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ROGUE PLAY New Kids on the Block Part II

by Nafiz Erman

Hello dear readers. Last week in this article, I talked about the old already established and known strategies for ZEN Block. I went over vampires,  Control, Kor Aggro, Valakut Mana Ramp and Red Deck Wins. And this week I will be looking at new strategies that came with Worldwake. Oh and believe me, there are more than only a few.

As I have a lot to discuss, I would like to start immediately.

 

WHITE / BLUE AGGRO

When someone says White and Blue, every Magic player thinks of a deck that has tons of counterspells, card drawing, mass removal and then wins with an "almost impossible to deal with" fattie. This is true in all formats and ZEN Block is no exception. So the combination of White and Blue was (and still is) the best Control option in Magic. After all unlike White, Blue is not known for its weenie creatures (exception Merfolk) and all it does is card drawing and spell countering and then bashing with its huge flying monsters. We all know that being fast is not something Blue can do very well (exception Merfolk).

So we can easily say that if one wants to build a two color weenie deck with White being the one color, Blue is then the last candidate to be that other second color. That was also true for ZEN Block until Worldwake came, but that new set gave us one very interesting piece. I'm talking about this one:

A 2/1 first strike AND lifelink creature for a mere is way too good to pass. But we cannot build a deck around a single card if there aren't enough other cards to support it.

Looking at White I actually see a lot of cards to support such a Aggro deck. Steppe Lynx, Kor Skyfisher and even Emeria Angel are nice cheap and yet efficient creatures. Journey to Nowhere is the best spot removal spell that we have in ZEN Block. And then for the sideboard White offers us Kor Firewalker, Devout Lightcaster, the newest of anthems called Marshal's Anthem, and the Disenchant-on-legs dude(s) called Kor Sanctifiers.

But what does Blue offer to this strategy other than Sejiri Merfolk?

To understand that please take a look at the decklist first. 

 

And now we see what Blue gives to this deck other than Sejiri Merfolk. First and foremost, it gives the deck Horizon Drake. A 3/1 flyer for is decent but what makes it so special is its protection from lands. The opponent cannot block it with Celestial Colonnade or with Stirring Wildwood. Opposing attacking Raging Ravines and Lavaclaw Reaches' aren't so scary. So yes, this drake is a lot more useful than it seems at first. Not every creature in the format can survive an encounter with any and all of those manlands and live to tell the tale.

Then the deck plays two cheap counterspells; Dispel and Spell Pierce. With the amount of high quality creatures and with the existence of Basilisk Collar in deck, there are not many creatures we must fear when playing this deck. But we must fear opponent's non-creature spells. Spell Pierce is a card we know already but maybe Dispel is not making any sense to you at first. But if you examine the removal spells in ZEN Block, you'll see that almost all of them are instants! So as you see, instead of removal we pack anti-removal in this deck. We turn their removal spells into dead cards by simply countering them and kill their creatures with ours. And if they manage to bring in some bigger and scarier monsters, we will deal with them using our Basilisk Collar. Last time I checked, a first strike and deathtouch creature was enough to kill creatures at any size. And our sideboard gives us the tools we need to fight some specific decks. Spreading Seas will be our answer to Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle as well as manlands and Emeria, the Sky Ruin. Our Kor Firewalker will make Red decks tremble with fear, black threats will be killed with our good old Devout Lightcaster, we will answer their Day of Judgment with our Marshal's Anthem and we will destroy their artifacts and enchantments with our Kor Sanctifiers.

So as you see a  Aggro deck might have a chance in the next generation of ZEN Block. As long as you keep an untapped Island during your opponent's turn, there isn't much you have to fear when playing this deck. Of course the deck needs testing but even the sheer idea of it makes me want to play it! And only time and testing will tell whether this will be a Tier-1 deck or not. But I'm definitely very positive about it.

 

ELDRAZI GREEN

The second new deck I want to discuss is a Mono Green Aggro deck which we all know as Eldrazi Green from Standard. I always found it very ironic that two cards from Zendikar formed a deadly Tier-1 deck for Standard but they weren't any good in ZEN Block. But maybe now after Worldwake there is some hope for it even for Block.

