The pro tour is over and Simon Görtzen piloted Jund to victory, denying Luis Scott-Vargas a perfect pro tour and beating another jund deck in the classic mirror-match final. Jund seems to be the deck to beat and I expect a lot of these decks to show up in the 8-man standard tournaments and daily events.
Nevertheless I think there will be a diversity of decks. Jeroen Kanis' top 8 performance with "Red Deck Wins" ensured we'll be seeing that deck show up at 8 mans. Being cheap and seemingly easy to play is the right mix to trigger a lot of people to play the deck.
Another deck I expect to see a lot of play is the "Boss Naya" deck piloted by Luis Scott-Vargas. The deck cunningly uses Stoneforge Mystic, Basilisk Collar and Behemoth Sledge to turn every creature in the naya deck into a potential Baneslayer Angel and/or Vampire Nighthawk. Despite vampires not making a top8 appearance at pro tour San Diego, you can still expect to see a lot of those decks to show up as well, wrecking the unprepared with Mind Sludge and the brand new bloodsucker from Worldwake; Kalastria Highborn.
Let us look at the decks I expect to see a lot of play and see if we can find the tools to break them. First up;
Mad props for Jeroen Kanis for making top8 of a pro tour with a decktype that almost everyone gave up on. With the deck being very efficient against unprepared players I expect it to see a lot of play in the 8-man standard tournaments. The affordability of this deck also makes it a very attractive choice as it does not require Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Baneslayer Angel or any cards near that price tag.
So what cards can you pack your deck with to ensure victory?
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The first thing that comes to mind is Celestial Purge. Most decks maindeck this card because they are unable to survive the multiple beats of hasty unearth creatures. Playing Celestial Purge on a Hellspark Elemental or Ball Lightning prevents 6 damage. Playing it on a Plated Geopede boosted by fetchlands or a Hell's Thunder can prevent even more damage. This card is also a star against vampires hitting everything in the deck (except Malakir Bloodwitch of course), but often going for Vampire Nocturnus to shrink the bloodsucking armies back to proper size. It is also good against jund and it can hit an Ajani Vengeant, Sedraxis Specter, Sorin Markov and many more. But mostly it is good against RDW. So there really is no reason not to include at least one copy maindeck and a full playset amongst maindeck and sideboard. |
I can talk for hours about what Iona, shield of Emeria can and can't do, but i feel there is only one quote that fits here... RTFC!
The card says it all. Having an Iona, shield of Emeria set to red ensures that they will never cast a spell again that game. At best they can use their unearth guys for a last goodbye swing. But Iona, shield of Emeria swinging for 21 damage in 3 turns ensures they dont have time to build up a hand and discard those. Casting Iona, shield of Emeria also means the end of vampires and other monocolor strategies like "White Wheenie". |
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Kor Firewalker is also pretty brutal as it completely shuts down Hellspark Elemental, Goblin Guide and Plated Geopede While at the same time in neuters Lightning Bolts back to shock size. Having more than one in play will be a big problem for any red deck. Punishing Fire might be a nice sideboard plan against one Kor Firewalker, but when a second copy enters the battlefield it's "back to the drawing board" for Punishing Fire. Kor Firewalker isn't just a dead card in the sideboard waiting for a monored matchup, it's also decent against jund and naya decks, blocking Bloodbraid Elf, Sprouting Thrinax, Siege-Gang Commander and Woolly Thoctar without breaking a sweet. |
Saving for later: Flashfreeze, Refraction Trap
So these cards are awesome and win matches against RDW (Red Deck Wins). I really want to include the Iona, Shield of Emeria in my deck and get it out before I'm dead, but before I spoil that strategy, let's move on to the next deck;
Jund is boring, like Faeries boring. It's been called the best deck in the format and it has been winning a lot. I think it's the strength in numbers theory. If half the field is going to play jund, 4 of them will make top8. This only works with a good deck of course, don't bring your team of 11 guys to a 22-man legacy event piloting Vizzerdrix claiming 4 of you will top8 that day! Jund is different and attacks enemy decks from all angles: discard, removal, solid aggression, card advantage and direct damage. Its success however is highly depending on finding quality hands and taking mulligans with lesser hands. Let us think about how we can attack Jund decks.
