kelvinmai's picture
By: kelvinmai, Kelvin Mai
Jun 21 2013 12:29pm
0
Login to post comments
3255 views


Imagine you're thirsty and looking for something to drink. Your kitchen is fresh out of water so you look into your refrigerator and you gladly see a carton of milk. You instantly take it and open it to take a swig, but what swishes around in your mouth is all clumpy. You realize that you forgot to read the expiration date on the carton, and upon reading it the date across the top is a month old. How would you react in this situation? I would have learned the lesson to finish up everything before they go bad, and it's the same in Magic. There are decks that go bad and we have to play them until it's too late.

 Every Deck Has a Expiration Date

It's true that some decks can stand the test of time, just look into legacy and you'll see decks there that are completely unchanged in the last decade and still doing strong. But this phenomenon only happens in the eternal formats, in standard we know the expiration date is usually when the next set drops. But sometimes it's sooner because of a meta shift, remember that zombie deck I wrote about? Completely unplayable because people have been siding in Pillar of Flame to fight Voice of Resurgence, well I shouldn't say completely unplayable, but it has a lot more to fight through to make it to the top. Now this brings us back to the next set release, Magic 2014. Rotation isn't until Theros so we can still run some Innistrad strategies but M14 brought some goodies to mess up those decks. So let's make sure we get the most mileage out of these decks before the core set shakes it up.

 

If you've been following M14 spoilers you'll know that Ratchet Bomb is coming back and this puts a wrench in a couple decks out there. The bomb can come into play and instantly destroy everything that cost 0, most notably any token deck is demolished, and this includes Séance. But it also destroys another deck that I have a soft spot for, and that deck would be werewolves, they're transformed state has a converted mana cost of 0 after all. I've always wanted to run a werewolf deck but I'm running out of time, so here's what I have so far until the bomb drops on us.

This is a very aggressive shell for werewolves where our curve tops out at 3cmc. Being so it is a bit tricky to hit our colors on turn one; we have 2 one drops of opposite colors. Both are very important, Reckless Waif is the ideal turn one play as many decks outside of blitz don't have a turn one play so she'll transform almost all the time and Wolfbitten Captive is your late game mana sink. Immerwolf and Moonmist transforms our wolves when our opponent won't let them transform on their own, not to mention Moonmist is a blowout when alpha striking as it is usually double the damage! Speaking of not transformed, (Mayor of Avabruk) will make sure the human side is still a threat and when they do transform he will too along with a buff from him. Full Moon's Rise makes your board sweeper resistant as well as a werewolf buff. Both Pit Fight and Daybreak Ranger both serve as removal to problematic creatures. There is always the option of including burn for added flexibility and reach, but I didn't because I enjoy turning dudes sideways. When building the sideboard remember to consider Wolfir Avenger to play around the popular flash control decks being played. You'd have to wait for them to tap out for something like Sphinx's Revelation before playing it, but when you do, they'll be under the threat of it for the rest of the game. In addition to that the wolf warrior still gets a buff from both Immerwolf and Howlpack Alpha. And since we're talking about wolf warriors, Wolfir Silverheart is a creature that I would love to include into this deck. He would be such a powerhouse and a great finisher, but to include him as at least a 2-of we'd need to add more lands. If you do go this route, consider Instigator Gang as the 4 drop. 

Curse of Thirst

Next up on the chopping block is Curses. Being an Innistrad gimmick these enchantments will be out of style really quickly, especially once rotation hits and all of these cards become illegal in standard. In the last article I talked a lot of the power of Curse of Exhaustion so this next deck is definitely going to include Possibility Storm in it cause I'm still in love with the interaction. And this is perfect because the challenge of getting curses to work has always been your opponent is able to win before you can assemble your curse combination. We'll the best solution is make sure your opponent can't do anything.

Like I said the objective of this deck is to assemble the Possibility Storm / Curse of Exhaustion lock and then sit back and let your Curse of Misfortunes take over the game. And to accomplish this I have put together the most expensive land base ever featured on Brewing on a Budget, but I swear it's the only real expense of this deck as you're running 4 colors. Black White and Red is where your curse package is and then the green is to ramp you into hexing your opponent as fast as you can. The green cantrips also allow us to run less than usual lands in a "control" deck. And then once you get Curse of Thirst and Curse of Bloodletting on the battlefield, you just wait as the damage stacks up and kills your opponent.

Stromkirk Noble

Lastly, judging by the picture above, you'd think we're going to talk about Innistrad's red based vampires. While I love Innistrad, and vampires are one of my favorite tribes I don't like the play style of the red vampires. Yes they are aggro based and they get bigger over time, but in my eyes it's too casual. They're susceptible to removal, taking one out hurts your game so much, and if you want to play red aggro in today's meta game you should just look at Gruul Blitz. I did play a vampire deck at the start of this standard season but since it looks so much like Kevin's list on Gathering Magic I decided not to include it here. So why is our friend Stromkirk Noble the picture for this paragraph? Well there is something special about this guy; he's the best red vampire for one and he plays very well with the Simic gimmicks of +1/+1 counters. And that is what this next deck is all about.