Of course one of the main reasons what makes Eldrazi Green such a deadly deck is Elvish Archdruid. Mana is very important and by simply tapping that Elf creature, we get sometimes even more mana than we need to cast an Eldrazi Monument in Standard. And then we also have some real efficient token producers in deck such as Ant Queen and Master of the Wild Hunt. But sadly we didn't have any of those creatures in Block. Actually we didn't even have Llanowar Elves in Block!

But not anymore.

First of all we now have our Llanowar Elves in Block; we have our Arbor Elf. This Elf creature is very important and it was really very needed. Now we can play our Leatherback Baloth on turn two. And that monster was another needed card for Eldrazi Green both in Block and in Standard. It will put our opponents under very early pressure and they will have to deal with it in a very short time or face the danger of losing the game in a very short time. Then we have two other very nice new additions. One is the obvious Wolfbriar Elemental. This new monster will shine in Standard and will definitely replace Ant Queen but it is also very useful in Block too. Early game it's a 4/4 for four mana but late game only God knows what it is; a 4/4 with five other 2/2's maybe? And exactly that is what we need to be able to play Eldrazi Monument; tokens! We can't rely only on Nissa Revane for sacrificial creatures, right?

Now we don't have to. We have Wolfbriar Elemental and its wolf tokens too.

And the other new addition is Joraga Warcaller. This we will play as a two-of in Standard but in ZEN Block we will use a whole playset. Even though we don't have Elvish Archdruid to fill this one with counters, we still have other ways to generate some fast mana in Block.

Speaking of mana, we will also play Harrow. We have to be able to generate some extra mana and Arbor Elf alone is definitely not enough. And finally, we will also play the good old Oracle of Mul Daya for some extra mana.

And now, considering all those things, please let me share with you the version I will start testing:

 

Do you need any explanation? Do you think that there is something complicated? Do you have difficulties understanding what this deck is capable of doing? I guess not.

The only thing I will say is that there is an alternative to this deck. I just talked about the importance of Elvish Archdruid above and said that we don't have him in Block. Well, that's not entirely true. We actually have Harabaz Druid. But there is a problem. Harabaz Druid requires allies and Nissa Revane requires elves. And that means that if one wants to use a deck with Harabaz Druid AND Nissa Revane, then he must mainly use elf allies.

In that category there are some nice creatures such as Joraga Bard, Tajuru Archer, Turntimber Ranger and Vastwood Animist. But even though these are nice creatures, they aren't as nice as what I have in my deck above. Turntimber Ranger is not Rampaging Baloths. Joraga Bard is nowhere near Wolfbriar Elemental. Tajuru Archer is definitely not Leatherback Baloth. So I think that you get the picture. Even though it is possible to create an Elvish Archdruid from the limited options we have in ZEN Block, the result won't be very satisfying in my opinion.

Oh and you may ask where Omnath, Locus of Mana is. Well, I don't think I will ever play that creature. I will stay tapped for two turns, won't play my two Wolfbriar Elementals and three Leatherback Baloths in hand so that I can pump him and then attack with him when he's a 16/16 dude. And what will happen next? The opponent will cast a Smother during combat and all that mana will go to oblivion along with my Omnath. So thanks. But no thanks.

Okay this above is what happens if you play Green alone. And what happens if you add a second color to the mix? Well, then the result will be the next one.

 

BLACK / GREEN ROCK

I always loved this color combination. Green is life and Black is death and their combination really sounds incredibly powerful to me. Being able to kill and being able to create must be the formula of a winning deck, right?

Let's take a look at this below deck and see the answer for ourselves.

 

To be honest, the more I look at this deck the more I like it. Landfall is a crazy thing as we all know and this deck takes full advantage of this keyword. The addition of Arbor Elf might not look that significant but together with Lotus Cobra they open many new doors to many powerful possibilities. And their existence combined with Harrow makes it possible to cast some really costly spells much sooner than it was possible before.