Previously discussed cards:
Iona, Shield of Emeria - Setting her color-hate ability to black prevents Maelstrom Pulse, Terminate, Bituminous Blast and they'll never cast a Broodmate Dragon. Just don't block Putrid Leech with Iona, Shield of Emeria or she might get struck by lightning afterwards.
Celestial Purge - Going 1 for 1 on a Sprouting Thrinax often proves to be hard, (Clestial Purge) does the job here. It is also spot removal againstPutrid Leech preventing you from taking 4 damage every turn.
My game-plan against jund however involves even more greedy plays.
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In the current standard, Flashfreeze is as close as we'll get to Counterspell.
It does everything that Celestial Purge can't do, combining both to maximum effect. Your Celestial Purges wont do much against Garruk Wildspeaker and flashfreezing a Goblin Ruinblaster or Broodmate Dragon before the enter the battlefield effects kick in seems like a better idea compared to hitting it with a Celestial Purge afterwards. Flashfreeze is a versatile hate-card and also has a lot of impact against red decks. Most decks maindeck this card because it's awesome in the matchups where you'll need it to survive long enough to deploy your strategy.
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| Everyone has been talking about this card and everyone agrees on it's functionality. Killing a jund manabase will buy you enough time to play your own deck before the jund machine kicks in. Lately it has been fighting with Treasure Hunt for the 2 drop slot. I have played Spreading Seas next to Treasure Hunt with a surprising result. 90% of the time I rather played the Spreading Seas on turn 2. Sometimes even after a turn 1 Halimar Depths where I had the option to Treasure Hunt for a land+spell. If you can consistently play Jace, the Mind Sculptor on turn 3 like Patrick Chapin's UW control deck using Everflowing Chalice, then Treasure Hunt will get its full value. In the other 90% of the time mana disruption will buy you just as much time and cards, if not more. Treasure hunt is like Michelle Williams, you don't book her without Beyonce Knowles and Kelly Rowland (the rest of Destiny's Child). I'm quite happy with playing a solo-act like Spreading Seas. It also shines against focused decks like Valakut, the molten pinnacle decks and ofcourse against the new manlands. Any blue-based deck that has room for a 2-drop cantrip should play these over treasure hunt. |
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The deck: Polymorph
Sideboard cards obviously shouldn't be the core of your deck, but I already had an idea of what I was going to play and the deck needs to perform against the current field. My plan was to resolve an Iona on Turn four. The turn every deck taps out. Getting the full 6WWW mana on turn four to cast Iona, Shield of Emeria has proven to be somewhat complicated. If I wanted to achieve this by running Khalni Heart Expeditions into Harrow then I would have been better off just using Valakut, the molten Pinnacle and kill my opponent on the spot. Instead I opted to "cheat" the Iona, shield of Emeria into play using Polymorph. There's a nice piece of history behind me and polymorph that you can read if you press the "Show me that history!" button.
Show me that history!
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The first time i opened a mirage booster in 1996 i found myself staring at Polymorph and being really happy with it. In a field full of prosperbloom combo i had my first tournament winning deck with *drumrolls* Polymorph... imagine that! The deck had Sacred Mesa for tokens 4xTeeka's Dragon as the kill card, both Mystical Tutor and Enlightened Tutor and a lot of countermagic. "Different times and different levels of play for sure!"
At that time the Ren and Stimpy show was my favorite cartoon on TV. The art on Polymorph looks very much like Ren from the show. Both combined made sure i'll always have an unhealthy love for the card for the rest of my magic days.
* For those of you who don't know who Ren & Stimpy are, here's a summary: from 1991 to 1996. The Ren and Stimpy Show had a reputation for very inappropriate humor. The controversy was mainly a result of imagery and cartoon violence as well as language and sex references. Here's a link to an old episode from the show http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1rC2_uJLUk&feature=related
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Enough talk about how my deck was built, I owe you guys a decklist.
