents 4 Shivan Reef 11 2 Shinka, Bloodsoaked
Keep 2 Minamo, School at Waters Edge 1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds Total 60 Cards Sideboard (15) 3 Quash 3 Shifting Borders 3 Plagiarize 1 Pyroclasm 1 Umezawas Jitte 2 Remove Soul 2 Shadows of Doubt |
|
Ian Walshaw U/W Azorious Control Creatures (4) 2 Meloku the Clouded Mirror 2 Keiga, the Tide Star Spells (32) 4 Spell
Snare 4 Condemn 4 Mana Leak 4 Remand 4 Telling
Time 4 Hinder 4 Compulsive
Research 4 Wrath of
God |
Lands (24) 7 1 Minamo, 1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds 4 Adarkar Wastes 2 Hallowed
Fountain 8 Plains 1 Eiganjo Castle Total 60
Cards Sideboard (15) 4 Rewind 4 Azorious Guildmage 4 Threads of
Disloyalty 3 Millstone |
Andy Leeder’s U/R Control plays a lot more counters with Muddle
the Mixture, Disrupting Shoal and Quash in the sideboard. Ian Walshaw’s U/W deck has less
counters but has Telling Time and Condemn, with Millstone in the sideboard
(obviously expecting a lot of counter mirrors). I like the idea of Muddle the
Mixture in the Izzet deck, which can be transmuted
for Pyroclasm or Boomerang. But with Control decks in
mind I am not sure why there is no Jushi Apprentice,
as at least a transmute target in the sideboard. Shifting Boarders looks like
good anti- Urzatron/ Bounceland
Tech but I would have thought Annex would be stronger as you don’t have to give
them a land, the Plagiarize I don’t understand though. It would certainly be
amusing against a compulsive research, but that costs 3 mana whereas Plagiarize costs 4 and I see this
getting stuck in your hand too many times, when ideally you want to have mana open for counters. With a Greater Good deck in the top
3 it is quite likely that this was intended for the local meta-game and to
completely decimate a Greater Good deck. “Yes I will sack to Greater Good, Yosei to draw 5” , “In response
Plagiarize – I draw 5 you discard 3!” If you expect lots of Greater Good decks
this could be good tech.
Ian Walshaw’s U/W deck has a more focussed sideboard with
Rewind, Azorious Guildmage
and Threads of Disloyalty for Control, Combo and Beatdown
respectively. The Millstones look like Mirror match tech, but do they work? You
pretty much need to activate one seventeen times to win. In my opinion I feel Jushi Apprentice would be better, and you can flip him to
“mill” your opponent too. Against Seal of Fire, Helix and Shock etc Jushi is a bad card but you wouldn’t board it against those
decks. There are also quite a few slower decks where I wouldn’t want to empty
cards into the Graveyard (see the Greater Gifts list below)
I have
played U/W Control at Nationals before in the good old days of Decree of
Justice and friends, where are the Exalted Angels in this U/W list! In all
seriousness though I don’t see how this list does well against Heezy / Zoo and the “I play every legal burn spell decks”-
that always show up! I think there could be something said for including
Descendant of Kiyomaro in this list. Also of note is
the 2 Hallowed Fountains in the main – I assume this is purely not having
access to the other 2?
What
immediately strikes me about Ian Walshaw’s list is
that it is very focussed, playing 4 copies of 8 spells
and then 2 each of the win conditions. The Pro’s advise to play 4 copies of as
many spells as you can and it is something that has been impressed on me during
the years. To be competitive your deck needs to consistently perform and it is
much easier for it to do that for you if you play fewer types of spells.
If you
are going to the Kent or Durham Qualifier tomorrow then you could do a lot
worse than playing one of the above two decks. They certainly look very
effective against any form of Combo deck and slower beatdown
decks.
When
deciding which of the above to play it is a basic choice between playing
Electrolyze / Pyroclasm / More Counters Vs Wrath /
Condemn / Telling Time. If you go with the red plan you need more counters as
many of the creatures that resolve will be resistant to your red spells, so you
need to make sure they don’t resolve and also, Boomerang to bounce any that get
through so you can counter them on the way back down. Electrolyze is more
versatile than the White spells, as it is never a dead card, as you can just
use it for its’ cantrip
effect.
One thing
is for certain, both decks play 4 creatures, 32 control cards and 24 land and
both qualified. So that would appear to be a very solid starting point for
constructing your deck. I would want extra win conditions in the Sideboard to
combat Cranial Extraction. It really does just come down to personal
preference. The U/R list is certainly stronger against utility creatures like
Dark Confident and decks that can dodge White’s sorcery speed Wrath effects,
like Ghost Council. The White spells are better against Paladins, Magnivores, Husks and the like.
Next
up is a very interesting take on Greater Gits
First the decklist
|
James
Howl Creatures
(17) 4 Sakura Tribe-Elder 1 Kagemaro,
First to Suffer 4 Protean Hulk 1 Loaming Shamen 3 Coiling Oracle 1 Kokusho,
the Evening Star 1 Yosei,
the Morning Star 1 Indrok
Stormhowler 1 Keiga,
the Tide Star Spells
(20) 1 Zombify 4 Compulsive Research 2 Macabre Waltz 4 Footsteps of the Goryo 3 Kodama's Reach 3 Greater Good 2 Gifts Ungiven 1 Vigor
Mortis |
Lands (23) 4
Overgrown Tomb 4
Watery Grave 2
Breeding Pool 2
Yavimaya Coast 1
Miren the Moaning Well 2
4
4
Swamp Grand
Total 60 Cards Sideboard (15) 3
Jesters Cap 3
Cranial Extraction 3
Meloku, the Clouded Mirror 1
Kokoshu, the Evening Star 2 Keiga, the Tide
Star 3
Research//Developement |
This
is definitely a competitive deck for the “Johnny Magic Combo Player” There are literally too many combos to describe here, but the main
one that strikes me is the interaction between Protean Hulk and Footsteps of
the Goryo. The plan is to get a Hulk in the graveyard
and then “re-animate” it with Footsteps, at end of turn you sacrifice the Hulk
and put creatures up to converted mana cost six into
play. I would like to find room in the main for the second Kokusho
as I can see the “double Kokusho” as a combo this
deck would like to play for. Research /
Development in the sideboard allows you to bring in extra creatures from the
sideboard to fetch with Protean Hulk and acts as a way to put your Hulks back
in if they get removed with Cranial Extraction.
This
deck is very creative and looks like a lot of fun to play. With absolutely no
control cards, bar one Kagemaro, I feel this deck
wouldn’t fare very well against focussed aggressive decks (effectively being a
gift’s deck without Wraths), it’s mid to late game is however, very powerful. I
do feel that there are many other combos this deck could investigate, for
example, adding a Kiki-Jikki and a SkyHussar.
Use Kiki to copy a Hulk in opponents turn, Hulk dies
at end of Turn, fetch Sky Hussar ,untap,
tap Kiki to copy it again and repeat till infinity! I
also feel that the list could be better with Birds of Paradise so you can cast
Compulsive on T2 and Footsteps/ Zombify on T3. I
would also like to investigate adding Delirium Skins, as I can see discarding
three as being a good thing for this deck and it puts a lot of pressure on your
opponent’s draw at the same time.
That’s
all for now folks, good luck to you if you are playing in the qualifiers in the
next couple of weeks, hope to see you at Nationals. If you have any ideas or
questions on the decks please do discuss them in the forums.
Anthony
Editor