Trust me; dealing with a Sorin Markov on turn three is not always an easy task.

Of course not every opponent will be so generous and will let our mana creatures live. But that is one of the reasons why we have Grim Discovery and Vines of Vastwood in deck. Early game those cards will target our mana creatures; either for protection or for resurrection. And late game they will do the same but only this time their targets will be different. Vines of Vastwood will protect our Ob Nixilis, the Fallen and/or Grim Discovery will give us back our Rampaging Baloths and our Verdant Catacombs.

So as you can also see, this is a deck to be taken very seriously. It can attack with many different weapons and not every deck out there can deal with that many different problems.

 

BLUE / RED COUNTERBURN

So far we talked about three decks and all were Aggro decks. Let's slow down a bit and explore the new possibilities Worldwake brought to Control lovers. I think that if one wants to play Control in ZEN Block and doesn't want to play White, then he must have a real good reason for that. White gives the deck two very powerful and important spells; Day of Judgment and Journey to Nowhere. And then there are the lands. I mean, why would anyone play Control and not play Celestial Colonnade and Sejiri Refuge?

The answer is simple actually but let's not spoil everything all at once. Let's go step by step.

First of all even though we don't play White, we still have Day of Judgment; we have Chain Reaction. It's a perfect spell that will most of the time wipe out the other side of the table and leave our own creatures alive. Then we will have our fine burn spells. Burn spells are actually very important and they are the main reason we play Red instead of White. White cannot deal with planeswalkers and it cannot deal with manlands. With Red we will be able to deal with those annoying permanents more quickly and efficiently.

Actually the main idea is very simple; keep the other side of the table clear and attack with your shroud creature(s). White keeps the whole table clear whereas Red only kills what we see on the otherside of the table.

Actually this is what I'm talking about.

 

My creature package is what I proposed last week for  Control; four Calcite Snappers and two Sphinx of Jwar Isles. But there is a difference. I used Calcite Snapper in  Control for blocking whereas I use them here for attacking. I used Jace, the Mind Sculptor for Brainstorming in that deck but in this one I use him for Unsummoning other creatures; so that I can have a clear path for my Calcite Snappers.

All we have to do while playing this deck is to kill opposing creatures and keep the path clear. And believe me; a 4/1 shroud creature will end the game much sooner than you think. You do your part and keep its path clear and then it does its part and ends the game quickly.

I have a lot of lands in this deck by the way. First of all this is needed to achieve Landfall for our Calcite Snappers. Then it allows us to draw more cards with our Treasure Hunt. The other reason is our four Tectonic Edges. That land is the most secure way of dealing with opposing manlands and to be able to play them and not to get mana screwed in the meantime, we play lots of lands.

And here you have it. The v.1 of my Counterburn deck. As always, testing might change a few cards here and there. But be sure that I will be sharing with you its progress in the coming weeks and months even. 

 

SUMMONING TRAP MID-RANGE

This was a deck I tried during early ZEN Block days but I failed to make it anything more than a Tier-1,5 deck. I also saw very well known online players trying this strategy too but they also didn't go very far with it. I took this deck twice to Daily Events and went 2-2 both times. That was during the early days of the format and after some time I lost my interest in the format and forgot this deck completely.

But now after Worldwake, I believe it is once again time to talk about this strategy.

First of all there is a big difference between the Zendikar version of this deck and the new Worldwake one. This deck was a  deck and now after Worldwake it became a three color deck; a  deck. Reasons? There is only one actually and that is the existence of Jace, the Mind Sculptor. Now we can Brainstorm first, choose between Iona, Shield of Emeria and Terastodon, put the one card we chose back to the top of our library and then play our Summoning Trap. Our trap was totally random before Jace. Now it isn't. We have total control over the top of our library and thus we can select which monster we wish to see on our side of the table. The other very important addition is Admonition Angel. In my Worldwake set review I said that there is only a few decks out there that would want to play this angel and said that a ZEN Block Summoning Trap deck is one of  them. Well, I told you the truth! This deck really needs her.