How does the deck work?
You are the control player. It's very important to realize that, because you should play opportunistic instead of aggressive. A turn three Polymorph isn't always the right play. You will have to wait for your opponent to tap out. This ensures they will not kill the token in response, leaving you with nothing and tapped out. Against decks like jund it's sometimes better to hold off the Everflowing Chalice until turn three, so can you have a untapped blue mana next to it. A turn two Putrid Leech could potentially wreck your day if all you are holding 4 counterspells and no removal. Try planning one or two turns ahead because you'll probably win the "late game" anyway. If your opponent does nothing, then so should you. Feel free to use a plant token to protect your Jace, the Mind Sculptor if it can grab control over the game the turn after. Sometimes, on the other hand, it's better to lure your opponent into attacking your planeswalker if you need more time. Use your counterspells for spells that matter. Nine out of ten times an end of turn lightning bolt by your opponent is a desperate attempt to tap you out. The same counts for a Maelstrom Pulse targeting your Everflowing Chalice when you have over 4 lands in play. If someone decides it's best to Terminate your plant early, let him. Take comfort in the fact that he's wasting a card in his hand against a 0/1 plant token. If your opponent decides to be the control player, then you have a better chance of winning the game.
Winning the game is easy, it takes three Iona, Shield of Emeria hits to do 21 damage. Jace, the Mind Sculptor will end the game when you let your opponent keep the top card of his library for a few turns. This is simply because if they couldn't remove it the first turn, then the top of their next draw isn't going to help either, you made sure of that.
After sideboard there's also the Kor Firewalker beatdown against red, where you leave one Kor Firewalker untapped and swing with the other(s). You can safely Polymorph a Kor Firewalker for a 50% chance to get an Iona, Shield of Emeria. In the worst case scenario a new untapped Kor Firewalker shows up. Pithing Needles mostly come in against the "Boss-Naya" equipments. but feel free to use them on other planeswalkers like Garruk Wildspeaker and cards like Time Sieve.
All in all, playing this deck can be very hard at times. It's important to keep in mind that it's even harder to play against for your opponent. The massive 1-offs and options make it very hard for them to make the right choices. Your opponents are likely to "call your bluff" at critical moments only to run their valuable spells into your counterspells or removal. A concession usually follows shortly after.
I've been testing the "Ren & Stimpy reunion" on paper a lot, mostly playing against jund with my testbuddies. My local FNM was crawling with vampires and they've been genuinly unhappy with me having an Iona, Shield of Emeria in play. So I'm pretty happy with this deck. It has every element of magic that I love; it has a combo element, it has the new jace, it has the 90% or higher win percentage against RDW and it has options, lots of options.
If you have any questions about the deck, or you would like to suggest something, make sure you leave a comment below and I'll get back to you as soon as possible.
Big news! I started twittering last weekend. You can follow the latest developpements, updates of this deck and even some of my random blogs on twitter @ Rayjinn_Ftw ( http://twitter.com/Rayjinn_ftw )
11 Comments
I've been beating Jund a lot lately with a deck you will read about tomorrow. There are ways to consistently beat Jund and cheating Iona into play is one of them; as long as you can do that on time of course.
A quick question: How does this deck do in practice? I mean, all decks are Pro Tour calibre on paper but when you go out and do some battles, things change. How does it do against the rest of the field? Mono Red menace is quite fast, I even lost to it with TWO Kor Firewalkers on table. How does your deck handles it?
What do you do against Control decks? I know I had troubles against them with Iona. I was naming White and they were playing Rite of Replication or worse a Mind Control. I was naming Blue and then it was Journey to Nowhere. Against them I found out that Progenitus is a better choice than Iona.
