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By: Rasparthe, R.A. Sparthe
Mar 22 2009 11:29am
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The introduction of a new set usually gets me a little down.  Not down for the fact that I miss the smaller card pool or think that the first installment of the Block was so incredible that nothing needed to be added.  No, down because there is work ahead.  I move from having complete decklists for every major deck being played to missing quite a few pieces.  Normally I try to play every deck out there, if not in queues then certainly in the practice rooms.  To gather all the cards it would make more financial sense to just buy them.  Unfortunately I lack most common sense.  I usually get most of my cards through drafting.  I enjoy the drafting so therefore usually spend my money there.  Still there are some key ones that must be purchased if I plan on playing any Block Constructed at all.

But which?  The most popular cards right now are Banefire, Path to Exile, Martial Coup, and Noble Hierarch.  With a limited budget which is the most important to get first in order that I can recreate the most decks or conjure up my most competetive creations.  Banefire although a good card isn't seen in a huge amount of decks yet.  It may make a bigger splash if the metagame continues in the trend that I think it will.

That leaves the creature, the instant and the big white sorcery.  So I turned to raw statistics.  Noble Hierarch was played, at least a singleton, in twenty five of the seventy two decks this week.  Not a bad investment since it is included in so many decks and is a pretty stellar creature.  Looking a the other two makes the choice obvious.  There are 51 decks featuring Path to Exile.  Incredible but hardly surprising.  You probably didn't need me to tell you to grab a playset as I already have.  The feature card has to be Martial Coup.  Although less decks run it than Path to Exile, only 41, every archetype except a minor few run at least one copy.  Every deck type on the graphs below runs them.  It has spawned its own archetype.  My dog's tail is wagging furiously as I write this, another obvious sign I should buy a set.  Who can argue with all those reasons?  Or maybe I should just get another draft set...

But enough of my MTGOTraders buy history.  On to our regularly scheduled article.

Only one event fired during the period two weeks ago.  Of course everyone was slinging the shiny new Conflux cards in every Release Event that could be found.  This week, however, Block players leapt back into the saddle.  The above graphs include the entire two week period for a total of nine events.  Naya is clinging by its fingernails to the most frequent deck archetype but did well in overall placings.  Still, the strangle grip is slackening as other decks appear and become more tuned.

One deck that made some vast gains were the various 5-Color Control decks.  They come in many different flavors but run the same controlling gameplan.  They do have some common features.  Almost all of them run Cruel Ultimatum and the annoyingly hard-to-remove Broodmate Dragon.  Beyond that the sky is the limit and the rest of the list is varied and widely different. 

ChibiCloud01 - 1st Place - Mar 12 - Event 238440

4 Arcane Sanctum
4 Crumbling Necropolis
4 Exotic Orchard
1 Island
4 Jungle Shrine
4 Savage Lands
4 Seaside Citadel
1 Swamp

26 land

3 Broodmate Dragon
4 Elvish Visionary

7 creatures

 

4 Ajani Vengeant
3 Bant Charm
3 Countersquall
3 Cruel Ultimatum
3 Esper Charm
3 Jund Charm
2 Naya Charm
3 Oblivion Ring
3 Path to Exile

27 other spells

4 Cancel
4 Celestial Purge
3 Infest
1 Path to Exile
3 Resounding Thunder

15 sideboard
 

 

Countersquall

This deck managed to make first place despite running only ten Conflux cards.  Four of them were lands and the rest all non-rare.  If it looks like a decklist from a month ago you wouldn't be far off.  Not every version is so inclined.

migacz - 1st Place - Mar 15 - Event 238448

4 Arcane Sanctum
3 Crumbling Necropolis
4 Exotic Orchard
3 Island
1 Mountain
3 Plains
2 Rupture Spire
3 Savage Lands
2 Swamp

25 land

4 Broodmate Dragon
2 Wall of Reverence

6 creatures
 

3 Ajani Vengeant
1 Celestial Purge
3 Courier's Capsule
2 Cruel Ultimatum
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
4 Esper Charm
4 Martial Coup
1 Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker
3 Oblivion Ring
4 Path to Exile
2 Traumatic Visions

29 other spells

2 Celestial Purge
4 Countersquall
2 Filigree Fracture
3 Infest
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Wall of Reverence
2 Zombie Outlander

15 sideboard
 

 

Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker

 This version sees a good many Conflux cards and it illustrates just how varied the 5-Color decks can be.  Each looks to be tailored specifically to the tastes of the player with no one list standing out.  Still it begs the question:  Why the sudden surge in Top-8 appearances?  Have a good many people suddenly realized that 5C is a viable archetype and decided to shuffle it up?  Statistically, the more people that play a deck means - all else being equal - more Top-8 slots.  It could be one factor. 