With the amount of quick mana producers we will have in deck, it will be very easy to either hardcast Admonition Angel or to fetch her through our Summoning Trap. And then all we have to do is playing lands... or Harrow. When Admonition Angel is on table Harrow becomes a new card. This card to be exact:

Harrow
Instant

Exile two target nonland permanents.

Pretty sick, no?

And before going any further, please allow me to share the list first. 

 

As you see, this one is a very straightforward deck actually. Generate some fast mana with Arbor Elf, Lotus Cobra and Harrow, and then either hardcast your monsters or fetch them with your Summoning Trap. That simple.

I have three Novablast Wurms in my sideboard and they will come in against fast Aggro decks. I need a Wrath of God-like spell against them and I couldn't think of a better one than that at the moment. And please do note that this isn't Standard and we don't have those Path to Exiles and Maelstrom Pulses and Terminates in this format. So killing that wurm is not that easy as it is in other formats.

There is one card I might try in this deck and that is Avenger of Zendikar. I am thinking of testing it instead of those two Terastodons. I already have four Admonition Angels in deck and those two Terastodons act like the fifth and sixth Admonition Angels. Maybe that many "exile target nonland permanent" cards are not needed. If testing will show that this is the case, then Avenger of Zendikar will be my first choice.

 

ALLIES

Finally! We're finally at the newest craziness of ZEN Block. There are many possible options to build an allies deck. But to be honest there is only one that caught my attention.

I'm talking about this one:

Now these are fine cards for sure but at least in Block they just won't be enough to win. Against Control decks they're a bit slow and one Day of Judgment ruins everything. Against Aggro they are very slow and also easy to kill. Milling the opponent for six cards during your turn is great surely but that won't be enough if the opponent is hitting you back with his 6/6 flying trampler during his turn. In those situations, none of those cards above can save you.

So we need some other allies. Allies that can buy us time. Allies that can gain life and can hold the ground. Actually all that we need is a good mixture of warriors and wizards... oh and crabs of course.

Actually this is what I'm talking about:

 

So you have a Journey to Nowhere in hand. Good. Now please choose a target. Will you exile that Talus Paladin which is getting out of control pretty fast or will you exile that Halimar Excavator which has started to be ultra-boring a few turns ago already? A hard decision I know.

In its core the deck is a milling deck. But it can win more than once or twice with its monstrous allies. Surely Day of Judgment is a problem but that's what those four Celestial Colonnades are for. Normally you mill the opponent very fast and send at least two of their mass removal spell to the graveyard but it is also very likely that they get at least one copy. If that happens, just because trusting the shuffler to give you a bomb top-deck isn't a very good plan, you will finish the game with you manland.

But that will rarely be the case. In Block everybody plays fetchlands; even the monocolor decks. This means your Archive Traps will always have a target. But if you fear Day of Judgment that much, you can always add a few Quest for Ancient Secrets or Marshal's Anthem to your sideboard.

 

REANIMATOR

Regardless the format, each and every reanimator deck must answer these questions:

1- How to fill the graveyard?
2- What to send to the graveyard?
3- How to reanimate those targets?

Zendikar only answered the first question, partially offered a solution to the second and offered nothing for the last one. But now with Worldwake things are changing.

Before Worldwake the use of Sphinx of Lost Truths was to draw cards and to provide a big body on the battlefield. Now in this deck, it will have another use and that is to fill the graveyard with monsters. We will rarely cast this creature with its kicker cost. Most of the time it will be used to send our monsters to the graveyard for resurrection. But even though this is a very nice creature, it alone can't help us filling the graveyard. And therefore we will play a second creature which people seem to ignore completely; we will play Reckless Scholar. And with these fine creatures we answer the first question. We now have a good way to fill the graveyard. Now we will answer the second question; what to send to the graveyard. And now let's take a look at our options. The first most obvious one is Iona, Shield of Emeria of course. Then we have Admonition Angel too.  And a splash to Black will also give us Wrexial, the Risen Deep.

We may also play off color creatures. We may send Terastodon and/or Novablast Wurm to the graveyard even though we won't play any Green producing lands. But I personally prefer playing creatures that I can also hardcast if need be and therefore won't add any of those Green monsters to the deck.