I also believe that Polymorph decks could use a little bit help from Red. Not only because Red supplies the deck with nice burn spells, but it also gives the deck some good token generators; Goblin Assault being the most important one. Khalni Garden surely is nice but maybe replacing Green with Red would give you better options to control the game.
Just some thoughts.
LE
Hey Nafiz, Thanks for commenting and your thoughts on the deck
I started out using red, with both the "spread em" manabase and 12 cascade spells (Violent outburst, Ardent plea and Captured sunlight) My aim-spells were 4 spreading seas and 3 dragon fodder, paired with a set of goblin assaults for the 3cmc slot. That didn't work.. As the cascading revealed your gameplan and sideboard cards.
Against red you could just board out the seas and fodder and have consecutive Kor Firewalkers, but against the rest of the field, things got complicated.
This deck is not a one trick pony. It plays like and is often mistaken to be, Chapin's UW control build. 20% of your games are still won by riding your Jace, the Mind Sculptor to victory using the rest of the control cards to protect it.
I didn't have all the cards online, because of budget issues following the opening of about 200 worldwake boosters in the release week. I would have loved to run it through 100x 2-mans and work out the details, but we did playtest the deck offline against some of the level 3+ dutch pro players who were preparing for grand prix Oakland. That should count for something right?
I really like playing the deck and as soon as i regain some budget i'll run it through the 2-man and 8-man qeues online. Follow me on my freshly created twitter account Rayjinn_Ftw to keep you posted about any changes.
deck looks like a lot of fun, i woulda liked to see some examples of how it performed personally, but the strat seems sound tho the price tag is a little hefty
This is a very cool deck! I have a couple of questions;
Why are you only running one each of elspeth and martial coup? They both look like they're very important for the deck (preventing you dying and providing half the combo!)
Do red decks not tend to burn the token you're targetting in response to the polymorph?
Would it be worth having a couple of progeniti in the board? They seem like they might be better than iona against jund or that zvi-bant deck?
Anyway, nice article!
Most red decks indeed leave a red mana open after game one (slowing them down a turn in the process) Against those decks you either target a Kor Firewalker or wait for a Refraction trap and bring the bad news.
As we speak i'm testing against multicolor removal decks. and let me give you an update:
- I've tried Empyrial Archangel, but basilisk collar and vampire nighthawks keep killing it.
- Terrastodon is awesome. I'm thinking about playing 2 or 3 in the sideboard
Martial Coup is really a 1 off. Playing it for less than 5 is a strong signal and the tokens become "flagbearers".
Elspeth is nice, but if i had more room, i would rather add an extra Jace the Mind Sculptor. I've already cut some control cards and going even lower will crack the shell.
Against Zvi Bant i'd probably just name blue disabling rafiq and finest hour. After sideboard they also lose Mind control and bant charm. They don't run any removal and you'll be racing with removal for three turns.
Progentius would be worse, because they can drop a rafiq or finest hour and kill you. In this matchup i love the khalni "Time Warp" gardens.
Thanks for your input though, i can use all the help i can get from you. More than often i steal some knowledge from your articles to perfect my game.
Have you tested using the U or W zendikons as Polymorph targets? Sticking one on a Khalni could be nice. My guess is the U would often set you back a land drop and the W is too expensive, but I was wondering if you actually tested them or not.
I like the deck idea (right now, anything that isn't Jund looks good), but I do have some issues with it. First, building a deck to beat Jund seems like a good idea, but I'm not sure that you also need to tailor that deck to beat RDW, since I am uncertain that RDW is a major meta game consideration. I am also not sure that the UW control shell is the best place to start with this sort of thing. For one, Iona morph is a very vulnerable strategy, because you not only have to draw into both combo pieces, you usually also need to have counter magic up for when you try to cast polymorph or risk having your token removed in response. Given that you run zero negates main and only 2 dispels in the board, this might be a large problem (casting polymorph with cancel mana up is not a winning plan). Also, considering that you only have 6 token producers (4garden, 1 coup, 1 elspeth) and only Jace to speed up your draws, you run into the risk of not drawing the right piece in time. Also, 3 iona is far, far too many, since you will almost never hardcast it (even with chalice), and seeing one in your opening 7 is an effective mulligan. Maybe 2 if they somehow manage to remove the first, but 3 is totally overkill.