Since the first deck runs a minimum of the new releases we do know one thing.  Conflux isn't the entire reason.  What does that leave us?  It is much more likley that 5-Color Control has a better probability of success against the current field.  The current metagame seems to be shifting from the speedy aggro decks like Mono-White to more mid-range and controlling decks.  This shift can be seen most dramatically in Naya decks.

bolov0 - 1st Place - Mar 15 - Event 238445

6 Forest
4 Jungle Shrine
4 Mountain
3 Naya Panorama
6 Plains

23 land

3 Battlegrace Angel
3 Cliffrunner Behemoth
3 Druid of the Anima
1 Knotvine Mystic
3 Noble Hierarch
4 Woolly Thoctar

17 creatures
 

4 Ajani Vengeant
1 Banefire
3 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
2 Martial Coup
4 Oblivion Ring
4 Path to Exile
2 Sarkhan Vol

20 other spells

4 Caldera Hellion
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
2 Filigree Fracture
1 Martial Coup
3 Naturalize
3 Realm Razer
1 Sarkhan Vol

15 sideboard
 

 

Cliffrunner Behemoth

Some of the Naya decks have turned even more controlling than this one by running a full compliment of Martial Coup and even more Planeswalkers.  They seem to be ignoring their Ranger of Eos roots and the pre-Conflux quickness.  Instead they are opting for Banefire and Martial Coup and every available Planeswalker.  Some, as the one above, don't even run the omni-present Wild Nacatl.  Still, as their results show, they continue to win and have simply traded speed for power.  The slowdown is something that the 5C decks can capitalize on since when it comes to a control style deck the 5-Color decks are king - at least currently.

One deck that is fighting hard to try and section off a piece of the control deck pie is Martial Law.  The current version looks a lot like this one:

Yunhao_Wu_CHN - 3rd Place - Mar 14 - Event 238442

4 Exotic Orchard
2 Forest
4 Jungle Shrine
3 Mountain
4 Naya Panorama
4 Plains
2 Savage Lands
1 Seaside Citadel

24 land

3 Battlegrace Angel
4 Druid of the Anima
4 Knight of the White Orchid

11 creatures
 

4 Ajani Vengeant
4 Celestial Purge
3 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
4 Martial Coup
4 Naya Charm
4 Oblivion Ring
2 Sarkhan Vol

25 other spells

4 Magma Spray
4 Naturalize
2 Realm Razer
1 Sarkhan Vol
4 Volcanic Fallout

15 sideboard
 

 

Martial Coup

 This deck is still being tuned and refined.  Over the nine events it managed to take eight Top-8 slots but only broke into the Top-4 or better twice.  As the season wears on we are bound to see this list get modifications and improvements as it doesn't look to be disappearing any time soon.  Martial Coup may turn out to be the favourite card of all Block Constructed players, at least until the next set is released.

And finally, from the new deck file, a quick B/R deck that made a modest 5th place showing last week.  One for all those people that wish Cruel Ultimatum would get banned or Martial Coup's wrath effect cost 2cc more.

'Til next week

y2zhu - 5th Place - March 15 - Event 238448

4 Crumbling Necropolis
9 Mountain
9 Swamp

22 land

4 Goblin Outlander
4 Hell's Thunder
4 Hellspark Elemental
4 Nyxathid
4 Rotting Rats
4 Shambling Remains

24 creatures
 

2 Banefire
4 Blightning
4 Bone Splinters
4 Magma Spray

14 other spells

2 Banefire
2 Executioner's Capsule
3 Goblin Assault
4 Ignite Disorder
4 Infest

15 sideboard
 

 
Nyxathid

 

 

4 Comments

increible by Amonchakai (not verified) at Tue, 03/24/2009 - 11:56
Amonchakai's picture

Nice analisis
the last deck is awesome.I test it but i change 4 infest for 4 Cunning Lethemancer for control decks. Its very curious but this little man break 5cc for himself
how do you think?

Cunning Lethemancer by Rasparthe at Tue, 03/24/2009 - 18:59
Rasparthe's picture

I like the idea especially if the 5CC decks continue to be a large player in the metagame. I don't know if removing Infest is the proper choice since it has value versus both the Boros and Mono-White decks which are still pretty prevalent. It would likely work for the same reason that Rotting Rats works. Your discard cards will often get another chance to kick the can.

I think you're making some by TheMiseDotCom at Tue, 03/24/2009 - 13:49
TheMiseDotCom's picture
4

I think you're making some mistakes while analizyng 5cc and Conflux. The fact that it uses 1 or 2 new cards doesnt mean that Conflux isnt the reason behind the sudden appearence of this deck. I talked about it almost a month ago and I have to say that even if it would run only 1 conflux card it would be enough Since Exotic Orchard provides a comes into play untapped land that still fixes ur draws and thats enough for the deck to be competitive in any events since its speed it up a turn. Even Martial Coup by itself provides a "Wrath of God" effect that Fallout , Infest or Jund Charm didnt manage entirely.

Very good article.

Comments by Rasparthe at Tue, 03/24/2009 - 19:14
Rasparthe's picture

Thanks for the comments. I haven't tested out the 5cc archetype in a couple months so I have to admit it could be coincidence that it suddenly surges now as the metagame moves towards more controlling decks. The shift is not unusual and as the format matures it almost always does shift in this exact same fashion. You are also correct that even a few cards can make the difference to win or loss.

As to your specific comments I will concede that even if you are running a singleton of anything then it adds to the deck so the Conflux cards do have effect. Is a major effect? If you believe that 5cc decks are better against midrange and control decks since they allow the time needed to get running then the metagame shift to more controlling decks is a benefit to the 5cc. I think that shift has started to happen and is of greater effect than any cards that Conflux may have added to mix. The possible exception being Exotic Orchard since its drawback isn't much of a drawback to the archetype although unreliable.

Thanks! I appreciate your comments and insight