This deck is much fresher than the previous two that I wrote about here, probably still having life after rotation but a lot of life will be taken away afterwards because it loses undying and Stromkirk Noble. But anyways the inspiration for this came from Kevin, the Rogue Deckbuilder's Bred for the Hunt deck that he put together here. But from watching it in action, Bred for the Hunt was just too slow so I decided to put together something with the same theme of +1/+1 counters and this is what I came up with. Give/Take serves as Bred for the Hunt's replacement as a draw interaction from the counters, and Gruul War Chant as the enchantment that wins us the game. I'm sure you're all familiar with the Rapid Hybridization and undying interaction, it is a must in a deck like this. In addition the Frog Beast token created from Rapid Hybridization will evolve our evolvers. Bioshift is a fun card that can make you very tricky; it can move a counter to a creature your opponent is blocking so it becomes a chump block instead of a trade and you can get rid of counters on an unleash creature to chump block when you need to. Pit Fight is a straight forward removal spell when you don't want to be tricky. Cards to consider for this deck or it's sideboard would be Pyreheart Wolf which provides almost the same effect as Gruul War Chant and if you believe in miracles try out Blessings of Nature. Another unblockability card is Champion of Lambholt which may actually be an upgrade. 

Under the Radar

Glaring Spotlight

When Glaring Spotlight was spoiled, I remember everyone was raving at how powerful this card is. Now months later since it was released I don't see it being played anywhere. It is still a powerful card and it could still make an impact in the today's standard. So what deck could this card call home? I'm going to say any type of aggro. So you're thinking to yourself "I can now target a Hexproof deck, what's the big deal I'm just going to race them anyways?" but you're forgetting that you can sac the artifact to make your creatures all into Invisible Stalkers. Yes that's right you can now alpha strike into a deck that set up walls with Thragtusks and Augur of Bolas' for lethal and win. It is also great against a control deck because you get to protect your creatures with hexproof when you need it most. 

Gaze of Granite

And of course here's a card for the control decks out there, Gaze of Granite fits perfectly in both Jund and Junk. These two decks have always suffered from not having a sweeper outside the occasional Bonfire of the Damned even though they are a control deck, they compensate with spot removal like Victim of Night and Devour Flesh but sometimes Blitz just puts out too many creatures to deal with. This is where this card comes in, it's a sweeper that you can control. Gaze of Granite is an absolute blow out against aggro because they usually have small 1 or 2 mana creatures so you can just cast it where X equals 2, saving your Thragtusks and Restoration Angel and then attack in for the win.

Yeva, Nature's Herald

Last but definitely not least we have the legendary elf Yeva, who gives all your green creatures flash! Something that Ritz_PBoD on twitchtv pointed out is that the bear in the picture is actually an Ashcoat Bear which is why she has the flash ability. But moving onto actual playability yeva is a powerhouse against control decks and gives an extra edge to the green midrange decks. How does flash do all of this? Well UWR and Esper control decks are in the draw go mentality so they'll always play on your turn. The ability of flash lets you do the same and only cast your creatures when your opponent is tapped out, effectively making your creatures uncounterable. 

That's all I have for this week for more check out the rest of Brewing on a Budget.
Twitter: @kelvinmai
MTGO: kelvinmai

3 Comments

Great themes! by rpitcher at Fri, 06/21/2013 - 19:26
rpitcher's picture

Very nice job at making reasonable decks within cool themes. Sure, these lists aren't about to win a ProTour, but they're more than capable of providing plenty of fun competition online.

I've been having a hoot playing a Gruul Humans deck (GruuMans) which looks very much like your sweet Vampire deck:

4 Experiment One
4 Reckless Waif
4 Burning-Tree Emissary
4 Mayor of Avabruck
4 Hamlet Captain
4 Gore-House Chainwalker
4 Ghor-Clan Rampager
2 Ranger's Guile
4 Searing Spear
3 Gruul Charm
4 Stomping Ground
4 Rootbound Crag
7 Forest
7 Mountain
1 Kessig Wolf Run

Where my list goes off-theme with Chainwalker, yours keeps on-theme with a similar effect in Full Moon's Rise. I'm envious, and wanna try your list!

I'm curious about Pit Fight, though. Am I missing a trick or theme connection? Something like Searing Spear seems so much more versatile to me.

The biggest difference my list would be Gruul Charms and Ranger's Guile. Gruul Charm has been amazing for me - ruining air forces or allowing me to swing unblocked on the ground. Ranger's Guile is an interesting trick I picked up from Zvi's article about GW Humans at SCG (Premium but old enough now that it's open for us to read.) Your Moonmist fits your theme better, and plays a similar role. Nicely done!

All I can say about your UG list, is that the title needs to be "Simic's Gimmicks". Picks up the rhyme better :)

I'm going to look up your previous articles, cuz this one was very enjoyable!

I like it. And yeah Searing by kelvinmai at Fri, 06/21/2013 - 21:03
kelvinmai's picture

I like it. And yeah Searing Spear is probably going to be better most of the time but I have a soft spot for Pit Fight when it comes to green decks.

Pit Fit by rpitcher at Sat, 06/22/2013 - 13:46
rpitcher's picture

"but I have a soft spot for Pit Fight when it comes to green"

Perfect reason!