So... We just answered question two. We now know what we will send to the graveyard. And that leaves us with the final question; how to resurrect those targets. And I think we all know the answer. We will use Marshal's Anthem of course.

And here's the decklist.

 

As you see I have four Everflowing Chalices in deck. This is a very mana-hungry deck and to be able to feed it, I'm using this new Mind Stone variant.

And the rest must be clear I guess. Early turns you play your removal spells and keep yourself alive, play your Everflowing Chalice for some extra mana, activate your Jace, the Mind Sculptor, fill your graveyard with your Reckless Scholar and with your Sphinx of Lost Truths, and then resurrect those monsters with your Marshal's Anthem. And if this simple plan fails, possibly due to an early Bojuka Bog, you can always hardcast your fatties.

And that was all there is to say about Reanimator.

 

OTHER STRATEGIES

Those decks above were actually the ones I wanted to talk in detail. But of course they are not the only options. There are many others and maybe we should go over them in less detail.

AGGRO Loam Lion is a fine card and opens up a new door to a powerful  Aggro deck. You can add some nice allies to the mix such as Kazandu Blademaster and Oran-Rief Survivalist too. Vines of Vastwood from Green will protect your creatures and Journey to Nowhere from White will clear the path for your creatures. Definitely worth a try.

CONTROL This is another possibility. This strategy has access to the best planeswalkers in the format for starters. Then there is the fact that Wrexial, the Risen Deep can be a really good finisher. I must also mention that this deck will play Creeping Tar Pit which is the only unblockable manland in the format. Add some counterspells, card drawing and Black's fine removal spells, and you might end up with a good deck.

MONO WHITE ALLIES Mana fixing can be a problem sometimes and therefore playing a monocolor deck could be advantageous. You may play some White allies such as Kazandu Blademaster, Kabira Evangel, Join the Ranks, Talus Paladin and then protect them with Brave the Elements and with Refraction Trap. This could also be a fine deck.

MONO WHITE EMERIA CONTROL This deck was already there but was nothing more than a Tier-1,5 deck. Worldwake didn't give it too many significant new cards other than Admonition Angel, so I don't think it can be better than it was before. Still, it is a fine strategy and it has some real good cards and maybe in the right hands it could perform better.

LANDSTILL In theory this is another good possibility. Bant's colors give the pilot mana fixing, spot and mass removal, card drawing and counterspells... oh and Jace, the Mind Sculptor of course. Terra Eternal makes sure those opposing removal spells are dead cards and then winning with an indestructible manland shouldn't be a hard task.

ALLIES There are many possibilities to build an ally deck, and this is just another one. This time Hedron Crab, Halimar Excavator and Jwari Shapeshifter will be accompanied by Umara Raptor, Bojuka Brigand, Hagra Diabolist, Agadeem Occultist and Bala Ged Thief. And we all know how fun(!) it is to target a Hagra Diabolist with a kicked Rite of Replication. This might be the deck for that fun(!).

And these were the other possible decks we might see in the near future in Block tournaments.

 

SUMMARY
Everything Changes

Nothing stays the same. And yes, everything changes. But change doesn't come very fast all the time. Don't expect any of those new decks shown here to storm the first ZEN Block event. No, this won't happen. It will be again Vampires vs.  Control in the first weeks. Actually I even foresee a rise in the number of vampires decks we will see. People won't be able to buy a playset of Jace, the Mind Sculptor that soon and that easily, and that will mean more vampires.

But in time the inevitable will happen and things will start to change. We will start seeing new decks. Maybe we will see someone going 4-0 with a Counterburn deck. Maybe we will see  Miller Allies decks in top slots. Maybe people will start to have success with their Summoning Trap decks. I'm sure we will see all those things but as I said, this won't happen today.

I will spend most of my time playing ZEN Block and Standard in the coming weeks and months, so I will keep you up to date.

And as always, thanks for reading.

See you online
Nafiz Erman, aka Lord Erman