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By: Cweaver, Christopher S. Weaver
Mar 26 2014 12:00pm
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Time to rehash what we know about Theros Block Constructed. Block is a fickle format, new archetypes are popping up every week and the flavor of the week changes thusly. I played in the second Block Daily Event that fired after Born of the Gods released on MTGO and preceded to instantly 4-0 with my Naya Monsters list with actual 0 Born of the Gods cards. The block currently seems to have 4 major archetypes: Esper Control, Mono Black (various aggro or Devotion centric lists), Junk Reanimator, and Naya Monsters.

I wrote about Naya before Born of the Gods. You can read about it here.

I've been experimenting with various Block decks trying to figure out the strengths and weaknesses of each, with the idea that maybe I'd stumble onto something I liked more than Naya Monsters.

I didn't. 

 

I can't take full credit for the list though, I used a list by _shipitnugs as a baseline. You can find his list here.

Born of the Gods doesn't seem to change much about the deck, except for Courser of Kruphix and Temple of Plenty.

Courser is a hell of a card: it helps ensure you hit your land drops to cast monsters on time, helps regain lost life from early beatdowns, and roadblocks everything tiny while netting you card advantage by "drawing" cards sometimes. He doesn't seem like much of a threat in and of himself, but the fact that he draws you closer to your actual threats turn after turn and helping you hit land drops to consistently cast those threats, or multiple threats in a turn is huge. Initially I only had 3 of him in the list, but he's just far too good of a card to not run the full 4-of.

The sideboard has drastically changed from the pre-BNG sideboard. We have to worry about more than just the mirror nowadays. Enchantments are the name of the game in today's meta: Whip of Erebos, Spiteful Returned, Herald of Torment, Courser of Kruphix. We have Destructive Revelry and Unravel the Aether to deal with these cards. The mix allows us to also deal with the occasional problematic God such as Xenagos, God of Revels. Both Unravel and Revelry are much easier on our mana than Revoke Existence. I also LOVE the instant-speed aspect of both Unravel and Revelry. This allows 2-for-1 opportunities on Bestowed creatures such as Tormented Hero - just Revelry that Herald on their attacks and block with your Courser to eat the Tormented Hero, deal them 2 damage, and get rid of Herald at the same time!

What good is an article without a little sideboarding strategy though? As I've said before, there isn't a 100% correct way to sideboard. This is how I sideboard currently, and sideboards are always up for debate and tweaking to handle the meta.

Sideboarding Guide!

Junk Reanimator

Ashen Rider

Junk Reanimator is a deck trying to use Whip of Erebos and Rescue from the Underworld to cheat Abhorrent Overlord and Ashen Rider into play. Occasionally these decks will also run Nighthowler and Nemesis of Mortals to capitalize on the fact that they are dredging a ton of cards. Regardless, your sideboard plan won't change.

IN: 2 Unravel the Aether, 2 Destructive Revelry, 1 Xenagos, God of Revels, 1 Glare of Heresy

OUT: 4 Lightning Strike, 1 Chained to the Rocks

Lightning Strike just doesn't have a high enough impact in this matchup to matter. We take out 1 Chained to the Rocks because you're susceptible to getting blown out if you Chain an Ashen Rider only to have another Rider exile your Mountain and get another trigger for them to abuse. It's still nice to have a few in the deck to clear the path for a Stormbreath Dragon or remove an early Courser blocker that's gaining them card advantage.

Revelry and Unravel allow you to interact with their biggest threat: Whip of Erebos. It costs opponents 4BBBB to cast and use it in the same turn, and if they get to that much mana I suppose they've earned the right to reanimate their guy for 1 turn. Not much you can do about that. We bring in a miser Glare of Heresy for the occasional value of exiling Ashen Rider, but we REALLY don't want more than 1 in a game. If they get 2 Ashen Riders onto the table somehow, you've probably already lost and just don't know it yet.

This is an unfavorable matchup, but not by much. They have the better end game for sure, so you need to make sure you make that end game come a turn or 2 too late. 

Esper Control

Prognostic Sphinx

Esper is the flavor of the week this week, showing up in swarms every daily event. Esper uses Dissolve, Hero's Downfall, and Gild to control the board long enough to start scrying with Prognostic Sphinx or dominating with their own Elspeth. 

IN: 1 Xenagos, God of Revels, 1 Xenagos, the Reveler, 2 Glare of Heresy, 2 Magma Jet

OUT: 3 Chained to the Rocks, 3 Lightning Strike

We board in both Xenagos because we want more threats. Glare answers their Elspeth efficiently, and Magma Jet is just better than Lightning Strike because it allows us to Scry into better cards. 