One of the major problems with Ionamorph (which I have tested a lot pre-WWK and a fair amount since) is that you are very often too slow to be able to do anything with it. Yeah, it's a cute trick against RDW or Vampires where they have no chance to remove it and you can calmly draw into the rest of your deck, but if you don't get it out very early, it might be too late to matter. Iona can't swing into night hawk or bloodwitch, prevents you from wrathing the board (profitably) and won't stop them from recurring bloodghast into kalista highborne's life drain. Progenitus at least has the advantage of being able to race pretty much anything. Moreover, Iona becomes increasingly worse against decks which aren't monocolored (most of the current meta). It often feels like it was either win-more (because if you're controlling the game to the point where you can resolve the combo, you can often just win through other means) or dead cards in hand that you really wish were other things. It just feels like a lot of the time, you're running a worse version of UW control with a shakier manabase (that you aren't even taking full advantage of; if you must play Bant control, at least up the bant charm count, that card is amazing in the current meta).
The deck is pretty much just another variant of polymorph/iona which has been floating around standard for a long time. The big weakness of this (type of) deck is inconsistency. Sure, they'll be games where you'll shutdown your opponent's deck completely but I think you'll find in practice that more-often-than-not you'll lose to inconsistency (e.g. bad opening hands, bad top decks, etc). All decks are susceptible to this, but some are better than others (e.g. weenie strategies tend to always have something useful to cast early game). And of course, one of the greatest strengths of everyone's "favorite" deck to hate (Jund) is that even if it runs into inconsistency it has the chance to topdeck into Cascade spells that can swing the game back in its favor.
@ Mark, i've tested a bant version and it's really good.
I've replaced the chalices in my deck for +2 Wind Zedikon, and +2 Bant Charm
To be able to cast these i've switched the Celestial colonnades for Seaside Citadels.
Since i still don't have jaces online, i'm testing with 2 of the old version of jace and 2 negate on the elspeth and the third Jace spot.
The deck is stable even without the possibility of winning by mind sculpting.
I did some testing against jund in the tourney practise and found out that matches often become draw-go in fear of polymorph. I've already won six games today by hardcasting an Iona, all without the Everflowing chalice.
Current Version
4 Polymorph
2 Into the Roil
3 Wind Zendikon
4 Seaside Citadel
4 Island
1 Bant Charm
2 Bant Charm
1 Khalni Garden
1 Jace Beleren
6 Plains
2 Day of Judgment
1 Essence Scatter
3 Khalni Garden
4 Glacial Fortress
3 Iona, Shield of Emeria
4 Spreading Seas
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Flashfreeze
1 Forest
2 Negate
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Cancel
1 Martial Coup
2 Oblivion Ring
1 Celestial Purge
Sideboard
1 Flashfreeze
2 Pithing Needle
2 Flashfreeze
3 Kor Firewalker
1 Relic of Progenitus
2 Dispel
1 Day of Judgment
2 Celestial Purge
1 Refraction Trap
Hey nice deck sir :D
I have a similar deck IRL without the white tho.
Here's my decklist, hope it can give you some ideas :)
Creatures:
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2x Iona, Shield of Emeria
Planewalkers:
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4x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Spells:
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4x Explore
3x Bestial Menace
4x Spreading Seas
3x Negate
2x Cancel
2x Flashfreeze
2x Essence Scatter
3x Wind Zendikon
4x Everflowing Chalice
Mana:
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4x Halimar Depths
4x Khalni Garden
4x Misty Rainforest
3x Dread Statuary
8x Island
2x Forest
Sideboard:
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2x Flashfreeze
3x Into the Roil
3x Naturalize
3x Pithing Needle
2x Inkwell Leviathan
2x Progenitus
4x Cancel, my bad heh!