This matchup seems about even. Your planeswalkers will be relatively difficult to deal with if they land, and you're hoping to spread their removal too thin by utilizing the card advantage that Courser and the Planeswalkers give you. Ramping into turn 3 threats on the play is just as effective as ever, and you can force your opponent to tap out to answer last turns threats and continue deploying your own threats. Proggy is difficult since he stonewalls Stormbreath, but I've found he often just has to sit back on defense while you Courser away lands, and your opponent floods out.

Mono B Aggro/Devotion

Herald of Torment

Mono Black was already a deck prior to Born of the Gods, but it was just outclassed by Naya Monsters before. Nowadays, they have better threats to deploy than measly 1/1 deathtouch creatures for 1B. Mono B utilizes many new Born threats to include: Spiteful Returned, Herald of Torment, and Pain Seer.

IN: 2 Magma Jet, 1 Chained to the Rocks, 2 Unravel the Aether, 2 Destructive Revelry

OUT: 4 Voyaging Satyr, 3 Xenagos, the Reveler

If we can control their early game long enough, Elspeth comes online and outclasses them in a few short turns. Agent of the Fates is the reason to be playing Naya instead of Gruul monsters - Agent beats us pretty handily without Elspeth tokens to sacrifice. We bring in lots of removal to deal with Herald of Torment and Spiteful Returned, 2 cards that seem to always get their man if you let them live too long. I particularly like using Unravel or Revelry on their bestowed guy after they declare attackers to just eat an attacker with one of my monsters.

This is a favorable matchup for sure. Just like Theros-only Block constructed, you're doing things that are so over the top of what they're doing that they can't keep up after turn 5 or 6. You can still get blown out by Mogis's Marauder, but if you can control the board and start going on offense they may never get the opportunity to Marauder you.

Heroic decks

Hero of Iroas

Hero of Iroas is by far the best card for this archetype that came out of Born of the Gods. He makes all of the bestow creatures cheaper, including one of my favorite cards from the set: Eidolon of Countless Battles. Heroic decks are going to try to make a gigantic creature then clear a path for him using either Aqueous Form if they're UW or Herald of Torment / Agent of the Fates if they're BW. 

IN: 2 Glare of Heresy, 2 Destructive Revelry, 1 Chained to the Rocks, 2 Magma Jet

OUT: 4 Voyaging Satyr, 3 Xenagos, the Reveler

Fairly self-explanatory, but we want more removal against them. Efficient removal is key here - play around Gods Willing if possible, use your Chained to the Rocks first. The most important part of the matchup is learning when to switch to offense even if their board state is intimidating. Voyaging Satyrs are horrible topdecks and don't block anything in their deck, and Xenagos, the Reveler doesn't do enough. Elspeth at least gets the bonus of being able to kill a huge Voltron creature or create chump blockers for days until you can get an answer.

Red Deck Wins

Everflame Eidolon

As long as Red continues being printed with weenie creatures, people will play RDW. Luckily, RDW is a pretty good matchup. They try to use Firedrinker Satyr and bestow Nyxborn Rollicker onto Akroan Crusader to swarm people out, but our Courser is well equipped to deal with early beatdown strategies and regain lost life. Elspeth tokens seal the game pretty handily, and our maindeck ramping capabilities quickly outclass them before we're ever in real danger.

IN: 1 Chained to the Rocks, 2 Magma Jet, 4 Anger of the Gods

OUT: 4 Voyaging Satyr, 3 Xenagos, the Reveler

Anger gets our Caryatids, sure, but if you trade 2 of your cards for 4 of theirs you're still ahead. If you then follow that up with a Polukranos or Polis Crusher they can't kill, you quickly become the beatdown against a deck that's just awful at defending. Watch out for Stormbreath Dragon from their side, some decks do run Stormbreath alongside their weenies as a 2-of. Often that Stormbreath is stuck in their hand because they only run 22 or less lands and they can't cast it until turn 8, and by then you've already won.

Naya Mirror

Xenagos, God of Revels

Not gonna go into too much detail here. This matchup continues to revolve around turn 2 mana dork into turn 3 threat.

IN: 1 Xenagos, the Reveler, 1 Xenagos, God of Revels, 2 Unravel the Aether

OUT: 4 Lightning Strike

We increase our threat density slightly and bring in some Unravels to deal with opposing Xenagos, God of Revels. Unravel can also conveniently deal with Chained to the Rocks and Courser. Unravel is particularly good here, since opponent will likely run a lot of scry effects and their Courser could reveal a threat you can't or don't want to deal with next turn, so you can make them shuffle that card they just scryed to the top or that threat you can't deal with.

Conclusions

Naya is still a Tier 1 strategy in Block Constructed, and I intend to continue playing it even if the current #1 deck is an unfavorable matchup. Courser of Kruphix adds a great card advantage engine and synergizes very well with what the deck was trying to do in the first place: jam more threats turn after turn. If you're looking for a midrange deck, this is still your go-to guy.